welcome back you with life and. recover the head washington is charged to iranians for an alleged plot to kill the saudi arabian ambassador to the u.s. it's claimed they tried to hire members of a mexican drug cartel to carry out the attack all accusations to iran is dismissed as being common. russia and china strengthened their partnership to balance out the economic and political dominance of the west deals worth seven billion u.s. dollars in energy trade and high tech industries that will be signed as prime minister putin met the chinese leadership in beijing. and an israeli soldier

captured by hamas five years ago could soon be going home a long awaited deal will see him swap over a thousand palestinian prisoners however some high profile detainees will remain in israel each. dog is here in half an hour's time but for now. they discuss whether the arab spring will be followed by an american one and where the protests can actually change the establishment in the u.s. you can join the debate show right now. liquor. can. start.

flowing well come across talk i'm peter lavelle call it what you wish a major political tipping point or woodstock without music irrespective of the occupy wall street demonstrations continue to find traction all across the u.s. can these days of rage be translated into meaningful political change. can. start. to cross out the occupy wall street movement i'm joined by jason del cando in philadelphia he's an assistant professor of rhetoric and public advocacy at temple university and author of rhetoric for radicals a handbook for twenty first century activists in washington we have kevin zeese he's a political activist and one of the organizers of october two thousand and eleven dot org and in los angeles we cross to tony can't see the tea party organizer and a radio talk show host gentleman cross talk reason i think that means you can jump in anytime you want but first musher to walk us through what's been going on at wall street elements are still unfolding peter and the dismal statistics that

reveal a floundering u.s. economy the occupy wall street movement continues to gain momentum across the country and trying their fourth week the protests condemning corporate hurry government inefficiency and growing income inequality have even earned the endorsement of president barack obama i think people are frustrated and you know the protesters are giving voice to a more broad based frustration about our financial system works. what started as a rally against america's corrupt democratic process has turned into an organized collective call for social justice that employs the same tactics as its ideological alternative the tea party movement experts say it is now a force to be reckoned with and unions and a growing number of democrats now expressing at least qualified support for the protesters occupy wall street is starting to look like an important event it might

even eventually be seen as a turning point with the u.s. unemployment rate hovering at nine point one percent and the growth rate just above one percent it is only reasonable that a populist movement should emerge to galvanize appropriate policy response but as president obama scrambles to pass his jobs bill and the labor department states that one hundred three thousand jobs were added in september the picture is still bleak fourteen million americans officially unemployed more than two million of them have given up looking atop the jobs crisis propelling the movement is flagrant income inequality the washington post published an analysis showing that middle class income has dropped by ten percent since the one nine hundred seventy s. while executive pay has increased four fold and that pays being driven further out by pure benchmarking all this means come re-election obama could be looking to preside over an economy teetering on recession set against the backdrop of a global economic meltdown a pretty frightening picture there peter thank you very much for that question all

right there tony i'm going to go to you because i always go to the person who got up early is for this program so i thank you for being here tell me what you think is the spirit of the arab spring come to washington come to wall street or are the protesters just a bunch of anarchists. so. where's the difference the spirit of the arab spring is a violence violent action there's no way to look at the arab spring from the eyes of the protesters or the eyes of the people putting down the protesters to say that it wasn't violence it was extremely violent extremely bloody it still is just take a look at syria if occupy wall street actually wants to identify itself as van jones has tried to do as the are american autumn to go with the arab spring then yes indeed they're admitting the reality that they are in favor of a violent violent action it's something we should all be very wary of ok kevin amen a lot of people let me jump in your p.j.s you're saying this is cross our crack i respond to that absolutely. first of all the occupy or the of the occupy wall

street social movement is nonviolence people have put out a declaration saying we are committed nonviolence there's been no acts of violence whatsoever and in terms of the connections between occupy wall street and they are spring there's a deep desire for a democracy that actually representative of the people actually spawns to the once in needs of everyday people that is what this whole issue is about and to clarify this social movement is targeting sort of the corporate dominance right that is the key factor here corporate dominance and you say well what is this corporate dominance we'll get some basic facts that's not in society not you have forty million people there and what's not what's not the case tony it's not the case it's not the case when you have disclaimers on websites that say we want free college education we want to get paid even if we don't work those things have nothing to do with corporations those things have to do with a socialist state is the gender you have to at least be honest the law is on the field and by the way when you allow yourselves when you allow yourself to be

associated with the van jones van jones is calling the calls for a connection to an arab spring just like michael moore is you're allowing yourself . to you know that really is not serious because this is you have to respond is not experience and i are los angeles girl that is like fantasizing reality doesn't exist van jones is not part of the star movement he's a he's a he's a democrat he believes in electing democrats the occupy movement is independent of both parties the obama's the obama and the demographic grazers they're going to be very sad to see the where we protesting them as well because we still see them as part of the crony capitalist corrupt economy that has resulted in four hundred people have been as much wealth as one hundred fifty four million not because they're smarter or work harder but because they are politically connected and because centrally bing through campaign donations the the tea party is not our alternative we don't see ourselves. when we started this six months ago we started organizing in washington d.c.

six months ago for this before the occupy movement and wall street store we embraced in support of the occupy movement street but we started earlier because we saw a need to find a way for citizens to develop power our goal is to shift the power of the people and corporate rule corporate rule does affect the cost of college corporate rule doesn't put our students in the greatest debt they've ever been in they're paying a college debt that is equal the words i first paid when i got a law school there they are coming into a job market that's absolutely terrible and these kids are in the streets because they are being treated poorly by this economy this economy is corrupt except for the top one percent that's what we cost of ourselves of on nine nine percent and in fact we have people from the ron paul movement that are fed our freedom plaza that because they agree with us on crony capitalism corrupting the economy they agree with us that the empire economy of eleven hundred military bases and outposts around the world is not good for the united states it's not good for our national security it's not going for sure that it's not good for our economy we need it will

have the power of corporations that's the issue right tony jumpin shoe jumping the issue is that you are not opposed to crony capitalism and by the way who wouldn't who wouldn't be opposed to breaking the law you're opposed to capitalism that's the progress not heroes decide to do people you're actually wrong about they are and you think it should just be reading a lot about this is what you believe all right diablo ok say the look in your own words let me let me just suggest this is because j.c. here doing very good jason here jay leno is allowed to be exactly the same time he's allowed now that makes up stuff ok oh you know he's going to go right on the name calling them a way of nonsense the problem for example so i love i love this concept of cross talk but it's not going to extremes are you jason or i mean if it's for or against capitalism but it's pretty fair to say that capitalism i guess if we can all understand in a same way is not working for a lot of people in the u.s. . that's right it's not true jason i completely agree with that if you as you look

at if you look at the american social system not just as an economic system or as a social system the one key factor here is that our system privileges profit before people again a privilege of profit before people if you have basic basic statistics you have three and a half million people are homeless we have forty million people that are jobless and you have nearly fifty million people without health care insurance you have another forty six million americans living below the poverty rates and you look at the bank bailouts and million dollar bonuses and we have a political system a political system that is bought and sold by wall street right this is not necessarily about capitalism or non capitalism is that creating a different social system they say it's about capitalism or not capitalism is a false virus or force the economy instead it's about creating a vehicle you never see within this country as well as around the world a world around the world that would that that includes people's voices that have been systematically more generalized and excluded from the larger discussion what

do we want as everybody's people and it happens the capital so be it if it happens to be something else then so be that as well it's not about one or the other it's about creating something the difference ok can engage and they're exactly what we're in the bill battle of here is the participatory democracy versus concentrated wealth and it's not just in government it's in the economy it's in the media it's in a lot of majors or touche and what we do is we want to see power shifted that people want to talk about a democratized economy that does not mean a non capital economy means people having more control and more influence for example mean more employees own businesses more employer own co-ops those are still capitalist but they're beyond the big finance capitalism that we currently see there is the middle wall street we favor community banks so rather the money being sent to wall street is kept in our community where people who can really go to the community bank kind of word and discuss what's the that you worship investments grow we talk about health care health care is something that is because of expense

you. can't do it as an individual you know one one prescription could bankrupt you one one one one treatment can bankrupt you you need to have a group system that works and so what we are is evidence based we are not philosophically based capitalist any caps we look at what works and we advocate for what works and we have could people working on this and it's not just one person's idea we are practicing this a market size form of decision making in our own in our own ok you place where we go to the market together we go to the break i want to go to tell here tony there is there is this claim out there that the u.s. government does more for big businesses and corporations bails them out but doesn't bail out the average american so is the government too friendly to corporations and not friendly enough to the average guy. let's take a look at the evidence evidence based as i believe kevin was saying the tea party movement isn't in favor of the bailout so i created websites before obama took office saying no bailouts created videos on the subject there's no such thing as too big to fail you can't go against the free markets save the free market that is

a net you can't spend your way into prosperity as for kevin's idea about evidence let's talk about the democrats and the outer eye wall street movement with the triple c. the democratic congressional campaign committee has a page on its website a petition to get signatures in favor of occupy wall street you think you're running away from the democrats the democrats are co-opting you they own you they want to be right on this one to reassure you and they are more and more every single day own has nothing to do with us anyone other than from his heart attack in the audience lies i want us because they have your energy and he asked me who is on the our energy and time of the century only system capitalism is the only system on the face of the earth that allows people to live to the moments of their happiness nothing else works is a right gentlemen a legendary this is a crazy desire to go to assure himself after the break we'll continue our discussion on the campaign against wall street state party.

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lucky. lucky. lucky. lucky to keep the slowest since the south of. the sea the welcome back to crossfire computer lavelle to mind you were talking about the protests against wall street. mum can say the same. ok jason i go back to you on your website i notice you have a phrase here let your life's goal is to change the world without taking power is

this what this movement is doing as well as i can recall. well i'm not entirely sure about that first of all that phrase i borrowed that from another political author but i think of john holloway that phrase is popular about five years ago in terms of my political beliefs yes i do think that is an appropriate way to go about political change the words can change the world without reason scribing certain power structures and i'm not here to speak for everyone within this movement but i do think that is a fairly common sentiment to one degree or another with within this movements can change the world without taking power in other words can change society and change the economics change the culture and change our way of life without reason scribing particular power structures ok kevin i mean a lot of people look at this movement here and it's very interesting but without any really strong organization how it can really achieve what it wants to do i mean there are so many different goals out there and what seems to be even more than you think else is just huge discontent but it is certain point you have to organize and get behind certain policies and just move it move ahead and i mean either you make

a choice of going or a little party or you know be the left wing of the root of the democratic party i mean like the analog of the tea party what i'm saying is that the sentiments are out there but where is your traction where do you ultimately come to get some kind of critical mass. we're not going there are cells be co-opted like the tea party was we're not going to let a club for growth candidates not call themselves tea party candidates that's what the republican i've done to the tea party but we do agree with what tony said the democrats are trying to co-opt us and we are fighting prevent that we are very clear we'll be independent we're telling you we were saying that van jones does not speak for us he's not part of us electing democrats is not our goal we are starting to form organizations and this is really a long term effort our goal is quite clear shift power of the people and corporate rule that people can understand what those words mean and they need to study english a little bit more closely and a corporate rule ship our people and what we're doing is developing organization around issues that are affected by that every issue is affected by court because it's and it's ensconced in self in all aspects of our allies and we have a lot to untangle there and you know where we're doing it we have committees on

fifteen different issues that are coming out of their polls are we discussed in our in our assemblies then discussed online discussed with other occupy movements we're going to double foundation there's a movement that we see as a long term effort independent of both parties criticizing both parties in the present need to be developed to support us and in the long run if we need to we will create independent electoral organisations that challenge both parties but we're not ready for that yet so at this stage we are building and in a mood that will challenge both parties and tell you democrats to stay out they see a lot of energy with us they see a lot of strength of us they have no energy they have no strength they've turned off most americans as other republicans they want to try to capture our energy we're not let them do it we're going to stay independent ok tony do you see this movement is and analog i mean ideologically different obviously in a different on the other end of the spectrum to what the tea party is. well first of all to kevin's point i only hope your object what the democrats are trying to do and the co-opting there is no doubt that when you know the movement started those

first few days in september the whole nonviolent conversation was absolutely true and you could see them talking about it it's the people who have decided to jump on board who have those loudest voices van jones michael moore roseanne barr now and a couple others pushing extremely violent rhetoric and not so it's people are see those are good for you if you're rejecting those people i'm absolutely sure the you're rejecting those people when you like worship behind those and are going to bring back the good team and some people to reeducation attorneys knows that health care is a complete other when she's a comedian is. analogous jason clay to the arab spring go ahead jump in i was right there for as i believe those are metaphors that i believe those of metaphors bring that audience in is not an adversary saying she was there to be there but i carried guns on a president and ok so they're really thinking about it's a shot to kill a team and you really believe that they're actually asking us to take back the guilty do you really believe that of course the answer no the god who are you that

you can't write of course not but i mean i could use here to see who agreed with her you know what i'm saying she is who was i said she said kill me she said yes she said i'm hearing that because he and for a while jon stewart tricky days and are comedians ok if you take you take it very literal here the people who are coming down to say oh he's a nazi i'm saying and you have your own admission those people away can i go hands about that play i just didn't care if it was national the way tim tim was not going to use people bringing guns to presidential events that's not funny and that was not that was not rhetoric that was reality any rhetoric of those three hundred year old teen or even the rich is rhetoric we are if you look at our front page of october two thousand and eight or we have a nonviolence players just anyone who recommends well if we were we've already thrown people out of our of our. camera because they were discussing you know for the back of the police came to rest. we're not interested in that kind of approach we've thrown those kind of people out we are nonviolent with the nod was the only way to challenge is that your government has so many weapons and we'd be outgunned

if we took any approach and we lose a simply that of the american people we're taking a nonviolent approach to push for people gaining power we studied how this is occurred and go the einsteins to nonviolence and how regimes change that's the model we're using we're seeking that you know you can really injections violence you can really difference violence that was violent gyptian egypt. was my baraka you may be my do you mind if i make one more point you keep pushing egypt be where i was while in egypt was mubarak and his thugs people defend themselves against that but they also were the violence came from was the regime in power that was going on i would say on their nailer i have always saying no to that i jason i want to jason will back to you jason philadelphia and jason on tell me where you are your thoughts on the coverage of this movement in the united states because well maybe a small number of tea partiers show up today they get huge coverage expression like on fox but when you have hundreds and thousands of people it seems the coverage is very different or is very dismissive do you agree or disagree with that. well first

of all there are a million ways to cover any story. and much of the media at least at the very beginning much of the media was focused on the hippie dippie kids it's the white guys this and that if you go down there actually the occupy wall street movement is a little very less some obvious that people think that's the first thing they realize second and then you are saying oh there's no clear message yet there's a very clear message there's a very clear message that corporate dominance corporate rule must end and we must try to figure out a way to reinstill our democracy that is responsive to the wants and needs everyday people it's pretty clear if you look at the actual movement the the knesset is the movement itself the action is the message and only takes a few seconds sit down actually analyze what that movie is about what that action is about it's about occupying space at a wall street what is wall street watching is the epicenter of the corporate world again is the epicenter of the cold war both symbolically as well as literally that is why people are there indefinitely as about reclaiming that space is that

sometimes in space with alternative practice is very true yes that is the message that's very it's very it's a very good message that the message and the other thing the other you know i mean to tell you that our media i've been actually pleasantly surprised by the corporate media coverage when we start our coverage two thousand and out or we emphasize the independent media and if you look at our media page and a lot of the media covering us we also see that everybody who comes as they consider themselves the media because we believe in democracy are as we do we teach people how to use their social networks to become a newspaper or magazine we teach because i use their i phones to become a t.v. station and do live streaming so we're trying to build that from the bottom of a new kind of media but we've been very pleasantly surprised by the media coverage you see from the cook corporate media something we did not expect and i think what they're one of the media guys who talk to me there about this i mentioned my surprise about it he said well we're all facing the same ground stresses everybody else's we're part of the ninety nine percent of media is shrinking. jobs are being cut. insurance and retirement plans are green. they're being held back they feel

like they're under financial stress as well and that's what's uniting this movement and really i would welcome the tea party come and discuss this with us because we're not we don't see ourselves as antagonistic we all are suffering the same economic insecurity anger at the corruption of washington anger at the corruption you honey in our duty or your view based on well you. know well you know what it is that i would discuss on our evidence based on what it says during this we did an evidence based way and not your shouting style but an evidence based way what really can well see where you had seen john i saw him the way i tell him you know the phrase oh i shall make a natural man now if we want to talk about evidence based and you want to talk about what you're doing to occupy wall street if you take a look from the outside looking in it looks like a bunch of people who don't care about the lands who are willing to abuse the businesses around them and death of camp police cars that's the evidence base that's no use out of the guy's nostri and get a job that's ridiculous straight ridiculous far that is setting in with sandra lee

i'm not exactly what's happened this altering language and it's unity that's the kind of this only inches wide and it's always the smart stop and shrink cab that is why your shrink you have in your party is not going anywhere if that's what you're talking about here to visit so i can say i was talking or i was getting a word in edgewise it's kind of silly in the republican party the tea party to be part of what you're talking about or engage in the conversations about what you're talking about you have to at least be honest about what you're about you're not going to get the tea party to favor a concept where everyone gets paid for doing nothing we don't accept that as a value we believe in capitalism we believe in the free market don't you see you know when you're saying that government shouldn't get what you are in wall street. and you should keep playing jason jumpin jason go ahead go for well first of all first of all do we actually live in a free market society the last time i looked as though it was that you were just corporations in the richest banks on the face of the planet they were getting bailouts so it's communism for the rich and capitalism for the poor we do not live

in a free market society that's a myth right answer and we've never lived there is one of the reports in the story this hour with your always privilege the rich all right tony do you agree or disagree with that. a draw i agree with a conversation about class warfare of course not do i believe that people should be allowed to get away with it when really my dear i believe in crony capitalism and breaking the law of course not do i believe that corporations employ millions of people and give them a better way of life yes i do ok jason i want to go to you we're almost out of time is this really a test of democracy in the united states because we talk about capitalism but it's about participation isn't it yes one hundred percent i would say although is this movement is a rejection of corporate dominance it's also an embrace of direct democracy people have a deeper political desire to actually participate and democratic decision making processes it's about directive mopsy and the reclaiming our democracy redefining our democracy re practicing our democracy in a way that is the sponsor for each of our wants needs and desires ok and we can

only let me give you the last twenty seconds go ahead the problem there is that we are not a direct democracy in the founding fathers knew better we're a constitutional republic that way we don't have mob rule we can change l.s.i. change in that's a measure of the system of unoccupied dangerousness you guys got to figure that one out all right gentlemen we've run on the very severe abuse for sake you very much you will run out of time many thanks to my guest today in philadelphia washington and in los angeles and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time remember the last couple.

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