the, the the primary, sanchez, i'm into a news now for 30 years to languages all over the world. here in the united states, interviewed for presidents, worked at the 4 major us television networks. i believe that news should be honest, direct, and impactful. and this is direct impact the i want to start with this studies of indicated as by the way we've mentioned on this show in the past that most of us here in america, in the united states have given a map of the world, could not find most countries including ukraine, in fact,

is the found but only $11.00. 0 no. out of every 6 americans actually even know where you grain is. the rest placed it as far away with the little pin thing. you know, they placed it as far away as portugal or confused it with even more nearby countries like cars like stop. and then again, the same thing happened while the u. s. was engaged in other places like afghanistan. a study which surveyed $510.00 young americans found that almost 90 percent of them could not find afghanistan on a map of asia. by the way, don't take my word for it. there are countless examples of this type of thing on, on, on the youtube thing, or on the google's, on social media, and even just even regular, you know, legacy tv below island right here.

somewhere here. um this is like over here somewhere, like that. so i'm like, okay, you can choose whether it's right here, right here. and that's not all. i got some more stuff for you that's going to entry, get more than 2 thirds of americans say, we really don't mean to know anything about those countries in the news. that's what they said when they were asked. here's an o and for you, for 10 percent of americans think that speaking another language besides english not necessary. why? maybe that's why there's a study as well. that is found that 75 percent of americans, 75 percent of americans, clear majority, right? they believe english is the most widely spoken language in the world. it's not

india, 47 percent of the people in this country can't find them up in the israel. 75 percent. can't find it. it is kind of small, but it also is kind of important bunch of eric, a factor you credit, and the whole ukraine thing. and what we don't know about that. here's perhaps the most interesting stat when it comes to all of this stuff. remember how i mentioned at the outset. some americans can find ukraine on a map, but most can't get this. those according fine ukraine on a map were far more likely than those who could to be in favor of us intervention in ukraine. in fact, the farther away from ukraine that each person placed their pin on the map, the more app they were to be in favor of having their money. or maybe even their sons and daughters blood spilled their huh. makes you wonder

now, does question that, does that make ignorance bliss useful or dangerous? joining us out, talk about this is dan kamala dan, is a professor labour and human rights lawyer and activists. thanks for joining us, dan. just think of that last thing i that is that i found where the farther away you are and being able to find in this case ukraine, which is the latest, you know, situation where in the more app you are to be ok with whatever the, how your government wants to do there. wow. right now it's, yeah, it's quite, quite troubling because even within ukraine these, you know, there's not one ukraine in the sense that the people in the west have very different views and the people in the east right back in like 1957 to see i did

a report on ukraine and they divided it up into 12 different areas which had very different views on whether they were pro russian or pro european. the point is, you know, these issues take some sophistication and they take a knowledge of history, which again, most americans, i mean, the vast, vast majority do just don't have. so let's go to the question. i asked that the, the, the reason for this is it useful. what by useful here's, here's, here's what i'm postulating here for you then. um, maybe that's the way they want us to be. because if, if it's true, what i just said, right? if it's true, what i just said, that the last you know, the more app you are to agree with them, then hey, let's get them to not know, right. you get my drift? yes, no, i think we are kept in the door. i, i do think it's not an accident. i think uh, you know, the powers that be,

are happy that were completely ignorant about the world, about us history, about world history. because you say, the more you know about history, the more you would be very critical of us for boss. that if you knew about the nature of the wars we've been involved in, fries, vietnam, and korea, it's, you know, over and over, you would be very skeptical. right? and those of us who do know are very skeptical. so no, they don't, they want you to know things in broad brushes in generalities. and that's how the manufacturer consent. history is context. history is context. wait, if you are worth yourself as an anchor at, which is what i have done for a large part of my life as a journalist, right? we're in graduated university, minnesota school journalism because i, i know context is important and history is context. how can you do any story about any us and gauge meant today without talking about the one that came last year or

the year before that? how can we talk about ukraine without reminding people from time to time that we lied to get into a war and iraq is relevant? you can't believe it out, but i never hear the people on the television networks or for that matter of the big newspapers. add that into the story. to give that context. you know, as you know, it's right. in fact, uh after the uh, you know, russian intervention in february, the media went silent on a few things that they had at least covered a little, not a lot, but they covered a little. the fact that there had been a war going on. and ukraine since 2014 right between the government and their own people in the dawn bass and which is in the eastern part of view quite that they've been caught for then they pretended that never happened. right, because it's set up for both or so once again, sorry about that. and then when brush was saying, hey, we're by the neo nazis

a new credit. all of a sudden the price was, oh, there's no not sees there. of course, you could find older, main street cross stories, not tons, but saw at least that work that had been say, yeah, there are knobs easier, right? so they don't want you to know these things as you say, because that context, just those 2 things i've mentioned would certainly give you pause as to how you feel about this war. he knew great what was the day? is it the politicians? is it the media is it is, so let's you, cnn, or fox, you know, pick your flavor, pick your poison, i don't care who isn't there. how does it get to the mouth of the anchor? any one of those networks to keep you've done? where does it come from? how does that manipulate down? do you think? uh, damn, yeah, well, there's a few ways, any one you do have a major corporate donors to keep those networks. going who tend to be obviously in support of u. s. foreign policy because in many ways they may be even helping direct for us

foreign policy because our government, i'm sorry, is governed by money and covered by the corporation. so you have that because you have that wedding, that marriage of corporations in the government. and because corporations dominate the median, in fact, you only have a few conglomerates that run all the media. they dominate the narrative, right? so you have that, and then some of it too. so some of it is money driven. some of it also, frankly, is laziness. you know, it's the fact that it's easier to just get the state department. yeah. those line off the fax machine and read it. then it is to send reporters to a place like that on bass and ukraine to actually see what's happening and to get the other side of the story. so there's a, you know, those events conspire to, to, to manufacture a certain narrative, you know, is chomsky and edward hiring pointed out in the book manufacturing and said,

well people need to understand is the news is not the product to being sold. what's being sold is the pop public, the public are being sold to the advertisers, right? that. and so the result therefore is the news that is very much, you know, in line with what the corporations want. and i guess i have to find the right people. i'll tell you the story i want to share with you right now. back when i worked at cnn. i was once and working on a story, and i want to do including the story context of the history of what, you know, i love the united states. i love my country, i want it to be better, but i think to love it properly. you have to point out it's false. and i wanted to point out in the story, maybe because i'm a hispanic and i know these stories. what the united states had done historically the c, i a, in the dullest brothers in places like guatemala and columbia and something to mean go, cuz it's

a fact it happened. and i wanted to talk about those things to learn about how we can be better with our foreign policy. man, you would have thought that i had an orange coming out of my head. i had these ombudsman and cnn, like this dude named rick davis. come after me, i mean with guns blazing. what the hell do you think you're doing? we don't do that here. we don't talk about that kind of stuff. and i remember always asking myself why not? it's true, right? it's history, but you'll never get that. and of course they fired me, but the guys they have now they'll, i don't think they'd ever do that. maybe because they don't know. maybe they're not hispanic, they don't know a little about guatemala, but how i do them. and yeah, well, and of course it's important to know these things because how do you know anything about us foreign relations and how do you assess that all at all? if you don't understand what the u. s. has done to these countries and therefore

you're able to see it from their perspective. i mean that's the base is not going to have any sort in bad. yeah. no. yeah, yeah. and also when we talk about why do we have all these people coming into the border? well, we should talk about what is the us going to undermine these countries economy. political situations, you know, that's irrelevant. it's, it's, you know, getting like, people just don't show up for no reason. yeah. and, and, and when you look at the reasons then you think, oh, well, maybe the us to change his policy towards these countries and then maybe they'd be happy to be in their own good, you know, do you find like i do a boy, i'll tell you i've been gob smacked by this, whatever i've traveled. and as a reporter, i've traveled a lot. you told me you just came back from crimea, right. so i find when i travel, i am impressed most of the time by cab drivers by people, and not just average people and what they know not only about their country and

their history, which they probably will tell you about. but then they'll start asking you about your country and your president them and, and, and everything else about they know more many times about what is going on in our country or as much as they do about their own country. and i think to myself, i hardly know any common people in my country who are as impressive as that. we just don't like others do that is true and that's been in my experience everywhere around the world. that's true. the, the, the, the, your average person in other countries is better and for more aware of what's happening in the world. and certainly in europe, including russia. most people speak at least 2 or 3 languages. yeah. in many or even met low have some facility in english. right. and so, you know, they're just more uh, you know, connected to the world than we are. and they, we,

we really think the world begins and ends, you know, at the atlantic coast, in the pacific coast of continental united states, you know, in the rest of the world doesn't see the world that way they understand. they're part of this bigger organic whole, you know, and that's just that difference is just huge. well, that's what gets to the question of democracy, right? because we're always saying how much and we all appreciate a democracy, which means we all should have a say in what's going on. the question is, given the way things are set up right now and given what you're talking about right now, that the government is making decisions because they make those decisions for monetary reasons or for whatever other interests are out there. having very little to do with what the people want and it's because the people don't know, then, do we really have a flourishing democracy in this country? is it really working the way our forefathers maybe set that up to be? and that's what i want to take up with you in just a bit. stay right there. we're going to come back with them. come all like ok to

talk more about this as we ask ourselves, why is it that we don't know what we talk? no, by the way i have a broadcast where i as a journalist, as a latino, as an entrepreneur, tell my story, share my story with you about what i've learned and talking about some of the things right here. it's called the rick sanchez podcast. i invite you to check it out when we come back. so how do you fix stupid? can we ever leave this level of ignorance or are we just found to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again? that allows money to interest. as dan pointed out, the dictates things like our foreign policy don't go away, gonna be right back the of the

known in via the american war, the vietnam war lost it for almost 2 decades and dragged in numerous countries. not any time between now and then you don't see it now. what is all on the empty hundreds of thousands of american troops who was sent to the country to bank the south vietnamese on me. i don't know about that not, but the american soldiers murdered resistors. most of us like the down entire

villages and spread dangerous chemicals and even lee laid up day by all right. did the americans ever fully acknowledge what they did on the vietnamese veterans ready to forgive? yes, yes, that's the way to the i started reading about this last night before this conversation. i'm having now with the with dan. welcome back everybody. i'm rick sanchez and i found a couple of things i like this. so there's a dude named stephen ledler. he is a pulitzer prize winning final list who, who writes for time magazine. and he recently wrote something about our own. well, our stupidity for lack of a better term in here. so here's how he describes that. he says that the stupidity

is a kind of intellectual stubbornness. a stupid person has access to all the information that is necessary. he writes to make an appropriate judgement to come up with a set of reasonable and justified beliefs and yet fails to do so. he goes on to say the evidence is staring them right in the face, but it makes no difference whatsoever. they believe what they want to believe because they are not acting in a rational manner. easy right? now that's interesting then because i think to a certain extent and one of the things that you and i have not spoken about that i think has some causality here. is the fact that we. busy are living in bubbles today more than we ever have been. and once we find that little bubble, that little box is i like to call it. we won't leave anything that doesn't fit,

we throw it out and anything that we think fits, we exaggerate it. that's a problem. yeah, in fact we know to the social, the social media companies there algorithms work in a way that continues to feed you essentially the narrative that you seem interested in, right, by your claim. so if, if you are, you know, again, oppose the worn ukraine, you're gonna tend to and you click on stories like that, they're going to keep beating you that you support the war and would you crate, and they're gonna keep the new that. and so you say people just end up in their own bubbles because they're just going to see that one narrative. yeah. and that's the definition of dumb, because that means yes that, that, that not only means i don't know, it means i don't want to know. right in right, yeah, you're not encouraged to know. right. and so, and i think that's how you'd be, for example, as a book on this. so again,

the social media and the news to they really encourage this incredible polarization and us politics where the population, you know, they're in these different camps. and again, they, they don't even get, uh, uh, any information or news from the other camp. and so we just continue down these parallel pads. and how does that allow for any sort of political discussion or debate? it does. it's impossible to have debate in that's in that atmosphere. so, and once again we go back to the question as to whether or not we live in a world where that's another thing that maybe they want us to be. and maybe they want us to be at each other's throats, you know, divide and conquer, right? maybe that neutrality of, of, of, of, of ideologies, you know, fox crowd, the cnn crowd, whatever crowd this crowd, it keeps everybody in this country. so separate that then they can do all kinds of

stuff to us. because that in and of itself, that, that, that separation makes us stupid. yeah. cuz were separated from people that should be our allies and fighting for issues of common concert. i mean, it is not in the interest of any of us regular people to spend a trillion dollars a year on these military adventures that don't secures that don't help us. and then meanwhile, moneys are going to education health care towards infrastructure, etc. right. i mean, it doesn't benefit any of us, but we don't unite around those issues because we're always fighting. and we're usually fighting over social issues which are important. but we're led to believe they're the only things. right. and so uh yeah, i do think that type of division works to the benefit of the ruling class. they continue to be able to do what they want and the rest of us again or fighting over secondary and tertiary issues. and they keep us divided because there are 2 general

guiding ideologies in this country, which seems nonsensical to me. i don't want to be either a republican or a democrat. i think the idea that you have to choose one or the other to be an american. again, to use an over used word is stupid. we should have lots of ideas, lots of ideologies and find the best among them. but that's not what we do. now, what do you get in the system? the system is rig so that you only have those 2 parties, 3rd parties, really i've no chance of gaining any traction. the way the system works are fed for filter sex or some of the river neither bad or not. and i mean, you know, right, it's exactly like in parliamentary systems, it's much easier in a place like italy, you have like 20 parties or something like that. here you can't, you don't even have alternative voices within part is the name of her example right

now. i saw a pole that robert f kennedy is like one percentage point behind bite. and in the democratic polls, which is a, is it amazing because he's been being completely ignored by the mainstream press, right. they completely ignore and block out alternative voices. and so in the end, the choice you have is so limited, it ends up being the choice between 2 people. but yeah, disagree on some things, but again, really don't disagree on this be essential issue. so what is you say, what kind of democracy is that it is that it's not much of a democracy at all. you mentioned a while ago that one of the biggest problems we have is that there is this technology that keeps sending us through algorithms. the same things we believe and over and over again, and just that, which means that's a product, a big tech right now with the advances that we're seeing on a i, and some of the stories that we've all been doing on chat g, p, p, etc. one can't help but wonder whether there will be even more tools in their

arsenal for them to do this and that, that, that combination here. here's, here's what my, here's what i'm going to, here's my question. when government and big tech come together and use these tools, ma'am it's, it's hard not to think that we're kind of screwed. well yeah, and we know we know that facebook and twitter and other social media outlets have overtly sense or particular points of views and continue to do that continue to throw people off their platforms because they take a different line up because people take a different lot on cobra or i knew training or other issues. so now we've, we've been in this toby a bit, the science fiction writers predicted, you know, we are living in, you know, a brave new world like al just huxley wrote about or to some extent, 1984,

like george orwell wrote about where you were convinced it think to believe that 2 plus 2 equals 5 and we accept that. and where language doesn't mean anything, you know what wars piece and piece is war. and yeah, i think that what you're describing is that disturbing reality that we're facing right now and i do think, or it's likely to get worse. yes. is there anything we can do or is there anything you see on the horizon where we can guys like you and me? i think by the way of thinking of guys like you and me. hi, beth. the average person out there be american or anywhere else, thinks more like you and me than they do any of those extreme bubbles that we were just describing, i think, and you were to bring most americans together. they would agree, hey, that sounds crazy. why would we be in a war for 20 years and spend a trillion dollars or whatever the heck it was an easy billions of dollars us. why

wouldn't we go and spend $75000000000.00 in our country? the none of us could even find on a map. what are we doing? why are we doing these? and so i did, a lot of this stuff is just common sense to us, but we can't come together. why can't we come together? is, is, is it good? do you see a way we can? well, yes, of course we can. and again, i, i see, you know, when you look at it again, just as an example, i'm not pushing his fantasy. but if you look at what robert cavities saying, he's saying some of those things that you just said, right? and people seem to be responding. the point is, as you say, i do think mirror americans are hungry for another narrative. and actually the poles of american show that they do tend to agree with people like you and be on these issues. you know, they, they are interested in the other ideas and i guess it's up to people like you would need to keep promoting them and be willing to speak to people who don't agree with us to speak to people in the other parties. and then we're members of not to see

people is the portables because they disagree with us. yeah. and we need to, you know, encourage education. i think the biggest thing is so much that, i mean it's one thing bad. yeah. that people aren't educated but also not even encouraged to value knowledge. then you're your delight to talk to thanks for taking thanks. taking the time to take us through this. okay. my pleasure, rick. thank you. bank of all like thank so much. well, thank you for joining us today. and before we go, i want to remind you of our mission here. it's simple, really kind of one of the silo to world. that's what the and, and i were talking about right. stop living, a little box is choose, don't live in box to store everywhere. i'm actually interest. i'll be looking for you again right here. but i'll provide you with a direct impact by golly, the the

so what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation, let it be an arms race is on all sides. very dramatic. the only personally, i'm going to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very unclear to get a time time to sit down and talk i of the man the

northern have written down when you say that now, why why, why one beating, getting you labeled out monday. the only problem that week i'm told that i'm to wait on the, in the,

on the, on the to the the, the, the, the, the, the, the.