there is one organized force which traditionally plenty of flaws but with all its flaws it's been in the forefront of the. efforts to improve the lives of the general population that's organized labor it's also a barrier to corporate tyranny so it's the one barrier to this vicious cycle going on which does lead to corporate tyranny. earl earl a major reason for the concentrated honest fanatic attack on unions and organized labor is they are a democratizing force. to provide a barrier that defends workers' rights but also popular rights generally.

and that it interferes with the prerogatives now or for those who own and manage in society. i should say said and a union sentiment in the united states among elites is so strong that the fundamental couper of labor rights the basic principle in the international labor organization is the rate of free association which would mean the right to form unions u.s. has never ratified. but i think the us may be alone among major sides in their respect. it's considered so far out of the spectrum of american politics it literally has never been considered. her number that the us has a law on very violent labor history his. society. had been very strong about the 1920 s. . in

a period not unlike today who was virtually crushed robert reich. by the mincer is a beacon to reconstruct. franklin delano roosevelt he himself was rather sympathetic to progressive legislation that would be in the benefit 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 can through the legislation you know i am not for

a were. killed last definition number 11 a i doubt which many as a freebie well being gradually a regular man in. tripoli feel. i prefer that broad definition. so there was a kind of combination of a sympathetic government and by the mid thirty's very substantial but bitter activism. there were industrial action there were sit down strikes which were very frightening 2. 100 ships. have to recognize a sit down straight is just one step before saying we don't need bushes we can run this by ourselves. 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 in force and test partly as a. tourist start any quality in labor management. and of course the ism 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 we're going to zing 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 to continue to 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 the usual counterforce to an offensive or highly class conscious business klyce is dissolved. not if you're in a position of power you want to maintain class consciousness for yourself but a limited everywhere else you know 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 that wage labor as not very different from slavery to the 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 in 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 the population by force too much freedom and one. labor going to sing parliamentary labor parties 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 they 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 they're stunned blind called fabricating consumers. if you can fabricate 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 them out of our hair. you find this doctrine all through progressive intellectual thought 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 which actually seemed to did. we're let's see teenage girls they have a free said area afternoon all go walking in a shopping mall not 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 gauge 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 in football hero you know an actress in 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 truisms go off 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 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 and that's mostly illusion you go back to the campaign rhetoric and take a look at this 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 more and more it is focused on the private interests that fund the campaigns. it was a public being marginalized. television propaganda machine propaganda outlet propaganda tools we are in an information war.

that can change the world tomorrow. and you tube videos that the west russia today it's the longest network on. russian prussia russian russian. military that i wrote so these are set to go and i'm really happy to join that to see you then on r t. 4 are so proud and still. are just getting through a number. why have you not shut down our t.v. on you tube it's a propaganda machine mr walker. and

. you might want to the companies they. deny. that they can. go in all. of. illinois unless i would. ensure that the moon does get a an authentic you are going to be out in so across the south and i must. i thought. i was it is a. tough. crowd.

was. the leading political scientists martin village green mountain village 30 of the relation republican attitudes and public policy what he shows is that about 70 percent of the population has no way of influencing. the limiters will be untrue mother country. and the population knows. what it's led to is a population that angry frustrated hate institutions. and it's not acting constructively to try to respond to the. brits popular

mobilization and activism but in very soft. stripped of corrections. taking the form of unfocused anger 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 to hate and fear each other and look out only for themselves and don't do anything for anyone else. place you see it strikingly is on april 15th. april 15th is going to measure the day of prayer taxes of how democratic a society is a different league 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 bettered that station celebrated the way it is needed state it's a day of mourning it's a day in which some. power has nothing to do if you is coming down to steal your hard earned money and you do everything it can they keep from doing it. though 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 unless there are a verse it's going to be an extremely ugly society i mean to say it's based on

an absolute it's maxim. you know all for myself nothing for anyone else. aside in which normal human instincts an emotion of sympathy so of their the mutual 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 control by private wealth it will reflect the values that in fact does reflect. a value that is green and the desire to maximize personal gain at the expense of others and any 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 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 as they are not self-justifying do they have to justify themselves and their burden to prove to me. will if you take a close look usually find they can justify themselves as they can we're going 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 it or 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 the 1st in the world in that 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 and 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 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 all right to return. to trivial extent if also spent a lot of my life in activism into that doesn't show up publicly but no question i'm terribly good at it i'm not the greatest organizer i think that we can see quite clearly some very very serious defects flaws in our. culture. which are going to have to be corrected by operating outside of work that is commonly accepted i think we're going to have to find new ways what is right. but the activists are people who have created the rights that we enjoy. in the arctic carrying out policies based on information that they're receiving but also contributing to the understanding remembers or separate process. you try to do things you learn you learn but with the world it's like that feeds back to the understanding of how

to go. there's huge opportunities it is a very free society still the freest world. government has fairly limited capacity to coerce corporate business may try to coerce but there are mechanisms. so there's a lot to be done if people organize struggle for the right system if done in the past and can win many victories. close friend for many years later howard zinn. to put it in his words that what matters is the countless small deeds of unknown people who lay the basis for the significant events that enter history.

they're the ones who got things in the 1st. future.

do. you. lou.

luke. big. big. tiger has. to. do in. the room. albert einstein is often credited with defining insanity as doing the same thing

over and over again and expecting a different result this is essentially the argument behind the trumpet ministrations deal of the century aimed at putting an end to the israeli palestinian conflict. is the american president indeed insane or a genius breaking with decades of fruitless mediation. buff and finding another one of the highest amount of sway or both. ballack itself nordic to. close in this way got to dog through hard luck the faith in the mother decide this moment then walk up to a power and open this door open if. this is the only thing that we do is music because everybody fights his own way.

to. the floor luke and the fee was out of his will to see what it called the ability to pick it up. but i think it is this is the funds that is all come food stuffs. trade and investment to become bills to development. most people think about trade they think about goods and services being exchanged between countries and the investor chapter of a trade agreement is about something very different but what one investment leads to toxic manufacturing that destroys sacred sites all the environment. that means local communities that are being poisoned with

a object if they do anything that the company feels is interrupting their profits they can be sued. the nationals are taking on the whole nation philip morris is trying to use i.s.t.'s to stop tour of the way from implementing new tobacco regulations aimed at cutting domestic smoking rates a french company sued egypt because egypt resists minimum wage and democratic choice of a trump. joint says we try to find one of the 2. who

. was not. the president of the palestinian authority suspends all ties with the united states and israel in response to donald trump the middle east plan described by palestinians as the slab of. century also ahead. after 47 years in the united kingdom marks an historic day cutting ties with the u.s. brags that officially comes into effect but the road ahead for britain is still unclear . and a sweeping new study by academics at cambridge university finds that discontent about democracy in developed countries is at its highest level in 25 years with

american citizens among the least.