Graham may come as a surprise to some the Constitution is considered by many in the United States as a sacred document its framers of venerated as demi gods the founders white men slave owners and holding property shaped a document that would kind of fine and entrenched their class power and privilege it was crafted to benefit the few at the expense of the many the delegates in Philadelphia and $787.00 made sure that the interests of the wealthy were secured and that democracy rule of the people was constrained and limited by the property less multitude which James Madison recognized that as the majority faction was a danger he said to be contained the unequal distribution of property was a political powder keg for the framers hence the need to maintain as Madison called it the spirit and form of popular government with only a minimum of substance our guest today is Paul Street he's an independent social critic commentator and award winning journalist he's the author of many books including the empires new clothes and they rule the one percent versus democracy his articles appear in truth big Xeni and counterpunch he spoke in Chicago and now Paul St. We do live in an insane absurd historical moment. Inequality so extreme now that 3 absurdly rich people possess as much wealth. Between them as the bottom half of the population in the us economic power so concentrated that you can count on one hand the multi-trillion dollar financial institutions that control the nation's economic and political assets 6 corporations together own more than half us print electronic media 3 Internet giants Google Facebook Amazon a rule on line communications and shopping the presidency held by a narcissistic creeping fascist pseudo billionaire he pretends to be a populist while doing everything he can to distribute wealth power further upward we have been hearing constantly for 2 plus years that Russia undermined our so-called democracy but majority public opinion has been essentially irrelevant and the American all are Garvey for decades in his response to Donald Trump state of the Union address and Bernie Sanders cited one poll after another showing that most Americans support progressive social democratic things like single payer health insurance free college tuition workers' rights to organize collectively bargain a doubling of the minimum wage progressive taxation green jobs programs to give people decent employment while helping by the way save the planet's great so what who cares. And the United States a recent authoritative political science text reports quote government policy reflects the wishes of those with money not the wishes of millions of ordinary citizens who turn out every 2 years to choose among the pre-approved money vetted candidates for federal office in 2019 as in 2015 Sanders is the only remotely viable presidential candidate actually running in accord with majority public opinion but the notion of him getting a major party presidential nomination is in all likelihood again a pipe dream the Democratic Party isn't about social and economic justice democracy or ecological survive survival it isn't even mainly about winning elections it's about serving and colluding with corporate sponsors and climbing the neo liberal capitalist oligarchies think Bill NAFTA Clinton the multimillionaire head of the Clinton Foundation think Barack Trans-Pacific Partnership Obama who has entered the economic oligarchies now as a reward for his doing a full service to the nations an elected dictatorship of capital I've said it before I'll say it again the dismal dollar drenched Democrats prefer losing to the right even a creeping you fascist white nationalist right over losing to the left even the explicitly non radical social democratic left in their own party Forget the politicians George Carlin used to say. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice you don't Carolyne said you have no choice you have owners they own you they own everything Carlin said they own all the important land they own and control the corporations they've long since bought and paid for the Senate the Congress the state houses the city halls they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and the information you get to hear they spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want more for themselves and less for everybody else but I'll tell you George Carlin continued what they don't want they don't want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking they don't want people who are smart enough to sit around a kitchen table and think about how badly they're getting by a system that threw them overboard 30 years ago it's called the American dream George Carlin said because you have to be asleep to believe it. In the nation's reigning dollar drenched party on election system as in it's legal system as in it's media system as in its educational systems including its Calif entrance systems as we were recently reminded money talks in rocks now I'll say something really scandalous if you put on your historical ear bud in listen hard through the ages you just might hear the United States big wealthy powdered wig wearing a merchant capitalist and slave owning founding fathers laughing about this big messy state of class rule that we are in I'm always amused when I hear some political talking head denounce some modern day plutocratic outrage as contrary to the noble and democratic intent of our holy founding fathers David Barsamian likes to call them the founding finagle errors. It's total nonsense people need to do their day in history democracy the rule of the majority was the last senior The Nation's a restore Republican the founders wanted to see breakout in their infant Republic drawn from the elites propertied segments of the new nation most of the delegates to the 787 constitutional convention shared their compatriot the John Jay z. View that goes quote who own the country ought to govern it. As celebrated u.s. Historian Richard Hofstadter noted in its classic in 1948 text the 1st serious history book I ever read the American political tradition and the man who made it in their minds Hostetter wrote Liberty was linked not to democracy but to property democracy was a profoundly dangerous concept to the framers to the nation's young Arctura that a young nation's architect democracy Manton here I'm quoting Hofstetter unchecked rule by the masses. It was certain Inhofe starters were to quote bring an arbitrary redistribution of property destroying the very essence of liberty liberty was about property not democracy to the founders as constitutional historian Jennifer Nadel scheme notes protection of property meaning that people who own large amounts of it was the main object of government for all but one of the United States constitutions framers lonely James Wilson The 9 a fluent majority was for the founders what Nadella he calls a problem to be contained we the people were a problem to be contained in the view of the founding fathers and anyone who doubts that and doubts the militant Lee anti-democratic character the founders character of the founders worldview excuse me all they got to do is go read if you think I'm lying all you have to do is go read the Federalist papers written by the leading advocates of the Us Constitution to garner support for their preferred a more centralized form of national government to surpass the Articles of Confederation and 787 and 788 in Federalist number 10 holy founder James Madison argued that democracies were quote spectacles of turbulence incompatible with the rights of property democratic governments gave rise Madison wrote to factious leaders who could kindle a flame among dangerous masses for which kid projects like the abolition of debts and horrors of horrors a more equal division of property. Ok this isn't Michael printing you're some radical Marxist of the 20th century read about those horrible terrible counters this is the Founders themselves in language that can be found in the Federalist Papers extend to the geographic sphere of the Us Republic Madison wrote and it will joyfully become more difficult for all who feel it to discover their own strength and act in union with each other a big Republic would be good because it would spread people out further and make it less likely that they would actually be able to unite and fight collectively for their class interests from the bottom up at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia Madison called for an upper us Legislative Assembly an American House of Lords comprised of elite property holders which is of course the u.s. Senate the Senate he hoped would checkmate a coming rise in the proportion of Americans who will labor Madison Road under all under all the hardships of life and who will secretly side have seen road for a more equal distribution of its blast of life's lessons in other words that they'll call for a more equal egalitarian distribution of property and well Madison. Worried that the property less and property poor American majority might in time quote outnumber those who are placed above them. According to the equal laws of suffrage Madison warned the power will slide into the hands of the non-A fluid and what a disaster that would be what it is Astor democracy and what a disaster it would be if the property lives and property or majority actually rule if we had popular governance my favorite Federalist Paper though is number 35 by Alexander Hamilton the 1st the future 1st Us secretary of the Treasury Hamilton argued that the common people found their proper representatives among the small class of wealthy merchant capitalists the idea of an actual representation of all classes of people by persons of each class Hamilton wrote is altogether visionary the weight and superior acquirements of the merchants render them more equal than the other classes wrote Hamilton there were in that there's the pure weight in vision render them more equal than the propertyless majority somebody please tell Broadway's Lin the man you will Miranda about the language in Federalist number 35 Alexander Hamilton was not not only not Puerto Rican and not black he was white and not only that he was a militarily anti-democratic classist the New England clergyman Jeremy Belknap captured the fundamental idea behind the Us founders notion of what they like to call popular government let it stand as a principle Belknap wrote to an associate in the late seventy's and eighty's as they were deliberating on the Constitution let it stand as a principle the government originates from the people but let the people be taught that they are unable to govern themselves the sovereignty of government emanates from you You however are on the able to govern your thoughts of. Oh but of course it wasn't just about teaching the people that they were incapable of self rule our I mean their holy Constitution was designed to make sure that the popular majority couldn't govern it south even if it thought any cooling even to get a crazy way you need to know wild radical Marse idea in its head they need good governance our constitutional structure and in such a way as to make damn sure that they couldn't actually do it. And so the rich white fathers are holy founders crafted a form of government that was a monument to popular in the Pass a Taishan with the explicit stated purpose of keeping the majority and the specter of democracy at bay Constitution divided the federal government into 3 parts with just one half of one of those 3 parts the House of Representatives elected directly by the people a category that of course at the time excluded blacks women Native Americans and property less white males in other words and excluded most of the human beings living in the early republic the constitution set up elaborate checks and balances to prevent the possibility of the laboring multitude influencing policy it introduced a system of rigid leaf ixed steeply time staggered elections 2 years for the house 6 years for the Senate 4 years for the presidency precisely to discourage sweeping all at once popular electorial rebellions is explicitly the purpose to prevent that from happening in the discussions in a constitutional convention they created a Supreme Court appointed for life by the president with confirmation restricted to the upper chamber of property the elites and the High Court was granted veto power over legislation or executive actions that might too strongly bear the imprint of the wretched multitude the propertyless and property poor rabble who seek who might secretly sigh for the written more egalitarian distribution of wealth the Constitution's curious and bizarre and if you're from the United States it's always fun to try to explain the Electoral College to people from other countries and I like hom. The Constitution is curious what your electoral college or the old college I would say they nearly did flunk the democracy entrance exam you know that think the kind of solutions curious Electoral College innovation guaranteed that the popular majority would not directly select the u.s. President even on the limited basis of one vote for each property white male at that time and of course as we also painfully know the Electoral College is still in effect and they were very excited about the checks and balances they had between the different branches of government you know the founders fantasize that they had crafted a form of of governance through in which parties would never a merge they believe that there would never be any parties and a quarter funny things about it is that the that the 1st the nation's 1st parties a form precisely around the debate over the constitution and then funding assumption and other things in 79 to checks and balances between the different branches don't mean very much when one party controls all or most of the branches as has occurred repeatedly in American history and still sort of goes on except for one half of the Congress as the House of Representatives right now now it's true that the Constitution's Article 5 provides a mechanism technically permitting We the People to alter the Nations charter but the process for amending the Us Constitution was and remains exceedingly difficult short of revolution and or civil war as a progressive constitution critic Daniel loser has observed. Moments after a stablish ing the people as the omnipotent makers and breakers of constitutions the Constitution announced the changing so much as a comma of the constitution would require the approval of 2 thirds of each house of Congress plus 3 fourths of the states the people did not assert their so vanity in $787.00 rather the founders invoked it once they uttered the magic incantation they hastened to put the genie back in the bottle by declaring the people all the powerless to alter their own government now you know progressives have long advocated constitutional amendments to more properly align our politics and our policy with public opinion but Article 5 is typically just 2 Steve barrier and that's on purpose under its rule today 13 of the nation's 50 states it's can disallow constitutional changes while containing just 4 percent of the nation's population stop constitutional amendment 13 states and you can go find 4 so you can go fine for 13 states that have 4 percent of all population some states containing one in $25.00 Americans all together can veto a constitutional amendment it took the secession and military defeat of the slave south between $861.86 to pass an amendment about slavery and granting citizenship and suffrage to black human beings in the u.s. South and of course much of that was subsequently rolled back in the sort of a de facto form of slavery in disenfranchisement was instituted in the late 19th century in the Jim Crow era now the constitution is no small part of how a majority progressive nation I mean it's one of the stunning things about us if you look at the public opinion data the surveys and policy. The joys of a country like Bernie Sanders Social Democrats are going to the left center progressive. The Constitution is part of how such a country devotes primarily with not so much enthusiasm but primarily for centuries Democrats is ruled by arch reactionary white nationalist Republicans so what if the g.o.p. Is viewed unfavorably by 60 percent of the u.s. Population the Electoral College renders the overall popular presidential vote largely irrelevant. And gives each state an extra vote for both senators that they send to Washington no matter how small the populations are. Good Electoral College triples the clout of the nation's 8 smallest states and double that of the next 6 smallest states relevant relative to their population for the 5th time in history and the 2nd in this century 2 years ago the democracy flunking Alecto college installed a president who failed to win the popular vote in Trump's case by 3000000 votes that's the biggest all time popular vote losing president of all time and I'm not trying to express any particular sympathy for Hillary Clinton because she knew the rules of the game going in you know this is the I like the Electoral College rules are pretty clear Ok so I'm not feeling sorry for her but anyway Trump's in there he wants the popular vote by 3000000 votes Donald Trump made it into the world's most powerful job thanks in part to the electoral college which renders presidential campaigning irrelevant and close to 9 existed in most of the nation with most of your long time full time Illinois Ians and unlike me have never lived in a contested state I have I lived years in Iowa most of my life I've lived in uncontested States I'm just has to say you don't know what a presidential election is you really don't you might have an idea of it from t.v. We're not about what 12 states now 15 states that actually have a presidential election thanks the Electoral College why bother Look the goal is blue in advance which means all the electors are going blue why really bother with the deep south they're already read in advance which means all the electors are going all the electors are going on the Republican side so in places like North Carolina Pennsylvania Ohio and I guess in these purple a state some states you know it's like they don't know whether to contest it or not some more might be contested is that he might get a presidential election and the Electoral College system just gives us absurdly outsized way to disproportionately. White and white leaning rural states and of course interest openly violates the core democratic principles of majority rule and one person one vote and it's been fascinating to watch cable news and see right wing Republican experts come up that's what you do in cable news you get a Democrat over here and a Republican over there and that's the whole spectrum the right and the left and to actually see the right wing Republican guys actually get up there and just say flat out that's went out of democracy and the founders didn't want to study and we shouldn't be and the funny thing about it is that the line from Trump in the Republicans is the things the electrodes cause there's an election in the whole country that's what they say they'll leave the small states would be completely ignored and we'd only focus on the big cities and she's complete nonsense the the way it's the exact opposite that's they're saying 2 plus 2 equals 5 there that because the Electoral College and it's winner take all electoral system and the partisan Geographic polarization of the states now where you can just write them off we actually have enough we have a presidential election in 15 states and most of the Senate I love the Senate portion insisting it's even more skewed to the right. That 2 percent of America I'm talking about this every state gets 2 senators no matter how much population they have which is that which the news is it's just in Monte Python in the us you know it's it's darkly humorous that 2 percent of Americans who live in the nation's 9 smallest states have the same amount of senatorial representation as the 51 percent of Americans who live in the nation's 9 largest states red Wyoming I love this home to 573720 people holds us senatorial parity with the blue California where more than 39 American millions reside that's one senator for every 19500000 Californians versus one senator for every 278000 Wyoming years what's a Wyoming year I don't need a Wyoming let's say a Wyoming residents and Wyoming am talk about a rotten borough system. You know the stuff I write in burrows in the British House of Lords speaking of boroughs just one of New York city's 5 boroughs Brooklyn has 2600000 people if Brooklyn one of New York city's 5 boroughs were us States and u.s. Senators were a portion of their At the same population to Senator ratio as Wyoming Brooklyn would have 9 u.s. Senators. And I'm thinking in Brooklyn it's unlikely that a single one of them would be a Republican. And the same goes for Chicago which is home to $2700000.00 people in Brooklyn a challenge like the same size the Chicago metropolitan area is $9500000.00 people if it enjoyed Wyoming's population the senator ratio Chicago land we have 17 the u.s. Senators and we think about that that they like one person one vote right which is like the one of the core elementary baseline definitions of democracy is one person one 0 I'll get even crazier here in the following 13 states have a combined population of 34400000 Alaska Arizona Arkansas Idaho Iowa Kansas Louisiana Mississippi Nebraska Oklahoma South Dakota Utah and good old Wyoming together these 13 red states send 26 Republicans to the u.s. Senate the single state of California with a population more than 5000000 higher than those 13 states combined of course sends 2 Democratic senators to our House of Lords the u.s. Senate this proportionate system this is a poor up portion and the system means that the Republican Senate majority answers to a very disproportionately white rural and reactionary section of the electorate and due to a population shift from the agricultural interior to crowded corridors along the coast it is now at least mathematically possible to cobble together a Senate majority with states that accounted for just 17.6 percent of the popular vote and that's just insane from a Democratic perspective is not insane from a right wing oligarchic perspective and I don't think the Donald Trump isn't getting a significant part of his agenda through not all of it but one of the more neglected ones that you know. Everything's been Russian now for so long that we forget about all the other is going on and the handing over of the federal bench in the staffing of the federal judiciary not to mention the Supreme Court by the right wing Federalist Society is a legacy that's going to be with us for a very long time and who is in charge of passing judgment a Supreme Court appointment just the u.s. Senate not the house and that u.s. Senate is absurdly over representative of the red states white nationalist republican rural heartland now in some nations operating with parliamentary systems terrible awful disgusting. Revolting dysfunctional proto fascistic presidents or prime ministers. Can be compelled by votes of no confidence and the like to call or exceed to new national elections will be something that's after all actions right such an action is on thinkable in the United States sign in I'm sorry I mean the holy founders the holy Constitution says they qualified voters get to select presidents well in their right mind we don't even directly elect presidents once every 4 years we can select u.s. Senators once every 6 years and House Representatives once every 2 years and that's the way it is and if you don't like it sit down and shut up signing said You're listening to Paul Street on the edge to Democratic us constitution this is independent alternative radio you can order copies of this program by calling 1800 triple for 1977 that's 1800 triple for 1977 where you can order online oh no website alternative radio dot org That's alternative radio dot au r g. I want to realize I was that I might be living in a north or a Terry society when I was m I 5 because although I 1st played the game Simon says right since it is the ever invented you know a kid said step over the line and you step over the line to go no you should have done a sign I just was 6 and it says 1st Oh Ok Simon says put your finger in your nose. You did what is that you know that's kind of how we are with the Constitution I remember once I was sitting in a coffee shop and I was sitting in 2 University of Iowa last few days were looking up for their law books and had just read some creep of some Supreme Court decision and the one looked at the other and said you know we've made like gods out of these guys wearing powdered wigs in the late 18th century you know when the board boneset at that France and then they're like holy lords or something like that as Simon says. As George w. Bush's White House spokesperson Dan Dan a Perino explained in March of 2008 when a journalist asked her if the citizen really should have him put on u.s. Foreign policy you know like every day like between elections down a free and I said well you had your input the American people have input every 4 years and that's the way our system is set up. Cheney said something like until I'm not driven by polls I don't care what people think we were elected all the term you know when Cheney were on strong constitutional ground pathetically and not constitutional Simon says you get to so lack a president indirectly in a voting booth for 2 minutes or so once every $1400.00 days website you don't actually vote for the president the Electoral College does it and it's already a done deal and all but 12 to 15 of the states before you walk in the voting booth but you get the idea you get to vote for a u.s. House member usually by the way and I didn't have time going to gerrymandering which isn't in the constitution there's nothing that mandates gerrymandering in the us constitution but you get to vote for a u.s. House member usually and I have heavily gerrymandered district for a few minutes once every 730 days you get to vote for each of your u.s. Senators once every 1095 days you don't vote for Supreme Court justices the president for whom you don't vote directly appoints them subject to approval from the Senate which absurdly over and represents the rule and wait populace that's how you get a serial abuser like Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court for Life Streams are appointed for life which is like a really really long time. That's why we're so desperate to get everything to the people of the liberals and I mean even made it into anything if we just keep Ruth Bader Ginsburg alive long enough to now have a fascist president to replace or Now it's true that presidents like Trump can be constitutionally impeached by the House and removed by the Senate but the barriers to removal are very steep and again that's on purpose it's never happened though Richard Nixon would certainly have been pieced and removed had he not resigned he resigned. After the moment when Barry Goldwater Senator Barry Goldwater went in and told him we got the votes in the Senate so I mean you know in effect in effect Nixon was a de facto impeachment and removal but the barriers are very very steep it's never actually happened except kind of for Nixon fold the fenestration of a president no matter how awful the president are requires a tear or 2 thirds vote in the absurdly on Representative Senate of course the Senate right now is under the Republicans and it's not clear also by the way if Trump will accept the legitimacy of an electoral college vote that doesn't go his way in 2020 That sounds like a striking amazing thing to say but there's a distinct possibility that Trump is going to declare a vote that doesn't go his way illegitimate He's been setting us up for that from that beat gaining of his presidency by claiming that that Hillary Clinton's $3000000.00 vote ahead of him was and was was based on fraud illegal immigrants likely host illegal immigrant voting but what would impeachment and removal give us under their rever holy u.s. Constitution anyway the presidency of the arch right wing Republican Mike Pence you think Trungpa scary. Pence is a Christian white nationalist under whose rule the hard right agenda that most of the populace hates might be advanced more effectively than it is under trumped don't like it too bad sign and I mean the Constitution says that's how it is so. Suck it up buttercup get back in shape for the next strictly time line time staggered constitutionally mandated quadrennial candidate centered electoral extravaganza to vote a Democrat into the White House really why bother the Democrats have rebuilt his corporate ties them sold out to the financial plutocracy and its military empire to the capitalist system. That emerged out of national development under the rule of the propertied elite that the only founders worked so hard to protect every bit is captive to and sold out to an owner by that system as the Republicans and they are that way thanks in part to the outrageously outsized role of big money campaign contributions in the nation's politics in its ever more absurdly expensive elections and that role that role of money the role of campaign finance the role of the wealth primary so to speak in our electoral process. Is traceable at least in part to the Us Us Constitution the founding finagle or created the Supreme Court as a critical appointed for life check on the popular will and into landmark decisions that took place in the lifetime of everybody in this room I think in the Buckley of Alayo decision 1976 in the Citizens United decision of 2010 the High Court has ruled that private campaign contributions are free speech and that there are no constitutional limits that can be set and how much the rich in the powerful can invest in the giant organized bribery project that is us campaign finance don't like it too bad Simon I mean the Supreme Court in the Constitution says. I want to form a politically relevant or genuinely progressive an egalitarian 3rd party beyond the radically regress of and reactionary Republicans and the dismal dollar drenched Democrats. The founders fully Charter is not on your side it encourages winner take all 1st Past the Post elections tied to specific geographical districts there is no provision in it for proportional representation to accommodate and create room for 3rd or 4th parties that are never ready at the 1st election that they roll out their agendas to compete and win pluralities and American elections you like it you need to do why neither do most Americans most Americans for ever have told pollsters that the 2 big money major parties do not adequately represent the actual spectrum of political opinion in this country and again so much who cares too bad Simon says sit down and shut up. What is to be done everything you don't have to have a decent constitution in place to engage in class struggle in the fight for the common good the pulse of x. Didn't need a good constitution what's in it all to make the Russian Revolution in 1917. Electoral politics constitutional interventions and congressional investigations and motor reports are not the only or even the leading politics that matter or ought to matter most to our real functioning laughed take to the streets. Occupy workplaces idle capital the seas corporate headquarters protests corporate media defend immigrants provide sanctuary form grassroots move grassroots movements learn how to build barricades put on a yellow vest become a good liaison stop traffic transcend sectarianism and form a movement culture that makes movements funny again engage in civil disobedience join the extinction rebellion get real about the state of the world hold workshops on what capitalism industrialism are doing to livable ecology form community perma cultural gardens resist the racist police people are doing is none of this stops being essential because the nation is absurdly beholden to an absurd parchment from the time when the nation was ruled by slave owners and merchant capitalist wearing powdered wigs and tights to. They had said we ought like to delay Zhang's in France to be calling for a new national government and a new national charter around the planet national constitution actually do not generally last all that long as a sack or re Elkins time missing Ginsburg and James Melton notes and their book they didn't Durance of national constitutions It sounds like the title of the book actually ought to be the 9 in 2 lines of national constitution quote I mean life span of constitutions across the world sense 1789 French Revolution is 17 years. Since World War One the average life span of a constitution is 12 years and I'm not saying we should be rewriting constitutions every 2 months either I mean I think it is functional as well but the u.s. Is just ridiculously different it's just off the charts the other way it's absurdly venerated purposefully Denmark received disabling Constitution has remained in place with occasional amendments for 230 plus years we've got our value and trade to the fetishizing explicitly openly anti-democratic us and situation for way too long. So we deserve something much better to be drafted by people's representatives elected to a constituent assembly. Empowered to write a new national charter that would be dedicated to the introduction and the preservation of our holy founders ultimate nightmare copula or so ran it through. Thank you very much. I'm over I was done quicker than I thought it would be but oddly enough France thirstily enough this has actually emerged in the Galle Jones movement there's an explicit call for a 6th Republic in France and for a rejection of the fetish of. So-called borzois representationalism in a call for direct democracy imagine it in it isn't it amazing how monumentally in visible the French protests have been in American media this is a country that shares all lot of Western civilization all history in the United States it is a seat on the United Nations Security Council this is a big deal nation France there are nuclear power undergoing a prolonged mass damn near proto revolutionary movement in the streets for a week after week after week and it was barely covered on cable news and c.n.n. And m s n b c And I saw more of it on Fox because fast kind of liked it because they hate McGraw on because they paint him out as some sort of leftist which is of course completely absurd he's a neo liberal in the mode of the Clintons and the Obama's and it was sparked by a fuel tax. And the trumpets loved that because they wanted to frame the delays rise as really being against the environmental agenda in fact what they begin liaison's many of them actually many of them are environmentalist what they were objecting to was the regressive nature of the fuel tax was disproportionately imposed on these working class people who have to commute to work at ever increasing distances from French cities because in gentrification in France and also it was a tax that have come in the wake of the repeal of the famous social wealth tax in France too in other words they were saying why should we have to disproportionately pay for efforts to stem climate change they weren't you know in turns out they're not anti climate they're in there they're not against healing the planet you know all that but any of it not even on the radar screen of our media trying to remember at the time delay Sias was going on what was obsessing. The national media at the time there was a shutdown stuff that we were all at the shutdown stuff and of course we've been obsessed about Russia you would think there's nothing but Russia has a legit oligarchies overthrow of our proport and I'm ocracy for just about the last 2 years right now I do the paper and sure thing growth with counterpunch somewhere is like who will save our democracy from the oligarchs the American all the. Time. You're there so I want to interject that there is nothing wrong with saying that you know that it's grim one thing I like about that extinction rebellion group which is common is that they reject. In they do this in an exorcist and speak in front of a spiritual Buddhist x. a Special kind of way they reject the false dichotomies of hope and fear this future orientation we always have to stay hoping changing and Happy know that that the old left wing slogan Don't mourn organize I don't want to be organized by anybody who doesn't know how to not doesn't have a more properly mourn the situation we're in deal with it and take your future and then and then and then get real about where we were that's where actual action that might matter began in the e.r. Slogan is hope guys action began and I feel like that. Because we live in the present moment and hope and fear but both take us out of it that the Earth is our witness the real world that we're living and we're livable ecology is now seriously in danger and human extinction is something we can actually talk about by 2100 deal with that and then get serious and operate from there not from some future type of thing I just I don't see it go look up and see if you can find a brilliant essay that you know that Brooklyn based left business observer guy dug him would wrote in what he was March 2008 and it was all about Obama and people like me and Glenn Ford and a bunch of us on the left pinkly people from Chicago who knew the Obama phenomena as a Chicago and I phenomenon before the national one you know we knew what he was going to be all about on and one very sharp very cynical Really guy you know knew what Obama's going to advance he didn't article called Would you like some change with that. But he said there is hope in Obama and he said The hope is when it gets crashed when it hits the wall when he's excited all these young people and got them all thinking and he made the do left analogy with j.f.k. You know all the youth the young people I think the the Ivy League charisma the telegenic says I'm of j.f.k. You know hitting that wall of corporate imperialist crap you know and it's like the wake up to the youth of that and I think some of that happiness almost I think it took a while with them you know with Obama but I think some of that happened I think I think that's how it happened and you know Occupy was a big deal that then screwed up they they like went right up to the edge of saying we should nationalize the financial institutions and then it's like now we don't actually have policy demand there I mean could they have at least said financial transaction tax I think that might have resonated with a lot of us but anyway. You know I was a class of Obama supporters and I knew them and I ran into some of them I was sitting there in some ways they were the worst I would give the left could speak of Obama is really a vacuous to Rep neo liberal. And they go yeah you're right and they like to you know and he's just using identity politics and he's just using race that he's pretending to play progressive and there are people who Ph D.'s and political scientists and law professors was my son I I wanted to be involved in the in the because I'd never been in a state that had a presidential election and I want to know what the Iowa caucus thing was I kind of went undercover and it my son got a job after he was done with Grinnell for Edwards and Edwards was kind of an interesting phenomena I told the Sanders people when they came through Iowa City in 2014 I said don't just look at the Obama thing you got to go take a look at those those those rallies that had what used to have a 2 Americas thing you know the rich and the poor Bob about I mean I got involved in some of it and I let him get me out knocking on doors and I have these bizarre conversations with with really snotty sort of academics who who got the left critique of Obama and it made them like him even more I don't that makes any sense or not they were so excited to have an opportunity to paint them at the path themselves on the fact they're ready to vote for a black candidate. Care about race and you know that Iowa has the highest racial disparity in scarcer rates in the region they're going to go oh you know. I mean you know race beneath the color of faces in high places like like how our society structure. Didn't matter no. Well I mean you know I don't think you can have at the same time when Aristotle said you couldn't have them at the same time he said if you'd have to one of them would have to give you have to have either you have to choose Thomas Jefferson said something similar to that and there was the famous quote from Louis Brandeis and I find out more and more even though they put it on the sidebar of the Brandeis University you know the Brandeis quote The American people most Jews he supposed have cited 1004 you want to know can actually run down the actual quote but it's not unlike something that Louis Brandeis would have said which was the American people must choose you can have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few Or you can have the mockers thing as you can't have both. I would a lab or a the prime they had in saying that if Louis Brandeis actually said that or wrote that he was denouncing capitalism as an eye democratic because Thomas Piketty showed in his book that Marx was right in the capital and then Webster's my collegiate my gigantic version of the collegiate Webster's dictionary definition is correct it has in its definition of capitalism there is an inherent tendency towards increasing concentration of wealth so then you then your with l. In my sins would the recently deceased Canadian York University Marxist who wrote a book called democracy against capitalism they just are incompatible with one I don't think you can but you can certainly fight and struggle and try to have some countervailing power from the bottom up which we had to some extent in the 20th century largely through unions My main candidate for the most underestimated factor that never gets mentioned behind the right we're drift of American politics is the fact that we had a union density range of like 40 percent when I was a little kid and I think it's under 10 percent now and the private sector is on a 6 percent so even just by that you the rules of the game of capital us politics you just don't have that. You know it is it is absolutely extraordinary how close Sanders came to winning the Democratic nomination and 2016 I mean with no business that they've crunch the numbers on this he did have a single corporate business donation next just doesn't happen so something's going on out there you know 57 percent of registered Democrats call themselves Socialists Now if you dug down into that poll and look at millennia old Democrats I guarantee you it's 2 thirds How did how the heck to that happen you know and that's James Madison's nightmare I mean I guess that's a whole topic you know of itself I have ideas on after we could be here forever I think capitalism as experienced by young people which is actually the 1st generations that they're going to be worse off than their parents' generation and a percolates down the middle class kids now with thanks to the student debt thing. It's all over the media and it's all over the media politics culture and you are going to turn on c.n.n. And a mass audience here and it's the 1st word out of these commentators mountain and it's not just from the right you know it's it's weird we're in that we have a new type of McCarthyism Now we have a new McCarthyism. Classic McCarthyism was about the Cold War era. Now the Soviet threat and the socialist threat have been split apart from one another and the Democrats are running into this whole rush line and it gets called neo McCarthyism but in it is and it isn't it is the foreign policy level it is because the enemy is Russia the problem is that Russia some of my trump and left fans don't seem to understand this I mean I might know saw an on line Trump when I called Trump and left friends not fans don't seem to even get it that they dismantled socialism in the Soviet Union and they tore down the Berlin Wall and it's now kind of a fascist right wing only guard here right now that no one wants to be like friends capitalists for God say so but Russia did it Russia did it but it's not socialist anymore and then the great moment in the state of the Union address where Trump actually said Let us all now pledge that the United States will never be a socialist country I never thought I'd hear something like that in the state of union rep and most of the Democrats except Sanders stood up and applauded even Pelosi was back there you know I don't know I don't know I don't know how these guys these were spar guys in these I will guys respond to socialism that's an interesting thought and I didn't know he was suggesting that Sanders would have won some of these guys and I think you might have I think they're split I think they I think they're I mean I don't think they're all of these you know marginalized all of them think about there's a really this interesting line in Jason Stanley's book about fascism about how fascists get to benefit from seeming antic because the corporate domination of the liberal politics exposes the liberal politicians like Obama and Hillary as so deeply inauthentic and they mouth all this politically correct kind of multicultural stuff and it's all comes alive it's just jibberish in defense of a global as corporate state and Trump just walks in there that like fascist do like an arrow in Brazil like the guy in charge of Hungary like the guy in charge of the . And they just walk in with his plane talking Archie Bunker type attitude I'm not going worry about what I say anymore and it looks authentic Sanders had a little bit of that just barrel chested you know truck driver from Brooklyn kind of thing getting up there and being pissed off at the at the one percent and not sounding like someone from Yale or Harvard which I mean why would he when he's Yale law that's not even Harvard Law That's one step above ma'am Rachel Maddow got a Ph d. In political science from Oxford for crazy Thank you all so we have a small group and so I have started work here. You were just listening to Paul Street on the anti democratic us constitution he spoke in Chicago on March 23rd 2019 Paul St John independent social critic commentator and award winning journalist is the author of many books including the empires new clothes and they rule the one percent versus democracy this program is produced by alternative radio based in Boulder Colorado we are independent and in our 33rd year of broadcasting we are part of the nonprofit media organization rise up we feature progressive voices rarely heard in the corporate media such as Chuck Collins Michael Parenti were known to lead Duke Michael Yates Shoshanna Zubov and Ralph Nader to access our complete audio and book catalog just go to our website alternative radio dot org Again our website where we are podcasting alternative radio dot au r.g.b. To place a credit card order for C.D.'s m.p. 3 zone written transcription of today's program Paul Street on the anti democratic us Constitution call us at 1800 triple 41977 again that number is 180-444-1977 or you can automate our website alternative radio dot orc Dale Leaman record of the program Joe Ritchie is our general manager and editor I'm David Bar Sanjana thank you for listening. Serving San Diego from high atop monument peak in the Laguna mountains this is k. It as j That's the sound of somebody just clicking on the Donate tablet k n a straight out of work. And that's the sound of another k. And as j. 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Disorder thank you Coburn about his recent article in a prosecutorial criminal justice reform act a lot of progressive people writing from prosecutors rushed the country and Andrew over and thinks it's going to have a profound effect on the CIA It's Valentine's one just to talk about his recent book The CIA. Sometimes the book is how illegal operations come up in America and the world. I read his book. Sure does. York City attorney and author by Stephen Smith. Can progressive prosecutors achieve meaningful criminal justice reform returning guest reporter Andrew Coburn addresses this question in his recent article in Harper's magazine called Power of Attorney the tourney Dave Clegg running for the office of prosecutor and Ulster County New York has written that prosecutors are the most powerful elected officials people probably know the least about they are the gatekeepers to the criminal justice system people don't realize how the gas' decisions impact people facing the criminal justice system and the long term consequences suffered by their families and their communities a da serves with broad discretion and little oversight for decades house decisions by tough on crime D.A.'s have made the USA The world leader in over incarceration most district attorney races go unchallenged and D.A.'s can remain entrenched in power for decades did these have been active roadblocks to justice reform efforts and transparency and change hopeful prosecutors with good ideas have been running in cities across the country what reforms they have a campaign what kind of resistance are they coming up against. We speak with Andrew Coburn the Washington editor of Harper's Magazine about the appearance of Progressive's running for prosecutors in cities as diverse as San Francisco California Philadelphia Pennsylvania Baltimore Maryland and Queens New York and Ulster County New York Andrew Coburn Welcome back to launch disorder. In your current Harper's Magazine article power of attorney you wrote that quote strange things are happening in the world of American criminal justice what is happening and where well it's already happening all over the country particularly let me qualify that particularly in the big cities not just of the big cities what is what is happening is that the whole movement. As a general tomato. I think the most basic. Comfortable fact that the United States by huge about.