he is a writer on legal affairs as well as editor in chief of the duran dot com or a gentleman crosstalk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want and i always appreciate let me go to our going to be curious in london or those programs is titled you know us isolate let me go through a quick checklist going to back up what i'm saying here we have the pentagon announcing a deployment of new intermediate range weapons interestingly the europeans haven't been told much about it the recent warsaw where the u.s. essentially stood alone on the issue of iran. rough handling of venezuela as alienating western allies in the western hemisphere trump continues to support the kingdom of saudi arabia when it comes to yemen that's a very unpopular position to be taking washington's allies essentially shut out of the withdrawal process or troop withdrawal process from afghanistan even though they're contributors to it germany will not surrender its energy independence north stream moves ahead trump imposes visa visa ban on i.c.c. staff probing u.s.

war crimes in afghanistan and to top it all off next week president xi will visit italy to sign agreements regarding the silk road initiative here alexander mackerras. donald trump is kind of the odd man out. looking and you missed out to turkey which is becoming. a lot i miss it i don't laugh. but i mean it is a fact if i've never known a time not this the united states seems to be striking out in all directions and increasingly contrary to the interests of its own now lies i mean the main some ways the two most extraordinary cases are on the street where we're cutting directly against germany konami interests and it's difficult if you don't know germany well to know how angry the german business community which has great political influence is about who. and of course there's all this business with the

kurds are syria which isn't turkey and it looks as if the you know i did states rather than heeding what it's not saying is not doubling down all over the place so yes you asked the question is the united states are insulated if you want to. say that it's absolutely true i need to show you how to lose friends and entire good nice people lightning speed and that doesn't seem to be any winners standing in the united states of the extent to which this is unity unity when you know i certainly said in my introduction that you know trumps america first but i'm not sure it is a america first it's more of a bolton's unilateral ism is what this is here and it has this fig leaf of america first go well i think it's not just drawn in general that ideology of ultra liberalism is i to isolate in itself because we see its actions we see it's

a deist but the kind of these are people pushing this are neo cons absolutely they are the tools you know they are the guys who actually they are the front man if i may be allowed to use this expression by the agent toward that xander has just said ok you mentioned venezuela well triumph first involved the possibility or a direct military intervention by the united states in august of two thousand and seventeen and then all of america was against it mr santos the president of colombia colombia is the most of us and i'm a dural country. or in layton america and sanders was against it i worked there the phrase how he framed his opinion he said let in america is a quantum and of peace and i just thought about it and i thought yes you know since the united states in the end of the twentieth century a stopped in defeat. in directly suddenly we've found out that you can do without

siebel war you know peril and and. you know peril. and that could or are not bahraini and you miss you know they can leave somehow together and the north stream you know again coming back to late in america what changed in the last two years you know it was almost two years ago when trump made that statement was that there was a lot of propaganda demonizing the island government and the propaganda shift in opinions you know now she and i didn't and brazil are taken a different position because you know i mean the because the the shock of regime change in venezuela is a failure yes and now you know going to the next level they're all coming to their senses realizing oh my goodness the man of the might have a white house just might invade yeah well both sinatra was not yet in power in

brazil in two thousand and seventeen of course things changed for the war in brazil with a change for the was in other latin american countries still it's a combination you know it's a general shift towards neo liberalism in america and it's a lot of propaganda against my door against minnesota it's having its effect the same story with north stream too i agree with that xander that it's against german commercial interests but it is also against the interest of europe you know it's in it's enough to look at the map what easy europe europe is a peninsula actually opinion source trenchant through there some of the west wrongly you eurasian continent to use the nature of resources of eurasia in europe is madness it you know we're going to but i'm going to push back a little back down to me here is there is a logic to all of this it is madness and it went away but from a political perspective again it seems to me. that there in this neo con faction in

power in the united states see the seas america's you know polar moment closing this is why they're getting so aggressive because their ability to influence events around the world while meaningful now is with every passing day diminishing. that power and they know it and they're reacting to it i think are rarely in venezuela are perfect examples go ahead i think you're absolutely right and this is this is what gives this whole thing its frantic quality so we see more and more threats now against the germans to cancel north stream too because of course germany doesn't build the pipeline and that supposed at least going to cause germany to drift away from the united states so we're abusing the dollar system now to threaten our own our allies we are using to negotiate with north korea because that might actually reduce a convergence between north and south korea which might also threaten our political

position so we're going against south korean interests and we're interrupting possibilities of south korean trade with north korea and the greater the regime and this is exactly what it is that he's driving it it is this fear that this moment is slipping out of the u.s. hands and so you double down you put more and more pressure you use all the leaders that you have sanctions dollar whatever you put pressure on your own our allies to try to keep them in line and what you're actually hearing is you're antagonizing you know it's earlier say with alexander mackerras here i think it's with us it's so telling that italy as a member of the g. seven is willing to start getting involved in the in china silk road i think that's of a huge story the italians have been openly rebuked in a in a rather rude way i would say and they're going to continue their path to be we're working with the chinese i mean they can. it's basically the way the trump

administration is treating europe is it gives them even more initiative to say no go ahead alex. and of course what people said because people can read the data they can see the they can read the ruins so the italians understands that these union poland moment is is going and that's what makes them vulgar the europeans generally are starting to sense this which is why are there not falling in line with the united states over the why way affair the these attempts by the united states to block europe from you know using chinese technology to develop their g five systems so or you see the rebellion spreading. and of course what the united states is doing is instead of working we need to analyze what's still it must be stressed once they want to be friends with the

united states it's now threatening them and that of course changes the dynamic completely and accelerates the roasters of these countries peeling away from the united states more and more on top of that we have the rise of these populist movements on left and right challenging the neo the new liberal order here while at the same time you have washington antagonizing the center in europe go ahead well indeed if we look at their recent actions of the united states for example exit in their i n f treaty right it is now absolutely clear the americans had been preparing for this because they're going has nothing to do with russia no real or perceived absolutely imagine was it was an hour to this week that the united states are going to do to a new one that will be rated to fly within eighteen months and it will be start getting to getting on in august one thousand nine hundred the other one will be

ready in five years it will be longer range it will be three to four thousand kilometers most likely and the second one will be placed on go arm to it with rather than water china and russia and the first one may be poised in eastern europe. i mean like in germany maybe in poland maybe all a bit of range so it's poland in or maybe that might exist not noticed in europe president poroshenko of ukraine has made there i think it's it's a really dangerous statement he said that ukraine is working on missiles that would be able to hit mosque or ukraine was one of the centers of sort of building here you know the biggest block in music should go in once you are you crane to become a target is that what he's doing. he's playing with fire because military people if you could in russia are very nervous they don't know everything about politics they know where the danger is you know if there is

a missile in ukraine and it can hit moscow in three minutes and you can place you know a nuclear warhead on it then. i want to think alexander mackerras for joining us here on this edition of the program now we're going to go to a short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on some real news stay with r.t. . breaks it count. rule of whining oh oh oh oh dear it's really no. been a real good shops few begin murders controls all life. but

sometimes are in the last communities young people are deciding if they want to be not like their parents not like the number. of blacks always drug school again or was you always have problems but you're not going to focus and walk is the most ubiquitous known out there most police departments use it almost overstayers in the school tell that they could get their hands on economies in twenty four hours. through it teach nice kids of both racism about police brutality taking cried of them be all these kids are a part of all history. join me every thursday on the i like simon chill and i'll be speaking to give us a little bit politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

welcome back to crossfire where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing some real news. and now we're joined by john laughlin in paris he is

a lecturer in political philosophy at i says the catholic university and john great having you on the program here this whole segment has catered to you from ideas that you sent to my producers with some very appreciative and very valuable the first one here is the european parliament they say that rushes to this information campaigns main source of dissent from ation in europe and also we have the european commission peddling their digital single market strategy which will go into detail john out when i look at these two pieces of news here i'm not going to take the bait you know what it is it's censorship member citizens of the european union in russia is being used as the straw man go ahead john. yeah and this trend is quite an old trend now it's getting worse and these these resolutions and these decisions that you mentioned are very recent but the roots of this go back to a year or two ago for example to a couple of resolutions voted in twenty sixteen but also two debates that have

taken place in the european parliament in january twenty eight hundred and the trend is to deal with what they call fake news most of which of course is blamed on russia to deal with it not by having a counter to cation but instead by having censorship and by for example requiring social media companies to remove and i'm quoting now to remove suspect political content from social media platforms and we can see in all these various resolutions and legislative acts of the european union move towards the ever legislative measures against political opinions which are considered to be against the mainstream and indeed maybe well may well be against the mainstream the pretext being that they are somehow being expressed these opinions by people in the pay of

moscow or people who are playing moscow's game and so we're entering here we can watch it in real time if you like we're entering into exactly the same totalitarian logic that ceased communist regimes themselves which were dictatorial because they believed that they were under attack from forces abroad that was the whole cole reason for stalinist paranoia stalin believed that trotsky and his friends abroad were conspiring to bring down the soviet system which frankly they were but that's what caused the dictatorship and in the same way the european union has got itself now into a psychological mindset according to people that agents of the me say here when john. again coming from the european commission. this struck me as really quite bizarre and dangerous media literacy is a prerequisite for a vibrant modern democracy the problem is that who determines what media literacy

is going to say which on here go ahead. well these are phrases like the phrase i mentioned just now suspect political content which are obviously open to abuse and indeed invite to be this if you say literacy is required that is another way of saying that only intelligent people. people should be allowed to have opinions well if you say that that's a point of view but logically that means that those same people those illiterate people with suspect political views should not have the right to vote and should not be part of the democratic process now there have been punt times of history periods of history in which universal suffrage did not apply but everybody all the same people who say that they should be literacy or whatever they of course say oh my god of course you know universal suffrage is the absolute cornerstone well it's either one thing or the other yeah and what we're trying to do is to introduce

criteria to bypass the inevitable results of universal suffrage which is that not everyone is always in agreement and used as i say these legislative and or thora tarion measures to put the screws on political dissidents political dissidents which incidentally is rising as we know and which has taken power in a number of european countries italy hungary poland and so on and of course that's why they're afraid of it you can't win team and the this whole approach to the public sphere and the exchange of ideas when you start saying media literacy is a prerequisite for a vibrant modern democracy this is only going to increase dissident thoughts and the rise of populist groups the this approach to the media is actually fueling it absolutely well movie and interesting it to my mind is a euphemism for political correctness. you know are after political correctness discredited itself simply because so many people were called politically incorrect

simply because they were right people who were against the war they're the american invasion or iraq were called politically into incorrect so they invite this they have invented this new term media literacy and it's a media literacy poorness approved by the european commission and who is one of the first victims of this kind of approach you know are muddying the panel was forced to undergo psychiatry that's what they did in the soviet union exactly where they're exactly and they like the for the formula that they use they wanted to find out if she's capable of understanding remarks and answering questions well tenderly and ten million a friend of all person voted for this woman is she able to understand they remind us of the yes so you're trying to tell me that now there are psychiatry and psychologists i didn't go back to john here you want to jump in go ahead get sick

a piece you get accused of spreading a fake news psychological testimony look and was mooted but the suggestion was then withdrawn so it was actually living without even the fact it was mooted shows this this what i want to say to demers this of course you're absolutely right that media literacy is and the myths of political correctness but the problem is even deeper because in the european union european parliament resolution on russia voted this week voted last week. the. proposal was to shite against governments and political parties who are said to be extreme right and populist and so on and who are of course said to be agents of moscow on the basis that their views are incompatible with the values of the european union as late down in. for article it is of the european treaty in other words the proposal to introduce

a legislative legal and removal procedure against people who are you know accused of being in the pay of moscow this is a this is a proposal not just to discredit people by saying your politically incorrect and illiberal and all the rest of it the problem is it's a proposal to start legislative criminal criminal proceedings this is not a demon what is the path that we're going down watching this happen here we saw this with jordan peterson in canada now we're seeing in the european union we are going in the direction of in forced speech before it was things you probably shouldn't say in the public sphere now in for speech meaning you must say this and there will be penalties severe penalties if you don't go ahead but well coming back to this decision to this statement by the european parliament which was voted by four hundred two votes against one hundred sixty three they took russia out of

their out of the group of strategic partners or the european union well the wards strategic partner now means nothing because you have allies so you have neutral conifer you have enemies but it's amazing that the european parliamentarians are doing everything to spoil their relations with russia i mean no one forced them i don't believe that the united states could force them you know just take this last seeable and he made it there was no downside in doing that ok actually it's hollow ok what we'd like we started out this stigma here once you condemn russia and its propaganda in its box and all that there is a logical continuation we're do we go next in this is what we're getting at here you know what their thoughts as what you just said in forced speech let me just give you one example you know first the biggest piece and the most. harmful piece of fake news was about weapons of mass destruction in the hands of saddam hussein

because it led to a war none of these people was brought to justice or even given all that you know there were tens of thousands of people in the united states and in europe involved in it and if we're talking about fake news you know the latest scandal india should be good with that they report that closely lotos i deliberately chose this example because it's not about russia they sent him to the united states to write what is are there americans to vote for trump so he invented the whole story you know he went to a column called fergus falls which doesn't exist which which exists about the he described it in a completely different form you know there were two civil society activists michele anderson and jake grown who just went after he is like asians and saw first there was no cause electric power plant near there near the restaurant where he's supposed to saw it second he saw it he said that there were four chimey as you know

same day in small going to there there was only vonn and it was thirty miles away also it's just interesting there was no wild boar stuffed wild boar in the column hole because wild boars do not exist in minnesota and we can get your points of fake news can work in both directions or we could just like call them to write it differently if you wanted to write a bad thing said molly and i last page on it seems to it seems very disingenuous that this whole debate started on watching the big tech companies you know looking at facebook and and google and now the european union its commission they want to be the censor they want the same control these big tech companies had they want to replace them for forty seconds go ahead. well what i want to say is that. the point about russia and the hostility to russia that dmitri babich has just rightly mentioned this is not some spin off this is not some pretext it's

a pretext of course for political control in europe but it is the absolutely defining saying about how these people think these people who regard themselves as liberals regard themselves as engaged as in a permanent battle against the forces of darkness. whether those forces of darkness are in moscow or in or in budapest or wherever and that is what gives them that's what makes them get up in the morning and that's why they their battle as they see it is extremely day. of run out of time here but john laughlin is absolutely right but the in london and in paris and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember cross talk.

max keiser financial survival guide stacey let's learn a salad fill out let's say i'm a striker here on greece terms they have to fight. thank you for taking. the story that's right fell out of debt slavery. you know world's big partners movie mahfouz and conspiracy 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 smarter. need to stop slamming the door on the back 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. will make its manufacture consent to step into public wealth. when the ruling class is protect themselves. when the final merry go round lifts only the one percent. whole middle of the room sick. room anymore in the room. during the great depression which i'm old enough to remember there was and most of my family were unemployed working class there wasn't it was bed you know much worse objectively than today but there was an expectation that things were going to get

better. of there was a real sense of hopefulness there isn't today today's america where shape by the turn principles of concentration of wealth and power. reduced democracy attack solidarity engineer elections manufacture consent and other principle holds according to no on chomsky one set of rules for the rich opposite set of rules for . that's what happens when you put her into the hands of a narrow sector of wilf which will is dedicated to increasing power for itself just as you'd expect one of the most influential intellectuals of our time speaks about the modern civilization of america. it's seemed wrong when old rules just don't call. me old

yet to stamp out disdain because attitude and engagement equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground. they tasted it as because at that big comet what you thought is still in the case if you it gives it not think is that one thing is to be leaving j.c. feeling good yes even more. way to alleviate the many people suffering is it to prolong the conflict by handicapping our partners in the fight but by giving the saudi led coalition the support needed to defeat the arabian back that is sure just peace us secretary state stands for support from the saudi led coalition's bombing campaign in yemen

this despite a us senate vote to end it and move the donald trump has threatened to veto. the week coming up with a preferred time lucky for two reasons made british prime minister is expected to put the brakes it once again as she pleads for support for her much maligned deal. and the united states deploys nuclear capable.