i'm ashen or thought you were going underground for another lot then addition of the u.s. president joe biden's 1.9 trillion dollar code relief bill was hailed by centrist democrats as a big coronavirus achievement in the country with the west death toll in the world could be one multibillion dollar business that has weathered coronavirus well has been drugs and will be directing stones met to e.b. about his new book the business secrets of drug dealing later in the show but 1st we knew joe biden was for fracking but did we know how much he would support fossil fuel pipelines as violence demonstrations continue against the $8000000000.00 lying 3 project in minnesota let's go straight to philadelphia to speak to the sunrise movements john paul may have thanks so much a.p. for coming on what on earth is is going on i thought everyone loved joe biden for counseling keystone x.l.

right now really battling with what it is that joe biden was elected on we know that you for voter turnout and voters of color came out and you stuart rose this year to give joe biden and calmly harris the big 3 on their ticket and the reason that they she mounted is because they were electing these leaders on all of the mandate for action on climate in the economy and our group sunrise movement had a huge influence on joe biden's climate plan introducing things like i just transition and making all of the deadlines for g. carbonation way more ambitious than they 1st were part of another key element that we introduced into these plans was the aspect of climate justice and holding indigenous sovereignty in the process of dealing with climate change and we know that at this moment there are not be any new fossil fuel developments and more so fossil fuel developments that are on just we know that the keystone x.l. pipeline the dakota axe. pipeline and line 3 in minnesota are all encroaching upon

indigenous rights and we would hate to see joe biden go back to his campaign promises of not holding indigenous soccer teach and we are closely allied with our movement partners and water protectors defending these indigenous lands online. as been a lot of violence a lot of arrests there but enbridge says it will create fewer disruptions to latin landowners and the environment and this isn't a bomb a year a project supposed to help the environment so its supporters say. right and i think that when we talk about the authority to say such things we really shouldn't be concentrating on a corporation but rather the people who have stewarded and own this land 1st and trees those are the voices that we should be listening to and given the protests and actions that are happening right now allow around line 3 we should really really hone in on the authority of indigenous peoples on this land and listen less

to the profits of a corporation what is it exactly it they're protesting in minnesota that's where the violence is that's where the allegations of human sex trafficking for for work has involved the project continuing what is it because it goes all the way to alberta canada through wisconsin you know it's really critical right now that our country puts forward policies to counteract all of these violent developments that are being pushed for i profiteering wishes of corporations and it is safe to say that that means denying or receiving permits for all of these pipelines including line 3 all oil and gas pollutes communities period all pipelines leak that's why this one is being built because they have a dilapidated old one that they're looking to do nothing with and it's not know where the oil comes from or the mode of transportation we should be building juve's

and pipelines in order to transport clean water to communities not to break the record shattering oil production and create profits for a few people so it is crystal clear the moral integrity with which we should be looking at the developments of line 3 right now and really hold joe biden's speech of a fire and all the promises that were made and we're out to stand with our indigenous allies in that fight well as i say obama when when joe biden as vice president said this is a project that will ensure a repeat of the worst ever in the. an oil disaster doesn't happen again and when it comes to biden why would he listen to you when he got $1000000.00 in donations from fossil fuel fund is i mean i am going to leverage bernie sanders support for the d.n.c. you know what i would buy them this. well i think it's crucial you go after to why biden was elected i mean it was never the dream candidate of young people or

people of color he has to say the least dubious record on the aspect of racial justice and many issues that are controversial in his presidency now. biden actually and his team made the call to us to step up his climate plan and that's what we were ready to do we knew that the ball was in our court to really end the reign of trump which was violent upon the environment and other people and the reason joe biden has to listen to us is because we are the majority in this country he was elected on a populist mandate 1st strong action and the delivery of a more people center economy and the opposite is what these developments are right now he is giving much more leverage to corporations private and the people on the ground who are demanding better and if by wants to keep legitimacy not only to his presidency by his party in the 2022 elections he's going to need to keep the

support of young people and voters of color and this would not be a good sign of how to do that i mean the people around the world will wonder because they'll think why did biden bomb syria i mean that can be environmentally friendly that. that countries with missiles. absolutely not and you know the big point here is that when we talk about climate change we're also talking about foreign relations and if joe biden truly wants the age of oil to be over in for us to recover in 3 way that centers our economies in a more just an equitable and sustainable way then the age of oil and the end of it also has to come with the end of interventions in the middle east and the united states longstanding militarism abroad and that's not something that we're going to make concessions on so it's absolutely deplorable that if for delivering on the mandate that he promised to young people and people of color in this country and

deliver those $2000.00 check to everything else but he was more concerned with intervening and dropping bombs on the syrian people and that's something that our movement is completely against as well but then why have we had so that'll from the so-called ward even in congress i don't see many tweets from a o c about the need not to move for a while balm and of countries under a bi administration that alone i don't see that much action on all these pipelines in the fracking in fantasy with what's for fracking in the primaries the key point there is that our movement never depends on the leverage power of a few people that we call allies within congress the voices and the statements that are produced by certain officials coming from the mast and the massive popular demands of movement so i think what's going on in the ground right now and what i'm

actually really looking forward to in this age is that unlike the complacency that came from the general public with obama i think people have more of their eyes on biden and not only more of their eyes just on the things that he's doing wrong but also. the folks and the people in congress like our sons' movement allies that have the ability to curtail all of our wrongdoing so we really have to speak used to power in our movements and that's what we have been doing for the past 4 years that's what we will continue to be doing and make sure that those who we consider allies in congress do call out the the violent nature of us politics that can ensue if we keep governing business as usual but i think that's a great that's a great point that you raise i mean i don't want to sound cynical but i mean enbridge embers spent $11000000.00 lobbying in minnesota as regards the pipeline that all these activists are being arrested for demonstrating at why doesn't the

sunrise movement just spend the cash instead of send the letters knock on doors and e-mails and protest on the streets it seems that the money seems to talk absolutely and i mean we've been following the money from beginning of the foundation of sunrise movement we popularized and how popular is the no fossil fuel money pledge in which we would only tire solids to certain candidates and put in the work for them if they were ready to go to bat for regular people rather than oil corporations and joe biden wasn't one of those candidates which is why we didn't. we knew that she would. at least be leverage it will more than approach fascists are who is advancing a police state from the presidency and now there's no more honeymoon for joe biden we're past that faced if he wants to pull fill the f.d.r. presidency that he promised and he's going to have to go to bat for people that

elected him the american majority rather than the small number of corporations and not the big task and it's going to have to be the responsibility of movements to change the way that joe biden has governed for his entire political career but you know you bring up the point of cynicism our society has operated from a place of cynicism for a very long time and it's easy to say that the problems that stand in our way are uphill battles right getting joe biden to govern like f.d.r. or more is going to be hard we know that we're variations are behind him this is how he's always been but what is the alternative to eat letting our families die due to the climate crisis rising seas intensifying hurricanes and being ok with that because we chose to give up we don't believe that sunrise movement and we think that if for one generation we can wage a what we call militant optimism and carry our fight to achieve what often seems impossible that's the way to go and that's the only alternative there is to convert

all of the spiraling crises that we're facing at the moment i mean i'm not sure whether they take the thunderous movements coals of the but biden would pursue definitely say he's not a pro fascist and i know federation of american scientists apparently is about the if you're reporting on $100000000000.00 on nuclear weapons upgrades are not based on science but for all that part of the budget you got your $1400.00 coronavirus money why don't you just happy with. well i think the real question here isn't about you know leveraging and compromising on really mediocre deals for the american people but delivering on what it is that they need for the last couple of months we have undergone the massive waves of. unemployment are under unfunny people are struggling right now and what they need

is at least $2000.00 not $64000.00 after and beyond that we should also talk about what is code really a 15 dollars minimum wage is code relief and that's something that biden promised and suddenly the decision of an unelected staffer a parliamentarian is going to break that promise for $32000000.00 americans absolutely not movements will not tolerate that it's about giving people what they need and in that process of rebuilding from all of the crises that were under way that we've undergone this year it's about building back better as joe biden says by he can't co-opt term of building back better if what he's doing is building back in the same ways creating the same conditions that fuel all of these crises of anomic injustice racial injustice and the climate crisis it simply won't be the case so what our movements are shaping to do or are looking forward to doing is shape the agenda build back better to fulfill the mantle that he was actually campaigning on

and there's a lot of work to be done for her as you piloted. well that's stuff that denies the $15.00 wage thing came from them although lotsa room is in the present at the moment i have the us has just finally that michael moore the great activist and oscar winning filmmaker attacked your movement of course the saying that you are already compromised advocating environmental projects that actually go do the environment any good if you actually account for what what initiatives actually mean for the environment what do you make of that criticism we're considering wynnie abilities are winning and we know that we are under outdated and unjust power structures right now and and 3 because of the way forward is going to be in household battle and sometimes movement has a really strong theory of change where our priorities are to built massive numbers of people that will support a vision for how politicians are

a little political power can actually make concrete changes so when michael moore attacks our movement not one person against almost a 100000 and we know that we have come a long wait some parents movement started only about 4 years ago and working with other movements we have undoubtedly changed climate politics in the united states it's arguable to say that without us in our movement partners the green new deal wouldn't be that talk of the nation during the primaries last year and even you know ongoing now and we've elected loads of progressive leaders into congress that are now championing bir real material gains for people j.p. thank you after the break we'll reveal the business secrets of drugs with the rolling stones award winning matt taibbi.

using the media and the biting ministration as many clear it may want to sign. on russia this is a colossal mistake we tell you what. please running the u.s. government despite really. join me every thursday on the alex salmond show and i'll be speaking to us from the world of politics sports business i'm show business i'll see you then. welcome back today mocks the international day against police brutality and as the george floyd trial that is internationalize the struggle for justice gets underway in the usa why are african-american still nearly 6 times will likely to be imprisoned than white people is the u.k. gets to grips with allegations of a racist royal family tybee award winning rolling stone journalist has just written

the business secrets of drug dealing an almost true account he joins me now from new jersey matt thanks so much for coming back on actually and as regards drugs in this country people are shocked if they watch the live oprah winfrey megamall going to be because there were prescription drugs advertised that's illegal on television here tell me about this book is a different type of drugs and drug business you're talking about in the new book. yeah i had. somebody to say i knew in a different capacity for many years as a journalist who came out to me suddenly and and just told me that he had been a drug kingpin for many years had never been caught never been arrested and wanted to tell the story of how he got into the business in the system of rules that he had developed for avoiding getting caught so this is it's kind of a fictionalized version of his life that catalogs all the different rules that he followed to avoid detection and it sort of a chandler esque account of

a drug dealer's life it's and is so funny and yet so serious when we don't condone drug dealing or the taking of illegal drugs but what are the business secrets of drug dealing. mean he so he's an african-american. dealer he had a whole series of rules never trade minutes for years was was was a big one another words when you're under pressure and you feel an urge to take an extreme action that you think might avoid detection in the moment you have to think about the long term always so don't toss a gun out of a car when you're being chased by police. he always says stay behind the white guy make sure you have somebody who is above you who they can arrest before they arrest you he's got a whole series of rules that are designed to make sure that he's insulated that he's always one step removed from being the person who gets arrested. do you think anonymous because race is such

a key feature of the whole book what do you think he would think of the george floyd trial and i know the jury selection at the moment but would he just say well you know this happens every day on the streets that i walk well i mean huge part of his whole idea about what he does for a living is based on the idea of them that the american system of justice is an inherently racist and he uses that to his advantage in fact that he has a whole system of how how you design a convoy to drive drugs across the country and what he does what he always did as he put an african-american male in the front car who was designed to look like a caricature of a drug dealer that car would always be empty but he knew he would it would always attract the attention of police because driving through certain parts of the country you do get pulled over for driving while black so the safe car would always be a couple of cars back and it was bigger by somebody else so you know race is

a powerful factor in american society it's especially powerful in the criminal justice system i've written a couple books about that and it's probably the area where we have the most unresolved questions in this country now this is kind of a convoluted question but if the police read this book they might arguably get educated about how the drug dealing goes on i mean seriously on british t.v. and probably on us t.v. when there's a big drug bust it's announces a great success for law enforcement rather than this will push up the price of drugs because a certain amount of drugs being taken out and out of the market would you think give a what do you think of your book who is the brights of drugs the rise because the police catch more people you know it's very unlikely that that will happen i think if i've talked with so many cops of there's a written a bunch of books about police brutality the fact that this book talks about those things isn't going. change the fact that the vast majority of police will continue

to make to do the same things over and over again they tend not to learn from their errors whether it's from within the system or without but why did journalists participate with the police and things like this why did they participate in gauging the sort of propaganda efforts about the war on drugs is succeeding because look we just took a ton of cocaine. but the drug war is always been a big seller in american media and it's always been a great way to sell ads to you know they're like the show cops in america was a revolutionary sort of a cinema very take a way of commercializing you know sort of street misery in america almost no other forum where you ever see poverty shown on american television but you will see it being chased by police and the drug war is has been one way that we depict the underside of america but we always depict it with authority chasing somebody that's we never depict the reality of it and draw you know drugs are it's

a sexy story for journalists i mean again we don't we don't condone drug dealing but before we get to i don't to give away what happens to your colleague and on the list but you know he goes into politics how do you think the younger enormous is on the streets today anything with drug dealing during coronavirus yeah it's difficult because one of the things that's going on now is that our world is becoming increasingly online people have very difficult time communicating with each other absent all of the you know online methods right so everybody is communicating by text or by e-mail or by zoom or whatever it is you know he uses. you know devices like you know signal and whatsapp and things like that to avoid detection because that's how you get caught the big deals in this country but they're going after even those spaces in this in this country so there's very

little that you can do or say whether you know it's a criminal activity or not that can avoid detection in america so this business is going to change the drug dealing business is going to change a lot in the near future well of course snowden showed us full spectrum surveillance but your or your friend seems to have paid. this panel think relatively easily by very simple kind of common sense ideas yeah always meet in person if you can you know if you can avoid making a phone call and never use the phone never say anything or write anything that you wouldn't be comfortable appearing on the front page of the new york times you know avoiding electronic communication is a key part of the way to avoid detection and the united states but the problem is it's increasingly difficult in the age of coronavirus to do that so. it's it's a paradox for sure. joe biden of course says his mass incarceration policies were

a mistake do you think i don't know when you sent it to the new president. you know if he'd read it and begin to understand even more why mass incarceration was not a mistake i should say it's a western soldier and it's and denise of it should in the way you certainly alan on a missed talks about presidents in the united states right yeah joe joe biden once you know he was not only the author of the crime bill and you see said some really shocking things about going after drug offenders in the past and locking people up he was in favor of bulldozing crack houses even said once that you know if there isn't a a law for it let's find the rationale that was a quote of his i was on the missing let's find the rationale to do it but you know he as with a lot of policies he seems to have had a change of heart but it's early yet distant to know exactly how how aggressively that change is going to manifest itself in reality you know by biden has always

been a law and order tough on crime kind of guy we'll see if that continues or not going forward for now the protagonist though anonymous is. clever that most drug dealers i mean when he talks about the fact that black people with a 1st come out of the on wall street and how. this is about on supernational and capitalism role as it were he seems to understand exactly how he fits in with the u.s. u.s. society well that's what i think this makes this book so interesting in this character so interesting is that he's there. once he has tremendous antipathy for the american system but at the same time he's a tremendous student of it he is a quintessentially american character in the sense that he's on in many respects a pure capitalist and he studied you know banksy studied. trans national corporations he studied the pharmaceutical corporations and their ethos and what

they do and how they avoid you know getting getting into trouble how they get out of regulatory trouble all these things are you know are important to his worldview and they're baked into his idea of how he can simulate that the street level so it makes him a very very interesting character it's a little bit similar to the scarface movie where you know somebody come. takes the image of legitimate capitalism in america and sort of goes a little bit farther with it. you know he also understands private. profit run prisons i just wonder when he moves to california does that mean that kemal harris was the prosecutor when he was she was the ailing dury during a significant portion of this book a lot of the action took place and come all heiresses california so it was a very tough time for a while for dealers in california do you think the bill does translate i mean we

don't have applebee's other restaurants are available but he says you should dress like an applebee's place and have at a restaurant rather than in bling when you're a dealer. and again this is this is a you always talks about this use racism against the police raids police are always profiling people based on how they look if you wear a big gold chain if you wear if you wear the newest sneakers. you know if you are a certain kind of hairstyle they will pull you over if you dress like you've got a square job and by the way he always has a square job that's a know that's a key part of his. the way you works make sure that you always are legitimately employed somewhere. because it among other things forces you to have the discipline of staying in touch with ordinary people he actually thinks like a politician and that way he does a lot of sort of switching in the way he talks sees he grew up half in the ghetto and half in the suburbs so you know how to how to communicate in both worlds just a very very interesting character and that's one of the reasons i was so attracted

smith serial and i don't want to give away too much but was it a natural fit to work on the hillary clinton campaign up there ollie drug dealing and he clinton of course is infamous for wars that increase drug production in afghanistan and in latin america it's an odd fit let's put it that way yes very mixed feelings about the democratic party but he also has some pretty negative feelings about the republican party for obvious reasons and so he his idea was that he could reform it from within. and that's how he ended up going into politics and of course we don't want to give away his identity but. where is he now he's now in the biden cabinet. he's not in the biden cabinet he's branching into some new things that's about all i can say when we talk about crime in this country are almost always talking about it from the point of view of i did the police or somebody who's been caught. and this is a this is a kind of a 3rd kind of through the fishbowl look at what. the underbelly of the united

states society looks like to somebody who's really really studied it to the point of being able to remain safe their threaten entire successful career of defying our rule so it's a very very interesting kind of a story that tybee thank you we don't condone taking illegal drugs or dealing and that's over the shoulder back to when the 48 year through the days of the plane surprise winning photograph with a joystick an arguably more symbolizing of the vietnam war in the region for us leads from the killing would begin to space in the belief that these faces will then get a kick the bell i can subscribe to never miss a show. that's right the stand. alone one has. i know that i know a lot of other things that are rather than just about the for more than i care that

. only the political battle but i've got some little. kid and. i have a tough call that. you know that make them. a little less. and less of. a tall fool push the i knew they haven't. ok i think i'm going to. be pretty sure is if i. must say that for jim and then i hope for.

france italy. germany suspended to use. the vaccine over a blood clot a few years when it comes out of the european union admits further flaws in its proxy program with member countries venting their fury over a cold huge the sporran sees in the way shops are being shut off and. also ahead in the program more european countries are. seen as the funding reveals its own production deals with companies in spain france germany although the rollout is conditional on the e.u. approving the drug.