come tonight from moscow this is alex he would be twenty four hours a day top stories now this hour the missing link the u.n. calls for an investigation into the death of color gadhafi after gruesome footage in the media fails to pinpoint exactly where the hell they all stood libyan leader lost his life the country's interim government claims he died from wounds sustained during his capture in the city of sirte on thursday. and his western leaders cheer the colonel's demise claims emerge that they're secretly relieved could actually be spilling the beans about his previous dealings with the u.s. and its allies of the late if you need it was for many years a major customer for western weapon exports. maybe unions call for more protests in greece as the parliament approves posh cutbacks amid mass chaos and violence across the country and emotions of the government's latest attempt to stave off a debt default. in a russian soyuz rocket successfully makes the very first foreign launch pairing

europe's new satellite navigation system on its way to rivalling americans she. brings up to date for the moment i'll be back with more news for in less than half an hour from now in the meantime cross-talk is next and we look at whether the activists of the occupy wall street movements have the potential to change world politics stay with us for that. please. live live. live live. live in the studio. live the think. live hello and welcome across talking to people about with wesley fifteen hundred occupy 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. lives can. start listening. to cross talk 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's 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 encourage it 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 u.s.

like the fumes the american people because of the other parts of the world. ok i'll tremendously. place this all happened in the same we keep driving the movement worldwide is a sense that free market capitalism has shortcomings and that it is ordinary people who suffer the most from. across the developed world they are in debt they're losing their jobs and they're finding their governments on a bill 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 the such the current global protest movement is demanding a new set of solutions to today's seemingly insolvable day when we want to be part of a global movement of the youth movement not a revolution but a place for. complete generation. 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 well maybe we will rachel if i go to you first in paris and just looking at march's report there we had some young people saying they didn't want to be put with a button hole that any kind of movement youth movement that movement they didn't want to be that i described i mean in looking at all these movements around the world is it fair to say or is an exaggeration to say it is an anti-capitalist movement. no i think there's two points that have to make your the first is i think it's important not to fall into 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 protests 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 corporate welfare these are not the capitalist principles i think it's important to go back and to find 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 me in the free market limited government sense that run wall street these are these are our 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 if you explain that that's a whole other maybe a little bit later if i can go do you i mean i've always found the term occupy wall street to be quite interesting you and i actually quite agree with a lot with what rachel i do say why don't you occupy congresswoman to 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 ok because first of all. there hasn't been free market capitalism in the united states for as long back as he wanted to look in the industrial era i mean the same argument that he'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 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 nine hundred seventy two and was involved in the antiwar movements dating back to one hundred sixty six point in 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 why 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 a breakaway the communist sects and tried 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 that you cannot mix 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. it's. special interest party groups that are trying to push their own it well it hasn't been doing that it hasn't happened yet anyway the assembly meetings it hasn't happened yet and i got a job but i mean this is starting and i had to had 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 we're here we're seeing connections between us 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 joseph i mean we just heard i do think all right let me go to joseph person i'm going to rachel but 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 as well as because of the financial crisis and i'd like to point out to you 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 and the whole nation and that's part of it to me what they did was i agree with the

sentiments that have been spoken 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 oh it is true you're either a socialist the statist or account it's a false you know kind of frame it i notice people in the media who oppose occupy wall street are always trying to impose it and i think as this story and you look at it. i think i look at this more like the bonus army marching one hundred thirty two down in washington they did occupy washington it was repressed but the movement continued also the sit down strikes in the thirty's in michigan that formed the u.a.w. i mean that was an 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 the man to bring three hundred thousand people watch 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 antitrust clearly you know because there's a rancher's and it's very really really rico statute yeah but i mean i mean the are all talking we're very good at describing what's going on here rachel fine go you know 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 to 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 they could be 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 well 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 this is what happened starting small and burning things i don't know just a minute you are our community just our community got creamed i mean they laid off teachers firefighters counselors child protective services workers they closed her homeless shelters i mean they have just there's been a de noteboom of the public sector at the local level at least here in sacramento we got a twelve point five percent unemployment rate years on the idea screamed all the low. calls services role i think by students parents there if he has a lot of security right now you say this question we have to go to embrace and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on global protests state parties. can start.

i'm good it's to life long dream for many many. months bravery alone is not enough to steer the ship knowledge tyndarus and genuine love to the muslims history are required and people who revive the ancient craft are sailing through the centuries on our keep. moving.

just so if the first summit. was. things you hear in the russian european space partnership. the future of the european satellite navigation system. and force the world's most reliable space vehicle. soyuz rocket is cheering up for the first ever blast off from a foreign face. the landmark launch. life. ok.

welcome back to crossfire guy people of l two mind you were talking about protests around the world. can. start. ok game in philadelphia i'd like to go to you before we went to the break we were talking about there and it was well rachel that brought up the differences in generations that we have as entitlement to generation now which i tend to agree with you but at the same time is there a sense that there's the little there's a lack of participation in democracy right now that there may be 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 they they can't even afford their universities the cost of public education that's 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 eighteen thousand dollars a year to go well the loans that are possible for these students are are these extortionate seven percent loans on guaranteed government government backed loans they should be one percent these kids are running the 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 that 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 their living in new york so it isn't a matter of entitlement if you get a job that pays you nothing and if you don't if you're not lucky you don't get

a job plus you get this huge debt that's why these kids are so angry and they're not entitled ok. i think there's no doubt rachel for some 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 time tonight to be right it's ivy league there are 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 shining in north america in general you know that big future of north america in general. 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 of 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 and hiring a writer i mean more of a focus i don't know how to use it in the gym if i can if i could take that question in the end and give one to you right now it's very interesting is that it seems to be called for doesn't really matter what you do it's what you consume and that's what people write about because they can consume like they would like the consumer 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 the any quality levels in the society right now are myriad about nineteen twenty nine levels and that when when you have this inequality it actually hurts to man there's a demand crisis and let me just get specific for a minute we don't have to reinvent the wheel you can bring in 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 really glass steagall ok they ran a rough shod 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 who think they might do something then to larry summers and tim geithner running the show still now this thing is a rico statute the racketeer influence and corrupt organization up 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.d.o. those and did 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. those and they collapsed the entire housing wealth of the nation and caused all

this unemployment i mean they wrecked the economy and worse to me 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 there they're studying the people i talk to who were getting these forty thousand dollars jobs were but i've taken it from here and communications people those jobs those jobs are being exported overseas to china and india and they're. saying you need to train people for high tech jobs isn't going to work either because they can do it better in chinese appearing as you have for a half there or a quarter of the salary necessarily these are the only thing we want is there are no jobs in the united states there's twenty three percent unemployment if you use real number right here in united states today to tell people they should go out and work it's 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 to be export it because companies are outsourcing all of this this production to india to china to other countries that don't necessarily share our values and pave the same way that we as americans are we as canadians are we as a north american 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 going to do that because that means they're going to pay in order to help with china is buying up all of the u.s. debt bonds so the reason why people are able to get part of this huge lines of

credit and survive these really homes they can't afford is because china is paying the bill and all right now. 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 who get the 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 are so very go ahead the political story is going to get there the political system is owned by money and greed how do you do that when the political systems complete money when there are people. just got i'll tell you what a better system is where you don't want your intro agreements the jobs are being exported i just go ahead they've already got. those free trade agreements are a fait accompli they're put through bipartisan doesn't matter who's sitting there is going to go right now is pushing the ones with panama and colombia ok that's that aside you got citizens united january tenth. 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 well that's going to stop them from doing it again if they don't get face any kind of prosecution or we're going right now the kids on wall street that are you know they were criticizing they know all of this they're connected all those dots the corrupt senator durbin from illinois not long ago said the banks only assent on the senate they own the senate should have been a clarion call for campaign finance reform instead they've got a supreme court that is actually wants oligarch he wants a corporate oligarchy to run our politics we've got a corporate media doesn't report on this stuff that's why our team is 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 calculus and i you break it down it's an insurance company i had spun investment a brokerage fund and a commercial bank and credit card company and you break all those up you make a complete may have ten c.e.o.'s instead of one i'll tell you that rachel is. ok would you let me on that same with this movement here do you think do you think that these these these people and we've designated mostly young. they just solution to the process then i mean the dissolution the elect are senator will like our representative i mean they're not they're way beyond that they're not in the 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'm really sure why he had i think i think they just want more stuff ok kerry and i think they just want more stuff without having to feel 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 in the lore available and people aren't showing up to the interview ok let me say that it's a trend that's happening in the last year almost all the time nor your whole lane gave go ahead but a day that kids are calling for a revolution these kids that are camping out in the cold in sleeping bags and sometimes without even fencer 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 that so there clearly you're going to see this tonight you know with you know i mean it's working for the people instead of for corporations all right did you said i'm going to give you the last word i mean give joseph the last word on this program here what would a revolution look like if it were to happen it will look like

a frank capra movie as american as apple pie where the antagonist is mr hollander who owns everything but in the end he loses ok this has nothing to do with socialism yes 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 me or you got ten seconds. i think they should all just go home and figure out how they're going to make a living area and i think they should not worry about wall street now where is the pop psychology you can make a life without being noticed i mean you should get to use the you mean well i'm standing there i do it is the arts degree would help you out you know in a very interesting to 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 are to see you next time and remember crosstalk. can still.

and. after.