Of the outbreak of covert 19 which has included an absence of federal planning severe shortages of basic medical items such as test kits masks gallons and ventilators and a white house that peddles quack remedies and patent false odes has exposed the deep rot within American Society the United States now has the most confirmed cases of covert 19 in the world 15 times the number of cases reported in china but 2 ruling parties rushed to pass 3 relief bills but some 85 percent of the Financial Relief is for corporations this while some 40000000 americans have lost their jobs bringing the Unemployment Rate to about 20 percent of the workforce this while health care and that is inadequate and states face breadlines of up to 10000. 00 people. Over more than 2 centuries the United States has stirred a very wide range of feelings in the rest of the world love and hatred fear and hope envy and contempt all and anger the columnist Fintan Otoole wrote in the irish times. But there is one a motion that has never been directed towards the u. S. Intil now pity joining me from toronto is John Ralston Saul the president emeritus of Pan International and the author of several books that are profoundly shaped my own thinking including voltaires bastards and the collapse of globalism john lets begin by discussing term you use in your books to describe them technocratic elite you call them systems managers and ive been struck as the pandemic has unfolded in the United States how these system manners do just what you have predicted they do which is serve the system even when thats counterproductive not only to the common good even when its not of course rational but even when it when its self destructive. Merely intrastate thing is that youre if youre trying to govern the essence of a Civil Service is on the one hand theyre professionals and on the other hand they have to they have to search for the president yes but that has to be limited by their in dependence from politics and their own ethical standards so that if you actually look at the history of Civil Services theyre all about this balance between professionalism service and ethics and what we really see thats what i was writing about new able to sponsors it and since then use the gradual squeezing out of the ethical element that turns towards the idea that says 80 morality you just do what youre told. You know which is completely different immorality is not independence it is not loyalty it is not service a morality is evil so that you know it you can make comparisons with social services that were very clear and grow my actions you know in the in the 97 analysts century pretty average 20 century middle of the 20th century where they basically said no or they resigned on mass or they were very clear they could speak up it was going to ship it wasnt that they were sort of a secretive force behind the scenes you can actually know what the scientists very clearly with the key and the engineers were thinking and you know you you can see this with things like the you know the installation of of clean water throughout the western democracies i can tell you that large the entire business us was against it. And large parts of the Political Class were against because it was going to cost them money they wanted you know that big they thought these were just fine with the dirty water you like biggest mass of diseases and so on but the Civil Services stood for those principles and spoke up very so all the time so i mean im judging countries in this little of this crisis largely on the basis of you know not just your politicians but the extent to which the Civil Services are really speak up as ethical and well in our Civil Service and technocratic class and weve seen this with a pandemic. Has served the interests of this cup all this corporate global cabal at the expense of the citizenry and as you point out in several of your books we have trained this technocratic class so that thats all they know how to do they only know how to reinflate the system of corporate capitalism even in the in the moment of. You know severe social stress exacerbating the problems that that stress in this case the pandemic has caused well i mean whats fast it is a credit youve got this gigantic Civil Service rights and you know its not at your head to be as populists of the world but youve got a very public and very big Civil Service and of course like canada and germany federal and state or provincial. You know so there are a whole thousands of pieces to the tragedy that certainly the last half century after say 50 years progress the last half century a scene that penetration i think a pretty well all Civil Service in the world but the image in terms of the developed economies the americans leading the way for actually the penetration of the civil large sections of the Civil Service but i know a lot of us and a large corporations and so that once they get control of tax policy. And then of standards scant Environmental Standards you could just go through all those areas then what remains of the Civil Services which one stand up to that is in a minority position so you can see theres a couple who are not in the us that was or a real time war but the power theres no question that power lies in the areas where the law vs the corruption has had its biggest effect and thats what makes it so tragic because there are a lot of good people in there who would act differently if they had the power and those who question that well that really up until Ronald Reagan it is these are just cut off and start differently but they go in slopes right but up until Ronald Reagan you could see a really interesting american Civil Service and then it goes its the slow decline so even under republican president s like i said howard you could criticize but the fact is you know he basically will walk with what i would call an ethical aspect of the Civil Service was wrong regularly again the move towards dont give a damn about their ethics and what it with the political side which would dominate everything and that is not 100 marcus he works it is not remarks he is always a balance between you know these different forces and one of them is ethical professionals you write a civilization unable to differentiate between illusion and reality is usually believed to be at the tail end of its existence. Sitting in toronto watching the follies in the white house that line particularly resonated with me. You know it there are 2 possibilities or probably theres stuff in between is entirely possible that this is. A clear sign of to climb from which theres no richer i mean i can only look at this as an historian and look at what happened in various other empires right to the british the roman the french and so on so less something radical happens to change direction it would have to be pretty strong. If for example if. Mr trump is reelected in whatever conditions thats 8 years the damage will be enormous enormous and it comeback would be very very difficult to do and if i learned it from the outside what is you know already you had a level. Its lost its leadership role. You talk about pity you bury cement confusion people just dont know what to do some people havent given up on us yet but its lost its leadership position its no longer really an economically i mean thats it is it doesnt matter how much fluff laughing there is not so what you really have is. That the High Tech Companies which is why washington and whatever the government is so eager to sign deals in which they are their power is protected because at the moment they have a kind of enormous power in large parts of the world and that communication is very important. For a couple of time theyre also a few things theyre also fused with security and surveillance apparatus nohant as well d there are issues with that and so you have this kind of security structure. She initiated structure and military structure United States whatever it is 50 percent rocks a layer of International Military finance activity so that those are mechanisms to hold an empire together but theyre not anything at all to do with what people dreamt the American Leadership would be and i dont think theyre anything to do or what most americans think American Leadership should be you know the kind of very very uninteresting and of data. And i dont well who can go back to the involved tears bastards you write about. You know both. Louis 16th and versailles and the inability to differentiate between what you call appearance and reality but also you write about the roman empire where they no longer grow their own grain in the same way that we kind of outsource our. Public offices infused with the ability to accrue power and wealth in the same way that we see within the United States that these are that you know even if there is a kind of brief resurrection under a figure like hadrian these are kind of fatal structural flaws which i think we see in the United States well you know youre absolutely right that that you know people like me spoke up against globalization we were in speech he got it didnt create were going to make you a coal for narrow negative nationalism and for borders being closed we want more has to be open for the public good and trade to take place well i you know this risky up against was that this was not about trade this was about the rumor mill of the idea that place managed that it mattered if you leave some place. Where you lose its place in france or germany or wherever and instead the power unit kind of middleman or. Trading groups and what youre what youre seeing with coke at 19 is the outcome and very narrow part of. Which is you dont even control if your money and the mission your medical supplies inside and put it trillions of dollars into medical research the government. And some people are suddenly waking up to this but the problem is this guy like. Trump just like is. In a few other places changed. Because the liberal class was so ditch the idea that place matter that ownership didnt matter citizenship didnt really matter and we were going to come back. Also the rights of workers because of course workers were disenfranchised but what will come back to that when we come back well continue our conversation with author and philosopher John Ralston Saul. We go to work. Straight home. Welcome back to on contact we continue our conversation with author and intellectual John Ralston Saul so we were talking about the trail of the ruling elites before the break and theres a passage i just wanted to read you write elected officials and private sector leaders seem to have been tied together by the politicians acceptance of the idiology that the world must be dealt with through the prism of the market. The politicians and their willingness to accept the idiology of the inevitable forgot the perpetual warning tied to the public good and the sickly put by aristotle wealth is desirable but not at the price of freedom. Is that what we cling to and thats a kind of. A treason by the ruling elites towards their own societies it well yes its treason. Yes its a refusal of the idea of citizenship and their citizens i do think at the heart of it lies a bigger problem than the problem of the one percent and then present it i do think a lot more cost to do d with this in the river where of. Reestablish a traditional classes stephanie. Economy class system that existed until its a 929. 00 days and that there are various parts of class consistent which they wanted to put back into place so that. Its worse than treason its a refusal. Up their role as citizens. In. The states or civilizations and you know its hidden by kind of the prettiness of giving money away things like that which is really. I just want to hear you make this point you make this point. That that neo liberalism never made with any economic sense that it was and idiology that justified a centrally the consolidation of wealth and power by the ruling oligarchy but was in terms of economic theory was perpetuated by complete outliers you know i know randon and hajek and but it wasnt well i dont want to go united were rational but it wasnt economics it was wasnt economics it was near a very you know i mean. You know i read reckoned writers will almost 3rd rate 2nd rate people theyre not very intelligent theyre not saying anything very interesting it still reconstitution its not sound economics in any weight shape or form and it really really about a shift of power and it was shifting the power towards a crisis and away from the ideas of the subject and grew and i dont i actually where they are i never used the terms the old it was really a service because those are classic heist that they have and these movies have nothing to do with liberalism and nothing to do with conservatism or conservatives it stood for these are not we. You know these are not waves they dont stand for what we stood for and they certainly dont stand for what liberal stood for this is some pretty narrow ideology which has nothing to do. With sensible economics and youll wrote that the people who were the absolute. Mother of this whole ideology which they call you know there was a journalism i havent said a word to this crisis because they wanted governmental money to be sent to save their bacon so it really means you have a century of overlook go spend money and then suddenly really mad and i do want to lose to this one was the thing about. The only thing which we should talk about is your credit the story of debt which is what were heading into right now so if i can just say yes the system that was set up an International Level was to break the back of what you might call respectable life for individual citizens like removing the control of regional and national in even multinational governments 2 or 3 governments. Things like you know work standards and employment standards and so on it was part of the moved massively towards lorre standards and it was done by rick in the power of the national and regional governments it was very conscious it was very intentional rich a tax system right the protection of the citizens system and it was just the working class was the lore middle class and a life for the middle class but i think that and you havent asked about it but i mean i do think were now at this stage in this crisis where air so many people said well we have to do it differently to me about this. And what youre seeing that in the rush to open another heart of that rush is to make sure that we go back to the way it was before if you can do it if you could open it up fast enough theres no time to change theres no time for consider a clear how can we do things differently and it is this we failed miserably. In 2008 not to get the changes which were required considering the failure of the ideology in place and the question is are we going to fail a 2nd time for me 2008 and call it are one in the same. Not to come from different sources you in your book busy. Quote gramsci the interregnum and one point you write how. In essence the credibility of the ruling idiology has collapsed feature of globalization strength has somehow turned out to have an opposing meaning a lowering of National Residency requirements for corporations has morphed into a tool for massive tax evasion the idea of a Global Economic system mysteriously made local poverty seem unreal even normal the decline of the middle class the very basis of democracy seems to be just one of those things that happened unfortunate but inevitable that the working class and lower middle class even parts of the middle class could only survive with more than one job per person seemed to be the expected punishment for not keeping up the contrast between unprecedented bonuses for mere managers at the top and the 4 job families below that seemed inevitable in a globalised world for 2 decades an elite consensus insisted that unsustainable 3rd world debts could not be put aside in a sort of bad debt reserve without betraying a globalism essential principles and moral obligations which included on wavering respect for the sanctity of International Contracts it took the same people about 2 weeks to abandon saying today in propose bad debt thanks. 1 for their own far larger debts in 2009 are we seeing. And i think we are on both ends of the political spectrum theres a loss of credibility in terms of the any ology that spend shoved down our throats in economic departments and by pundits on television and what will that mean what what what are the cardwell i mean the very practical consequences if they are allowed to do what they want and they can get governments if they can get 1015 governments to go along with them to actually get the west. Through to bet australians. And that would be to convert the money printed over the last couple of months incident into the weight of debt then they will have succeeded in massive way in holding on to power even though it will be catastrophic from them and everyone else and this is one of those very very important moments in history when the sole lawnmowers really the 4 moments where you actually have to say this is not real d get me chris paul this is not an economic crisis this is a Health Crisis right there it was that there were there are enormous problems with the economy but thats not because the printing of the money. We are not inflationary period there is no excuse for hysteria theres only one excuse was there any and that is runaway inflation 920. 00 style in germany thats the only excuse there is christine there is no other minute when the orses are out of the park and you just have to do something were not in that street not ready flesh an errant theory and so the most important thing that can be done now and i can only say this is what will sound really your response but it is its deeply response which is i would call d for a meeting of is quite an of probably not invited government United States of of as many developed economy countries. Whole it very silent some press. And they would agree that the money they have printed is extremely serious and will be paid back in about 200 years and everybody will write and beautiful pieces of paper and get lovely people with wonderful handwriting to write go their their moral and ethical obligation to pay back this money on his beautiful piece of paper it be signed by the right already and theyll all be put together and really put most beautiful little 14. 00 deaths in a drawer and it will be a lot and hell be thrown away i mean im joking but im not joking this is what needs to happen they just need to find a way to say this is not debt the worst thing you can do is to allow governments and state banks to convert that debt into the from melody or public barnes. That start be traded in the marketplace and create a complex mess the sooner we actually say we dont know this this is not something owed by our children and grandchildren all that nonsense we have to walk away from all of that and if we walk away from all of that i think youll find it will be extremely easy to relaunch an economy but what will be important is not simply to rely on the economy but to restate some basics about how we relaunched and mean if you want we can talk a bit. We have to end there but i think the consequences of not doing that and were already seeing it are social unrest in the United States we have run strikes people are not paying their mortgages this is just going to cascade they cant pay their car loans student dad Household Debt and with all of the economic. Catastrophe is that that will engender and this is once again because of service towards if this is converted into your we expanding inflating the role of the speculative route in society. Did we aryan in the United States there i didnt find which will be very great thank you that was often intellectual John Ralston Saul speaking to us from his home and thank you thanks john. You cannot be both with the yeah you like. Odd no no crowd. No shots. Actually helps because. Let me stress no 1st. Point should your thirst for action. Thinking of getting abused coming once weve got our ships coming out why its you know it still feels trapped in this time you know why are we going to use a crate with him he will just start freaking out in she wont let us bring him anywhere near thousands of reading dogs and caged in inhumane conditions on puppy farm i mean sick sad. In the years you know theyve been locked up in cages outside you see no protection from the weather the heat you know the cold air the rain the snow the funder nothing they have no protection. To get with you. Its to kill. The cross the u. S. Crude puppy mills are supported by dog shows and most of the puppies that are coming from these large Scale Factory farming kind of operations are being sold in stores even joined a good businesses are involved like the mom center there has been a shocking amount of the organized opposition to efforts to increase the standards of care for dogs bred in commercial breeding facilities most of that opposition is coming from huge agricultural groups and industries that have nothing to do with dogs dont buy dogs. Hello there im an election handler watching in question broadcasting from our to Americas National news headquarters in washington d. C. We want to welcome our viewers from across the nation and all around the world on to our top story tonight america in chaos. Less than 24 hours after protesters were met with tear gas outside of the white house today they are back and the growing crowd of demonstrators are demanding changes to the