was a tactical victory for the occupy movement this says protesters in both planned to take back their square and in themselves from the tear gas and stun guns and from those very same police that attacked iraq war veteran. that did or should be fired put up by the balls strong words first strong emotions and support a fellow military officer supporting not only the severely injured marines but the occupy wall street protests as a whole and he's not alone so as those who fight abroad join this find it home. will change. the fact that you are third person you are joining us shores if they recognize that this is an american it's not about the negative stereotypes and now that those who serve in the u.s. military are getting involved with the movement will the mainstream media specifically fox news ditch protester name calling. and as the protests spread

and occupy wall street reaches an important junction what's next for the growing crops. and good evening it is thursday october twenty seventh seven pm in washington d.c. and christine for you were watching r t let's start with the latest in the occupy wall street movement that is overtaking this country some interesting news out of richmond virginia tonight as the tea party there has apparently given the mayor of richmond a bill for eight thousand dollars the amount they say the occupy protesters should pay for staying in the park their movement overall though seem to be growing and a large part of this is in reaction to pictures coming out of oakland california over the last forty eight hours or so and let's take this back to a very early tuesday morning where the police and riot. raided the park protesters

have been camping out and for about two weeks they used tear gas to clear the crowds and proceeded to stomp on tents and people's personal belongings and arrested three hundred of them later in the day protestors returned to reclaim their space just outside of city hall and the met with an even more violent barrage of police but these pictures now being seen around the world the man you're seeing there scott olsen military veteran who served two tours in iraq he's being carried away there had a fractured skull and brain swelling from blunt force trauma possibly from an exploding tear gas canister these pictures are perhaps one reason police decided to leave last night you could call it a tactical victory for protesters who were also given support for from oakland's mayor that's a mayor earlier praised police for their response now she says police presence could be kept to a minimal. those pictures you just ask on olson sparked anger from so many people

including many fellow veterans the internet today filled with a major show of support and i want to read just a few of those comments posted on the business insider website today the first one is by someone who calls themselves euthanasia but they write fellow veteran here as well that's our effing brother i didn't stomp around in the you know like to come home and watch my brothers spit on like this. and one kid process as when someone attacks a u.s. marine who are everyone my family i will stand and i will fight to protect them because they did the same for me and asked nothing in return and love to live in come comments o'quinn just woke up a sleeping dog i've gone to people need to protect them the police are supposed to be that dog but instead they bite their owner looks like they woke up the big dogs marines we need you we have reached a tipping point many of those comments in response to a photo posted on that website take a look at this this is a marine corps sergeant james here holding up a picture of scott olsen and

a sign that says you did this to my brother just a little while ago i spoke to the man in that photo who also served two tours in iraq he told me why he took the picture and what it meant to him. i wish i had. the blue cabul you're describing the plethora of emotions that i felt when i saw the picture of corporal olsen. that picture was taken about fifteen minutes after i found out what happened and i just i felt the need to express the various emotions that were going on inside of me. and i knew that i wasn't the only person that felt this way and i figured i would go ahead and try to be one of the people that was able to express the feelings that that they felt. from what i understand you don't know scott olsen but you also served two tours in iraq talk to me sergeant about the relationships of you know

people who serve in combat zones whether or not you serve together what is that it's a new things to me there's a very more oil sort of feeling that you build up among and within the military community talking about this. downed trees of the english language seem to. defy i mean they're they're all just honestly there are no words to express the bomb that marines feel for each other and this dispute across the service but it's it's very specific for marines marines regard each other as brothers and sisters and we mean it i know i may not personally know corporal olson but i know his story i know what he had to eat when he went to iraq i know what it is walk to work with like and i know how it feels to have rockets and mortars flying at you just like corporal olsen does we lot of people say that marines are unusually broken

down and then rebuilt to the marines and a lot of us look at that as as the start of a new life so corporal olson started his life the that same way that i started my we are similar things basically we will always share a bond together whether we're active or not and to see what happened to my brother . and i do use that word almost as literally as i can. see what happens to him just surprised me i couldn't believe it and i immediately felt that bond again and you know one of my own was injured and then not being there and you know both of you served two tours in iraq and yet the injury. that scott wilson sustained did not happen and iraq it happened here in california i do want to play for you some video from yesterday i think this the shot right after

the news of the police raid in oakland came down this video was taken in new york city. oh so protesters on occupy wall street showing solidarity with those in oakland saying oakland is new york new york is oakland and people even holding signs that say we are all caught then i want to get your reaction to this you talk about the bond between rains between people in the military how does it make you feel to know that across the country this bond is also stressing to other protesters beyond wouldn't expect less from any other american military or not better not i would expect people to feel that we're all here on this planet together and you know like it or not we're all industries that are and i'm thankful and proud to be

associated with the people in new york and in cities all across this country that share this bond and i share with walls the i want to get your reaction. you know we talk here at r.t. a lot about the the way that this movement has been covered for the last six weeks and one of the fox news host also has a radio show sean hannity he was interviewing a protester and he told her that because she came out to protest that she doesn't believe in liberty or in freedom if this is really interesting and he's found this on you tube somebody asking other vet friends to response to what sean hannity said i'll show you what they said and i'll get your response. big book. everybody here. wrote i want to dream big and the people he would tell me he was here stand. by with. so it's not just police it's not just you know officers in riot gear it's

also some members of the media who really seem to be stomping even if not literally on members of this movement what do you think about this well specific to to mr hannity and his colleagues i think it's unfortunate that they're informed apparently the same way that the people the speech the war informed i think if they personally knew the message and knew what was going on you know here they are conscious for their honesty i'm sorry to be their conscience would prevent them from broadcasting what they broadcast i think the majority of at least what i've seen on fox news and other you know quote conservative news outlets across the country and abroad is it's not what people think it's not the message of the occupy movement it's it's just not what i believe they're

told to speak about and i believe what they're told the message is and they just relay this instead of actually investigating it. finally i want to get your reaction we showed a little earlier in the show some of the reactions that your picture drew there were so many comments to choose from we just showed three of them to our viewers well that's of the surprise you to see that you know so many people it was a simple picture that you took it wasn't a video it wasn't a movie it was a simple photograph that you took that is making its way around the country maybe around the world and is generating this response when you think about that. i want to expect you know marines like myself to to feel the same way that i do and hopefully i just successfully captioned the emotions that they feel along with me i am a little surprised one very surprised by the amount of people that have come out

and in support of this and i'm i'm a little overwhelmed i really wasn't expecting this but you know the spotlight shouldn't be on me the spotlight should be on the ideas that i share with these people those ideas i should say while i have the opportunity those ideas including that the police are not against us the police are not against the movement the police are not the enemy it reminds me of of my time in the military. living on a military base and a military town isn't always easy for a military member whether you're a good person or not. you know a thousand people can do great things and one person can do something terrible and it's not you know joe schmoe that did that terrible thing it's a marine that did that terrible thing and the way i relate back to the police is that it's not the police that are doing this it's one or two individuals that are

part of the police they happen to be police that and this the police as a whole are here to protect and serve. they're not all bad people many of them probably also made up of former marines former a former army veterans as well it is hard though i have to say a lot of people see not just one or two police officers but dozens of them coming in and raiding these camps and it's hard to get that image out of their mind but it is a good point that you raid that you raise excuse me that some of those bad apples can really make the situation a whole lot worse gentil former sergeant in the united states marine corps i want to thank you so much for joining us and for taking that picture that has generated quite a discussion around the internet today so human thank you for having me. all right and as we mentioned the latest events have certainly garnered support the numbers of people joining throughout the u.s. have just been skyrocketing so we want to take a deeper look now into the changing faces of the movement and how it's changing the movement itself our g.'s honest us here takes

a look at the events from the last several days. america's autumn faces covered up protesters fleeing from tear gas shot into the crowd by police. he's ninety seven arrests an old clinton california. on tuesday night. twenty four year old marine and iraq war veteran scott olsen shot in the head by a police tear gas canister unable to even see his name. he's now in critical condition. at a march of solidarity with the oakland protesters in new york leads to ten arrests . protesters slammed into the ground and netted by police earlier in the other marine confronts police treatment of protesters in a video now gone viral on the web. if. you think those who risked their lives for america now part of the uprising marines

and others who serve the u.s. go public in their fight for the occupy wall street because let's find out what this means for them the fact that more and more military personnel are joining us shows that they recognize that this is an american it's not about hippies in a negative stereotype thirty year old gary briggs has served in the national guard for the last two years he's spending his short vacation at occupy wall street guys marines national guard navy seals. then more the better the guardsmen is outraged at the fact that marines are getting attacked at home but caught that better should be fired and hung up by the balls. others here believe it won't be long however until the police join the crowds instead of restricting that. this is protesting. and they're going to see the. zero but even if this doesn't happen the movement won't be scared to wait any time soon but marines and other military vets

pledging to have. protesters back. everybody is being tied together and the rope that's being created here no sword will cut and so suture cannot parties. and we want to remind people there are major movements going on around the country even around the world right now and much much more expected for next week as many cities are calling for a general strike and mass day of action that's headed for november second now to talk about this all from a broader perspective i spoke to someone that's written a bit about the occupy movement david serota he also wrote the book back to the future back to our future how the one nine hundred eighty s. explore explain the world we live in now and in light of this country's mayors and governors sending in heavy police presence i asked him well is not the job of wanted officials to keep their citizens safe here's his take. well they do they

certainly do but the last i checked these were peaceful protests i don't think you can speak obviously for the entire movement there's thousands tens of thousands of people and so what the critics of this movement would try to do is to point out the individual behaviors of a few to try to slander the entire movement but by and large most reports suggest that this movement has been almost entirely peaceful and what we've seen across the country since the initial crackdown here in colorado and the governor here by calling his majesty in jest but tongue in cheek he said that he is the cloying of the police on the protesters outside the state capital would serve as a model for other cities to follow now i certainly don't want to blame the governor of colorado or the mayor of denver for what happened in oakland but clearly the governor of colorado is right that this is the way the establishment is responding to peaceful mass protests and has responded with police force i guess i'm sure the eyes and ears of colorado for as

a you know we haven't really paid too much attention to denver and surrounding areas since all that happened what's going on there how the protesters come back or has his majesty gotten his way well the the mayor the mayor of denver has said that there can't be any overnight occupation of city parks so basically what we've seen is both the state government and the city government try to essentially say that it's illegal to root for these protests to continue in an occupational fashion now legally there is this question about what is protest what is camping this city and the state are citing in the camping laws the protesters are citing their first amendment rights to peaceably assemble a person then it doesn't say you can peaceably assemble only between the hours of nine am and eleven pm it says you have the right to peaceably assemble so legally that's the question of civil liberties i think what the governor and the mayor have done here in colorado and what i suspect will happen. elsewhere like in places like

oakland places like new york is that the stronger the force of the response five establishment the stronger the movement will get the larger the protests will become in fact that the couple days after the governor here initially cracked down on the protesters deployed police on the protesters over there we can there was a massive protest that massive march through downtown denver we certainly saw that in new york as well i remember i think it was the second weekend when those seven hundred protesters were arrested on the brooklyn bridge and the movement just came so much strength after that i know yesterday i was here at the occupy d.c. town macare since square and i was kind of listening to some of the conversations people were having and there was one conversation between a couple of the occupiers about police brutality here in d.c. it's been pretty peaceful with police but in talking about oakland and denver some of the protesters they were young black men they said police being violent is nothing it is that it's just more exposed now that some of the victims are actually you know white college students or veterans i wonder what you think about this do

you think that this is new or do you think that these occupy movements are simply exposing some parts of the system that have been in place all along but i think the people you talk to are exactly right i mean there's certainly been a long history in this country of police brutality against people of color and we have a long history unfortunately in this country where political movements are only seen as news when they are surfing the middle class a disproportionately white middle class will be during the vietnam war or the protests only really started thinking media traction when the draft started impacting not just the poorest of the poor but also the white middle class so there's definitely a history of what i would say to the to the larger question of why is the reaction been so intense i think it's because this movement is fundamentally challenging the political establishment the base of power its legitimacy in the sense that most of the people in office who were. cloying book will use against

these protesters are people who represent the wealthiest most powerful people in this country the governor of colorado the mayor of denver these are people who were looked at with huge amounts of money from the richest people in the state and in this country and they are expected on behalf of their donors to try to stop in their tracks this kind of protest that was on governor going to go back to colorado where he said his biggest fear was that this is something that would catch on those are hughes words so i think the reason you've seen such a swift reaction is because those in power realize it is asking called a mental taboo questions if the establishment does not want to i think it's really interesting that you say that i know when i was watching some of the footage from oakland when it first happened some of those protesters there were saying you know police are the ninety nine percent but they're acting like the one percent you know you talk about the governor of colorado the mayor of denver it seems to me that most politicians in this country from even very small levels it does it takes a lot of money to get elected in this country with with very few exceptions to this rule so i don't think it's just denver but i want to get your perspective on sort

of the differences between the city certainly in new york we did see mayor michael bloomberg actually change his mind he told the protesters they were going to have to stay in they would have to leave zuccotti park for a cleaning. and not letting them stay that wasn't the case at first with oakland and now those police are backing down and as you tell us that's not how it's happening in denver i'm wondering what you think about you know sort of the different locations and how they affect the police reaction you know there's a very early reaction to look up in albany new york we saw the governor order that will be on the mayor there ordered the police to disperse the crowd and the police actually refused to follow the order fearing that he would end up causing a riot so the response has been very i'm eager and i think politicians who haven't really this generation of politicians who have to deal with this. partitions who perhaps experienced the one nine hundred sixty s.

they're not exactly sure how to use the police in in a proper way and i think the police officials themselves are asking these questions the bottom line is that the more the response to police brutality is larger peaceful protests the more i think we're going to see and maybe this is optimistic but a change in posture it's not to say that the legitimacy of the movement won't be won't be challenged by an establishment that has a best interest in challenging the legitimacy challenging it in the public sphere but i sense that no politician wants to be in the position for instance of say the mayor of oakland today. that was author david sirota so had here on our team the greek tragedy may be coming to an end this as you reach a deal on bailout funds but no matter what the outcome it seems the people of greece taking matters into their own hands coming up with creative ways to cope

with their economic woes. through the police corruption. but what test nobody seems to know. that never appropriate the face but the argument that they're being overly dramatic .

i'm more in this for. the readers put a picture of me when i was like nine years old at the job with fruit. i confess and i mean. i love rap and hip hop music and script. writers kind of yesterday. i'm very. well without you she explains.

on to europe now some big news out of greece where investors agreed to a fifty percent haircut on greek bonds and athens will be given a one hundred billion euro bailout early next year and this is perceived as great news to sound but our own max kaiser says it's important to see the whole picture here the plan is to create a one trillion euro slush fund and not write off fifty percent of greek debts that misperception is simply going to move it around the fraudulent balance sheets that are being organized to operate together it's a debt problem that they're going to cure by adding more debt let's just say that the terrorists run the world economy they're doing a fantastic job people will go after the best financial destruction give them more debt it's absurd you're going to pull financial catastrophe why letting the charlatans pose these theories but adding debt to

a debt problem is going to increase the building that's in c. very strong feeling there by next kaiser and with all the trouble money seems to cause there are some in greece chosen a different road they have chosen to get back to basics and return to the way things were before all those money problems started in the first place archie correspondent sara firth is in athens and has this report. they say that time is money friend country where cash is now in short supply time has taken on a whole different value. quick change want to services sometimes they give a break in lessons for free but they take your gun for free also some of. the time banks just one of a growing number of service open alternatives that are providing people in greece another way to cope with the tough economic conditions services can include anything from language classes to babysitting or home cooked meals huge huge

everything we do without. looking after people are making friends by ourselves for a country in crisis building social unity cam predicts trini hard price is a terrible thing it creates fear it bites. from public sector workers from private sector workers it divides richer workers the poor workers immigrant workers from home workers and that's a terrible thing. well the party networks have been a great way of bringing together large groups of people and popular slogan here in greece now is no one's alone in the crisis organizations are arranging swap shops to exchange clothes and one town in greece is even started saying bharti currency we still have a memory of agricultural society in greece where people used to do things together like they would do the olive tree of my family this week and then next week will be olive trees of your family and then by next week of the other neighbor so they

would exchange services and the like that nicky gives me and her friend alexandra he's also a member of the time bank and lesson one of the free services she provides and in exchange alexandra helps out with the gardening so the time is repaid it's an amazing way. of receiving finally by giving to the other because many greeks struggle with wage cuts tax increases and with unemployment in the country now cripplingly high there's been huge interest in the time banks and bars and networks places in aladdin's cave of arts and materials it's no wonder really that this idea of swapping gets in services has proven so popular it's going solidarity it's a time when economic situation extremely uncertain. well these gas networks won't solve greece's financial problems they do provide a massive amount of support for the participants it's not

a response to comic crisis in the sense that it's going to overturn. but it's giving support and comfort to like to. terrible economic policies that are being posed by the troika it's giving people support to feel that they can do something. with the tough economic times leaving many greeks feeling worthless there is real value in projects like the time bank and with the greek government drowning in debt these creative solutions are offering not only support but encouragement to the people here which at a time of deep recession approving priceless commodity. r.t. athens i want to thank you so much for joining us and is going to do it for now it will be back in a half hour i'm christine.