i have to take back the good news i shared with you a few weeks ago and replace it with bad news yes spain has decided to go through with their sale of four hundred laser guided bombs the saudi arabia despite halting the deal back in early september to the cheers of anti-war and human rights activists around the world spain's foreign minister announced the continuation of the deal on owned several radio declaring the decision is that these bombs will be delivered to honor a contract that comes from two thousand and fifteen and was made by the previous government we found no reason not to carry it out. yeah well no reason no reason no reason i mean. yes i mean no reason except for maybe oh gee i don't know ten thousand yemenis citizens killed in the conflict or the eight point four million that are on the brink of famine but you know no reason that all of this is give saudi arabia some more guns but don't worry folks because when asked whether spain and received any guarantees from saudi arabia the bombs would

not be used on yemeni civilians but the prime minister said the laser guided bombs hit their targets with extraordinary precision of within one metre. which i guess means they will only blow up the kids on the school bus no other cars on the road that day. and speaking of yemen the military industrial complex or hold friends at raytheon have been making a killing during the yemen war between the saudi led coalition and the rebels journalist marcel writes on antiwar dot com that after crunching the numbers in the three years the war has been active rate the m. stocks rose by ninety four per cent from one hundred eight point forty four hundred eighty dollars and forty four cents per share in twenty fifteen to two hundred ten dollars and seventy cents and twenty eight. wow lot of money and more so with the military industrial cash registers going. it's time to start watching the hawks.

that's. what. i got. well for the what's in the works i am i robot to. have a wallace and yet for weapons menu now you can always let me know if you're going to be excited about weapons more bombs and you know well we're going to stop this we don't want to do that we don't trust saudi arabia for blowing up you know school buses and kids and everyone knows but. i guess we

can young got tired of hearing it from and we here at the united states well we spent the money but it isn't our fault it was the other administration and we had to keep doing it we couldn't think of any or reasons why we couldn't. literally the government you govern that's the point one of the things i. reported back in april just to show you how this how this all connects and why it's not why it's about money more than it's about you know somehow rebels or whatever so he reported that back in april the saudis ad fired missile at a wedding right so this was in northern yemen killed twenty three people including women and children the missiles used in the strike were made by raytheon at an arizona southern arizona factory now four days after that airstrike that literally murdered people at a wedding raytheon stock their quarterly earnings rose from six hundred thirty

three million six hundred thirty three million to two dollars and two dollars and twenty cents or so yeah and twenty seventeen obviously put out their member the big glowing ball all of that a lot of great deals were made great deals so more. so yeah they agreed to about seven billion dollars worth of munitions from racy on and boeing i just that's it's gross it's gross so that's sort of sits on your soul man when you do business like that just not good for the soul of our nation and you would think that. but you know tab how they get around feeling like. you know like like do you live in you know does the clorox bleach where weapons manufacturers and momentous and the like to get rid of that stain on the soul is smart weapons who are so smart now the government spokesperson for spain told the media that because they are laser bombs they won't make mistakes and kill yemenis bombs outsmart their laser

foreign minister. stated this kind of weapon does not produce the same sort of bombing as less sophisticated weapons launched a bit randomly that create the sort of tragedy that we have all condemned so let me ask you to feel like that's to me the thing like you can't hide behind smart weapons it's not smart no they tried this back in the ninety's they tried this desert storm and then when we got into iraq it was this garbage about i'm sorry it's garbage and about smart weapons there's no smart weapons for blowing things up you can't keep making excuses and when you look at how many people how many just and you say like ten thousand people how many of those are strictly classified is pure civilian casualties we're caught in the crossfire saudi led coalition warplanes as missile strikes have officially killed this is a conservative estimate over six thousand civilians six thousand civilians and wounded more than ten thousand others since this start of the yemeni you know mass

back in two thousand and fifteen there are targets for their smart weapons or whatever other weapon they're using targets of reputedly included farms homes marketplaces hospitals schools mosques even ancient historical sites have been bombed in yemen repeatedly multiple times now. donald trump did something no other presidential nominee has ever done he refused to say that he would respect the results of this election. ah. make no mistake by doing that he is threatening our democracy. hillary clinton spoke those words less than a month before the twenty sixteen election that saw trump win the presidency by seventy four electoral college votes it is now been about one year or two hundred forty one days since nobody's counting since trump won those electoral college

votes and took office so of course hillary clinton just wrote an op ed for the atlantic and titled american democracy as democracy is in crisis in which she claims quote the legitimacy of our elections is in doubt. well that's a horse of a different color she goes on to remind us that america as we know it is not a nation of people but a flimsy experiment easily broken by just one businessman in her in her piece she states how fragile our experiment in self-government is and when viewed against the sweep of human history how fleeting democracy may be our birthright as americans but it's not something we can ever take for granted. so guess how hillary clinton plans to save our democracy by blaming the likes of the koch brothers for pumping millions into our elections she wants to get secret money out of politics so her solution was to partner with billionaire george soros says color of change and

others to create on word together a political action organization that gives financial support to democratic party candidates that clinton feels deserve a boost all while circumventing those pesky campaign finance laws allowed by the infamous citizens united really she claims to hate so much so is hillary suddenly seeing the error of her dark money wages or is this just another moneymaking power grabbing mockery of the very democracy she and others claim to be trying to save. the guy got to answer that question other good question speaks for itself i mean how do you know that i mean there's just something about it that. you know it's like to. use it quite a bit of the show to a hypocrite. for i think there is a there's a strong amount of hypocrisy in the idea of the clinton or clinton foundation or any i'm talking about dark money and millionaires this is a this is the thing hillary and her husband bill for forty years have cultivated

a heck of a list of donors and backers many of them very rich many of them very famous and it's not tiny amounts of money either you're talking about the top five donors to hillary's campaign donald sussman who runs a hedge fund managers twenty twenty point six million. his wife sixteen point seven univision chairman and his wife cheryl levin million a hedge fund titan george soros nine point nine and slim fast founder standing labor have a nine point seven she claims she doesn't take wall street money the other top donors are the people at the head of all the wall street stuff so it's a little distant ingenuous to me at least try to keep pushing this idea that she wants dark money and dark money yes to blow. for trump when all the dark money in the world couldn't win her not one but two election it's a great point and the thing is like democrats and republicans both i mean they just . dark money they swim and packed. their life blood for someone and

she's going to sit and blame herself as part of the problem and really own up honestly and say like look i this is you know like i'm part i mean i don't want to part of our government to be part of the solution until she says that but just pointing it all out republicans saying like all koch brothers and yes koch brothers all responses over the years in george soros are absolutely to blame for a lot of dark body problems but then you can't get like you can't then start working with them and protect we're going to fix the problem it's also interesting that all this too is that kind of like you know this convenient patriotism versus nihilism kind of thing it's you know in an august piece for the new republic with the showing. democracy democracy really dying and then he goes on to quote state that the case for optimism is easy to make in good times when conditions are dire conditions are dire nihilism looks like it's playing both sides again it's like yes it's which way is the wind blowing and that's the bush side

yeah you know and there's a lot to be said of that because this isn't something new but i think the thing that has to stop is that politicians like hillary clinton and donald trump need to stop treating voters as if they're stupid you don't have a democracy without us period that's how it works one of the things are about eighteen twenty thomas jefferson tells american diplomat william c. jarvis he says i know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves and if we think them not in the light and not to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion the remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion by education this is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power and to me that is the problem you keep spending money. and the problem that hillary got no water never trump or seem to be making as they repeatedly insist on the people are just some more informed or stupid people were duped by a me me and the people saw about a fake news it isn't the voters who made the mistake the people who made the

mistake are the two egomaniacs who turned this entire thing and our entire democracy and our election into a shouting match and a big gamble and both of them had and i had this feeling like they were owed this that they deserved it because of who they were and what they had accomplished and they forgot about the american people both of them yes they did and they always do because at the end of the day when they when you are part of that two party dictatorship that two party machine that two party we're going to take money from all wall street people who were scoring everybody over across the lab that's what ends up happening you cannot come clean and wash yourself you can't wash out of that there's not a hero in the world oh all right as we go to break off watchers don't forget to let us know what you think of the topics recover facebook and twitter so that r t v dot com coming up the co-host of the beyond the prison pod cast wilson talks what comes next in the aftermath of recent u.s. prison strikes you don't want to miss that state to watch or.

join me every thursday on the alex simon show and i'll be speaking to guest of the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. so this time. i'm going to set up

a set. so there is a building. in the. in the lead up to the dark we look at what is going on out in the morning i don't know i don't want to worry about. something that's really you know one of the our mr need to. fill in for the. want of a shuffle. in the world and you'll get a little you know. a wobble. so for this idol.

this year on the anniversary of the one nine hundred seventy one attica prison or uprising the prisoners across the united states even as far as nova scotia went on strike from august twenty first to september ninth protesting the inhumane conditions in which they are being held and the exploited of modern slave labor they're forced to work this serious prison strike got more national attention than other strikes of recent years and shut light on the state of emergency that are corrections or rather confinement industry is sent but now that the official strike has ended and the public's attention has been gained the most. important question is what is this movement's next step in reforming the prison industrial complex and equally important is how we can protect the protesting prisoners from the very real threat of off the books retaliation by the state for the exercising their first amendment right to help us answer these quite important questions and more we're

joined today by kim wilson a p.h.d. in urban affairs and public policy and co-host of the beyond the prison pod cast welcome ken thank you so much for joining us today. thank you for having me. just i think the biggest question moving forward mel that the strike is kind of coming to an end i know a few of those reports a few people are still you know protesting over there but the biggest question for the prisoners and prison reform activists is you know they've got some eyes on this important issue what's the next. well i think first of all it's a little misleading to say the strike is over because as jailhouse lawyer speak has pointed out through the incarcerated workers organizing committee web site. that individual prisoners are able to set their own deadline in terms of when they want to finish striking and they can continue these actions indefinitely so that's

just a little bit of clarification around that in terms of next steps i think again jailhouse lawyer speak has issued a statement again on the i walk website where they describe the next step is they've issued a petition that's number one but also to continue supporting people that are striking or taking actions inside of prisons around the country so those are the two major things that jailhouse lawyer speak as well as the other organizations involved the free alabama movement for example and i walk have continued to push the actions that were taken there so if people want to write to them you know those things are available you know one of the things that always strikes me about the prison debate any debate about prisons is this idea that people have a hard time sort of putting it together in the same sort of group as other social

justice areas it's easy to get behind a lot of things but prison and prison reform the treatment of prisoners is always that thing that's really hard to get at intersection and social justice on. in this case with the prison strike you did have a lot of press there was a lot of press that did a cover up maybe not the mainstream in the level we'd like but a lot of press tech notice of it a lot of public took notice of it and it seems that it was barely a blip on the radar of politicians out all especially it was and washington despite the size of it why do you think that show many political leaders considering what there is essentially doing is setting up a system in which this this protest has created political prisoners something we fight against in every against in any other country in the world if they do it so what do you think without all that why do you think political leaders are not taking up a cause or at least commenting on it and why is it so hard for us to intersect our social justice with prisons. well there are

a number of different things that are going on here i think primarily you know prisoner advocacy seems to be you know the hot potato so people don't want to touch it in their historical reasons for that and i want to come back to that momentarily but i think to your first point regarding you know why this is a difficult social justice issue even for people who are involved in let's say progressive leftists movement it's a really difficult issue for them to get behind because you know prisoners are not seen as sympathetic they're seen as being rule breakers lawbreakers people that have caused harm in their communities into society and whatever harsh punishment that they get is deserved so it's this mentality of just desserts oh well this is this is what you get so i think that makes it incredibly difficult for

a lot of people or the average person i would say to find empathy with people who are protesting the really dehumanizing conditions inside. that's sad. organize and lead you know workshops on prison abolition and i just did one last night where we talked about these issues and why this is really deeply problematic and people respond once they started gauging in that conversation people were like oh well can you tell me more i really had no idea that this is what was going on now to your other point regarding you know politicians i just. prisons are a tough sell or prisoners are a tough sell and i don't think their politicians see it as you know when in the sort of thing that they should be talking about because no politician wants to appear to be soft on crime and i think that this goes back to you know things like

the willie horton case in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight and we're still carrying that historical baggage into twenty eighteen and it's affecting the way that politicians feel that they can or should respond to the things that are happening inside of prisons they don't want to touch it at all and they don't stay they don't say anything about it again for the reasons that i stated not to mention that i think both political parties do you know get money from the prison industrial complex or from businesses that profit from the prison industrial complex so there's also that kind of campaign financial aspect there as well of why better not touch this because it actually affects a lot of people that support me politically i just want to finish up you know at the end here and ask what can folks do home people who say you know what this is something where of i want to help out with what can people do at home to help our incarcerated citizens find you know be treated more humane what's the best thing

for people to do to help in this reform. i think on the ground people can first of all i would point them to the i walk website incarcerated work or start com or dot org sorry. there's a list of things that are happening there there are phones apps so we're calling into the prison in an organized way when we get reports of retaliation happening against specific prisoners or groups of prisoners and those are things that people can you know get involved with immediately we're posting a lot of that stuff and sharing that information on twitter people can write to prisoners around the country not just the political prisoners that are listed on i walk website but they can get involved with organizations like black and pink and they have a tremendous program writing to people inside of prison is a lifeline and it makes them feel you know someone on the outside actually cares

most awfully. thank you so much for coming in today co-host of your own personal podcast thank you for informing the audience to. thank you for having me pleasure. let me plant one idea to your a member as a kid taking flowers you had picked out and then pressing them and having them laminated school well the new york botanical garden is doing the same but then they're photographing and scanning the specimens for study these these specimens will be put into the world flora online project the goal of the process and the project about five years and that is to collect document and mount field specimens of every known plant on the planet every one so far they have logged about ten to fifteen million specimens from the around the world but it isn't just a nice museum the projects will be used to study the ever changing environment and how to save the most precious flora and fauna on earth here is to the new york

botanical gardens goal. for you. point route. for an hour that's called all that i remember doing as a caribou girlie but i didn't know and you can actually do something from a man such as political all right everybody is out of our show for you today remember everyone in this world we are not told that we are loved enough so i tell you all i love you i roll over and on top of the wall and keep watch of those hawks up right there. in twenty forty you know bloody revolution to include the demonstrations going from being relatively peaceful political protests to be creasing the violent revolution is always spontaneous or is it still oil here i mean your list put me in the neighborly as i knew spilling needle the former ukrainian president recalls the

events of twenty fourteen. those who took part in this today over five billion dollars to assist ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a secure and prosperous and democratic. in the age of trump wynnie is all that matters the phrase by any means necessary has truly been weaponized now politics has little to do with policy front and center of perceived cultural grievances and resentments just saps redcap. ministries police forces and city administrations of many countries depend on one corporation and another by mike was hoping the boy doesn't come from going to muslims this is not the guns this is not. into this it's just a proprietary software you don't know the source code isn't that such

a security risk when you have a black box operating in the public eye to my. kristoff dependency puts governments under a cyber threat and not only that some seem to think all of this could put us in more than that so we close off instantly as this is the this is still in the news this is really one of the will still lead to more stuff but these two will do all of this with. the police and this is the i still call them started on. the old mission stop when there was a sting and only one was a fund is up and describe someone on. the russian military plane that was shot down off the coast of syria killing fifteen servicemen the president calls it a tragic chain of events after the russian defense ministry accused israel of provoking syrian anti-aircraft fire. israel admits it got its warplanes with war

bombing syrian targets at the time of the tragedy but insists that damascus is fully responsible for hitting the russian plane and search teams are finding the remains of some of those on board the downed plane which fell into the mediterranean sea.