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00:00:00of
00:00:03a
00:00:08Hello and welcome to
00:00:10a in Cross Talk where all things are considered. I'm Peter Level. Do the people get the rulers
00:00:14they deserve? Does democracy, as it is practiced in the west,
00:00:18truly represent the will
00:00:20of the voters. Consider the issue of war and peace. Voters
00:00:23across the western world are most definitely against
00:00:27of foreign conflicts, nonetheless constant war. is the
00:00:34of of norm,
00:00:39cross talking democracy, I'm joined by my guess Margaret Kimberly in New
00:00:43York, she's executive editor of Black Agenda report, and in
00:00:47Alexandria we cross to Joe Loria, he is the editor and chief of
00:00:50consortiumnews.com. All right, crossstock rules and effect, that means you can jump any time you
00:00:54want, and I always appreciate it. Let me go to you first, Joe, and in
00:00:58my introduction I asked: the first question, do we get the rulers we
00:01:03of deserve? well, that's a good question, I don't think we have a choice, we
00:01:07don't get the choice, we don't get the choices that we deserve, I'll put it that
00:01:10way, I will, I will say that, when you look at
00:01:14democracy in history, it's always been very limited, of course, even
00:01:17a in Athens
00:01:18it was only
00:01:19a males who can vote, and in America early American Republic only
00:01:23males with property could was even more restrictive, we look at
00:01:26the origins of democracy, I think
00:01:28you have to go to Peter. potkin, the great Russian prince, anarchist mutual
00:01:32aid, that the instinct of cooperation is what brought about the survival of
00:01:36species more than our instinct for corp for
00:01:39in competition, but throughout history, elites have formed in
00:01:42of hierarchies of to try to disrupt uh that mutual late or coming
00:01:46together to be cooperative, and that's they and they
00:01:49deify leaders, they build monuments to them, their state
00:01:53secrets, these are the kind of elements that have we've seen throughout history where
00:01:57an elite tries to destroy democracy. democracy, which I'm
00:02:01arguing
00:02:01a is natural to us, and that's what we
00:02:03a have today. We have now oligarchs in the United States
00:02:06in a putocracy, when when literacy came about it became more complicated
00:02:10for the elites to manage
00:02:12of populations,
00:02:13of but they find a way, and it's a constant struggle to try to the
00:02:17people to unite and and and rule themselves against these elites
00:02:21and we're no more progressed to many ways than we have for
00:02:24centuries, in terms
00:02:25of the United States elections and American political system, it's an
00:02:30oligarchic plutocracy that rules and it's a struggle
00:02:34for people to have a voice and to actually try to rule themselves,
00:02:38but we answer your question, we don't have any good choices since state control
00:02:41both major parties uh and who the candidates are talking about huge
00:02:45money doing that? you know Margaret, all you the
00:02:49first before we started
00:02:50here I was telling Joe that uh um I went into the voting booth in
00:02:541976 with my mother, I wasn't old enough to vote yet, but I made
00:02:58her vote, I made her vote for Jimmy. Carter and um
00:03:02my family, as many people know of me, I was brought up in in the
00:03:06environment
00:03:06of the John Bert society, so you could see why I had to
00:03:10secretly tell my mother to pull the lever for democrat,
00:03:14um, my father never knew, but Margaret, we've all been brought up
00:03:18with this mantra, and there's so many rituals
00:03:20of part of
00:03:20of these elections in Europe and in the United
00:03:23a States, um, this is a change election, we're
00:03:27of of always talk, it's a change election, this is the most important. an election and we hear it all
00:03:31of the time,
00:03:32of but of if there is change, it's not good change, at least for the vast
00:03:36majority of people pulling that lever,
00:03:39a Margaret? well, as Joe was saying, uh, the people
00:03:43of don't, of we the term democracy it implies that the people have some
00:03:47say, but you
00:03:49of go to the voting booth
00:03:50of after the people at the top have made the decisions, after they've
00:03:54decided who can and can't run, after they decided
00:03:58who they want to win a primary. then you at the end
00:04:02of that process get
00:04:03of to make a quote unquote choice of a
00:04:07person or of a party that lie to you, they know
00:04:11what people want, they know people don't want wars, so they run
00:04:15for office saying, we're not going to have any forever wars, and now we
00:04:18of have, i think Ukraine is the latest forever war, they'll end one
00:04:22and uh start another, and it's very
00:04:25of clear, of people want
00:04:25of the minimum wage to go up, people want medicare for all, and
00:04:29then weird told uh people
00:04:32of left of or
00:04:33of leftish, you have to vote for the democrats, but they've already said uh
00:04:37Hakim Jeffries who uh will probably be the speaker
00:04:40of the house said
00:04:41of he doesn't want medicare for all, so uh we don't
00:04:44get the government desert we deserve, because it doesn't represent
00:04:48our interests, yeah, and Joe, because it's
00:04:52it's so pre-packaged, I mean the how
00:04:56difficult is it to start a third party, I know that over the summer...
00:05:00was all this uh talking tucker carlson had met many
00:05:03of the dissidents that left the magga
00:05:06slash trump movement and they were talking about the
00:05:10establishing or people said that they were talking about about establishing a third
00:05:13party and it seems near impossible, neither republicans
00:05:17or democrats like to see a challenger from
00:05:21the left or the right? joe, it's impossible, do it's
00:05:25fixed for the do for the two parties, the duopolie, you can't get on the
00:05:28state ballot, in order to get on the ballot is an enormously difficult
00:05:32process to do, they get the signatures and there are all these, you talk to Jill
00:05:36Stein about this, we ran as the green party candidate twice for
00:05:39president, you can't get on the ballot because - every state has an
00:05:43enormous bureaucracy, red tape, they put all kinds of obstacles on there, it's a very
00:05:47complicated process, and then getting into the debates, that is
00:05:50almost impossible as well. she was actually, i think arrested once, jill stein
00:05:54trying to get on into a studio where
00:05:56there was a debate, she tried to protest, and so if you can't get on the ballot
00:06:00and you can't get on the debates, you're left with these two awful parties that
00:06:04as Margaret was saying, pretty much are most issues, especially
00:06:07foreign policy are the same, they're both aggressive uh back
00:06:11American. of power around the world, the
00:06:15primacy the United States, etc., etc., push those lies about
00:06:19democracy being spread, in fact around the world, when when when it's
00:06:23the opposite, when United States has overthrown democratic elected leaders and
00:06:27put in kings like in Iran, reversal of
00:06:301776, they overthrew a democratic elected leader and put a king
00:06:34back on the throne, and uh, chilley was elected, they put
00:06:38a military dictatorship in, so these parties push the...
00:06:42two uh what we're seeing and we could this is a whole other issue maybe is the
00:06:46support for Israel is eroding to point where
00:06:50nobody ever expected so that a democratic part and particularly if you're a
00:06:53politician you support Israel that could be a liability which is unbelievable but for the most
00:06:57part there still that bipartisan support for Israel for foreign
00:07:01wars there are few slight differences domestically on policy but
00:07:05neither one as again Margaret said there's medicare for alls the American people
00:07:09desperately would want that like most industrialized countries. nationalized health
00:07:13system, neither party is for that, so America people are
00:07:17stuck with two really bad choices. yeah, you Margaret, I mean, I'm
00:07:20I'm literally quite far away from it, but when I look at the
00:07:24coverage the these midterms elections, which hasn't been extensive
00:07:28because it's so ritualistic that I, I, I don't
00:07:32even, I can turn the volume down and I still know what they're saying, you know what I
00:07:36mean, but you know, it it's very, this this character
00:07:40Haley Stevens that made the news the last few. cycles,
00:07:43so Joe was telling us how difficult it is to get on the ballot, but
00:07:47someone like this woman was elected to congress
00:07:50okay, I mean now now I'm you
00:07:54now the the constitution doesn't have tests
00:07:57to to be candidate, but maybe they should have IQ tests, okay? I
00:08:01mean, this
00:08:02is this, I mean, no, I mean,
00:08:03you know, you, you have to be more responsible than that
00:08:07kind of behavior, I mean, and then it tells us really the real condition,
00:08:11I mean, obviously she was waiting for her last paycheck from someone and
00:08:15we all know who that was Margaret? well yes,
00:08:19she it's it's kind of funny to me, Haley Stevens
00:08:23had one job was to distance herself,
00:08:26distance herself from Elsayed
00:08:29enough without making it look like Democrats didn't
00:08:33want him, that's all she had to do, but then she endorses the
00:08:37Republican and even people like Chuck Schumer have to condemn
00:08:41her her own staff. quit, which tells me about what it was like to
00:08:45work for her before this, um, they couldn't even stand working for
00:08:48her for seven more weeks, but um, this is
00:08:52classic example of what we're talking about, the establishment, the
00:08:56zionist donors did not want elsayed, but low and
00:08:59behold, the people choose him, well what do you do now? you
00:09:03discredit him, you use islamophobia, you claim he's
00:09:07anti-semitic, you get the loser to not
00:09:10stand down the way she's supposed to stand down, and so the
00:09:14Democratic Party, they have a problem, they have to recalibrate, they haven't
00:09:18changed at all, but their voters went and did something they
00:09:21didn't want them to do. El Sied, by the way, is not
00:09:25very progressive, but it just tells you what the system
00:09:29is like that someone who with mild criticisms of
00:09:33Israel is considered persona nongrata,
00:09:37but now they have him, and I, I think he's going to win, I don't think
00:09:41it's even going to be very... close uh, but but this
00:09:44is this whole comedic episode
00:09:48tells you what happens when you do not really have democracy,
00:09:52when people with money pick candidates and make clear
00:09:56who they want, and you see the panic when the public do something
00:10:00they didn't plan for them to do. yeah, it is a comedy of
00:10:04errors, joe, but it's not very funny,
00:10:06is it? no, it's serious, if it weren't serious, it
00:10:10wasn't about people's lives, so it would be, would be funny and this episode
00:10:14in particular, which I have to say, I never even heard of this woman until this thing broke out, I don't
00:10:18follow, because as you said, you turn down the volume, you know what they're saying, you
00:10:21know what the script is, and as... is pointing
00:10:25out here, even a mild criticism of Israel, they tried to stop this
00:10:28guy, um, but it's it's the fact is the people,
00:10:32this is democracy, they voted him any way, and what the hell do they do then?
00:10:36they panic, but what's happening on the streets of France and the rest of Europe, and now
00:10:40Germany, Albania, this is, I have to say,
00:10:44democracy when you don't have an avenue for people to really get some
00:10:48kind of power, you go on the streets and there's no question
00:10:51that leaders listen to protests like...
00:10:55this, I've just took a tour the deep south, I came, I went, spent three days
00:10:59in Selma and I went over that bridge and to Montgomery by car,
00:11:03and I saw that that protest brought about the voting rights act, so
00:11:07and that Martin Luther King was actually speaking to Johnson and got him
00:11:10to do that, so protest can work on the street, and I think they're
00:11:14panicking in Europe about that, what's going on right now, and the
00:11:17Ukraine war is at the essence of that protest, even if they're not saying it,
00:11:21because the money is going for the militarization of... europe
00:11:25and to pay for the Ukraine war and the people are fed up in
00:11:29Europe because they're not getting what they need, the social services they came to be used
00:11:32to under social democracy, which is eroded towards an American
00:11:36type system. No, they want to militarize it. We have to give up on social
00:11:40services, we have to militarize, you have to go into the military. This is
00:11:44remark, this is what the EU experiment is all turned into, it's very
00:11:48authoritarian, and it brings no prosperity. All right, I'm going to jump in here, we're going to
00:11:52go to a short break, and after that short break we'll continue our discussion. On
00:11:55democracy, stay with our
00:11:56team. YouTube
00:15:16where all things are considered on Peter you
00:15:18were discussing
00:15:19democracy.
00:15:29All right, let's go back to to Margaret in New York. It's, I, I, I'm
00:15:33gonna go with my own metaphor there, turning down the volume, because
00:15:36you know what they're saying here. "I mean, so many these so-called elections are
00:15:40just referendum on somebody's personality.
00:15:43Okay, um, it would be nice. I i'm not against referendum, I
00:15:47wish it'd be referendum on the Iran war, um, I, we all
00:15:51know what direction that will go, but when these this mid-term election
00:15:55is come and gone and forgotten about, the war in Iran
00:15:59will be continuing. Okay, that this election cycle is not
00:16:03going to change that. That is human a huge
00:16:06flaw. in what democracy is supposed to do, because it is supposed
00:16:10to be the will the people. this is very unpopular war, it has been
00:16:14from day one, the most unpopular war in recorded American
00:16:18history, but it's still going to be continue, and elections have no
00:16:22impact on that at all. oh no, well this is
00:16:26something that the dewapoly have wanted for ever since the
00:16:29Iranian revolution in 1979, destabilizing
00:16:33Iran has been on the agenda of both parties. uh,
00:16:37Trump being weak, very ill, I mean that's a whole other
00:16:41story, uh, it's not just Israel, but they're
00:16:44playing a big role in this, and only one senator,
00:16:48Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who I have other issues with, last
00:16:52week, he said he'd been briefhed, and this plan is
00:16:55insane, it's not talked about, it's not an election
00:16:59issue, it didn't get his comments didn't get as much attention as
00:17:03I think they should have, why did you call a press conf, I'm
00:17:06sorry, you call a press conference, because his comments
00:17:10came serendipitly, he was, he
00:17:13was on, he was being interviewed, yes, yes, he was talking about something else
00:17:17entirely, but he's part the system, he's one the
00:17:20people who uh famously or
00:17:23infamously uh uh went with John McCain to
00:17:26Keyev to during Maydon to overthrow an
00:17:30elected president, so he's not really interested in democracy,
00:17:33there's some element of this plan that he finds disturbing,
00:17:38uh enough to mention it kind of on the
00:17:41side as you point out, but it's not being talked
00:17:45about at all by anyone, this will be
00:17:49catastrophic, we're talking about huge loss of life, we're
00:17:53we don't know where this is going to go exactly, we know it's going to be
00:17:56something uh quite terrible and it's going
00:18:00to happen, there's all these murmors about it, New York Times,
00:18:04Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, they haven't written much about. it other
00:18:08people running for office haven't talked about it, I mean this is
00:18:11classic uh something that's going to have huge impact
00:18:15on the world, on our lives, is not being discussed
00:18:19because the war party, because
00:18:21it is the war party, and it's never on the ballot is it,
00:18:25it's it's it's never on the ballot, Joe, what is the
00:18:29fate of Maga? first of all, Chris Murphy got got a stroke right
00:18:33after that, I don't know, I don't think there's any relation there, but so the guys,
00:18:37poor guys. in the hospital now, well he's not, he's not an old
00:18:40man, he's not elderly, no, but he had a
00:18:44stroke, um, so anyway uh, maga, it's
00:18:48a very good question, um, I think Donald Trump
00:18:51exploited these people who also want health insurance and don't
00:18:55want a war in Iran, he championed them and he fooled them to thinking
00:18:59that billionaire would represent the interest of working class people,
00:19:03mostly white American working class people, and uh, they some the...
00:19:07have woken up to this fact and they have leaders like Margery
00:19:11Telegraine, like Candice Owen, like Tucker
00:19:14Carlson, who are saying particularly on wars, on Iran and on
00:19:18Gaza, they have broken with him, but also on some the domestic issues,
00:19:22so if they take the lead, I think he's in trouble, uh, there's
00:19:25question, I'm not an expert on maga, but I could tell you that there
00:19:29certainly descension in the ranks led by those kinds of people I just mentioned, so
00:19:33what the turnout in the American elections will tell us
00:19:37what? happens with Donald Trump uh and his future and the future
00:19:41of Mager, when he goes and he will go, kicking and
00:19:44screaming, will somebody like Rubio
00:19:47or or Vance, of course these
00:19:49are the two front runners for the Republican nomination in the next presidential
00:19:53election, will they be able to pick up this mantle of Mager in the same way or will
00:19:57that change? I think that's the big question, how much of it is rooted in the
00:20:00personality, the cult of Donald Trump, this we will see
00:20:04ultimately. Well, it's very, Margaret the
00:20:08the uh the other side the ledger is uh what
00:20:12kind of positive program are the democrats because we're stuck with both
00:20:15parties so what are they proposing um
00:20:18because um
00:20:20I know lot of people
00:20:21a whole lot of people
00:20:22that are furious the way they
00:20:25voted the last three times and regret it very very
00:20:29much
00:20:29but they're not interested in like AOC and stuff like mean that's that
00:20:33a I dilemma okay there's no choice.
00:20:37and and it it feels like people are disenfranchised by
00:20:41the limitations that they're presented, because I don't
00:20:45see the the Democratic party, and I wouldn't call it
00:20:48left, I mean it's
00:20:49just it's... "it's a different right-wing party in America.
00:20:52I mean, if if you look at it globally, and there's nothing very progressive
00:20:56about it except for few individuals, what do they have to offer? That's
00:21:00the dilemma for so many people. They're politically homeless
00:21:04now, and have been for a long time. Margaret. Yeah, I, I
00:21:07think we actually have more of a say in local and state elections, to be perfectly
00:21:11honest. Yes, yes, I agree. And the democrats, they live off the
00:21:15reputation, they live off the legacy of FDR, the
00:21:19new..." they live off of Lyndon Johnson bringing us
00:21:23medicare and medicaid, but they haven't done anything
00:21:26progressive in years, and they're not going to because their
00:21:30donors don't want them to, so yes, we are
00:21:33politically homeless, if you want to see even moderate
00:21:37changes, there's no one to represent you, they're people who talk
00:21:41the talk at election day, but then it's
00:21:44inevitably we get this, the dooopoli,
00:21:48both of whom are in f. of a war against Iran, they may differ
00:21:52on strategy, but they both want to unseat that
00:21:56government, and that means we don't have a say.
00:22:00I i voted in uh, early voting here in New York a couple of
00:22:04days ago for governor, some other state offices, and I feel
00:22:08like it was important for me to do so, but I don't have any
00:22:11illusions that anything is going to change in
00:22:14Washington, because the 1%, the donor
00:22:18class, the ruling class call. what you will own the parties and they
00:22:22don't want anything to change. joe, we're painting
00:22:26a very depressing picture here, because what is the way
00:22:30out? and i'm glad you brought up the um the social unrest in
00:22:34Europe, because the the de so-called democratic
00:22:38process has exhausted itself there. mean, you have a German
00:22:41chancellor, if i'm not mistaken, his public opinion number is in the
00:22:45single digit, single okay, macron is double
00:22:49digit on the... way out um, whoever took over in the
00:22:53UK is the same as guy before, that's how memorable these people
00:22:56are, I can't even remember their names instantly, okay, because there's nothing
00:23:00to remember them for, they're not interesting, they're not unique,
00:23:04they have no message here, and young people, particularly with the
00:23:08advent of AI, you know, and you want to be a lawyer, well you don't need,
00:23:12we don't need lawyers anymore,
00:23:14we we we we have AI to do that, okay, I mean even what would be
00:23:18considered well-paying jobs. "I mean, even the medical
00:23:21profession to a great degree. I mean, I,
00:23:25you, I'm a boomer, but I'm glad I'm not 19.
00:23:28Joe, yes, um, I'm glad I'm not 19
00:23:32either, but on the other hand, I have to say that this is the recking, the final
00:23:36reckoning of this class of politicians in Europe,
00:23:39Starmer now Bernam, Schulz, and now Murts and
00:23:43Macron throughout this period supporting this war
00:23:46agenda, and they by the way, keep talking about war with Russia." by
00:23:502029 or 2030, which is when Trump leaves office by the way, so maybe they're
00:23:54counting a democrat coming in to the way Biden started the war with
00:23:57Ukraine to go to the final uh stretch, this insane
00:24:01talk of Russian war, but the people in Europe, young people in particular, but not only,
00:24:05we've got the unions, there's general strike, there are
00:24:09unions who are joining and the parents joining the students in the
00:24:12streets, some small numbers are getting violent and bringing a lot of
00:24:16attention, but the majority the people are peacefully protesting this...
00:24:20lack of democracy in Europe because these tone deaf, these
00:24:24elitists, these transatlantic leaders who've been
00:24:28groomed since they were young to support the United States no matter what,
00:24:32and even to the detriment their own economies and Germany is the best
00:24:35example by by ignoring the shutdown and the blowing up the
00:24:39northstream pipeline, the sanctions against Russian
00:24:43gas,
00:24:43it is destroying the economy and bringing about this turmold in
00:24:47Germany and now they're talking about how's their response a... military draft
00:24:51in in Germany, that is also a big part the protest now, so the people not
00:24:55having, and these guys are scared, I'm saying the protests are
00:24:58not useless, if they are sustained and they grow, they have
00:25:02enormous impact, that's the only way to change, as we've been
00:25:06discussing in this program a blocked system, a phony
00:25:09democracy, rigged system of not having someone to really
00:25:13vote for, these elites the power, the oligarchy power
00:25:17in Europe, in the United States to put candidates there, that we don't have a
00:25:20choice that don't respond to the needs the people, the way this
00:25:24is that happens is on the street and I have lot of optimism
00:25:28about that, it's messy, but it's the only way to get something done, and I think
00:25:32that that European leaders will have eventually respond, but for example in
00:25:36France they now the said that they are going to be uh hiring 500 more
00:25:39teachers, blah blah blah, why didn't they do that before, they had the money to do that
00:25:43before, well they had money to send Ukraine, they had money to
00:25:46send to Ukraine, that's it, that's it,
00:25:50Margaret, I mean the the this combination of economic
00:25:54slowdown, this war in Iran, we and
00:25:57obviously always above us like a dark shadow is this
00:26:01AI, I mean. do you see progress, a a
00:26:05progressive on the populist left or populist right being
00:26:09able to succeed considering the circumstances we have, it seems like
00:26:13everyone's in a straight jacket, one minute left for you, Margaret, go
00:26:16ahead, uh, it's going to be very difficult, I'm I, but I
00:26:19want to be optimistic that high school kids in France
00:26:23began this discussion, they literally had rats in their schools,
00:26:27no teachers, no desks and they are the ones who started
00:26:31this, and I think... that's
00:26:32an indicator for all of us of what we can do with
00:26:36organized movements and that that's what what we desperately
00:26:39need. it's the only thing that's going to change and our our
00:26:43responsibility is to figure out how to sustain these movements so
00:26:47we can save ourselves and and literally save the world. yeah,
00:26:51but i'm i'm unfortunately going to end a a rather pessimistic note,
00:26:55these elites, they're very powerful and they like they they're not going to
00:26:59give give away power, not leave power very easy.
00:27:03and they can use lot of force to do it, we'll see. all
00:27:07right, hopefully we won't talk about mid-term elections for another few years,
00:27:10that's all the time we have,
00:27:11I want to thank my guests in New York and in Alexandria,
00:27:14and of course i want to thank our viewers for watching us your darty, see you next time,
00:27:18remember crossstock
00:27:19rules.
00:27:58questions, I'm asking them, what's a free country, are you
00:28:01worried? Are you scared, we Rusky? Are you dictator? Are you
00:28:05thinking about creating something? Not planning to run for president. We will
00:28:09show you what they
00:28:18RC in the United States. I did not know that.
00:28:22That's the Sanchez effect. Tens of millions are now
00:28:25watching and we're just getting
00:28:27started.
00:28:35the west and the rest,
00:28:39privilege and fury,
00:28:42palaces and slums, old
00:28:46alliances, new centers of power,
00:28:50closed borders, open wounds. this is
00:28:54our reality, but between these opposing worlds, can
00:28:58we still find some common
00:29:00ground? In
00:29:04Hinduism we always believe that life is a full
00:29:07circle, there
00:29:08are always ups and downs.
00:29:11India before the British was the
00:29:15richest nation with the highest GDP in the
00:29:19world, and why did the 100 years of
00:29:22British rule bring it to dismal
00:29:26low of some 50th ranking or late 30th
00:29:29ranking. India
00:29:33was not their property, they had no right
00:29:37to take my property, my idols,
00:29:41by gods. They went to our public
00:29:44spaces, our sacred spaces of temples
00:29:48and really violently pulled out these
00:29:51pieces. In fact, the word loot also is a Hindi
00:29:55word which is now got into the English dictionary, so
00:29:59quite tellingly even the Hindi. word
00:30:03loot has been looted into the English
00:30:05lexicon,
00:30:28and good evening, it is prime time here in the United States, thanks for watching, I'm...
00:30:32Tonight we continue our special coverage the US mid-term elections,
00:30:36because in the aftermath of those elections, two major
00:30:39questions that we have asked for months have emerged: one,
00:30:43yes, Trump's Maga coalition is dead, just as we
00:30:47warn. The question tonight though, is why? and
00:30:50to the Iran war, was it betrayal of voters
00:30:54that caused Republicans massive numbers of seats across the country, because
00:30:58after last night's democratic sweet,