it's a clash of warfare from pepper spray to beatings hundreds of arrests the biggest u.s. margin in years ending up with some of the worst police brutality so as occupy wall street street spreads with thousands joining the fight against corruption when we finally see some change in america. and from the money machine to the war machine thousands of protesters occupy freedom plaza right here in washington d.c. to fight against the wars in afghanistan and iraq so can the masses make a difference when it comes to cutting military spending. and as protesters fight

against occupation the u.s. and its eleven year in afghanistan so how much do you know about why the u.s. is out of war we hit the streets of the nation's capital to find out. if it's thursday october sixth four pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for you're watching our t.v. . well let's start off this afternoon with the latest from the movement that is now growing in strength and numbers occupy wall street tens of thousands of people are now part of this yesterday of course the unions joined in and more and more people are headed to various locations around the country new york city's lower manhattan still by far the largest let's go to some of these pictures.

incredible pictures of what is happening down there as people gather in their demands for an end to corporate corruption now what was most of the day a peaceful protest did end up turning violent when the sun came down. you see the pictures here of people who tried to cross the police barriers were sprayed with pepper spray and several beaten by police using their nightsticks to try to keep those crowds back and videos like this are surfacing all over the web and many protestors it's helping them gain support for their movement. now a lot of anger towards that wall street has been a long time coming a lot of the reasons for it are outlined in a book called the looting of america a well streets game of fantasy finance destroyed our jobs pensions and prosperity and what we can do about it. and that good book was written by les leopold our guest who is in our new york studios.

heather les now your book was published more than two years ago and you know we've had you on the show several times since and we've talked about some of these issues i guess i just want to know if this is where you had in mind when you say you know and what we can do about it. definitely this is a start we need a massive populist uprising of the ninety nine percent against the one percent actually it's a friend from the one percent who have been running our financial system and looting us this is a good start i know you said before that that outrage from american there and you said you know americans did have outrage but you said it was previously being directed at the government rather than at wall street but you know a lot of what we're hearing from the protesters is that cozy relationship between corporations and the government and you know from lobbyists on k. street who funnel that corporate money into the hands of lawmakers and in many cases help shape legislation i mean do you think it's fair that they were aiming

some of that anger towards the government. these kids are right on i got to tell you they their analysis is. right on the money there is a cozy relationship money buys political power. until it's opposed by mass. uprisings really populism did very well in the end of the nineteenth century and it built up a huge political movement that finally led to some reforms plus that the trust brought some child labor laws in laws about food quality etc all that came from a populist movement. we need to do that again. and the way that happens the currency of populism is people in the street and nothing else matters you can quietly sit back and think you're going to do it by the ballot box forget about it because you get beat in the lobbyist's there has to be people in the street and the kids are leading the way let's hope the rest of us join them and you know last that i mean you say the kids and there certainly are

a lot of young people out there especially initially but we have spoken to a lot of people out there who are you know grandparents who are out there with their grandchildren angry that their grandchildren or at least their children will not have as good a future to look forward to as they did so i mean i think it's important to acknowledge that this is not just young people out there. you know that they're young at heart but there's a spirit too with there's a festive to it there is a lovely disorganization to it and i think it's the kind of thing that makes everyone feel like they could be part of it i was down there walking around as well there were you know a lot of people there singing songs and. participating but it's because it's really being driven by this sort of spirit of youth and that's what we need we need some sort of mass uprising to put it i don't know how else to describe it that's what populism is and it and you know we can agree and we'll have i'm sorry.

and i would say more. organizational forms and agendas and all that kind of weight we need right now is a clear display. against financial elites that's been the problem that's what caused the crash that's what's causing this unemployment that's what's taking away the future for these people that's what's the that's with. destroying the middle class many of us have been saying this for quite a while and we've been calling for this kind of thing but it took people who are not in other we're going to say shoes are ready who are not kind of confined by the old thinking to actually break out and sort of lead the way and that's why i'm excited about who knows where it's going to go but if you covered enough in my cost somewhere i think that's a really important point that i actually haven't heard being spoken about before a lot of people criticizing this movement at least at first because there wasn't a cohesive message or a simple strategy or three talking points to sort of limit it into you but i think

that's really interesting what you said is that a lot of people are coming out because a lot of different people regardless of political party regardless of persuasion feel welcome because there are so many different things going on there that i do have to admit it seems like every day that passes it's getting more organized i want to play for you on president obama's reaction he spoke today for quite a while giving a press conference and was asked by reporters to give a reaction to occupy wall street i'll play what he said and then we'll talk about it so yes i think people are frustrated and you know the protesters are giving voice to a more broad based frustration about how our financial system works. all right so the president is acknowledging that he understands to an extent. why protesters are frustrated but i want to say this you know one of the signs i saw at the protests

in new york said the brock obama i voted for would be standing down here with us your thoughts on the president's reaction and what you think he should be saying. well better late than never. that kind of reaction comes because of the populist pressure i've been saying this from the day he was elected the progressive forces the antiwar street forces have to get together and put pressure on him because all the pressure is going to come from the other direction. look at how much he had to he was pushed to the middle and many people just sat back and said gee isn't that a shame he's not as progressive as we thought he would be he doesn't have as much back on the seat thought he would. we wanted him to have but look roosevelt had backbone but he also had a gigantic labor movement there was emerging in a ruffing all over the streets pushing the agenda forward we didn't have that

instead we had a tea party and now we finally have have it in place it's up to us to the populous to make our case then the politicians will follow i'm glad he's saying these things but i want to go back to the agenda because you know this thing is called occupy wall street it's not called something else so that becomes the focus that's the single theme that's the theme of populism and i'm glad to have just one phrase like that that encompasses the whole thing because you know what most of america the ninety nine percent actually think that wall street has screwed them so this is a perfect slogan and i think it has some potential i've been slow going last but you know as the days passed and as more mainstream media attention does start to fall on these people i mean for the first week or so i mean there really was very very little coverage of this now it's pretty hard to ignore the number of people grows in terms of these demands that people are being interviewed and they're being

asked you know how long are you going to be down here what needs to change for you to be satisfied or for at least for you to to be a little happier i mean you can wall occupy. all straights all the cows come home but you know where do you think they're going to start calling for you know specific names of people to be held accountable and this isn't it has been compared to egypt but we're not calling for you know the people down there are not calling for a president to resign they're calling for massive changes on wall street what do you suggest in terms of specific things that they need to ask for they have some demands that i would stay away from this specific i would continue focusing on the ninety nine percent versus the one percent and the way that can evolve is as follows there are about twenty nine million people right now who don't have full time jobs or are being forced into part time jobs eight million people lost their

jobs in a matter of months because of the financial crash that was caused by wall street gambling and nothing else this brings the focus on the cause so the obvious next step is wall street should pay for the damage it created it should be paying and the wealthy should be paying for a real job creation programs until you put america back to work this problem isn't going to go away all the technical issues of our platform don't matter if america is not put back to work i hope they stay there until we have full employment frankly i hope the rest of us begin to join them on a regular basis and we will of course be following it as we have since september seventeenth when it all started leslie apology condiment and author of the looting of america. and let's remember that anger over the economy is not just happening in our own backyard protests and problems have been taking place on the streets of greece for months now and the latest from there a twenty four hour strike that turned violent with police firing tear gas on crowns

of protesters they are growing increasingly frustrated as they start to feel the effects of the latest round of cuts that they're facing so that the country could try to plug that massive three hundred fifty billion euro debt that they have argued correspondent sara firth is in athens and shows us how the people of greece are now reacting to the latest round of austerity measures there. anger in athens syntagma square once again bearing witness to the clashes between rightly curious protesting thank god. and the conscience really biting as the police meet in to clear the crowds some shocking things one point the police chasing protesters into the metro station many others hit by they supposed to be keeping control the message being sent by the government is one of repression and fear. scenes like this raise serious questions

about the level of force being used. in prior is a forty three year old journalists he's reported from many conflicts and it was in his country where he sustained his worst. i just remember thinking is this really happening close to shelter in an enclosure just. one policeman who i think was the commander asked in a very rude i mean. pictures i told him i was a journalist but he gave an order and i. mean these are some pictures i took. place he'd taken shelter fight the sound of the flash bang causing always take this injury which is. after the attack i won't call it an accident it was in the trunk of my legs feel like a small. investigation was launched into the incident but progress has been slowly fabulous tells us that countless cases both against heavy handed police tactics and to have any kind of results we witness for ourselves the lack of discrimination

when the police lash out when journalists along with his camera to the ground the rise in the level of aggression seen by the least and the most extreme groups of protesters is causing serious concern with the government continuing to implement said there was thirty measures the bit received the cash sanctions let's keep escalating i think we are approaching fast. and easy to explain it's a from a place where you know the first reaction is to face it most. of the night. when we have experienced has been experienced in july and then we have the greatest. impact of the financial crisis is being played out played by blowing some tightness where there are now fears that the financial crisis turned into an economic recession bring the entire usa not just the greek people to the knee.

so i have here on our team while the global economy continues to suffer and you want things i have no trouble finding trillions of dollars to funnel into the wars but americans are saying enough is enough coming up will have to freedom father in washington d.c. protesters are trying to dismantle the war machine. and. put a picture of me when i was like nine years old on the job a true. i'm a confession i'm going to get a friend that i love rap and hip hop is like. i'm pretty sure. that he was kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of the world without jesse its place.

in certainly a military mechanisms that do not work to bring justice or accountability. i have every right to know what my government is doing and want to know why i pay taxes. i would characterize obama as a charismatic version of american exceptionalism. well another big movement going on here in washington d.c. is an effort to crack down not only on the economic system of government but and the wars and this is a process that's been in the works for several months now called simply october twentieth this month marks the tenth anniversary of the invasion of afghanistan and

here's a bit of the message being circulated in a video put together by members of this movement calling for action. this october as the u.s. war in afghanistan enters its second decade in a federal austerity budget slashes social programs a once in a generation protest movement begin people from all over the country will begin to hold on to occupation of freedom plaza in washington d.c. and like madison wisconsin like to hear square or not mv. well i want to talk to somebody who is part of this movement editorial cartoonist columnist and author ted rall and had some pretty good timing here and that this sort of coincided with the occupy wall street the occupy d.c. i know there is a little bit of a joining of forces today but tell us specifically about october twenty seventh what this movement is about and what you guys have to achieve well the american left has been essentially asleep for the last forty years and since nine eleven

we've been waiting for that week for the reawakening well the on the financial crisis that began in two thousand and eight has weak has woken people up and now the question is how things are going to on ravel in terms of the system politically militarily economically so looking for a new future a lot of people are scared but a lot of people see an opportunity to take our country in a new direction so that the occupy wall street movement the october to two thousand local movement they're part of that whole new approach of demonstrating in the cast what we would do is we would show up at ten o'clock in the morning get a parade permit and march around and chant slogans and hold signs and then at five o'clock in the afternoon we politely went home and the media clapped because there were no arrests and there was hardly even the litter left on the street yes a lot i understand there's permits being given this time around for tents people are going to be sleeping down there is that right that's right we are not leaving until our demands are met and our primary demand is immediate withdrawal from

afghanistan of all american soldiers and mercenaries so people are going to be sleeping right down the street from our studios in freedom plaza that letter and i'm going to be sleeping there is a man was at intel troops into others a plan for troops to withdraw from afghanistan another plan we want withdrawal another is we need to see the troops leaving wow. to my knowledge had a there's not even a plan in place from the white house to remove it seems you could be down there for a long time it could take awhile i don't live in new york and i do not have a return ticket on why. how. i want to talk about to the movement on sort of a broader level labor protests in wisconsin earlier this year i mean you talk about the the left kind of rising up the labor protests in wisconsin i think is a fair example of sort of the initial reawakening. wall street a lot of progressives are saying you know this what we're seeing unfold right now is an answer to what the echo chamber of the tea party we're going to talk about

that but first i want to play part of a cartoon that you did and then we'll talk about it ok looks like rich people are going to pay on your taxes oh ok. my. lips. but what are we. i don't like that i call again you know sort of the irony of a lot of people that identify themselves with the tea party talk a little bit about sort of those loud voices that i think a lot of people in the progressive side say have been sort of dominating the discussion the tea party and how you see this or if you see this as a rebuttal or an answer well i think everybody's got a different point of view on the tea party phenomenon among those of us on the left personally last year i wrote a book called the anti-american manifesto that discussed the tea party phenomenon

and i tried to explain that those of us on the left should be reaching out to the core group of tea party people who understand that something is wrong but they're blaming the wrong people and they blame the poor they blame illegal immigrants but illegal immigrants and the poor are being exploited as are the rest of us ninety nine percent of americans so we need to join forces with them and fight the real system which is the politicians who belong to the corporations the years they you want to work with the tea party not with the tea party that's funded by the kutch brothers and the g.o.p. but the people who are trying to get to that people who are political novices who are babies in the sense that something's wrong but haven't followed the news and were drawn to this because maybe right wing radio is all they hear in their hometown it's up to us on the left to try to reach out to them because they're drawn and they're angered by the same exact problems that we are it's interesting i was talking to van jones the other day on who's just started this rebuild the dream

organization he was at the take back the american dream conference and he said you know i'm not mad at the tea party for being so loud and at us for being so quiet and wondering how you and others plan on being heard and what you plan to do i mean certainly camping out for a long time is a statement but what else is in the works here well the revolution cannot be copied it cannot be cut and pasted so originally when the october two thousand and eleven call. i gather the idea was we're going to not leave this is not going to be polite we're not going to ask permission and we're going to try to replicate what happened until we are square but of course even that's problematic because look at what happened in egypt they haven't closed the deal they still have the military to contend with so it shows the difficulty of trying to overthrow a corrupt regime here in the united states the regimes infinitely more corrupt and more dangerous than and certainly more powerful than the mubarak regime was in egypt so we're taking on a lot so basically the occupy wall street people. sort of got there first in that

first there was kind of this reaction among us older people i'm forty eight years old but who are these kids you know they don't have demands they just want to show up and vote on them but they're doing exactly what we have to do there is no left that organized in the united states there is the co-opted left to move on dot org michael michael moore is the all these groups that are mental people are the lady who are clearly l.g.b. t. but they work within the democratic party and the approach has to be outside of the democratic party we have to reject obama and the democrats because they are just theater to distract us from the real issues when you say reject obama i mean certainly there is an election coming up in the next year and this will be certain something that people down here on the october two thousand and eleven movement will need to address is somebody is going to need to be president in two thousand and twelve so i mean is that part of the strategy in talking about the next

political move well speaking for myself i think we need to get rid of the system as it is entirely we need a revolution in the united states and what i would what i will be happy until we see this president and previous presidents in prison awaiting trial talk about your plan for this evening i mean i'm still kind of shocked that you say that you don't have a return ticket to new york i'm wondering how many there are like you that you think are going to be camping out of it is going to be. ten people or is it going to be larger and you're speaking out tonight and what are you going to say well i'm going to talking about this today is the tenth anniversary of the u.s. invasion of afghanistan and that's why we chose this day i was there covering the war myself for the village voice and radio station in los angeles and i saw what u.s. tax dollars were doing to that country bombing a country from the sixteenth into the thirteenth century i don't want to live in that kind of country and we don't have to and what i'm going to explain to people is that we the countries that have been overthrown in the past have always had more

military and financial power than the people who overthrew them we can't be daunted by the fact that it's going to be hard if if people had been daunted by that in the past there would have been no revolution seven hundred seventy six or in one nine hundred seventeen or. eighteen it is nine against the soviets i mean you know it just goes on and on so there definitely needs to be we need to understand that the strength is in our numbers we are the vast majority of the american people and the vast majority of the american people deserve better right certainly interesting and i'm sure i'll be speaking with you more as will be living right down the street from us. as ariel columnist political cartoonist ted rall thanks so much thank you . also i have here on r.t. america enters its eleventh year of war in afghanistan but right exactly are we still there how much more fighting an american stamp we'll have out to the streets of washington d.c. find out.

it's a little below and. based on all the preaching about these women that people are suggesting she's mother knows. she says she's a star. well uncertainty continues to brew here at home the outlook abroad continues along the same path this week marks the tenth year anniversary of the war in afghanistan and as it continues into its eleventh year do americans really know how much has been

at stake well to answer that question our team broadcast journalism around it was sara went out to the streets to find out as the u.s. marks ten years since the start of the war in afghanistan and prepares to enter the eleventh i want to a place where people go to remember wars gone by to find out just how much the actually know about afghanistan how long have you been in afghanistan. seventy years five years i would say money. yeah i think we've been there since september twelfth two thousand and one this is a ten year i'm going to say it's eleven would you have to have you know a guesstimate of how many troops we have there right now you know i don't know maybe two hundred thousand i don't know offhand i. want to say six thousand but i'm actually. kind of dancing. i would say more than there were over a hundred thousand i'm not even teach a class. a lot how many men do you think we've lost our last

a neighbor boy. two to three thousand thirteen hundred thirteen and fourteen more. i don't know the numbers are high there are but i've lost count. the number of it being way too many and way too many lots lots to me. yeah we're too many ten years a lot of lives deaths too many lives of the good years it's time to get out well despite being a little bit hazy on numbers american seem to be saying the same thing you've lost too many maybe it's time we leave afghanistan reporting from washington i migrants i don't r.t. . and coming up new i have five there have been battles on the streets as peaceful occupy wall street protesters are subjected to police clashes and crackdowns a large independent journalist has been covering these protests and is

a victim of this police brutality plus the protests as occupy wall street freedom plaza in d.c. rather occupy d.c. to end the occupation abroad so will their voices be heard we'll have more on the stop the war machine protest taking place right here in washington and as americans finally wake up to take to the streets well politicians steal the message as a way to promote and justify their own ideas and to govern marshall project manager of the people's book project dot com a lay down the law on how to keep the movement's momentum that's all new and thirty minutes and that's going to do it for now but for more on the stories we cover go to our team dot com slash usa second are you tube page you tube dot com slash r.t. america you can also follow me on twitter i'm at frowsy thanks so much for watching i'm christine for example.