our lie with the people this case demonstrates that struggle is very real ways of struggle. armenia and azerbaijan conflicts deepens over the disputed region of. art he will continue to bring you exclusives and all the latest over the weekend. u.s. president donald trump is that moved to a military hospital after testing positive for corona virus the white house says it is just a precautionary move. and the french leader unveils a plan to counter islamist separatism through a new law defending secular 'd values. as your headlines from all those stories you can head to our team dot com right now we've got more great programming coming away right here on our 2 international.

3 years ago this week you and i met tom hartman pass me the baton and i became your big picture host and on that very 1st show we asked are we really that angry our guests were steve malzberg now your outspoken in the press host here on r t america and michael harrison publisher of talkers magazine the trade publication of talk radio and podcasters and bloggers and michael himself is a talker he hosts the michael harrison rap f.m. in washington d.c. and other stations across the usa and as we conduct. this conversation i want to

define terms in this context when we say talk radio we're talking about the format caricature we're not talking about public radio we're not talking about sports talk we're not talking about our pal dave grave line who comes on once in a while who talks tech on radio the ask the expert show we're talking about political talk radio and michael that said is talk radio 1st and foremost entertainment. what a question it depends on the mood of the host and it depends on how they defend their position when they get into trouble they say it's entertainment when they try to show how important they are and how influential they are they say the talk radio is a very important part of the national conversation and it influences policy i'm starting to think though that almost every form of media today that comes into the category

of commercial is as much entertainment as it is educational informative and journalistic so it's kind of a great question for these times and it depends on what day and who you're asking. you know the key word there is commercial because it's a moment to moment to moment attention game so that they get to have your watch or listen to as many commercials as possible and as you and i have been clocking this over the years historically conservative political talk radio has done best when they are the party not in the white house rush limbaugh hit his stride during the bill clinton administration had to abide the iraq fiasco and everything else for 8 years then had a hey day under president obama and like everything else the pattern changed when president trump got to the white house michel which will be more opportune in the

next 4 years for political talk radio 4 more years or president joe biden and vice president come along harris. i don't know if the defense vs off fence argument applies anymore because everybody seems to be on often it's so whether your party is in power or your party is not in power you just simply act as though you're not in power an effort trumps an entire defense has been the major part of how people present him you don't hear people talking about how wonderful his programs are his policies you can you hear constant defense of the president by the conservatives as if he were under assault by an evil world and deep state the media everybody's against him so i don't know whether the op anstey fence thing works anymore everybody is just blasting everybody else

it seems that everybody is in pursuit of victory as opposed to truth as a matter of fact i think the truth is being trampled on in the quest for victory these days i think that talk radio conservative news talk radio and again since we're doing definitions most of commercial talk radio today is conservative most of it is overwhelmingly so i think that it will do well with either biden heris or trump and pence because the contest will remain extremely heated after this election no matter which way it goes. yeah heat as opposed to light and no matter what has happened you follow president trump's approval ratings they pretty much hold steady at about 45 percent the recent passing of justice ruth bader ginsburg prompted yet more predictions that this will change everything yet nothing seems to michael when you were here in june i remember you talked about opinion media doing

your words what you called their daily dance of affirmation meaning preaching to the choir if a force as overwhelming as a global health pandemic can't bring us together can anything or are we as a culture just doomed to disagree. it's going to take an asteroid or a comet so for us to really come together at this point everything has been politicized and the fact that you're asking this question is an existential problem for our democracy for the future of the united states of america because you know the marketplace of ideas and mutual discussion and respect loyal opposition there's a term the oil opposition this is all part of free speech and part of a democracy but when everybody is absolutely shut down and the other side is

demonized and we can't agree on a basic set of facts that define reality i'd say that that's the biggest problem facing us right now i used to say the biggest problems going into the 21st century are clean water privacy and having enough time to live your life now it's living in the insanity of what we call alternative facts and that i think is a problem so the question i don't have the answer to it but i do know the fact that you're asking that legitimate question at this time is indicative of the the danger that our society is in at the moment. yeah if we can't agree on what is what are the facts our society is fraught and we now welcome a new player to the cable news arena who is trying a novel concept just report the news rather than telling me how to feel about the

news in prime time w.g. and america's news nation is playing it right down the middle not an arched brow on the set steve molls bird has already weighed in on this new show michael do you think this concept can click or after smartphones deliver us information in its raw form all day and having become accustomed to hearing our version of reality will just playing it straight seem quaint to t.v. viewers it might seem quaint that's a good that's a good question. look most every medium every platform is really targeted to a fraction of the pie we don't have walter cronkite we don't have milton berle we don't have the ed sullivan show mass media doesn't exist anymore so if in fact people that want that type of objective journalism find that new

channel to be appealing they may have an audience that's has enough of a critical mass in terms of numbers for them to have a place in the game but you know it's going to be a tough tough cut say the least because people are geared toward wanting that daily dance of affirmation that we discussed earlier. yeah and the arena itself is getting crowded soon shepard smith comes back on the air to do a primetime news cast for c.n.n. b c and he's vowing to play it down the middle too so i think it's an interesting story to watch but in terms of what's happening and to your ear listening to talk radio let me give you a 2 part question which topics do you think are being beat to death and which topics are being under discussed lately. i think the left versus right paradigm that has defined the conversation is

a topic unto itself and i think that's being beaten to death i think the the idea that there is no middle ground and you said earlier certain people are going to play it down the middle that's if we can agree on what the middle even is the middle is not safe people get angry at you if you don't take their position if you just say hey come on guys let's get along let's be fair oh you're a fascist up you're a liberal you're a marxist in other words if you're not with us you're against us so the middle is a dangerous place to be it's not the safe place so i don't know whether or not. we're ever going to be able to find common ground at least in this era book you never know what's going to happen and a new new story a new problem a new issue maybe the earth will go through magic pixie dust out there in the galaxy and will suddenly have a change but right now i think things are going to basically be the same. yeah i

think you're right about the asteroid if a pandemic won't do it what will it taking everything into consideration after this asterisk year of 2020 where life turned upside down what do you think will be the sociological impact going forward of everything we have just discussed and this new normal which clearly is neither what do we what do we have to look forward to. i think them that we have one of 2 futures and i haven't fully decided which one it's going to be because eventually this will pass and i am believe it or not i sounded very negative and actually ultimately optimistic that everything is going to be ok and will be on to new problems that being said i think we are either going to enter a period of extreme in formality where we're used to just not getting dressed up anymore to go to work just general in formality having been a home for so much and dealing through technology or that pendulum is going to go

in the opposite direction and we're going to have a very very formal dress see. complex culture where we're all showing off and dancing for each other one or the other is going to happen what i do think that we've all learned in this year of 2020 and it's going to have a cultural impact is that we are not safe it is not written in stone that our lifestyle is an entitlement that this is the way the world is supposed to operate that we're supposed to live a certain way and that this is coming to us i think we all sort of gotten a little taste of how fragile our society and how fragile our existence on this planet is and i think there will be a degree of humility that will manifest itself in everything we do going forward. that's very thoughtful and i've been thinking the same thing since everything shut down in march how much we took for granted we could go out to dinner and a movie we could go to a red sox game and the red sox are still on t.v.

but i don't know the players and i get cardboard people in the seats and fake crowd noise stay tuned to talkers magazine publisher michael harrison talkers dot com thank you again for stepping into the big picture on my anniversary it's good to have you back. congratulations and thank you all and. come out up in the past 15 years the world has lost 2 thirds of its wildlife are we next is the big picture on our to america.

the entrepreneurs' to our developers like trump such but every day take risk of their risking that these properties kids blow up enough they worth anything of value and that's what entrepreneurs do and they get taxed the government gives them

tax incentives to be entrepreneurial to be property developers that's what those tax incentives are for to encourage entrepreneurs to go create millions of jobs by being property developers. in the last 50 years the world has lost 2 thirds of its wildlife according to disturbing living planet report 2020 bending the curve of biodiversity loss from the world wildlife fund it details why and how we must rebalance our relationship with the planet to preserve the earth's amazing diversity of life and enable just healthy and prosperous society and ultimately

to ensure our own survival what happens if we don't let's ask the author of a stack of books including save nature now dr reece halter is a distinguished conservation biologist an award winning scientist and author reese welcome back to the big picture. good to be with you all and this report is not just an obituary for honey bees and polar bears when it talks about humans health it calls covert 19 a clear manifestation of our broken relationship with nature which highlights the deep interconnection between the health of both people and the planet reese connect the dots for us from industry and agriculture and paving parking lots and everything we've done to earth. the coronavirus are we less emunah

now as a result of all this quote unquote progress. yeah you know to try to put it in perspective it's a challenge that's for sure look there's a couple of 1000000 named species the fact is that we depend on everything around us the un gave us a stark wake up a year ago a 1000000 of half of everything we have names is in dire shape hundreds of thousands of those are in in harm's way for extinction in the coming decades that is that is the most frightening thing that i've ever read let me. paint the brush a little whiter. the increased looting by organized crime of our forests the urban crowding and these alive wildlife

markets have thrown into the light the environmental degradation and it is whole and it is the key driver to the emergence of new diseases we have entered accidentally the age of pandemics and in the coming years where where we will be faced with awful diseases similar and possibly worse than a cold that night team. race which continents and regions are trashed the most. hard dear planet everything hall and everything the oceans the oceans make up 99 percent of the living biosphere there done the even the antarctic is covered in plastics the forests are alight everywhere on all continents

a stroll you just went through its worst fire. epic ever. the amazon is burning the russia is burning the arctic is burning california is burning oregon's burning this is we've entered the age of fire so it really is no it's our relationship it is the insatiable consumption of more and here's the thing going to the web to your sat so you're going to go buy something that's that's going to make you happy how long's that last movement couple of minutes digs into your pocket all and go for a walk you put a lot of face basket go for a walk how good treat actually it jacks your immune system up and makes you feel better. living as i do here in coastal know and i wince when you talk about plastic in the ocean all of this plastic that's washing up on our usa west coast where does

that come from. it's all land based and the pacific island is giant enormous 570000000 square miles twice the size of texas the weight is approximately 43000 automobiles and were adding millions upon millions of pieces every day it is absolutely incumbent to refuse plastics plastics or petroleum based plastics make up 12000000 barrels every day and the powers that be are trying to jack that up to 18000000 barrels a day for plastics are not going to happen. right but but who are the litterbugs is this coming from the philippines or vietnam or where. united states of america is the biggest consumer on planet earth 330000000 insatiable consumers look no

farther than us but it we live in a global village everyone is using the sewers a shock to stow 55 years ago said that this we treat the oceans like a sewer and they are sewers not just with plastics hauling plastics are the perfect sponges for approximately infinite number of manmade chemicals horrible chemicals we're adding 12000 new synthetic chemicals every day to the chemical registry many of them are forever chemicals and you are what you eat and what your intestines absorb right. sure and the that's what they finally cut open these fish were speaking with dr reese halter and this report where via referenced tells us that the number of documented plant extinctions is twice as many as for mammals birds and amphibians combined and most of these plants are in the tropics reese how does that affect us here in north america. well as they say we live on

a global village and what happens to. the tropical forests directly affects us they are climate makers both regionally continentally and intercontinental it turns out that these glorious forests the old growth forest 2nd only to the ocean in their ability to make climate above them are torrents airborne torrents rivers of moisture we all depend upon it so when the little pieces of the forest are all destroyed not only are bread sorted sister in the animals homeless but everyone loses and here in america we're chopping up our old growth forests as fast as captains billie's whiz bang it to make pallets wooden pallets that are going to europe that are being burned for heat and by the way the pair's agreement has got one thing shockingly wrong when we burn wood it releases at least 13

percent more greenhouse gases than coal we're cooking our planet and we're eating our ancient forests that are our children's legacy and the vanguards of the land we eat them all and desperately. when we hear the term wildlife we tend to think of critters birds etc but the soil beneath us is alive and not all bugs are pests correct. or absolutely this soil is our best friend it's the skin of the earth one of the most intriguing things interesting lee as we move from the tropics to the north pole the bio diversity in the soil takes off the great plains grasslands is one of the greatest treasures on earth not only from a biologic and so more means better in biology more diversity. you strengths but

it's not just the facto the numbers though the soil stores carbon and the soil is is what we eat from and eat it is so invaluable to be protected but here's the caveat in a manmade global heating world's this soils as it's warming up there huffing and puffing they're breathing harder and they're exhaling more carbon dioxide just like everything on planet earth they're having a tough time and we you know to protect our soils is absolutely vital big a green hammering the soils the organic farmers are putting it back together if you waste if you waste if you got plant matter from your from yours kitchen put it back on the earth feed this soils holland yeah. we're discussing the living planet

report 2020 bending the curve of biodiversity loss from the world wildlife fund it's a free download and living planet panda dot org and it's not all bad news this report recommends something that we have heard about during the pandemic bending the curve and it rhetoric amends a recovery trajectory for biodiversity and habitat that conservation recent down to just about a minute but what can people watching us do as consumers we know enough not to buy plastic straws give us about 30 to 60 seconds of what somebody watching can do to save this planet we populate. ok firstly please refuse plastic bags we're making 1000000 every minute with a longevity working life of 15 minutes max refuse the banks the single biggest

thing that each of us can do right now to fight global eating this very 2nd switch to a plant based diet it's water smart it's animal friendly and here's the raw pollen it's super healthy the most important thing we all have is our health and once you lose it if you've lost it you know you'd give anything to get it back animal agriculture and the forestation are contributing over 51 percent of all these manmade greenhouse gases it's up to each of us right this 2nd to lend a helping hand easy peasey it's not an all or nothing pick your bait your favorite meal only have it once a week dial it back to once a month and just get amongst the fruit and the cereals and the veggies and the seeds it's the way it's the only way that billions of people will be able to move forward in the coming decades. and this time of year here in new england we soon be

a pumpkins at the farm stand it's a great place to go shopping as opposed to buying your produce which has been trucked for miles away because you didn't run the truck or a grease yeah go local all and all our farm it's help our local people yeah. you 'd know back a doctor resultor long time no see not so long next time thanks again for stepping into the big picture and thank you for watching the big picture we're going to be back same time next week with another show we know you will find of interest but if the time is inconvenient said your d.v.r. direct t.v. you were channel 3 to one dish we are 280 and if you have cut the cord congratulations please allow us to put a little t.v. in your pocket when you download our portable t.v. yeah it's free from google play and then the app store and you won't believe how

much stuff is there i'm holland cook sticken close to home in rhode island hope your planet safe to. question more.

become a battleground in the u.s. . people are demanding the shutdown of a local plant. is right now my focus because it's a very dangerous. oh no clare powerplant the owner is attempting to run the real beyond its operational limits this case just sort of puts a magnifying glass on where's the power in this country where's it going is it moving more towards corporate interests who or is it more in the idea of a traditional participatory democracy is your power lie with the people this case demonstrates that the struggle is very real way. a struggle.

max kaiser this is the kaiser report well we've got another scandal or is it a scandal i'm not sure sure it is a scandal could be a big nothing burger not sure people say that anymore about it that's like qualifies as a nothing burger i think stacy well once again kaiser report was right we were right 4 years ago on this whole tax story regarding trump's tax returns but i want to say you know this fits in this with the theme that we've been covering here and on orange tell pod cast every sunday which is that the the real world out in the real world outside of the beltway outside of california silicon valley washington d.c. new york manhattan like outside of those locations the world is actually pretty fine and people are not hysterical and it is not as hysterical as what you might see on the cable news where it is all entertainment this is glenn.