professor of european law francesco that is due to thank you all very much indeed. for a look at all our stories this hour can be found on our website lots more content there as well to keep you entertained and informed this whedon's they goodbye for naught. now imagine a time say we're going underground as the u.k. economy let alone its capacity to access food and medicine arguably hangs in the balance as another round of bricks of negotiations with the e.u. may conclude and after the european union imposes further sanctions on russia over an alleged cyber attack on germany's bundestag coming up on the show cuba venezuela iran syria the un's new up which iran sanctions professor elena do hun tells going

underground what major nations sanctions are doing to the world's most vulnerable even after secretary general enjoy new terror as called for an end to weaponize in economics during a global pandemic and with nearly $40000000.00 americans relying on food stamps before the coronavirus outbreak in the early 8000000 more americans in poverty since may how will president donald trump and rival democrat joe biden weaponize crass to make a last ditch appeals in the race to win the white house we examine the sinking middle class and why prosperity for all may dictate that it needs to sink all of the more coming up in today's going underground and 1st while the richest countries in the world gets hit hardest by coronavirus they civil tenuously damaging the global response to the pandemic in poorer nations u.n. secretary general and tony good terrorise called for the easing of sanctions to help the world's most vulnerable instead the u.s. and e.u. are ramping up sanctions in a global punishment regime opposed by nature nations sanctioned china russia or in

schools of other countries seeking a mitigation of economic warfare during coded joining me now from geneva is the un's new special on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights professor elena do hon thank you so much alina for coming on i just have to ask you firstly about the contribution of your predecessor. was who came on this show to talk about the pitfalls and the humanitarian disasters that are created by sanctions. what do you say about his contribution. well. thank you for inviting me here and there before me that he asked to meet your despair so he would. present at least very complicated. to me. to meet functional he's so i made sure of his shoulders.

to move to protect human rights and be parishioner relates to. my rat race now you know that the country i speaking to you from britain imposes sanctions on same venezuela or it recognizes a different president britain also sanctions north korea there are u.s. sanctions being imposed on different countries what why has the un secretary general said that coronavirus should mean a lessening of sanctions anyway. indeed just on sanctions and the different purposes also and it's going to need to protect human rights in the numbers and this seems crime be here really if you know it's also mentioned in europe especially when it was it will be sectoral sanctions are already answered economic sanctions and the chief minister of number of syrian euro and in particular interests ultimately was ringback easter interests might humanitarian matter grieve

. different sorts of terrorists not so be population anti muslim nation no please just not you're not a good person and that's why he takes into account that now and. the part how not only math and math. he had no possibility. of the house and contents of the 1st. b. i know what a charity. and he had not was admitted to using it was just pretty sure to get him and that's why he not only made a special room it's be your when i commission on human rights in the us and. share our. thoughts of peace so ringback please i'd really like you you know it's our actions especially. if sanctions are not on the body to see that human

rights mean right into my nation writes a letter for him and the image of syria and there is no interim skin others are said there was no chemical attack on. the syrian people by the assad government but the british government says they were that's why they bombed it you presume radio one of them bombing syria that's why britain has sanctions on syria and also britain says we give lots of aid to the vulnerable in syria while we sanction the syrian gov. and i'm. just 2 different aspects up occasional suctioned the best commissioner chosen. live right it's there it's out of them and their actual live lives as a result of not most of that it's a guess of your many turned 80 and well that's an. irony that's no me nervous it's a human rights let's have a conscience and well i want to hear your cancer early human rights including their

rights and our rights a right to any right to access to information and parents alike but i didn't you did your actions as well but must be around the humanitarian agency momentary. and. i have every advert every single actor so right here and there. is the system it's not sufficient. i'm going to be there man i'm a few minutes ago you should ensure well rounded well it's not complicated to get a license. and stassen and sometimes it's impossible to get it done and. it's money time to get it in the interview meter. as you see below right and i think that this humanitarian is not so i don't really need your names i'm a euro. to the united states have imposed sanctions or will last 18 not

scream us a nice to your on your back. yet have no possibility of sobriety many challenges us nansen be yet here. and there was a high representative of the european union has reported that for example yet yet again companies so. massive got one. and grace formerly well being no unitarian church he's. actually just on a practical man. what advice would you give to countries and presumably you applaud the e 3 u.k. france and germany for not following up on the sanctions what do you say to a company that may want to do business with one of these countries and may be subjected to 3rd party sanctions what are they supposed to do it may have a contribution to health care or. indirectly what are they supposed to do should they just not do the business or risk the body sanctions from washington and probably speak from the purpose to protect human rights and. germany's business to

grant you the basic needs of people. and say that it's a team season of your legs aren't. here well being action. a reason the doorway rumpel even it's very big to deem the. rights human rights not less than sanctions. even to the majority of companies here. on the nontransparent not sure that the sanctions. are not yet any. reason and companies sanctions these really i. don't really mind sanctions 1st and 2nd even the group. has consulted humanitarian because that is something very transparent very pretty and. nice and one of

the nature not. actions any ground on. its own through the majority of sanctions here like to. well if if sanctions are so destructive as you say and as the u.n. secretary general says why is it the apparently countries like iran russia china they're all sanctioned they appear to be doing better in terms of coronavirus death rates than the countries imposing the sanctions britain has regard say syria and the united states and then national negated cherry pecans mentioned for example like the china and russia of europe and share. the brunt of. these people was not here and it seems i'm not. now you're you still got. the nice yeah you're on. your nerves i'll give you another example.

yeah iggy and i'll do the you know the position and actions so when i d t. b i'm not able to. answer the for example you story and if you do not mean that if it's a ground of people and do your duty you're i'd be in the have no idea. that this isn't yes you're. on the ground in mind for example here if you ask me cannot possibly myself. or one if it's a robertson insulates there is. evidence this concern you me challenge you but even from this i give you money. this i believe who gets to see that the sanctions countries and other sentient countries and and he messed around about not you not. an issue that is much more up ok i just had the russia was

sanctions the u.s. as well in that some levels is it credible what president maduro sad about the e.u. sanctions british sanctions american sanctions on men is one of the. sanctions may have killed 40000 people the retired u.n. reportorial for disaster their crimes against humanity that britain does not recognize the government of venezuela has just lost a case actually about gold in the bank of england 40000 killed by sanctions is a possible not to tell the truth and not careful and usually comes about. in the very pipe that the disparate beast but i respect 'd it i usually try to correct myself and not in front sanction countries function. engineer. rights of civil society that's what i'm sure. yes.

be serious as. you know is surely that's a humanitarian you know reach or even knew almost to the situation since the jury in the. president and i believe you are already decided because really going to be your original sanctions underline because. syria. and he did not meet people. and of as regards iran it's not only problems over medical supplies during covert it's also about media well and steve martin media earlier than we could ever imagine is imagine bill you title sanctions cyber sentients and it cost to you and the problem is much of the group is very you're not you're adding i mean to us and how will it. be met no you can't call it and it's really us. in the us and there. and

this seems your financial. news actions. it is your i'm not in any immediate company so it's of your to. me yami. intervention into. an action so isn't that fair enough. just finally the famous cuba military blockade has been opposed by more or less every nation except israel of the united states at succeeding un general assembly he written a letter or made a statement urging the us to lift sanctions on cuba have you had a reply and question special thank you. and. after the break with 54000000 americans reportedly set to go hungry join the coronavirus pandemic does the middle class the trump and biden the trying to appeal

to actually need to sink to create a better world all the more coming up in part 2 of going on the ground. elderly forward to talking to you all. that technology should work for people. i robot must obey the orders given by human beings except when such a conflict with the 1st law. or should be very careful about official intelligence and the point is to create trust. on various shots and with artificial intelligence will summon the demon. the obama must protect its own existence as.

you know we dealing with a global pandemic in. viral type infecting people causing chaos and mayhem but that small change compared to the mind virus bit coy. welcome back 54000000 people in the united states may go hungry because of the trauma government's response to the coronavirus pandemic according to the country's largest hunger relief organization feeding america that 17000000 more since the start of the growing a virus outbreak that comes forward to eat now the so-called riches president in history trump and democrat big business ally joe biden. constantly appealed to the middle class for votes have just one week to win over those that have arguably been left behind joining me now from lawrence in kansas is professor david rohde author

of the sinking middle class political history david welcome to you going underground people watching all around the world know about how rich the united states is they see the glamorous images of middle class america arguably who are the middle class in the title of your book the sinking middle class. well depending on whom you're talking to it's either of 40 percent or 96 percent of the u.s. population politicians in particular want to claim that higher figure and regard this is a group that they can talk to in an undifferentiated mass and if they can win this 96 percent obviously they win the election i think the middle class is bound to be an amorphous term because it doesn't like the working class to find a really material position in the world it's it's a subjective position in the world that traditionally has been around categories of

entrepreneurship white collar labor sales labor middle management those give us the bulk of the of the u.s. middle class at least in the 20th and 21st centuries but you can see in just naming those categories that they don't really fit together in any particular way or have a common set of interests to see right mills's book white collar the best us book on the middle class it when you get to subtitle it says the middle classes and right at the end of the book he says well there's really no such thing as you know i was ok well the term the term working class the idea that we have to work to be able to pay the rent that you explore also in the book but if we can just blame biden and trump for exploiting this ridiculously inclusive term you say that the majority of americans self identify as middle class and you also say that to an extent there's an element there of not being black. yes

a. little bit depends how the question is asked and that self identification one if working class is given as a choice it splits more evenly right down the middle but that still leaves you 25 percent of the population of working class jobs and consider themselves middle class and race has a great deal to do with that in the united states when we say middle class we don't have to say white middle class but that's what the politicians mean and to some extent that's what the citizens mean when they say middle class because if it's a fake term that is used by power which i think this book does suggest one i don't know it may horrify some people element in the book is where you say there's an element of it the term middle class being a cold war construct. yes saved it was no accident i think there when richard nixon wanted to debate the soviets about the superiority of the u.s. system he contrived to have that debate take place in a model u.s.

kitchen and everybody understood that that signified a middle class home and signify this stay at home at that time a stay at home housewife all achievements of nixon would have said free enterprise of the. capitalist system in the united states in the debates start to aggrandize that system as against the as against socialism and i think there was a tremendous buy in it's really in the cold war that you get massive use of the term middle class in us media in us academia known to be clear where all a bit confused about it those in power like bailed out banks like citicorp or citi group you say in the book in 2011 they've established there's no middle class there's just rich the rich and the rest of us those in power do realize something that the masses don't let alone journalist. yes i think that's right and his it it

a little bit to use the old marxist term false consciousness to describe what we're saddled with in the majority of the population i think that there are for historical reasons there are these miseries associated with middle class life and so people who identify as middle class are not only identifying with a common set of accomplishments and privileges but also with a common sense of intense anxiety they're going to sink and that and these are that they're miserable even before they sink and this has to do with debt and the way that white collar labor is managed in particular the personalities of white collar workers managed not just in the united states but i think to extend the world one of the things it's surprised me about the reception of this book and your show as an example is how much this is been this resonates in india for example and it

resonates in the u.k. including in the u.k. . a fear that middle class identity and right wing. politics coincide well don't trump often in his campaign speeches now uses a phrase the c word and of course many sun does use vs what socialism nomi how there are echoes there are actual echoes of this problem with the term middle class and the term socialism and communism yeah imagine mox you mention and why it is it's called a communist manifesto. yeah yeah and in the way back. coming is in was used to describe a working class classless society the campaign for the working class campaign and socialism was considered at that time a middle class movement so if you think about for example utopian socialists

communal experience experiments marx and engels would have said those were both socialist and middle class and so they needed the word communist in order to differentiate themselves from that by the end of engels his life he's kind of triumphant in saying we've taken the word socialism back and he's no longer so concerned to differentiate between a communist manifesto and a socialist manifest you know ok i don't know what bernie sanders will make make it valid but you do say in the book that there is a precedence in moxa who saw that the lower middle class small trades people shopkeepers they just sink into the proletariat anyway. yes and the title comes from orwell who george orwell also kind of played with that idea of sinking in that the sinking might not be such a bad thing. marx is often accused of not getting the middle class in marxism is

a tradition is accused of missing the point the middle class was going to be so resilient and. powerful into the 20th and 21st centuries i don't think you got that wrong at all the middle classes that he was talking about that is free farmers and shot as specially shopkeepers in cities did suffer a lot under industrial capitalism and did become a much much smaller share of the population particularly in the us where marx maybe . got it wrong was he predicted that there'd be such a powerful magnetic working class movement that would go from one success to another that middle class people as they fell would naturally be attracted to that movement and therefore become socialists well i do have to say that given that where again and again hearing this middle class term from joe biden's camp and from dull terms term. his campaign you talk

a little bit about how the cultural ideas of the middle class now embedded in the imagination of the militias death of a salesman i think biden and trump recognize that when they're shouting out how they're going to help. people middle class people know i think one of the things that we've lost is this not only from the left and much of the best scholarship on the middle class does come from the left from germany to the united states and in britain as as well. we've also lost it in kind of mainstream cultural criticism even into the early cold war mainstream sociologist who wrote a survey books about the united states and of identified new. class and middle brow and thought this was a. social formation was oh the empty and. without culture and also miserable and we've lost that i mean at least at the political level. middle class is simply something to be defended it's

a perch it's not apparel and when you talk about misery is that related to this a bipolar kind of world you describe had an ism and asceticism the something at the core of being middle class that makes the miserable yeah i think this is dim depends on that mass middle class identification with both. overspending and over working and being willing to be managed in a very close ways to take a drug test to have a 5th of your performance evaluation be on how happy you seem every work all of those things kind of seep into the into the culture and get taken for granted after a time i mean over here labor did have a about the socialist leader jeremy corbett he's being replaced by sickest ominous as patriotism flags we need the white working class you say in this book there's

a misunderstanding of this term white working class in fact it's not a good time at all. it's in the united states the aggrandizement of the middle class in politics which really began with bill clinton's campaign. kind of deliberately confuse the terms white working class and middle class so when you were wanting to talk. maybe to a trade union audience in the united states you talk about the white working class and if you were on t.v. for everybody you would you would talk about the middle class and in the last years the last 4 years since trump's election this term white working class. has really really strongly resurfaced in certain quarters and by then it was a leader of that research. surfacing of the term white working class i think it's both usages middle class and white working class and

saying that they're going to pay attention to these groups and not really develop any kind of a program that would address the plight of working people once you say white working class and i'm going to pay attention to the white working class you always as a politician have the option to simply pay attention to them as y. and to promise them to hold back on racial justice. issues to be tougher on crime to lower taxes to kind of indulge in all these code words and dog whistles that have been so much a part of us all objects for 40 years now yeah use african-americans off as likely to self identify as middle class whoever wins whether it's biden or trump though do you think that we should allow the maybe the middle class themselves to say basically i would love to see the term sink. it pains me a lot that our trade unions even fight campaigns now in the name of defending the

middle class instead of defending working people and that's bad on class grounds but it also is bad on the grounds of racial justice because everybody assumes that it's this. prototypical white suburb that's being appealed to when we say the middle class and is being appealed to in its worst possible instincts toward differentiating it so from black people professor david wright a thank you and that's it for the show will be back on saturday he has a day since the u.k. was promised a halloween bricks that no ifs or buts according to prime minister morris johnson but it was then delayed triggering the transition phase which is set to end of this new year's eve possibly with no trade deal with the european union until then catch all our interviews are you tube channel and don't forget to join the underground by following us on twitter facebook instagram and sad.

not only speaking the role of the media is to inform the public this mission is now on hold large parts of the media landscape particularly big didley intervene to determine what the public can know and. that is controlled speech police freedom of speech.

breaking news this hour. nationwide. rapidly rising. to the with a week before america goes to the polls twitter facebook and google faced by republican senators in congress over their. platform. we have. racial tensions spike in the united states just days before the.