police lines. after he was hit by a rock. in northern kosovo nato peacekeepers have fired tear gas at. fighting to keep control of a crossing on the border with serbia tried to seize control of the checkpoints during the summer sparking the current standoff during which locals erected makeshift. wall street movement spread across the globe peter lavelle asks his guests if the activists have the potential to change world politics. and you can. start. to get.

a lonely and welcome to crossfire thank you to all about with presley fifteen hundred obvious by protests occurring in eighty two countries worldwide this is a global protest movement was staying power there can be no doubt there is intense dissatisfaction with the political and economic status quo but the question remains can all of this be translated into something meaningful. and you can. start. to cross talk of the ongoing global protests i'm joined by rachel martin in paris she's an international political and communications strategist and journalist in philadelphia we go to dave lindorff he is an in war winning investigative reporter and author of the blog this can't be happening and in sacramento we cross to joseph palermo he is an associate professor at california state university sacramento all right folks this is crosstalk that means you can jump in anytime you want to me very much encouraged but first marcia this global movement seems to have some traction it sure does it all started as

a mishmash collection of interest groups highlighting inequality and the influence of big business over national decision making today the occupy wall street movement has morphed into something far far bigger and far beyond the us that the bulk of it all the american people of the people of the other parts of the world are higher. payout tremendously big. price is all that it is saving the key impulse driving the movement worldwide is a sense that free market capitalism has shortcomings and that it is ordinary people who suffer the most from that. across the developed world they're in debt they're losing their jobs and they're finding their governments on able to allay their grievances at the same time the income gap has continued to widen and the bank bailouts from two thousand and eight have made the public liable for debts of the mega wealthy and as such the current global protest movement is demanding a new set of solutions to today seemingly insolvable day when we want to be part of a global movement not of the youth movement not a revolution but

a piece for. complete generation. left in consciousness many in the developing countries have joined the occupy wall street protest against global financial institutions and transnational corporations and hope to trigger examination and restructuring of political and economic policies and who knows with the g twenty meeting coming up maybe a look at finally begin to see some results or maybe we will rachel if i go to you first in paris and just looking at it with his report there we had some young people saying they didn't want to be put with a buttonhole that any kind of movement youth movement that movement they didn't want to be that i described but in looking at all these movements around the world is it fair to say or is an exaggeration to say that is an anti-capitalist movement . no i think there's two points that have to be made here the first is i think it's important not to fall into the the cognitive trap of assuming that whatever type of

protest movement we see in whatever country we happen to be in is exactly the type of protest and the reasons for the protests that we're seeing in other countries in other words a civil rights movement in america in the sixty's is not exactly the same actually not anything like. a protest movement in cairo that we saw during the arab spring and likewise that movement is nothing like the occupy wall street protest say secondly i think it's important to note that wall street has nothing to do with capitalism and that's i think the fault often of hollywood in the way that capitalism is portrayed as being equivalent to wall street but the reality is that wall street is if anything state socialism and and corporate welfare these are not the capitalist principles i think it's important to go back and define capitalism and what it is capitalism is free market limited government wall street represents neither of those two things they've taken bailouts and government has

its fingerprints all over wall street so it's not republicans it's not conservatives in the in the free market limited government sense that run wall street these are these are corporate welfare recipients plain and simple it has more to do with socialism if anything than capitalism capitalism hasn't failed and i think capitalism is in fact the solution and i can explain that that's a whole other maybe a little bit later david thank you go do you i mean i've always found that the term occupy wall street to be quite interesting and i actually quite agree with a lot with what rachel i do say why don't you occupy congress once you occupy parliament because it's these people that are in the pockets of bankers in the corporate world why don't we just get rid of these people ok if there is such a genuine groundswell for change that's how it can happen. i would have to take issue with what rachel said this first of all. there hasn't been free market capitalism in the united states for as long back as you want to look in

the industrial era i mean the same argument that she's making about the banks being socialist because they have so much government involvement in their business activities could have been said about the railroads back in the nineteenth century they only got what they got because of government involvement in land grants and in financing and everything else so really american capitalism has been a process of using corporations using governments to basically socialize their their. investment and also their losses so. what's different here that's happening that i find as someone who has been a journalist back to one thousand nine hundred two and was involved in the any war movements dating back to one thousand nine hundred sixty six point given my age away. this is really different because any united states we don't really talk about

normally about words like capitalism and words like revolution. and this is now even making it into mainstream media and we're talking about capitalism we're talking about whether capitalism works that's new and and the other thing is that. this movement is not part of some old left you know it's not. breakaway communist sects and trotskyite sects and the kinds of groups that actually spearheaded the any word movement in the early days it's a grassroots movement of young people who are actually questioning the foundation principles of economics and political system in the united states that's really new and they're doing it without you know being led by the nose by v. . areas. special interest party groups that are trying to push their own it well it hasn't been doing it it hasn't happened yet anyway the assembly meetings it hasn't

happened yet if i got a job but i mean this is start go ahead go ahead well this started out. on wall street with one occupation it's grown like wildfire all over the country and there are all these different demands developing but we're hearing words like us empire where here we're seeing connections between the u.s. militarism and the inability to fund public sector jobs all of these demands are coalescing and it's very early in this movement remember it's only been of what about a month ok i mean we just heard i guess i think all right let me go to joseph first of all going to rachel that i mean we just heard you know we've been focusing a lot on young people there's a lot of middle class people middle aged people involved in this is well it's because of the financial crisis and i'd like to point out to me during most recessions income inequality narrows during this great recession recession great contraction we've seen inequality actually grow not something new for a recession at least since the second world war yeah well i'm you know reporting

from a city that's the tenth most underwater as far as everybody's mortgages in this town in the whole nation and that's part of it to me what they did was i agree with the sentiments that have been spoken and the movement itself i find it interesting we don't have to reinvent the wheel and a lot of the labels about capitalism anti-capitalism i mean my my students all the young people you know the soviet union fell around ninety one right so it's really kind of out of their experience this whole dichotomy of all that you know you're either a socialist a statist or account it's a false you know kind of frame that i notice people in the media who oppose occupy wall street are always trying to impose it and i think as a historian you look at it. i look at this more like the bonus army marching one hundred thirty two down to washington they did occupy washington it was repressed but the movement continued also the sit down strikes in the mid thirty's in

michigan that form the u.a.w. i mean that was occupation they occupied the factories martin luther king the poor people's campaign in sixty eight the goal was to do exactly that to come to washington and they were going to stay put they want to bring three hundred thousand people watched that they're going to occupy washington they had a major poverty build so we don't have to reinvent the wheel here and also what's interesting i think we have to reinvent the wheel with the antitrust you know but you just said it's very nice they really rico statute yeah but i mean i mean in the we're all talking we're very good at describing what's going on here rachel if i can go to you then what do we do now what do they do now. well i think if they were smart the protesters would just opt out of wall street and opt out of anything to do with the government and go out and create something whatever happened to the idea i think now the problem that we have the reason why the youth around the world specifically in western democracies are at this point is because they're so used to getting things and getting a lot of things without actually putting in

a lot of effort somehow we ended up we ended up doing away with the idea of really having to work to get something now it's like they graduate from university i expect to have a job i expect to have benefits i expect i have a lot of money i expect to be able to buy everything that my parents can when they've been working thirty forty years longer than me this idea of starting with nothing of leaving the nest of starting with a tiny little studio with almost no furniture a mattress on the floor and a dream that the idea that that you know you can start there and end up a billionaire is something that you really can only do in north america you don't need the connections to government you don't need the connections to people with a lot of money you can come from a small town and you can make something of yourself because you have the freedom to do that and these people who are protesters have the freedom to get off wall street to forget about wall street to forget about the government and get out there and sell your talent whatever happened to that american idea of working hard selling

your talent and making something of yourself and slowly building a life that maybe doesn't include your i phone right away doesn't include a beautiful house with a green wrote what happened to starting small and earning things i don't know your city you are our community just our community got creamed i mean they laid off teachers firefighters counselors child protective services workers they closed held homeless shelters i mean they have just there's been a de new team of the public sector at the local level at least here in sacramento we've got a twelve point five percent unemployment rate here something and i discriminate all the low. calls services role i think in my students' parent therefore he has a lot of security right where you take this question we have to go to embrace and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on global protests state party . and if you. still. want to.

the submission street cred you take should free the store charges free from ajman priests three stooges high priests the old fremont counseling video for your media projects a free media party dot com. please . a lose the

soloist so. smug. on. smug can see just some of the some. of the same. welcome back to cross talk on peter lavelle to mind you we're talking about protests around the world the same education system the same. ok dave in philadelphia i'd like to go to you before we went to the break we

were talking about the end it was well rachel that brought up the differences in generations that we have this entitlement generation now which i tend to agree with you but at the same time is there a sense that there is. the there's a lack of participation in democracy right now that they the young people particularly don't feel like they have any kind of impact on the quote unquote system and this is the this is another element here people talk about the financial element the the economic part of it but what about the democracy part about and participating in society. well let's back up for a second these students who are in the street one of the reasons they're there is because the they can't even afford their universities the cost of public education that is going up to eighteen twenty thousand dollars a year at public schools for in-state students my wife teaches at temple university a public institution in pennsylvania it's now eight hundred thousand dollars a year to go while the loans that are possible for these students are are these extortionate seven percent loans guaranteed government government backed loans

they should be one percent these kids are running up hundred thousand. debts just going through four years of school and they're working hard for them i'm sorry they're not entitled these are working class kids that can't finish and then when they do spend one hundred thousand or one hundred twenty thousand gone and interviewed these kids on wall street some of them are working at forty thousand a year jobs after getting out of school and working for a couple years they can't even make payments on their loans on that living in new york so it isn't a matter of in title man if you get a job pays you nothing and if you don't if you're not lucky you don't get a job plus you've got this huge debt that's why these kids are so angry and they're not entitled ok rachel just. know that rachel really interesting point there and i think i think you touched on a released interesting point there and i think that's half the problem i think over the last few decades the idea of graduating with it fairly useless liberal arts

degree and being out of work because you don't have a job that's in demand has been a problem so these kids go to school they pay a ton of money to be whether it's ivy leagues or just state schools or whatever they happen to be able to afford they end up with these huge debts they're not getting a job that's productive or useful to the economy so therefore it doesn't pay very well i think that's actually part of the solution as well i think you're touching on part of it was the shining is north america in general you know that the future of north america in general. it isn't high tech production military production things that can be made in china things that can be made in emerging markets because we've outsourced all that just like they've outsourced their consumer base to north america so i think if we start making high tech products but that requires engineers that requires people who have specialized knowledge and guess what you are i don't understand why anyone here to hire a writer i need more of a focus on that i know how to use it and then just him if i can if i can take that question in the end give one to you right now it's very interesting is that it

seems to be culture doesn't really matter what you do it's what you consume and that's what people are so upset about because they can consume like they would like to consume what they expect to consume it's not what you do it's what you buy look like yeah let's move away from the pop psychology about the movement let's talk about the concrete issues that any quality levels in the society right now are marrying about one nine hundred twenty nine levels and that when when you have this inequality it actually hurts demand there's a demand crisis it's there let me just get specific for a minute we don't have to reinvent the wheel you can bring antitrust in those a company like citi group they had a bipartisan in the ninety's deregulation of wall street citi group became a monster it's a hedge fund attached to an insurance company attached to a brokerage house to a commercial bank they got rid of glass steagall ok they ran roughshod over that was bipartisan obama gets in we expected him to do something about the banks he didn't do anything he just beholden to the same corporate interests it's very

disillusioning to these young people to come out in mass for a president they think that might do something then it will larry summers and tim geithner running the show still now there thing is a rico statute the racketeer influence and corrupt organization it's still on the books they they prosecuted michael milken in the eighty's with rico they could prosecute these people who packaged these c.e.o.'s and bet against them you know citigroup just paid two hundred seventy million dollars to settle with investors after they stole a bill. and from them recently out of court now that's just one example they were they were running rackets with the c.d.o. zx and they collapse the entire housing wealth of the nation and cause all this unemployment i mean they wrecked the economy and worsening i mean a pop psychology discussion on how the kids have useless liberal arts degrees are you kidding me it's not about training the only maybe it's really a twelve gauge is if i'm going to do any of that maybe it's a combination of both here dave you want to jump in there that's a complete that's

a complete yeah it's completely wrong that kids are getting liberal arts degrees like a temple they're studying the people i talk to who are getting these forty thousand dollars jobs were but i don't take an engineering communications people those jobs those jobs are being exported overseas to china and india and they're. saying you need to train people for the high tech jobs isn't going to work either because they can do it better in china they used for half there are a quarter of the salary i think fairly that i mean you're doing what it is there are no jobs in the united states there's twenty three percent unemployment if you use real numbers right in the united states today to tell people they should go out and work is ludicrous rachel jump in. well that can be equalized through through taxes and through taxes on imports of things they're made overseas and i think part of that is is and this is why we're facing a bit of a problem on this issue is because nobody is actually willing to lead on this and

to make a value statement by saying look all of our jobs are being exploited because companies are outsourcing all of this this production to india to china to other countries that don't necessarily share our values and pay the same way that we as americans are we as canadians or ways north americans feel we should be paid so instead of saying look until that equalizes until that that that has more quality and people are being paid better over there and better over here we're going to put a tax on the imports of those products coming back into the country that but nobody's willing to do that because that means that you're going to. china is buying up a little of the u.s. debt bonds so the reason why people are able to get part of this is using lines of credit and sort of buy these really homes they can't afford is because china. and all right now joseph again i guess maybe i'm alone on this one here why don't they you know if there's such a groundswell here why don't just take on the politicians and just

a big broom out and say it's time for you guys to go all of you ok i mean the difference between republicans and democrats on these issues is. go ahead the political system is going to get there the political system is owned by money agreed to do this when the political system is complete and by one of the. people. just got i'll tell you what a better result is you are there for a lot of your intro agreements that's why the jobs are being exported go ahead they've already. had those free trade agreements are a fait accompli they're put through bipartisan doesn't matter who's sitting there even obama right now is pushing the ones with panama and colombia ok that's the other side you've got citizens united january tenth. ten they just completely it was a game changer the supreme court ruled that corporations can spend unlimited campaign dollars that mean those like throwing gasoline on a corrupt system you've got to get the money out of the system you've got to break up these big conglomerates reinstate some semblance of regulation and you've got to

go after them with rico because if they're able to get away with this what is the deterrent for these too big to fail banks what's going to stop them from doing it again if they don't get face any kind of prosecution or remain right now the kids in wall street that you know they were criticizing they know all this they're connected all those dots the corrupt senator durbin from illinois not long ago said the banks own this cent owned the senate they own the senate that should have been a clarion call for campaign finance reform instead they've got a supreme court that is actually wants an oligarch he wants a corporate oligarchy to run our politics you've got a corporate media doesn't report on this stuff that's why our team is good that they're doing some alternative you know reporting on this stuff but there's no there's no reason why a company like citi group should even exist you want capitalism i'll give you capitalism you break it down it's an insurance company i had fun investment bank

a brokerage fund and a commercial bank and credit card companies and you break all those up you make them compete and they have ten c.e.o.'s instead of one ok. ok let me let me on that same with this movement here do you think do you think that these these these people are designated mostly young are they just solution to what the process then i mean did dissolution elect our senator will elect our representative i mean they're not they're way beyond that they're not in terms of thinking in terms of reforming the system they want to opt out of the system i mean this is that's i'm bringing up the r word because i want lucius why are. i think i think they just want more stuff ok period i think they just want more stuff without having to deal it's not where i don't really see it for example. and this is i mean we can take this same discussion and apply it to the united kingdom today it was in the news in the u.k. that according to chamber of commerce report there are jobs go or available and people aren't showing up to the interview ok let me talk to

a trend that's happening in the last year almost all the time nor you know we are calling go ahead go ahead day the kids are calling for a revolution these kids that are camping out in the cold in sleeping bags and sometimes without even tents are not looking for stuff they're calling for a revolution they're calling for a total change in the system in the united states and the first thing they want is complete money out of the system that would be a revolution in itself. you know as joseph said so there clearly you don't need to do this to you know i mean it's working for the people instead of for corporations all right did you save i'm going to give you the last word i mean you have joseph the last word on this program here what would a revolution look like if it were to happen it would look like a frank capra movie as american as apple pie where the antagonist is mr potter who owns everything but in the end he loses ok this has nothing to do with socialism it has to do with basic american values of fairness and have an even playing field and

not have you know oligarchies in this country rachel do you agree with that and corporate you got ten seconds. i think they should all just go home and figure out how they're going to make a living period and i think they should not worry about wall street now there is a pop psychology you can make a life without any of them maybe should get a useless you mean like somebody there i do it is the arts degree would help you out you know in a very amusing house thank you very much i want to thank my guest today in paris philadelphia and in sacramento and thanks to our viewers for watching us here i see you next time and remember cross talk rule. and. wealthy british style it's time to rise from.

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breaking news on our t.v. former libyan leader moammar gadhafi is dead he was captured and shot by government forces during an attack on the city of seer. in athens protesters of police outside the greek parliament while inside the building the lawmakers passed a cutbacks that brought people onto the streets in the first place. and in northern kosovo nato peacekeepers fired tear gas at ethnic serbs fighting to keep control of a crossing on the border with serbia. and coming up we head to our washington studio for the alyona show where the death of colonel gadhafi is dominating the news don't go away.