this demands and they expect the others to could they too late and what happened in hanoi was the chant came along you made the usual demands the united states always makes with complete denuclearizing and steps towards denuclearization and he said to kim jong un. to do anything you. are not prepared to lift all moderate sanctions in any way and it was john bolton. mortal not apparently glenn you know one of the things i found very interesting is in public approach right before the summit in hanoi is he was talking and i'm talking about him trying to convince the north korean leader what kind of future his country can have prosperity. making you know the potential is enormous i mean is here's a pearl of language as usual but what was interesting is that the koreans north

koreans are first and foremost interested in security guarantees and then we can talk about what can happen after that complete. misconnection between the two leaders in i think maybe that's why chosen are serving us well because we're going to straight in effect demonstrating this is a communist country former adversary of the united states. it's not allied with just such a disk you if you just fall for the lung get rid of the nuclear weapons and maybe we won't bomb you and i guess you know maybe l.n. theory you're going so you're going to bet the farm on a maybe here or that's of course what the north koreans are thinking about it but i would that it was a failure i mean there was in terms of getting the grand deal they were hoping for a different it didn't it didn't get it but this i feel was always an overreach however at the end of it they didn't get back in their trenches and begin threatening each other instead they kept. picking kind words to be in this really

blame each other in the beginning he said was about a unified exit and that then of the north koreans said they're going to test nuclear weapons so long range missiles and americans want to own a military exercises on their borders how long this lasts not a thing but it hasn't failed yet i guess ok there is a good one i like your optimism a london alexander when the good news about all of this here that. the mainstream media fails to report and the pentagon and the state department are probably behind closed doors irked about is that the two koreas are actually working together this is the real story here ok if the real story is can the united states let go and let the koreans sort out their own affairs because they're they're making progress go ahead in line that's exactly right ok just quickly make one very quick point which is of course yes the nanny is no friend of the united

states after that was a conflict which the united states lost in a way that secured yet nans security careers the two koreas are now negotiating with the chancellor they have concerns about each of them as concerns about security south korea does not wanting you on korean territory it also has an aspiration to move forward with its relations with the north because that's very important south korea economically also and the risk the united states takes by sticking to these maximalist positions and not moving full is that the koreans will start to negotiate with each other and will cut out the united states ok that's a good way to end this part of this topic let's move on to venezuela i'm calling this program deadlock so we went from. you know i now let's go visit been his way

or the coup attempt apparently has stalled the the. the photo ops in the media coverage of the humanitarian aid over the bridge failed here and then we have the random guy chosen by the united states basically in exile where does this go from here because the u.s. still has a lot of tools in its tool kit you know guess it boils down to what temple do because it is still a lot of uncertainty about what kind of president he will be in foreign policy again when he ran for president it was very clear he wouldn't have any more for morse now it's a bit uncertain whether or not after syria iran whether or not this is something he will really follow through i think initially it could be it could have seemed like a hanging fruit in terms of like a nonviolent something that minimal effort such a change the government completely but now that they have to use the term it's

going to be a walk in the park when the cake walk this sounds like you know the planning for iraq two thousand and three here not only there's a complete misunderstanding of what's going on in venezuela and i guess his base is looking at him as well because if he does decide to use military force against fairness or law then essentially he's done the same as obama bush and everyone before him so it is an interesting time to look at his presidency because so far he's only use kind of the threat of war in order to extract concessions but now he's kind of at a crossroads either push just a military u.s. military in or he starts backing off so it's i would be very careful to look at my crystal ball on this one i think everyone here let's go back to london ok to weigh in on that because it looks like the planning for this they thought it was going to be easy they thought it would be just a. facade of the government would collapse once they've chosen their their favorite one and now it's not come about and now we have. out out of our i mean the material

government has resources and of course the most important thing is the military remains loyal and this is something like a ten miscalculated you know that i warn you about abrams he's a trouble maker he'll make you false promises go ahead alexander well aren't there miscalculation was even greater because i think what they've done has actually strengthened the venezuelan government i think it was actually quite unpopular for because of the situation with the economy but it's quite clear that most venezuelans do not want to see their president pick for them by the united states very few of them and heard at this quite ill individual who none of them had elected and i think what has happened and it's entirely unsurprising is that the people of venezuela and the military of venezuela have rallied to the defense of their country as they see it and i think the great danger here is that

now the political prestige of the united states easy invested in engineering before all of the venezuelan government and time as i said when venezuelan opinion is rally behind that government and when international opinion has very far from moved against that development venezuela has friends that the united states will now double down and you mention the name elliott abrams and of course he has used to really to straighten wars against latin american countries and there's already talk of blockades and of tightening up sanctions and imposing secondary sanctions against other countries and of course the day injuries that this conflict could escalate and grow and draw neighboring countries and that's a very good point you know because. as we speak right now colin. brazil seem to be

getting cold feet again and i like your phrase of the low hanging fruit to look like was going to be a done deal well it's not a done deal and if there were to be a military operation against brazil and i agree with your logic probably doesn't want to go there because of his reelection prospects here but colombia doesn't want to be pulled in as alexander me curious just said i mean this could it could be a regional conflict that nobody really needs and nobody wants. but one of the us has options right now which is continued intensive economic warfare against the population of venezuela and i think the us is running out of options because obviously it could continue. to make life more difficult and hoping that it will over time bring down the government but. quite correctly pointed out a lot of it's backfiring because i think a legitimate argument can be made that. some mismanagement of the government since chavez. passed away but of course now that i was on the record as saying

that they might call for the united states to invade his his country his own country is so obviously that's not going to sit well with venezuela so there was all that a polarized country but that's not going to win him much support from the other side and. again. we have invested too much into intervention just it's just saying that all the cards are on the table that this aggressive rhetoric is cheap but he hasn't actually. put on the red line such as obama did something that could be used against him so he left him enough room to maneuver to pull back and well the interesting let me finish of a segment where what alexander me curious. rhetorically very interesting here you know this fight this battle against socialism and using venezuela as an example is actually part of his domestic. reelection bid here twenty seconds alex go ahead yes i mean that's exactly the point because you. see the economic crisis in venezuela

and he's talking about how the like a world opponents in the united states he's left wing democratic opponents in the united states to find themselves socialists and he says well we don't want to and you know in the united states what's happened in venezuela plays to him politically in domestic ok and it's actually taken action it's a very interesting dove tailing here are a gentleman we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on some real new stakes with r.t. . thank you all this is out of the. cold.

what politicians do. they put themselves on the line they get accepted or rejected . so when you want to be president. or somehow want. to be like the press was like before three in the morning can't be good. i'm interested always in the waters of the. question.

is this is a steak from a water bottle phone in the stomach of a fish the brand is sponsor of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles of soda every day the idea was that let's tell consumers they're the bad ones they're the litter bugs are throwing this away industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. that seems cool sets funding me. on i'm your best at is the end of. the fun now the mountains of waste only grow. my seven years doing drugs my nephews was still in drugs my sister just with doing drugs it was like an epidemic of drug abuse america's public enemy number one

in the united states is drug abuse we started going after the users in the prison population sewer we started treating sick people people who are addicted to these drugs like criminals while i was on the hill. the war on drugs. numbers. are in prison for. sins for. minor offenders in the drug trade it's a lot watching your children grow up and miss you in waves and say by day as you're walking out of the business it's just it doesn't get easier. you know world's big partners. it's time to wake up to dig deeper to hit the stories that mainstream media refuses to tell more than ever we need to be smart we need to stop slamming the door. and shouting past each other

it's time for critical thinking it's time to fight for the middle for the truth the time is now for watching closely watching the hawks. welcome back to crossfire for all things considered peter lavelle remind you we're discussing some real names. ok now we're joined by john laughlin he's in france he's a lecturer in political philosophy and i said that they catholic university john welcome to the program glad to have you on my least favorite topic these days is braggs it i'm tired of thinking about it i used to think long that there was a democracy deficit now i'm convinced there's the worst problem is a leadership deficit here can you do your best to try to sum up what's happening

now with brags that this is like a two year nightmare that never ends go ahead john in france. well if you're bored p.j. you're you're not alone there are sixty million british citizen who feel the same way as you do and many no doubt hundreds of millions of observers from all around the world i completely agree with your question and what strikes me about this ridiculous drawn out nightmare is that it's in bodies one of the systemic problems of today's politics and that is the inability to change anything the inability to effect any kind of genuine alternative to choose an alternative and we see this of course with bricks it the agony over bricks it over mrs may's deal is all the more upset because her deal is not a deal it is a response to leave everything as it has the last forty years. and the same goes

for populism in europe and for donald trump what we see is in all these three cases people announcing radical change promising radical change and then sticking with the policies that existed for decades trumps. colonized nation the colonization of trump's foreign policy by the neo cons is a perfect example of this trump just us the opposite of a neo con foreign policy and we have of course now you can you can't move in the oval office for the neo cons at the moment and the same goes for the european populists who make a lot of noise and you know claim they're going to put an end to immigration and so on i'm thinking critically of it. but actually it with the same policies and particularly of course with their commitment not only to the european union but also to the atlantic alliance so what it's then let me jump in here you know glenn

john brings up a fascinating point i mean it seems that the double whammy here is that you have a inflexible neo liberal philosophical outlook and then you have a structural problem where there is no food it isn't fluid enough for for any kind of change so you have this structural problem and this ideological problem reinforcing the worst parts of both. in i think what john mentioned is from our summer isis or what the finance the populist i mean this seems like they ask the right questions this is what brings them into power that is question which has been suppressed for too long however they don't really have an answer us and i think this is problematic so the question i would ask is you know to what extent is this neoliberal economy going to work for the seller is mistaken thing for two decades to an extent through a mass immigration until the social fabric begins to tear away as nato expansionism made us in a safer this endless wars medicine is safer so they ask all the right questions

which. so sure no one has been allowed to ask but one of the rides the wave into office on this election is the effectively don't have any great answers and they don't necessarily do much to change you know you're going to go back to john in in friends i mean then i ask a very serious question and i'm not trying to be flippant or anything but i mean but what is democracy for if people are given choices the voice vote for choices something different and nothing comes about i mean it's all throughout the continent and brags it is probably the most glaring example but there are many other examples that demonstrate the same phenomenon go ahead john inference. well we don't live in democracy in europe it's very straightforward i've spent twenty or thirty years explaining that the european union is an undemocratic organization and showing why and showing through with constitutional arguments why that's the case but we can see it in the pronouncements of politicians to reserve may is the

absolute epitome of a european politician who regards the brics it vote as an absolute catastrophe she regards her role in this whole thing as clearing up a mess created by voters and that view is held across the entire continent and certainly of course in the institute actions of brussels cameron david cameron the prime minister who organized the referendum is regarded as someone who created a terrible situation for no good reason at all in other words these people are really opposed to democratic choice precisely because of what i just said which is they do not want things to change they do not want there to be a choice they do not want people to say yes or no to something they want people to follow the lines which have been set down and which are instead lack the answers that's not my diagnosis what i think is the populists and indeed politicians of all colors lack is courage yes we know that many things in the european union

that various individual governments don't like viktor orban doesn't like the immigration thing he's fighting on that but on the russian issue we also no matter who sell beanies party the league has a full partnership with united russia they are full allies of the governing party in russia but they have not changed they have not managed to abandon that for example the sanctions against russia even those even though those are prolonged every six months as a result of a unanimous vote see we see this extraordinary phenomenon of groupthink or at least of inertia which means that actually very little ever change. you know again i guess it's crystal clear what john is saying here is it. from an elite perspective it's the people that have failed not the leadership of these countries and not the leadership of the e.u. because they're infallible they're like there it's almost like

a power pool ball we cannot be wrong only you can be wrong glenn. yeah. we actually had a prime minister making that argument that because we we rejected the you twice so she said. it's putting it up the referendum would be a mistake because the people devolved quite emotionally while. they all add to that the wise politicians they would know really what's best for us. and they're going it's not that different from britain our c.e.o. john pointed out a referendum was a way of restoring harmony among the tories and taking some air out of the balloon and didn't expect the referendum to go through but now that it's gone through there sensually offering two options either the remain the respects it so that only a name or we can say stay in the e.u. so because no deal would be american as well is it would be a better choice because they had two years to try to figure something out here let me go back to john in france here i mean just how much longer can these that lead to hold the populations in voters in contempt. well the situation we're

describing is very similar to the one that was going to church by battled back in one nine hundred fifty three i was really exactly at this yeah but i'm trying to think of equality as well go ahead exactly when he said well they'll have to dissolve the people and elect another you know the government continues but the people has to change the other so it's not possible to answer your question. peter when when is it how long is it going to carry on we thought or i thought or some of us about it might things might change in twenty sixteen but people were predicting the downfall of the soviet system for many decades before it happened and you know it's very difficult to know exactly when it will happen in the case of the european union which of course as we as i've said many times on your channel there's a number of resemblances to the soviet union yes so it's not possible to say all that we can say is that there are increasing tensions and there is no good news for

the european union yet everything is bad news so there's north-south conflict between germany and the southern european countries over the euro crisis and the debts there's east west conflict on the liberal values versus traditional values particularly with poland and hungary there's obviously the major crisis with brics it which means the european union is losing the world's financial capital its second biggest contributor and one of its bigger meant biggest member states there and there and there is no good news to temper this series of bad news events which has been going on now for for well over a decade and so at some point it will collapse but when i pass on that question and go back to glenn here you know one of the interesting things is when you look at these populist movements across europe they're very dissimilar in many ways with the way i look at populism is a dirty word apparently in the mainstream here when what these populist movements

are doing is is pushing up against the since. i'm in an ideology that doesn't work and of course every single country will have its own specific elements there but this populism is deemed bad because they're demanding change change or a status quo that isn't working for them i mean i think even on a rhetorical level this is trying to pollute any kind of activism in people wanting to regain sovereignty in every sense of the word and i think the best thing if the establishments really want to get rid of the populace the best thing they could do is to engage with their arguments yesterday and that's the reason why these people have come to power is because to ask the questions which been denied now. so you can ask this in terms of what is the what is meant to be european us pointed out to us it's about cultural. history it's what should be the ideal economic politics there so what about tradition the sense of community i mean this

experiment wants to destroy nation states they want is destroyed any sense of community i mean everybody is basically either married to or a ward of the state but effectively they're trying to suppress the populous movement in again with because they want a gaijin with arguments like be bricks it or. pole sanghera stick because they're very different colors because unless they're all portrayed the the rest being a racist. or they're simply kremlin puppets so this is the way of censure of shaming opposition me i asked john a real quick question we got thirty seconds. when it's all going to be another vote ok twenty seconds i hate to quarter you on this topic go ahead john. i believe they'll be a series of votes on the twelfth of march twelfth thirteenth and forty march and my feeling this morning is that there will probably be a deal in other words that mrs mazed it will in a slightly get met and it will go through britain will leave the european union at

the end of march very soon but then the battle will really stop the damage is that of all really started are i generally have to leave it up it there but will be but we'll be in touch with you on this topic here many thanks to my guests are here in moscow london and in france and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember rolls. i've been saying the numbers mean something they've matter to us is over one trillion dollars in debt more than ten white collar crime happens to. eighty five percent of global will you long to be old rich weak to pursue the world market thirty percent some with one hundred five hundred preferred circuit per second and

this one rose to twenty thousand dollars. china's building two point one billion dollars a i industrial park but don't let the numbers over. the only number you need to remember one one this is you know ford in the one and only boom but. life expectancy in america is plummeting if you look at the chart it shocking you look at almost every other country it's kind of benching hop on one side of the chart and that has an ally or is the united states in some way over here it's all crashing down politics and fake news it's all fake and fake doesn't sustain a lie. and you see it in the numbers it's clear. this is is a sticker from the water bottle phone in the stomach of a fish the brand is part of the coca-cola company which sells millions of bottles

of soda every day the idea was that let's tell consumers there are the bad ones they're the litter bugs are trying this way industry should be blamed for all this waste the company has long promised to reuse the plastic. that seems cool sets. stay on your hands at a special projects funded. online you guessed that is the end of it for the team but for now the mountains of waste only grow higher.

leaf. is. nothing compared. to british prime minister visits the city of souls we're on the first anniversary of the poisoning of a former russian double agent and his daughter moscow claims london is withholding the full truth of what happened twelve months ago. venezuela's southpark claimed interim president is back on home soil but risks arrest for the. if i have travel ban although washington's threatened to significant response if anything happens to kwan. an offshoot of the al qaeda terror group stages a deadly surprise attack in syria and the u.s. offers the million dollar reward for information on osama bin laden's son.