i think the u.s. may be alone among major societies in that respect. it's considered so far out of the spectrum of american politics it literally has never been considered. herber that the us has a. very violent labor history is how society. but the labor movement had been very strong by the 1920 s. in the period not unlike today it was virtually crushed robert reich. by the mincer is beginning to reconstruct. her friends the designer is

felt he himself was rather sympathetic to chris if legislation that would be an invention of the general population but he had to get it passed so he informed labor leaders and others forced me to do it. what he meant is it going to help demonstrate we're going to protest develop the labor movement. when the popular pressures fission and be able to control the legislation you know i am not for a we're. still last definition number 11 a i doubt which many as a freebie blow well being gradually read your man into the senate friendly deal i prefer that brought out information. so there was a kind of a combination of a sympathetic government and by the mid thirty's very substantial for peter activism. there were industrial actions there were the sit down strikes which were

very frightening to. ownership. have to recognize a sit down strike is just one step before saying we don't need bush that we can run this player sales. and business was told to read the business press say in the late thirties they were talking about to the hazard facing industrialists in the rising political power of the masses which has to be repressed things were on hold during the 2nd world war but immediately after the 2nd world war the business offensive began it force. test courtly had. to restart many quality and labor management relation. to mccarthyism was used for

a massive corporate propaganda offensives to attack union. increased sharply during the reagan years and reagan pretty much told the business world if you want to illegally break urbanizing efforts and strikes go ahead they are in violation of the law and if they do not report for work within 48 hours they have forfeited their jobs and will be terminated continued in the ninety's and of course with george w. bush went through the roof by now less than 7 percent of private sector workers have unions. the effect is that to the usual counterforce to an offensive or highly class conscious business class as does oath. if you're in a position of power you want to maintain class koncz. business for yourself but all

limited everywhere else here back to the 19th century in the early days of the industrial revolution in the united states working people were very conscious of this they in fact overwhelmingly regarded. wage labor as not very different from slavery and a different only in that it was temporary effect of such a popular idea that was a slogan of the republican party. well that was a very sharp class consciousness and the interests of power and privilege it's good to drive those ideas out of people's heads you don't want them to know that they're an oppressed class so this is one of the few societies magicks don't talk about class in fact the national class is very simple who gives the orders who follows and that basically defines class it's more nuanced and complex but that's basically it.

the public relations industry the advertising industry which is dedicated to creating consumers it's a phenomenon developed in the freest countries in britain and the united states and the reason is pretty clear it became clear by a say a century ago that it was not going to be so easy to control of population by force too much freedom in one. labor organizer in parliamentary labor party as in many countries women started to get the french as and so on she had to have other means of controlling people and it was understood and expressed that you have to control them by control of. beliefs and attitudes well one of the best ways to control

people in terms of attitudes is what the great political economists there stand blind called fabricating consumers. if you can fabricate a want to. make obtaining things that are just about within your reach the essence of life they're going to be trapped into becoming a consumer's. and you read the business press say 920 s. it talks about the need to direct people to the superficial things of life like fashionable consumption and that will keep him out of our hair. you find his doctrine all through progressive intellectual phone but walter lippmann the major progress of intellectual of the 20th century. he wrote famous progressive essays on democracy in which his view was exactly that the public must be put in

their place so that the responsible men can make decisions without interference from the be willed and heard. there to be spectators not participants then you get a properly functioning democracy straight back to madison on to the polls memory and so on and the advertising industry just exploded. with with this as its goal fabricating consumers. and it's done with great sophistication. many whilst down. as one of the last known while very singular. whom are aware of the kind. of the ideal is what you actually see need to did. we're let's see teenage girls they have a free set or afternoon we'll go walking in

a shopping mall. on the library or somewhere else. the idea is to try to control everyone to turn the whole society into the perfect system. perfect system would be a society based on a diet of pair the pair is you and your television set or maybe knowing who in the internet. in which that presents you with would. the proper life would be with trying to get education and you spend your time and effort to gaining those things which you don't need you don't want maybe to throw away. but that's the measure of a decent life. what we see is in say advertising on television if you've ever taken an economics course you know that markets are supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices well

if we had a system like that a market system in a television ad would consist of say general motors putting up information saying here's what we have for sale a samba an ad for a car is an ad for occurs a football hero you know an actress or the car doing some crazy thing like going up a mountain or something the point is to create uninformed consumers who will make irrational choices that's what advertising is all about. and when the same institutions p.r. . system runs elections they do it the same way. they want to create an uninformed electorate which will make irrational choices so often against their own interests and we see it every time one of these extravaganzas take place. right after the election. president obama

won an award from the advertising industry for the best marketing campaign and was reported here if you go to the international business press executives were euphoric you know they said we've been selling candidates marketing candidates like you know toothpaste ever since reagan and this is the greatest achievement we have i don't usually agree with therapy. and but when she mocks the much she calls the hopi changey stuff she's right 1st of all obama didn't really promise anything that's mostly illusion you go back to the campaign rhetoric and take a look at it has very little discussion of policy issues and for very good reason because public opinion on policy is sharply disconnected from what the 2 party leadership and their financial backers want. poesy even more and more is

focused on the private interests that fund the campaigns. with the public being marginalized. somewhere in paris you know so many people referenced the marie antoinette quote let them eat cake and then you know historians have gone back and they said you know it's actually my cake it's brioche brioche you know that so i brought in actual poem my god what a mess we brought in actual brioche this is a brioche just by the slice there at the patisserie and so this is what she suggested that the peasants that should be eating because they had run out of town

they say this is a brioche is a slightly nicer version of that there's a few in the cupboard let's throw that to the peasants to maybe that'll shut them up but. it's a very dangerous newson to think we can escape you both for use by terror for the most simple compared with simple to do with climate change as compared to making most of the triple terror from those who dangerous to do seem to think that we've got the planet be able to destroy those people you've got to do the folks here. well you know the cars big kind of adopted because we were called pirates for so long. i mean they're into smaller boats and if you don't harpoon ships and you stand. up and. kill them all filth to be told fish already 90 percent of the dot and you won't recover.

contemplations groups. pashtuns try to do it several times a day with a big fleet oh you get an idea for an ocean. we have to understand we cannot stay still have just. been witness of the is the only voice. i'm doing this because i want the future our world. future generations to have and enjoy the ocean will. be.

one of the leading political scientists more guillen's came out of the study of the relation between public attitudes and. what he shows is that about 70 percent of the population has no way of influencing. the images will be into mother country. and the population knows. what its lead to is a population that angry frustrated hates institutions. and it's not acting constructively to try to respond to this. there is popular mobilization in activism but in very self destructive directions. taking the form of unfocused bangor attacks on one another and on vulnerable targets that's what

happens in cases like this. it is corrosive of social relations but that's the point the point is to make people hate and fear each other and look at only for themselves and don't do anything for anyone else. one place you see it strikingly is on april 15th. every 15th is going to measure the day if they are taxes of how democratic a society is a different place if a society is really democratic april 15th would be a day of celebration it's a day when the population gets together decides to fund the programs and activities that they have formulated agreed upon which could be better than the station celebrated another way it is needed state it's a day of mourning it's a day in which some alien power you know has nothing do with you is coming down to

steal your hard earned money and you do everything you can they keep from doing it . and that is a kind of a measure of the extent to which at least in popular consciousness democracy is actually functioning. not her attractive picture. the tendencies that we've been describing within american society and those there are reverse to it's going to be an extremely ugly society i'm a society that is based on adam smith's final maxim you know all for myself nothing for anyone else. aside in which normal human instincts an emotion of sympathy so they're e.b.

to a sport in which they're going driven out. that society so ugly i don't even know who'd want to live in it i wouldn't want my children to. give the society. is based on controlled by private wealth it will reflect the values that in fact does reflect. a value that is green and the desire to maximize personal game at the expense of others and the society has made a small society based on that principle is ugly but it can survive a global society based on that principle is headed for massive destruction. and i don't think we're smart enough to design in any detail what a perfectly just and free society would be like i think we can give some guidelines

and more significant we can ask how we can progress in that direction. john dewey the leading social philosopher in the late 20th century he argued that until all institutions production commerce. media unless they're all under participatory democratic control we will not have a functioning democratic society. as he put it policy will be the shadow cast by business over a society. that's centrally true. where there are structures of authority domination and hire somebody gives the

orders somebody takes them they are not self justifying they have to justify themselves and their burden of proof to me. will if you take a close look usually find the. just for themselves if they can we ought to be dismantling. trying to expand the domain of freedom and justice but dismantling that form of illegitimate authority and in fact progress over the years we'll thankfully recognize as progress has been just that the way things change is because lots of people are working all the time and you know they're working in their communities in their workplace or wherever they happen to be and they're building up the basis for popular movements which are going to make changes and that's the way everything has ever happened in history. takes

a freedom of speech. one of the real achievements of american society it's 1st in the world and it's not in the bill of rights it's time that the constitution and freedom of speech issues began to come to the supreme court in the early 20th century. the major contributions came in the 1960 s. one of the leading ones was a case of going civil rights movement well but then you had a mass popular movement which was demanding rights. refusing to back down and in that context the supreme court did establish a pretty high standard freedom of speech or it takes a women's right to. women also began identifying oppressive structures refusing to accept them or he'd go their people to join with them well that's her right to return. to the non trivial extent of also spent a lot of my life in activism i mean that doesn't show up publicly but you know the

show not terribly good it was not the greatest organizer i think that we can see quite clearly a very very serious defect was an error that error. which are going to have to be corrected by operating out of. it is commonly accepted i think we're going to have to find. but the activists are people who have created the rights that we enjoy. in the army carrying out cosies based on information that they're receiving but also contributing to the understanding remembers or separate process. that you have agreed to try to do things you learn you learn with the world it's like that feeds back to the understanding of how to go on. and there's huge opportunities it is a very free society still good for his world. government is very limited capacity

to coerce corporate business may try to coerce but there are mechanisms. so there's a lot to be done if people organise struggle for the right susan if done in the past and you can win many victories. and close friend for many years later howard zinn. to put it in his words that what matters is the countless small d. civ the gnome people who play the basis for the significant events that enter history. there's a ones who've done things in the past the mentalist do it future.

early the eggs. grew. the the. cool. griggs. the girl rags the eggs.

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her. join me every thursday on the alec simon show and i'll be speaking to guest in the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then.

i know what you. want to. be. truly a person of the. spirit. after

almost 2 decades of war knock you patient american military involvement in afghanistan appears to be winding down i deal with the taliban will see jordi of american troops leaving while still allowing a sizable contingent to remain just what exactly is washington political interest afghanistan. has. ever.

leg. oh. just slip. lift.

and a very warm welcome to you watching us inside. ready ready ready sure need to stop but the continuing to grow. i just never know very good about the idea of bringing children into the world because i didn't feel like things were in very good shape that a life was just going to be a lot of software programs. there's no reason in the world to take things that are to me the. most is a myth something else that. everybody's scared to talk to that is certifiable is really dependent on us addressing this issue and if we can even talk about it every

chance even have a conversation or that it is then. ready the united states could potentially be smuggling weapons to militants in syria according to leave documents obtained by a bulgarian journalist. flooding report in meets asian leaders on the 2nd day of the eastern economic forum in vladivostok with the iran nuclear deal high on the agenda. archie seeks exclusively with the malaysian foreign minister on the sidelines of the forum expresses his country's concerns over the probe into the downing of flight m.h. 175 years on. some people will very quickly be making it easy should the investigation was already there with some effort by some.