palestinian prisoners over some high profile detainees will remain in israeli jails . my colleague will daughters here in half an hour's time but for now people live ellen is cross talk guests 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 here on r.t. . if you take a. stand. alone welcome to cross talk and peter lavelle call it what you wish a major political tipping point or would stop without music in respect 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. taken. to cross-talk the occupy wall street movement i'm joined by jason del dando 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 katz he's a tea party organizer and a radio talk show host gentleman cross talk rose in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want but first musher to walk us through what's been going on at wall street well events 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 greed

government inefficiency and growing income inequality have even earned the endorsement of president barack obama i think people are frustrated and. the protestors are giving voice to a more broad based frustration. about our financial system 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 with 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 but 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 pay is being driven further up 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 russia all right tony i'm going to go to you because i always go to the person that 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. where is the difference the spirit of the arab spring is a violent violent action there's no way to look at the arab spring from the eyes of the protestors 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 like the reality that they are in favor of a violent violent action it's something we should all be very wary of ok kevin a lot of people let me jump in here. and this is cross can 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 we are committed to nonviolence there's been no acts of violence whatsoever in terms of the connections between occupy wall street and they

are spring there is a deep desire for democracy that actually representative of the people actually spawns to the once in needs of everyday people that is what this is about and to clarify this social movement is targeting it's up to the region 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 you have forty million people there out of 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 or statist agenda 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 be true he's not serious and this is you have to respond there's not

hence there are los angeles girls there's 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 democrats embrace as they're going to be very sad to see that were we protesting them as well because we see them as part of the crony capitalist corrupt economy that has resulted in four hundred people have as much wealth as one hundred fifty four million not because they're smarter or work harder but because they are politically connected and essentially bribing 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 and supported the occupy wall street but we started earlier because we saw a need to find a way for citizens to develop our 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 mortgage i first paid when i got to law school there they had coming into a job market that's absolutely terrible 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 call it of ourselves the bottom ninety 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 was you who have the power of corporations that's the issue right tony jump in shoo go ahead jump in 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 euros to the people you're actually wrong but they are and you think it should just be reading a lot about this is what you believe all right do you get a little they say the look in your own words let me let me go to jason jensen yes because i see here but i'm going to go to jason here jay leno is allowed to do exactly the same tone he's allowed now that makes up stuff ok oh you know he's going to let all the name calling him a way of nonsense the problem 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 the same way is not working for a lot of people in the us. that's not true. i completely agree with that if you if you look at if you look at the american social system not just as an economic system as a social system the one key factor here is that our system privileges profit before

people again a privilege of profit before people will have basic basic statistics you have three and a half million people are homeless fourteen million people that are jobless 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 million dollar bonuses and we have a political system a political system that is bought and sold by wall street's all right this is not necessarily about capitalism or non capitalism is about creating a different social system they say it's about capitalism or not capitalism is a false virus a false dichotomy instead it's about creating the economy and over sation within this country as well as around the world as well as around the world that would that that includes people's voices that have been systematically more generalized and excluded from a wider 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 is about creating something completely different ok can go ahead

they're exactly right what we're in the bill battle of here is 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 major institutions and what we do is we want to see power shift to the people want to talk about a democratized economy that does not mean the non careful 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 this doesn't have a wall street we favor community banks so rather the money being sent to wall street is kept in our community where the people in the community know the community bank to the board and discuss what's the the key where should investments go 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 the market size form of decision making in our own in our own ok if you're patient we go to the get together we go to the break i was going to tell here tony there's 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 market to save the free market that is a myth you can't spend your way into prosperity as for kevin's idea about evidence let's talk about the democrats and the occupy wall street movement the d. 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 you want to bring this on really show you and they are more and more every single day own has the only time we were doing was healing the from hold on a second you don't want to lose i want us because they fear energy and we have speculated on the our energy and time where the things are the 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 i want to jump in here and this is where a desire to go ashore here to tell you after the initial recall continue our discussion on the campaign against wall street stay with r.t. . if you. want to.

discover its beauty. communicate with. test yourself and become three. see what nature can give you on auntie. least. use.

slump. soon. welcome back to cross talk i'm peter lavelle you were talking about the protests against wall street. mum. say. ok jason i to go back to you on your website i notice you have a phrase you're let your life's goal is to change the world without taking power is this what this movement is doing as well is that their goal. well i'm not entirely sure about that first of all that phrase i borrowed that from another political author by then 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 of the words to change the world without reason scribing certain power structures now i am 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 to 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 is it going to really achieve what it wants to do i mean there are so many different goals out there and what it seems to be even more than anything 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 being a little party or you know be the left wing of the 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 to be co-opted like the tea party was we're not going to let a club for growth candidates now call themselves tea party candidates that's what the republican i've done the tea party but we do agree with what tony said the democrats are trying to co-opt us and we are fighting to 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 if people can understand what those words mean then they need to study english a little more closely and a corporate rule shift pair of people what we're doing is developing organization around issues that are affected by that every issues affecting because it's and it's ensconced themself in all aspects of our allies and we have a lot to untangle there and you know we were doing and we have committees on fifteen different issues that are coming over there. we discussed in our in our sample is then discussed online discuss with other occupy movement we're going to

help foundation this movement that we see as a long term effort independent of both parties criticizing both parties independent media 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 of a movement that will challenge both parties and telling the democrats to stay out they see a lot of energy with us they see a lot of strength with 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 an analogue 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 this is jump on board who have those loudest voices van jones michael moore roseanne barr

now and a couple others pushing the extremely violent rhetoric and that's what 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 michael originally was and are talking about bringing back the good team and seven people to reeducation attorneys knows that health care is a comedian a lot of which he's a comedian is. analogous jason you could jump to the arab spring go ahead jump in i was right there for as i believe those are metaphors that i believe those are metaphors bring that audience in is not and how to sincerely say she doesn't want to be there to hear that i carry guns on the president ok so they're really thinking about to take back the guillotine so you really believe that they're actually asking us to take back the guillotine and you really believe that of course yes or no it was you are using you believe that you can't write of course not what i mean i think you're going to. see who agreed with her you know what i'm saying she had who as i said she. said yes she said to me going back to get in for

a while jon stewart's again these are comedians ok if you do take it very literally they're the people who are coming down so you know he's not saying i'm saying i will have you want to use english people away can i go around about that because national tim tim was not funny is people bringing guns to presidential events that's not funny and that was not that was not rhetoric that was reality and the rhetoric of those three enter the guillotine or even the rich is rhetoric we are if you look at our front page of october two thousand and four we have a nonviolence plus just anyone who recommends well if we were we've already thrown people out of our of our. candidate because they were discussing you know fighting back in the police came to a rest of us. we're not interested in that kind of approach we've thrown those kind of people out we are nonviolent within not a lot of the only way the challenges that the 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've studied how this is a kurd to go to the einstein is to read about nonviolence and how regimes change

that's the model we're using we're seeking that you know what you can really injections violence you can really egyptians violent that was violent gyptian in egypt. was my baraka you may do you mind even if i make one more point you keep pushing egypt being was wild and egypt was mubarak and his thugs people defend themselves against that but that was where the violence came from was the regime in power that was going on well let me say on their way of saying no to that i jason i want to just recently go back i know that you jason in philadelphia jason to tell me where you are your thoughts on the coverage of this movement in the united states now because when maybe a small number of tea partiers show up there 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 oh it's 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 so modest that people think that's the first thing they realize second and then you are saying oh there's no clear message yes there's a very clear message right 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 they then message is the movement itself the action is the message and only takes a few seconds sit down actually analyze what that movement is about what that action is about it's about occupying space at wall street what is wall street wall street 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 enough is enough space with alternative prac that 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 thing i want to get down about i mean i've been actually pleasantly surprised by the corporate

media coverage and we start to over two thousand live in doubt or we emphasize the independent media and if you look at our media page and a lot of independent covering us we also so that everybody who comes has to consider themselves the media because we believe in democratize 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 to do live streaming so we are 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 corporate media something we did not expect and i think what they're why one of the media guys who talk to me that about this i mentioned my surprise about it he said well we're all facing the same kind of stress as everyone else's we're part of the ninety nine percent of media is shrinking. jobs are being cut. insurance and retirement plans or break. 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 have and they are you know very based on well you know one of the you know what i'm saying is that i would discuss an evidence based on what is generally regarded and evidence based way not your shouting style but an evidence based way what really can well see john kerry lead. the way i tell head you know you have raised going to make an actual 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 land who are willing to abuse the businesses around them and deficit on police cars that's the evidence base that's not the guys not streams get a job that's ridiculous straight ridiculous that is centrally i'm not going to come out and they're all telling language in the studio that's the kind it's only inches wide it's a. bit kav is why your shrink you have in your party is not going anywhere if

that's what you're talking about it to because it's all i've been saying all resulted in no one's 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 want to see you know what i'm hearing that government shouldn't get what you are and wall street. and you should keep playing jason jumpin jason go ahead well 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 of 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 and sort of we've never living under the sun free markets are you deserve there's always privilege of the rich all right tony do you agree or disagree with that. do i agree with the conversation about class warfare of course

not do i believe that people should know of course you know what you are going to do to me 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 deep political desire to actually participate and democratic decision making process it's about direct democracy and the reclaiming our democracy redefining our democracy re practicing our democracy in a way that is responses to each of our wants needs and desires ok and we tony 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 an educated person have an occupy jane just as you guys got to figure that one out all right gentlemen we've run out on our very severe abuse for sake you very much but we've 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 rostock rules. washington

. washington says that the.