marvin gaye ok so what's going on and what's happening is sort of the thing ok of them i think isn't it right anyway so my name is sandy baird and i'm here with marcus stroman and kurt maida to talk about what's going on in the world today and i guess we'll start with something that's very local which is the whole issue involving burlington telecom and we want to remind our viewers that the decision to sell burlington telecom which is a city own utility at this point is on the city council for debate tonight and it's a very important meeting the mare is going to decide essentially to sell brought into telecom either to an out of state company think it might be a canadian company as you know out of country ok out of country it might be a canadian it the third so it's either three or two and nero is not making any decisions but he's certainly made a presentation continues to make presentations about what he wants and i think what the mayor has said what he wants to do is that he wants to sell it to the highest bidder for the most money is that and he announced at the mark i think is quite correct that the decision will be up to city council my question is your city council goes the way a that we cart was saying that it made sense to sell it to the highest bidder because if we don't then citibank consider us because they won't get all the money they want right right i guess but then that was his reason and i think that's the merest reason that they are not a dismayed when thinking about the great thing that could happen if the co op bought it and i thinking more in terms of bottom line but i think that sort of correct isn't it but is that wrong i don't  or even the understand the but it is not clear that the citibank claim and especially the the hypothesis that they're going to sue anybody over whatever is the case although it does seem that both miro and the people that are at least online and seven days in burlington free press and digger that are talking about it the commentary is largely to agree with so bottom line kind of capitalist oriented this is a great resource at the city now and so what are we losing by this going to a foreign when when i use the term foreign i mean even out of state also a private entity right is  station which accepts advertising from pro nazi so what you lose is the political normal that for instance burlington bring to the station and it's under the control of god knows who god knows what limits right and i guess probably going to the highest better in terms of advertising exactly but not only that they're going to the highest bidder will be a private company of course the co op is also a private entity too it's not city with an agenda or no not necessarily judge and let me tell you why i think it should be controlled by the citizens because if it's if it's controlled by a co op remember that those are members and they probably members of the co op i was involved a while ago a couple years ago with this big struggle over brunton telecom that i got myself into i was aware at the time that burlington that there was a and there were only two cities in this country that had al jazeera english burlington telecom and also a buckeye ohio why buckeye i would suspect it is because it has a large arab population it's not airborne dearborn michigan and so yellow springs ohio was always considered a very liberal but they didn't have it right lock i am buckeye ok does have an error pop popular ok so that's what i figured anyway so i got involved really with brian telecom at that time and i we had numbers of hearings on keeping al jazeera english on the air and while we argued was it's a free speech issue we didn't argue that it was pro arab or anti israel or pro israel or anti us it was simply a voice that had to be heard a private company doesn't have to have al jazeera english but we argued because it was a publicly owned the debt free speech is constitutionally protected and we won that fight and i couldn't believe the numbers of people that showed up in jazeera english in the united states well that was why that's why i got so involved in this controversy in if you think about you know president news no matter what you think about what trump says or what the opposition says mainstream media is not free it is totally i think biased and totally controlled by the corporations when i was in agenda right we need to have alternate voices and i believe that if citizens control burlington telecom that it would be a venue for free speech that i d l be preserved and i'm turning if they don't members can beat them up or something but you know certainly if you sell this important infrastructure to a private company there's it's going to be like every other we have in front of us the premier example of why that argument is wrong which is to just think back and it's completely in the elegance to the struggle between sh running a grocery store the same as a satellite tech industry first of all you've got to remember that the burlington telecom right now has a very excellent manager and a company which is already managing it and it turned into telecom around have far more dealers to be dealing with you have a membership to be dealing with on issues that are not strictly bottom dime issues and  the both the structure and the management of the burlington caught up which is by the way now is has the largest per capita membership of any in the country and and so the whole idea of the local hits can't take over you know a big complex operation that whole already been disproven in situation it's completely analogous so we've been well i guess i do i do i mean i mean i think that the guy is a businessman why doesn't he see this as a huge business opportunity and a way to make burlington special you know i don't i don't i think he's i think you just you just said it he and humane kind of development or alternate kind of development he of course is trying to is going to develop a downtown mall he was very in life all these basically for profit developments that he says are going to provide affordable housing there's no affordable housing in this city and the stuff that he's putting in for instance in the mall it's not going to be affordable right so it's a joke i know that every day i'm struck by that because every day when i wander around burlington probably more now than i when i taught abroad in college there's homeless everywhere everywhere and all the shelters are full nobody has any place that they can afford to rent very few people it seems to me and you know yeah is the question of control of clinton and yeah we have an example of that today which maybe we can talk about later on the show and we're talking the burlington telecom but for instance how many of you out there this is monday know that yesterday there was a huge in consequential election in venezuela it wasn't on any of the mainstream things at least by the time i left my  we do not know that there was a big election yesterday in the venezuela and we specifically don't know and maybe it's why we don't know is that maduro and chose these small enormous gains in by far the majority of the governorships that were to be elected and it's being celebrated and there is a huge election n would olan its telecommunications it would not bring the glick to where we're not right now but we're not neglecting it either which is another thing you know who says that a big important company will allow public access i think they have to maybe to a certain extent but not the way burlington telecom i mean allows us to be on making programs i'm not certain that that will that that's got a curse on comcast does it i think the rules are changed you know in the past couple of decades regarding having that public's public access in the chamberlain my understanding is that it's not a requirement i mean right well anyway if that's the case that's another thing that growing to lose loses you know there's a lot said there's at least three public channels there sixteen fifteen sixteen and seventeen this channel and it allows anybody really to make programs and that's important even us you know right you know the alternative is always going to go back to the highest better exactly and that's really what i think this th mare is going to recommend tonight along the way i learned what is already ricky already has recommended and i don't have any clue how the city council go i don't know i mean i don't know their people are so convinced nowadays  bottom line rewriting that very few i would say politicians have any idea of a vision they're so anxious to protect what little we have and i don't blame them for that because people have very little in this country anymore but more people to pull off this sort of shortsighted other side bottom line is i'm now and so that it can be claimed instead of of you know real struggle i think the it's going to be  this you know miro administration know all of that to take away that thorn in the side to take away those two weeks of buy fording that yeah the additional a good thing but yeah i mean i think that's a reasonable front that's prediction but do you think it through folks think that that's actually going to happen i don't know i think he's getting nervous because some of the city councilors there there's virtually no opposition city council is a couple maybe a people who are you who can be in opposition to the mare and that's a progressive he was outlined in seven days max tracy in ward two i think it actually did to a kind of republicans cat sometimes oppose him and that's kurt right and and hartnett but otherwise the council is pretty democratic and they go with america so based on what you're saying it seems like this is pretty much around a done deal well that's why we have to go tonight so we can tell all of our viewers if ee you know we have we really have to do represent their lives and we know we're not excluding the band where they might go or that they might that might go they might go and do you feel that the issues have the way you both eloquently express polls the phone polls that were being taken maybe you're right the free press certainly isn't pro co op well and i think even seven days is no no no because i think and also the bottom line not seven days  what i was kind of aware of that scandal because at that time jonathan leopold was on our board so i i actually talked to him about what had happened and so forth and i came out was thinking what did you do he took seventy he took he paid burlington telecom seventeen million dollars of city money to a city entity i don't know what i mean and  understood that the council was aware of it it was to say burlington telkom and i was at a bad deal this was during the kiss administrations and that ultimately lead to his demise  but i came down on the side of leopold and he wasn't my favorite person in the world either i had fought with him numbers of times on other issues especially when he was on the burlington college board yeah misappropriation i was told i don't know that i  a taxpayer suit maybe which is very hard to get in the first place a taxpayer suit and went and dave the court found for leopold and then they appealed it and the supreme court upheld that so i don't really know if he it in fact i went down to city council and spoke on his behalf because i did he did not intend that what his intention was was to say brewington telecom right i mean i don't know is that misappropriation i don't know i die i don't know i just know that he didn't think so and there wasn't an intent that i could see that he did ok but he was basically right around that i don't know about a lot of people have said exactly this where's my sevent right but there's a lot of people also who say they don't care they want to own they want to cop to on it so i don't know enough i mean people are so where now of corruption and that and that and mark's right it was the demise of the progs next time city has a well i guess if you get enough signatures you can get a binding referendum and i've done i've talked those before not binding but anyway so it's a very important issue i think for the future of burlington and it's on and and and because it's an important issue for the country it's an important issue for the world because with this country does determinative of what's going on there i mean certainly we as we said friends especially in the area of media and the dimensions that i'm thinking about are we're there we want to continue in this kind of narrow particular the only things and this little decision in burlington is exactly about that is is whether we want to say oh this person is paying fifteen of his bases there or thirty five it's clear or we want to say wait a minute the value of what we're doing has to do with this organization has to do with the level of community input of the future i'm etc etc so i think that's a much bigger issue than the i agree especially since city i mean worldwide if you want to look at where the resistance politics are really being practiced to capitalism it's in cities it's not and it's in cities it's like cities like barcelona which has which has a female mare who is a very progressive and is advocating for cities to take control of their own economies versus private companies but it's beyond that it's in the  first thing you think of is power of a person or a small group of people who are used to exercising power and the sort of the last thing think of is oh you know we should all th in the thought process of communitarianism we've already got a good start on that and we do love already has a good story than that in the country and so if you just allow this thought issue to spread really a heated battle but at that time we had a mare that was a progressive i'm not a progressive never been a progressive but there i'm talking about in the context of media i mean given the way i media is going you know with social media and the importance of me and alex and the fact that the two seem to be in bed with one another now exactly well i mean this would be an aberration exactly and it would be it's really to me the most important thing we can do to resist trump ism is to build alternate institutions that's why i think broaden college are such a tragedy that was truly an alternate institution and that's gone and if we really want to resist the trend globalisation and global power of  corporations of the few right we have to build alternate institutions and that's why i think that he's totally right it would set a model for the whole world and it would guarantee at least a little bit free speech which mainstream media doesn't even have any of us are as i can tell you know but anyway anyway i think maybe we should remind our viewers that burlington telecom them meeting tonight is at city hall and public gets a chance to speak about that at seven thirty i think right so please come and say anything you want by the way i welcome free speech in fact because of my conflict about al jazeera because i fought so hard about al jazeera i was on the advisory board for brawling to telecom at one time not the not the be important on the less important one there was a little advisory committee and i fought for free speech so much that i got on that committee and i and all the people that were on that committee were against burlington telecom and against al guy who jeffrey kaufman who was on that committee got me to speak on glenn beck show but anyway so he's probably still in the room remember that if i'm correct which may not be the case it's not just tonight if you're watching this your replay there's another two weeks which may be where you're watching this where this question is still in play and that there's still time to play there if i'm right the i could be wrong and the co op is out tonight you know but in which case it's too late to school but maybe we should talk a little bit about what else is going on and and maybe we should switch our attention a little and that's a big political issue right now about whether or not counting on e o will become independent from spain it's important because those kinds of local struggles are occurring throughout europe really catalonia is not the only one  western europe aside from scotland but this is new for quite some time there's been one though there's been ongoing forever and that's our look northern ireland right there arland and scotland were taken over by the english centuries ago have always wanted to be independent northern ireland doesn't but ireland has wanted to be independent northern ireland wants to stay a part of britain right ok anyway so kurt especially had some strong feelings about that and so maybe we would start there and is it a good idea that catalonia break away from spain or not they had a referendum unlike ninety percent of californians in that referendum voted to separate right  all they would be performing a criminal act with respect to their national government so it's as if you know us said i know you burlington you're going to vote in burlington telecom  monday night but that's illegal if you show up you're subject to arrest and not only did they say that but they brought out the national guard and the army who did everything they could to interrupt the election going on and so the turnout among kind of low means was not great i think sixty percent didn't get to the polls or something in there but it was a relatively bloody affair for western european status and the people who did were subject to violence so that's that's first of all what the referendum it taking place in that so then what do you make of the vote of that particular vote you say well of the people who voted ninety percent voted pro independence well so what does that mean i'm not sure what it really means under those conditions well anyway anyway kurt i think you had some thoughts i mean it doesn't have any legal binding effect so i ever did that ever dead but who decides what's legal well that's that's the issue here i mean i actually got an independent entity you know they can make a claim that they decide the people decide and the government of spain may think differently all right ok but you seem to favor keeping the spanish state together i do ok maybe you could say why rather than because i i don't think everybody anybody i don't think other people i i believe that the model of the european union has been relatively successful in the respect that there for an inordinate amount of time there has not been a war in western europe the germans the french and the british and the british have enjoyed a relatively long time period of peace which is really unprecedented when you put spain in that category spain and that category de spain is part of europe certainly ok become independent i don't believe they should or scotland i have my own views about scotland but ultimately now i don't or breakfast right i'm certainly against brock's ok so if you were going to i thought i was going to counter that what i would if you don't mind i would counter that by saying i don't think the who has been terrific lee successful in stopping war and i'll tell you why they don't go to war against each other those tribes  british tribe doesn't go any war against the german tribe anymore which they did which they didn't were a coil on and right down to world war two and before that right ok but they do go to war in other parts of the world because the e u is saying that the e u is and financial arrangement barrel and not a democratic or arrangement either it is not democratic i mean look at the greeks they're not particularly democratic it's a bank and it has a military alliance so no they don't fight with each other anymore except their damn determined to fight with russia but they go to war everywhere else and where the united states tells them to go to war they go to war but is that any different from the way it always was you know it was no it wou without the direction the united states and they used to go to war against each other as well in addition to other places right and now they don't go to war with each other but they go to war in afghanistan they go to war in the middle east they go around the are entirely agree with that they go to economic war with each other yes true to well they don't really go like yes of course i mean who's forcing greece into the situation it's in germany yes that's what i mean so i think depending on how are so what's going to what's going to be the end result here but i did read some interesting stuff about why catalonia should stay within spain and it gave me some pause in a way but my feeling is that they should be independent as you know but one of the reasons is that cattle they want independence is that catalonia as you probably know is the richest participating right and it is the most prosperous part and it drives the engine of the whole spanish state i suppose in terms of taxation i guess or shore whatever specially given the economic which is not catholic but it's orthodox but all of those have suffered from the domination of the northern european countries right financially or hasn't have a suffered are have they always been slightly poorer than they've always been slightly poorer but i don't know if greece was bankrupt as it now has it been i don't think so but anyway but there was that thought that the cattle lands and the scots which i found really curious they are the rich about this united states should lincoln have allowed the secession of the south right or as a public right should the united states allow that i'm not familiar with the well i was going to go back to prior point i'm not familiar with the spanish constitution but i don't know if there is anything in the constitution that had provided for an exit strategy oh i bet that and i bet there's not that's what the spanish government is arguing right right and constitution was made up of no agreement of all the states and we agreed to this and we cannot agree there were that was ultimately their argument right and it also the consequences are once you join you can never and why is it even part of spain i mean was there an agreement i don't think so either you know i don't that i don't know i don't think so i think what happened was a spain conquered those regions just like it happened in france and then here as well but there was an agreement so they said we don't agree anymore so they put an exit strategy in the constitution all when someone doesn't like it this is what you do for the states that are taken to leave maybe but you know you can also argue at least i mean if you and businesses and  profits and there's an exit strategy what an absolutely i don't know i felt pretty trapped by my contract frankly in burlington gulch i felt really trapped body but you have severance packages and things like that and you know and employment contracts when you when you leave they may not be generous so that they keep you trapped but nevertheless they may be there yeah i know i don't think there should but i don't think that i don't know what the spanish constitution even when it was formed i don't either i don't really know too so in my mind the spanish state is a monarchy and that it is gathering its territory by conquest i would guess right like the basque country and and really i suppose was ferdinand and isabella didn't mean this and that when the spanish state kicked out the arabs kicked out the jews and formed spain as a christian monarchy i think right right at least it's second coming anyway yeah i don't know if it was if i that speaks a different language than the really does speak a different language you know it has different the cultural icon and the argument for it becoming a separate countr government had until today it was extended by spain until thursday right to make a clear announcement to about whether it is declaring independen independence would like another i think it's four months of public debate and back and forth and negotiation and any goshi ation so there is one deadline which presumably  but they've wanted to become independent for decades the basques and the basques to now and i think that through that both of those struggles they have achieved a certain amount of autonomy it's just not enough they want to be on their nothis is going to be a further falling apart don't you think i mean i don't think the you're in the e u is terribly popular in europe is it except the financially financial elites like look what happened w breakfast look what happened with marine le pen and her vote in france of course micro i mean i think there's a popular sentiment in parts of and parts of europe i'm going to say that believe in greater independence and greater autonomy but i think again i'm not citing any polls but i think a fair majority of people believe that they want to stay in the european union in europe otherwise these these quote unquote fringe twelve but she she was so she was associated with something that the europeans don't want back and she was associated really with fascism and nazism i think wasn't she so the alternative for germany similarly they write it as you know the depressed eastern part of the country that hasn't caught up to the you know the west i think if catalan lonia really wants to become independent the spanish will invade them that's what i think but i agree you on that's not good news but i think i don't think spain will stand for it well it will be difficult i think they'll be pressure on spain to invade even if that wasn't their intent by the rest of europe because i think it would be a driving  inspiration for other independent i know i did as well i think and i think that in other words the european wars are not over say what i see what happens but they're not in my mind anyway like i said because i think nato has given europe a military alliance that does go to war they just don't fight that much of each other although they may fight was russia i really want to say something about russia because in all the hysteria against russia in all that history that's going on right now who ever has mentioned that russia was our ally in world war two no mention of that i haven't seen that mentioned once and you i mean there were our ally after cutting a deal with the germans and that deal backfired and that's how they sort of became  that recognition that at one point russia was our twice world war one and world war two no recognition that we were ever able to deal with russia no i mean i think it would be a lot more convenient if we could just say that we the argument of europe russia is a european power but nato is directed against them but russia and the invitation was an extended in the ninety's when i was that there was talk about it and i know there was talk about i told you everything was going to happen i never did being tugged that by the russian composers who wanted him not to be so europeans arman they wanted him not to travel in europe so much they wanted him to exploit know so we'll see you maybe in a month or so thanks for joining us