welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mercy or can live in washington d.c. now it's not going to take a look at new statistics from the c.b.i. that show just how that income inequality is in this country and polls that prove just how much occupy wall street resonates with average americans then there are more clashes between police and protesters occupy oakland last night we're going to speak to somebody who's been a victim of the pepper spray and the tear gas over the last few days and then is it time for soldiers to have a non-religious choice when it comes to the counseling that they receive in war zones we're going to speak to a man who's trying to make that possible we'll have all that for you tonight and more clued in a dose of happy hour but first take a look at what the mainstream media has decided to. now as you know the occupy movement has been spreading all across the united states since it first began on september seventeenth and the longer this movement goes on

the more clashes that we see between protesters and police and last night there were arrests in both atlanta and for a second night in oakland california patience runs out police move in and dismantle the occupy wall street movement in two major american cities in atlanta police stormed a downtown park overnight they arrested dozens of protesters there even dragging some of them out police arrested fifty three protesters here who refused to abandon their tent city in woodruff park oakland police say nearly out thousand demonstrators hit the streets of downtown oakland in support of the occupy oakland movement the sixty's style showdown turned pretty violent stun grenades explode tear gas spewing protestors refuse to abandon their tents. so here the mainstream media so didn't fully reports on what happened on the streets because well let's face it if there's good video there's tear gas there's police and arrests but it makes the cut for mainstream t.v. i'm still waiting to hear more critique see more questions asked as to why the police need to use such heavy handed tactics and how our police force has become

completely militarized but you know i guess that's wishful thinking moving on the after the mainstream media took a few minutes to talk about mass arrests in oakland in atlanta they simply moved on to the next stories stories that they apparently think are totally unrelated. there's new science today the middle class is fading a usa today analysis showing the middle class is getting less of the president obama tossing a lifeline to young americans drowning in college day for the first time ever outstanding student loans are expected to topple one trillion dollars fifty year it's a terrifying prospect chris if you're the parents of children under the under college age or if you're in college as a student and you keep having these loans the unemployment rate for college grads age twenty four and younger rose to nine point four percent last year two wishing costs are up more than eight percent at four year schools the genius of our country is the middle class the fact that most of the growth comes from the middle class most of the new ideas come from that. they act really shocks don't they that the

middle class is shrinking the income inequality is growing that more and more young people are leaving school saddled with tens of thousands of dollars of student loan debt you know it's as if all this came completely out of the blue hello have you people been asleep at the wheel this whole time this is why americans are angry and frustrated and fed up with a system that they feel is unfair and most importantly this is why they're on the streets in cities all over the country it's it's actually incredible to me that they could miss this big you know we've heard countless reports in the mainstream media that it's mock the occupy movement described them as just a bunch of young hippies with no jobs well yes although this move has now become one of the compass is americans of all ages and all backgrounds at the start it was mostly young people young people who did everything they were supposed to work hard in school got a college degree also they could then go out get a job and lead a normal life because that's what they were told they were supposed to do but guess what after wall street's trading practices and

a lack of government regulation brought down the entire economy and businesses first saw waves of massive layoffs then stopped hiring altogether all while jobs continued to be shipped overseas when everything of these young people work for work hard in school for an acquired massive student loan debt for all of it had vanished. and so that's why they're out of the streets right now protesting this unjust and corrupt system because now that they've been set back and able to find jobs right out of college statistically the majority will be affected throughout the rest of their lives they'll receive lower wages throughout their careers and that's only going to play more into this shrinking middle class that the media also seems to be so shocked about despite the fact that we've seen countless statistics prove this point including in a report from the congressional budget office today that shows of the top one percent in america saw their income rise two hundred and seventy five percent since one thousand nine hundred eighty nine the other nine percent or ninety nine percent excuse me not so much and you see that's why people young and old are now involved in occupy wall street all over the country because it's about all of us but somehow

the mainstream media thinks that these statistics those polls the protests they've got nothing to do with each other just one of stories that don't enter twine because they don't know how to step back they don't know how to look at the big picture connect the dots it's just more of that collective tunnel vision within the d.c. new york media bubble and just more of what they choose to miss. all right so let's get into a few specifics that came out today the highlight exactly what's going on in this country and what the overall mood is let's get back to that massive report released by the congressional budget office that examines just how real just how bad income inequality in america has become an issue is just how much this we are the ninety nine percent rhetoric is on point according to c.b.s. since one nine hundred seventy nine income for the poorest one fifth of the country has risen eighteen percent for the middle class it's risen forty percent so first you think it's not all that bad but then get this income for the top one percent of

americans has risen two hundred and seventy five percent to one hundred seventy five so you can start seeing why more americans are starting to support occupy wall street then we also have a new c.b.s. new york times poll that shows that forty percent three. that generally agrees with the movement's views not only twenty and only twenty seven percent say they didn't so joining me from our studio in los angeles to discuss it all is richard ask our senior fellow at the campaign for america's future richard i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight and what do you think this congressional budget office report that shows just how that income inequality has become over the last you know or since one nine hundred seventy nine do you think that this is finally going to silence some critics that say it's not a serious problem here in america. will it silence the critics no i doubt it because their vested interest is to keep on criticizing and calling the the protesters hippies without jobs which i take offense at because i was a hippy without

a job and i know what that's like and that's not who they are and what this report does is it confirms what we've known for a long time which is that there's a massive upward distribution of wealth and now that we're are the bill has come due for some of this greed it is that we've seen that's caused the explosion of wealth at the very top they're going to ask the rest of us to pay for it and that's why people are protesting in and that's why they should you know the the the the differences are just mind boggling you know we have more wage inequality in this country than they have in egypt and that they have and most developed countries and there is even enormous inequality within the one percent you know the top one percent at the ninety ninth percentile level you know their income went up two hundred twenty four percent but if you go two point zero one percent of the top ninety nine point nine their income went up almost four hundred percent so i'm waiting for the rich people to start oh we are the point nine nine percent growth

because even there there's this staggering inequality of wealth is getting worse and worse now and you mentioned greed i guess you could say deregulation but what other specifics do you think really allowed for it to be so bad right we saw eighteen percent growth forty percent growth or lower middle classes and then as you mentioned anywhere from two hundred forty to four hundred percent for that top one percent i mean that that difference is just staggering so what do you think specifically allowed for that to happen. well look there are a lot of things going on at once you talked about seeing the big picture a globalization nafta another free trade agreement sending jobs overseas the explosion of the banking sector which makes money for nothing taking more and more of our corporate profits in that grotesquely high levels deregulation as you mentioned lack of enforcement for breaking the law getting rich by breaking the law on wall street we're seeing a lot of that and last but certainly not least the incredible shift in our tax

burden away from the wealthy you know thirty years ago the richest four hundred families in this country paid something like thirty percent of their income in taxes which is already much too low last study it was something like sixteen percent corporate taxes aren't being collected so all of these things add up to a picture where the wealthiest people among us are getting pretty much a free ride off the services and other things that the government the public provides to them so that's what you're seeing going on right now do you think that this exponential growth has to continue already think that there's some way to actually stop it some way to revert back and see the middle cross start growing again and the gap here starting to shrink. well you know essentially there are two futures a lot i mean there is a future that's absolutely dismal one where there is no middle class there's only the poor and the very wealthy or there is a future where it's forced to change unfairness maps of one fairness like this is

always unstable you know if you look at history you look at economics it's very hard for the few to maintain control over the many and take so much from them for so long but then if we are able to avoid that will that change happen cleanly and humanely and fairly rather than in you know some violent way that we would all reject so i think that people who you know john kennedy said those who would make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable and i would think would be best for all of us to say this kind of greed this kind of accumulation of wealth is unsustainable what can we do in a humane just fair and peaceful way to change and that's what i would think we all need to be fighting for right now well you know since you brought it up here then i have to ask you you're right you know in these unstable situations if you look back at history usually this doesn't last and then leads to massive social unrest and we see some big changes take place but if you look at the clashes that we've seen

between police and protesters in oakland the last couple days in atlanta we saw in new york is there a way for it to be done it peacefully if you have a completely militarized police force. well as somebody who is not only militarized but in the case of new york city it's also to a large extent corporate ties because there are a lot of cases in new york and elsewhere where the police force is given large grants or donations by corporations including the wall street banks to work for them and provide security and all of a sudden the public's police force starts to become a kind of hybrid private militia almost and that's something that has absolutely got to stop but i think what we're seeing now are very peaceful and civil protesters being provoked it looks very much like the sixty's where you had attempts to provoke counter-violence so that you could label an entire movement as violent we're not seeing that yet and you know hopefully we won't because they're

very disciplined and well intentioned the bigger concern is what happens if it is somewhere down the road broader social armrest explodes as we saw in england a little while back and elsewhere in europe that's the kind of thing we should all be really working to avoid. and it definitely you know has not gotten there yet and so we see this occupy wall street movement and they're upset with the system in general right they're also upset about the fact that the government's favor is wall street that there is an unjust system in terms of who actually gets accountable for their crimes and who doesn't and so they have to bring in a few other polls that we saw our other results from the c.b.s. new york times poll where it said that eighty nine percent of people distrust the government right now congressional approval now is that a all time low of just nine percent right a drop from the twelve percent at that was that just a couple of weeks ago which was already a very very serious a low and so then why do you think that only forty three percent of americans actually support occupy wall street you would think that the you know the numbers have been larger. well i think it's because there is

a huge media machine trying to tell them that their concerns and frustrations are not the same as the concerns and frustrations of occupy wall street you know there was a paper. done by one of their right wing democratic pollsters douglas shane recently . trying to claim that you know this is a guy who's tried to say the tea party represents the the real america but the public overwhelmingly rejects the tea party when you look at the poll numbers and yet he's trying to say occupy wall street is too fringe or too extreme the exact opposite is true if you look at the public's opinion about issue after issue they're right in line with what douglas shane's own firm found when they did an informal poll of people down it's a comedy part which is they don't want cuts to medicare and social security they think the wealthy should pay their fair share which is to say a lot more in taxes and on and on and on and so on issue after issue this group really speaks for the united states but you have fox and all the other media

outlets telling them otherwise and you have a lot of so-called bipartisan xin centrists and democrats who are out on the fringe themselves economically like doug richard i want to throw in one i invited a really telling that it's not a running out of time so what we see the president doing right now because he's saying that we have a do nothing congress right they can't get anything passed are these executive orders they've already said a number this week in terms of a housing program in terms of student loans do you think of that that he can they he could fix the economy just with executive orders. i would say too little too late too little too late and he needs to be much more aggressive and i would advise his political people to stop using the slogan we can't wait it was three years and find a different strategy get tougher get smarter and go to work. and i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight. thank you. well still ahead clashes between occupy protesters and police in oakland and atlanta overnight the person was on the ground in california based on the police and then get ready for occupy the newsroom

and that's what that's all about this. wealthy british sunny sunny. spot on the phone. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kinds of reports . the official. called touch from the. lights on the good.

video on demand. an r.s.s. feeds now in the palm of your. question. on monday night police from ten different law enforcement agencies came out in the hundreds in oakland california to kick occupy open protesters out of the park that they had set out that the. these tear gas rubber bullets flash grenades to get it done is wells arresting seventy five people last night the tension between police and protesters escalated again and an estimated one thousand people came out and march from a downtown library towards city hall once again police came out in riot gear using tear gas and what some reports say were five rounds disperse the crowd and last night one hundred people were arrested in atlanta fifty three people were arrested so the occupy movement continues to spread around the country and continues to carry on it looks as if the patients of those who run the city's might be wearing

thin joining me to discuss this is peller participant at occupy oakland i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight if you can just start anything there if you could start by giving us some details as to what happened last night what you saw what happened to you as well you know that you've been a victim of the pepper spray and the tear gas. of course. yeah last night you know i mean really big and with the violence of action and four thirty in the morning of the occupation by the police now this would have been tuesday morning when we were in two weeks of occupation the occupiers got word that the police might be coming and you know people began to build their kids completely all around the trajectory of the occupation with what and how it's you know city metal barricades whatever was there the occupation was fully barricaded in a self-defense measure against the entrance of the police into the camp the police

then then entered by throwing tear gas and which made you know the press and the outside supporters have to back away and then through barricade tear gas and penetrated the barricades and came in indiscriminately firing rubber bullets throughout the camp it was it was a war zone like scene many comrades got hit right rubber bullets and there was one hundred people arrested that time and then you know that that created kind of a generalized reaction to the eviction of the camp so from nine in the morning we had people rallying to try to retake this was yesterday morning trying to retake the plaza. that we that we had occupied have been evicted and we remember about the steps of the library at four pm we had a rally. mark which we tried to go to the jail to have solidarity with our comrades that were. arrested there we got stopped by the police and that's why when the tear

gas and the police violence began we marched around downtown oakland for a few hours and you know our number number. and then they tripled and all of the sudden you know we had all sectors of society and oakland residents out everyone from the unions students black youth why. you know you out with an attempt to retake the plaza now when we went back to try to retake the plaza. the police fired tear gas and rubber bullets. and people dispersed again. once again you know the crowd came back together and i'm talking about people from all sectors. of oakland and people just continuously tried to retake the plaza that had been evicted by the police and every time the police fired rubber bullets and tear gassed and people would not back off they continuously tried to retake our tried to retake oscar grant as we've named it cause over and over again and you know so it's not in our

image but to one in the morning all right let me come in for a second here to ask you because you know we've seen different reactions from the police in different cities across the u.s. with these occupy movements within a lot of protests or excuse me a lot of all rats in chicago we've seen them in atlanta we've seen them in boston we saw them in new york as well you know but it also depends you guys were at this park for two weeks for us in oakland before any of this seemed to go down so what do you think is happening do you think that those that are in charge those that are running the cities are finally starting to lose patience you know really starting to lose and their emotions are boiling over or what is it. i mean i can't speak to the you know the other occupations but. but you know that the mare of our city you know was giving us violation corners was sending us violation notices for many weeks and you know heard of the discourse created by the city was the same they repeated i mean stream and right wing media which was that you know that there was

drug use in the camp or that our vision was very dirty and so they tried to d. politicize any kind of addiction attempt by saying that it was about health or see if you could buy lesions so that they could kind of you know circumvent the fact that they were you know they were using aggressive police force against first amendment protester is our protesters exercising their first amendment it's and we've seen that all around the country that you know that the cities use this health and safety code violation kind of thing that is based on just arbitrary you know arbitrary stuff that they make up about you know a rat population how do you know if the rat population has increased since occupations stuff like this you know as an excuse to come up with aggressive or us . also it should be said you know occupy oakland because you know there is such an entrenched history past and present of police violence against communities

especially color in oakland that you know occupy oakland since day one was a cop rezone there was no police allowed into our occupation that is dramatically different than the rest of the occupations around the country and every time the police will try and try to you know come into our perimeters or occupation they were actively pushed out by the occupiers so we've had a completely different relationship with the police and with the city of oakland we've refused to negotiate with the city of oakland we've refused to let police into our occupation for two weeks and so i you know i think that is that hurting the movement a little bit right because at the end of the day occupy wall street occupy oakland occupy across the united states is supposed to be a nonviolent movement right supposed to be a peaceful movement and so you can tell me too because you were there and so the reports that i was reading from last night is that the occupiers were using paint balls throwing rocks throwing bottles at the police when they were coming. well let's just be clear in terms of violence and nonviolence i think that the

interesting thing about oakland is that people here really understand that you know violence violence comes from the police and people have a right to defend themselves we have the history of the black panthers here we have the recent history of the oscar grant riots which was in response to the killing of oscar grant by police on a subway platform which is why we renamed to franco gallo. and so you know you know in terms of nonviolence what we really seen is a lot of violence from the police and you know residents of oakland standing standing up to the police and i think that you know when occupy oakland refused to let the police into our occupation you know people felt more free than they had ever really felt because they were free from that police violence and that community support in terms of you know creating that police free zone and you know the old aphorism that the state creates its own enemies is really it's a really important aphorism here in oakland and i think that you know the response

to the police. from from you know the people of oakland. you know it's nothing in comparison to the violence that was handed down to us from the police i should say right now there's an iraqi veteran who's a member of iraq veterans against the war who's in the hospital right now his condition is rapidly deteriorating he has a skull fracture and brain swelling he is in stable but critical condition because he was hit in the head with a tear gas canister from police last night there's videos all over the internet that when people try to intervene and pull him out after he was unconscious and weaning from the head on the sidewalk the police then rubber bullet it those people who were trying to help him and they threw flash bang grenade you know on that group of people and on the injured protesters head while he was unconscious lying on the sidewalk now he's in the hospital maybe going up or going brain surgery so you know at this point if we talk about violence then we're. i think most people in oakland are talking about the violence from the state and how to defend themselves

against and how to take back you know oscar grant plaza and revive the occupation i broke i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight and thanks for giving us all the details there thank you. now almost every day we've brought to you a new manifestation or expansion of the occupy movement and yesterday we told you about occupy fox news earlier in the week we brought up occupy the boardroom and today there is another occupy movement afoot and it comes from the new york times so it all started in reaction to an op ed that was penned in the newspaper usa today and a story called five good reasons why wall street breeds protesters and they gave explanations as to what's fueling the anger towards the big banks now months the reasons are the washington rackets the concept of too big to fail and overall economic distress but the op ed also listed bonus excess as one of its reasons saying the bonus system has gone beyond a means of rewarding talent and it's now wall street's primary business

institutions take huge gambles because the short term returns are rationale for their reach payout but even when the consequences of their risky behavior come back to haunt them they still pay huge bonuses and now nothing could be more true of that company that actually own usa today as david carr of the new york times points out usa today is owned by the media company good net who has been having financial troubles for years stock prices decline dramatically the number of employees dropped from fifty two thousand to thirty two thousand over the course of six years so yeah that's almost twenty thousand people were laid off now as you can imagine such huge layoffs will inevitably have a major impact on the quality of the reporting for the company and the layoffs all started as soon as craig took the c.e.o. position at the company then a week before this editorial ran to bow resigned from his position and despite only holding that job for six years laying off twenty thousand people in that time and failing by all benchmarks he then got a very hefty pay out to the board gave him thirty seven million dollars in retirement health and disability benefits on top of

a combined sixteen million dollars salary over the past two years not a very bad party to get spent especially since he left the company in such a dismal condition so it's pretty clear that the net has no problem making its staff pay for the mistakes made by the head. the company and then rewarding him have to leave so laying off hardworking quality journalists those upper level employees get to keep their bonuses isn't that essentially what the people in zuccotti park are fighting against i would say yet so maybe it's only a matter of time before former and current employees of going to stage their own movement occupy the newsroom. well still to come tonight we have our wednesday edition of the you said it i read it and then should atheist chaplains at their acquired in the military a topic they will dive into the instrument. in

the united kingdom she's available in the house bill and he's the one who took the old waverly which are they getting closer to the mill stone who took some of the old country holes holiday in the build materials the remembering the cream it used to feel the montague to the world the reuben churchill. had again this is i was here for a check of the headlines. to deal with bonds to write all fifty percent of greek

debt as the announced after an overnight leaders summit and brussels on the eurozone tails financial institutions home but needed to boost their reset as to whether they can uninstall described by german chancellor angela merkel as europe's it was personal finance and. police in new york stop arresting protests is marching in support of oakland and so they say in california on the phone and discuss some of the bad writing which one hundred want to taint to tie the iraq war veterans could also has now in a critical condition he's out to police fired tear gas and bounce around at the end of the rescue. and kind of gadhafi sons. the reportedly ready to surrender to the required school in his bedroom with crimes children has been allowed to be dead for believe his relatives are looking to the hague to bring counter charges against nato accusing him of breaking the drought mandate and firing on his wall. and that's all from our team more news about thirty minutes time but before that it's the second part of that on the show from washington studio.