oh i'm tom hartman in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture new reports show that we're in the midst of a national tragedy and one political party seems determined to keep us there so what will it take for the g.o.p. to finally call a truce in their war on americans and if you're keeping score it's international bankers one greek citizens zero europe's financial giants and their world leader proxies have shut down greece's plans to hold a national referendum on whether or not they should be subject to another bailout and they often bank stores and we'll have the latest on the front lines of the

ninety nine percent protests here in washington d.c. it's a county park from oakland and yesterday's days of action at the end it was some victories and some fun. you need to know this well the rich are getting richer the ranks of the poor are growing according to a new a.p. report there are now more than twenty million americans living well below the poverty line is americans defined as the poorest of the poor living on fifty percent or less of the official poverty level and twenty million is the highest number ever recorded since the census bureau started compiling this data thirty five years ago forty states around the nation saw an increase in the number of extremely poor people since two thousand and seven with a high as. jump scene in nevada and florida both states with republican governors

this is a national tragedy here republicans today again filibustered legislation in the senate to put hundreds of thousands of americans back to work the rebuild america jobs act which would have put four hundred fifty thousand americans back to work rebuilding our nation's infrastructure failed to overcome a unified republican filibuster just hours ago even though a majority of senators voted in favor of it all because republicans refused to allow a seven tenths of one percent increase in the taxes paid by millionaires and billionaires just because they were just like they refuse to even consider an increase on transnational corporations that are making enormous amounts of money yet pain nothing zero in texas as a new report by the citizens for tax justice shows over the last three years thirty major corporations have ranked in one of the great in one hundred sixty billion bucks but haven't paid one penny in taxes here in the united states not one penny

of corporations like outsource or general electric bailed out bank wells fargo and war profiteer boeing paid nothing none of them paid any taxes and nearly the entire recall their federal taxes and federal income taxes nearly the entire republican party still wants their tax rate lowered while twenty million americans belong to the super poor and jobs to put them back to work or being filibustered in the sun so what's going on here are republicans purposefully doing unbelievable economic harm to the nation alan grayson joins me now is the former democratic congressman from florida's eighth district and running to be the next congressman from that district congressman grayson welcome thank you the occupy movement is highlighting the class warfare of the top one percent of been waging on us since reagan took the keys to the white house what's the next step in that. now let's go

first to translate her into the political victories bush i'm sorry to say that we are using oil as the bush and so there is a tremendous consensus and equally it's going ot us and that has to be translucent political groups. and helps the little. circle both in getting rid of those people who may themselves be enemies but that's probably seen a little being destroyed of. america the media has been going nuts about violence and oakland and other places around the country associate with the occupy movements most of these being you know representing some in very tiny fraction of the people participating in what's going on and yet there's virtually no discussion of the violence that's associated with poverty the violence of increase in child abuse of spousal abuse of suicide of our messiah. all the social ills associated with poverty that are being brought upon us by this class war your take on it.

well that is tremendous pain that's being searched for and the interesting thing about all of the book and it's they all seem to a tremendously high threshold for pain as long as someone else's pain you know they are seem to really from their perspective ok it's our president the only real problem here is that those rich but it well i disagree and most of the people i know disagree and i think that america that's point there's a lot and there's a lot of stuff and even even among those who are not actually the most yet your tremendous insecurity the reserve army of the unemployed twenty four million american now who can't find were are making the rest of the employed hundred million who are still working below zero and struggle it barely ten dollars an hour lou somebody else will jump at it. and that's not the kind of system that serves anybody so filthy rich there's just no one else that benefits. and there's also

a subjective and initials of of last year for the first time in many many many years in america the auto ownership rates there are people no longer many people can no longer afford a car much less a whole and so when you look at the statistics what you see over and over again are people losing their pensions or losing their health coverage losing their jobs the things that make a little worse the middle erst america it's all going away from us what's the rich the party on today nancy pelosi weighed in on this issue and you know the the issue of wealth inequality the occupy movement and how things are flowing and suggested that the the house is actually in play for the twenty two hour washing which i don't think has been the conventional wisdom of the of the talking heads up to this point i'm curious your thoughts on her thoughts on that on her comment on that and you know the sense a case of voters are more schooling in the selection. well anything if passed

between now and then anything is possible but what you see is that people are waking up there with you know. the the war on unions the past thirty years of the war in the middle class for thirty years the war in homeownership it makes them the book to us and they're really all this nattering at work it really comes down to one thing are we going to class warfare or surrender. surrender at this point and people are starting to you want it back so yes certainly it's asphalt. but it's next year it's possible that the republicans continue to show their elders and so were ordinary working people. who were actual republican scene work hours to get it that that's what tools of the boss that's it's possible that will swing back all the way and bring them we've seen it before because right now you go along with three friends and won't go your mama democratic party democratic

party but last quote for not person well and speaking of that and speaking of taking back the house in the last minute we have here sir you're running to take back your house see how c.p.u. health what can our viewers and listeners do specifically to help you out. well i think you know it cheers good. orator at your computer you have to go anywhere go congressman move go and join in our money our art wine fundraising efforts we know and. we. do yost from some good leading lights of progressive thinking here in america this week and we're going to have more and i employ people who go to our work so congressman. contribution you have already used online tradition hard. each time we were able to raise one hundred dollars and more but the main thing is that people understand that they can see with their own eyes what we're doing is we're raising money for people who are nothing in return so. we're not trying to

sell off the government but he's you know a lot of the highest bidder we're going to pull people in florida people all across the street that joined us in the last election we had almost one hundred thousand people come to our ropes so congressman. alan grayson i'm totally with you thank you so much for being with us tonight and best to lock on this congressman we've got stuck on thank yous are. great having you with us from one economic crisis caused by the banks just to another today in greece we found out what happens when you defy international bankers greek prime minister george papa dre oh is hanging on to his job by a thread right now just days after he announced he's going to leave the fate of his country and the rest of the european union up to the greek people to decide earlier this week called for a national vote where greeks would decide whether to accept the e.u. bailout and a new round of austerity measures or say no to the bailout and go into default and

drop the euro a scenario that in theory could trigger trigger a financial panic across europe and now their boat has been cancelled under pressure from other european leaders financial institutions and members of his own party walk back the idea of a national referendum and now he himself will be facing. a no confidence vote tomorrow that could lead to the collapse of the current greek government so democracy once again take a backseat to the demand of the bankers here weigh in on this is nomi prins journalist senior fellow at demos and former managing director at goldman sachs know me welcome back to the program thanks electron could you please break down for us the situation in greece why is the national vote so frightening to euro leaders and in particular global investors and out of greece get into this mess. excellent questions that the reason it's so scary the idea because first of all the global financial leaders and political leaders particularly in europe in the united states

i'm speaking of know that if there were to be a referendum in greece there the people of greece would vote against taking another bailout from the e.c.b. in return for more punishing us parity measures pension cuts job cuts and continue to radiation of their economy so so they knew where the vote was going to leave which is why as you mentioned just a moment ago they basically packed on to the pub and rail and said you know that was a really dumb idea we're not going to let that happen in your we don't like you anymore and so you have this this potential no confidence vote which could kick him out of office and the reason that it is so scary that the people of greece could vote against the bailout is because there is a tremendous amount of money on the line and egos on the line and political policy on the line the money on the line is because the international banking community has been betting against not just greece but

a lot of the purple countries in europe in general through the credit derivatives market on anything that looks like it could be a bet not just greece greece is just on the docket right now and it will it will move around and has moved around and they don't want to see the insurance that they basically are liable for if greece were to default in other words the credit default swaps that international banking community particularly also a lot of the united states biggest banks have written to basically insure people investments if greece defaults nobody on the banking side wants that to happen so instead if there is a bailout it means greece won't default those credit default swaps won't go down to zero or all of the derivatives that are related to. the greek credit default swaps won't also get devalued and so the banks won't lose money on their bet that is exactly why the political spectrum the leaders of europe who are in

bed with the bankers and in many cases either were bankers or will be bankers or on boards of bankers or so forth don't want this to happen so the fear that they created around it is that this will create this big financial crisis of greek word greece were to fall off therefore it can't happen really what it would create is a lot of banks losing a lot of money because they bet against it and they reason and they bet for these bailouts to continue and against the greek population and the green didn't didn't the icelanders in two consecutive votes vote to say to the banks to take a lead it wasn't the end of the world or is this because they're not part of the e.u. and this also has to do with greece's integration the you and what does all that mean for americans well it's certainly iceland the population of iceland and and that's why the governments of iceland this this was

a dual joint effort said you know we're not going to devalue our economy by. but i basically increasing our debt load and decreasing our benefits our pensions are our growth in order to make good on bankers' bets against not just iceland but any kind of leverage any kind of bets that have gone on throughout the euro community or throughout the world with just badly leveraged securities and derivatives and they said no and they backed out and they're doing much better and they don't have to deal with a lot of the floor that greece has to deal with by virtue yes of being in the e.u. now there's a lot of conversations back and forth right now as to whether or not they should have been in the should they be not in the e.u. now where they never a good economy and so forth but it should be noted regardless of whether they were not to begin with and whether they did or did not hide a lot of their debt to begin with in the beginning of the euro what they also did was get involved in being bet against by the international banking community now

because the international banking community was betting against significant leverage in growth in greece leading up to two thousand and seven two thousand and eight so that's really what was going on one of their the middle of a financial cauldron and they're in the middle of the euro there's a lot of saving face that needs to be done to maintain the euro and maintain the banks there is no distinction between having a joint euro currency and having international banks not lose money by having any aspect of that euro any country in the euro to fall it's what does that mean for the united states well first of all. there are the five largest derivatives players or basically insurers of greek debt throughout europe are the five largest banks here they are goldman sachs they're morgan stanley they're j.p. morgan chase they are citi group and they are. there is another one today with five of them own ninety seven percent of the credit derivatives that are related to greece and in general in the world us as of the

latest report so they could lose money they don't want to lose money what happens. when they lose money as they go to our government for various forms of bailouts and subsidies they push on the fed to continue to have almost zero percent interest rates that they don't then use that money to lend out to help build infrastructure and loan to small businesses and help people restructure their mortgages so their homes are foreclosed upon no they use it to pay off their bad bets so that's how it relates to us is that we would have a situation where banks again want to lose money on their bets we'll go to our government to get money to support them or if they don't play our government they get the e.c.b. to do it for them by putting pressure on them to bail out various countries in the euro wherever it is they might have bets and that ultimately penalizes us because that's money that's not going into our economy it's money that's not going to a stimulus of any kind of productive development that's money that's not going to jobs it's money that's not going to affordable lending for small or me only we have

hope and we have just a just to go or anything else is we have just a couple seconds left but just very very quickly it sounds to me like what you're describing is one of these has you win or heads i win tails you lose situations no matter what happens the bank's doors are going to are going to win and either greece loses bad or we lose bad some other country is going to lose bad you know we might be next but the bankers are always going to win this is that the game is rigged the game is very because the bankers and the politicians and the central banks the really different heads of the same entity ok norman prince thanks so much for being with us thank you once again greek greece is left to the whims of the international banking system as our nation was back in two thousand and eight when americans shut down the switchboard of the house of representatives begging their members of congress to vote no on the bailout ultimately congress didn't listen to read the people they listen to the banks tears but times have changed here and all over the rest of the world today people are in the streets and the banks to reach

for ones are starting to worry. coming up our panel of guests from d.c. new york and california will have the latest on occupy wall street close to coast. but drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through get through if you've made who can you trust no one who is in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

yesterday was general strike day in oakland tens of thousands of people flooded the streets to participate in occupy oakland call for a general strike banks businesses and schools across the city shut down about one fifth of the city's teachers skipping school to participate in the strike the first of its kind of major city in the united states and sixty five years as evening fell roughly ten thousand patriots marched to the port of oakland a peaceful crowd walked all the entrances and then mounted containers cranes and

trucks forcing the nation's busiest port and major entry point for asian manufactured goods to shut down for the night and then after the crowd dispersed and went home after a successful and peaceful day of action the streets of oakland were again turned into a war zone small group of protesters set a fire in the middle of the street and vandalized storefronts prompting riot police to move in and resort to the same tactics that nearly killed in iraq war but last week after midnight tear gas canisters canisters and flash bangs were deployed by police to disperse the crowds so what does last night's while an app on a peaceful day of action mean for the occupy wall street movement and discontent in general in america it's just a matter of time before the rage we've seen in london in athens makes its way to the united states here to offer their. takes from california joshua senior writer and editor of the net from new york jay meyers contributing editor contributor to truthout dot org and here in washington d.c. chris bowers campaign director for the daily koz welcome to all of you great to

have you all with us joshua you were there last night explain the difference between what happened at the ports and where the much reported violence i was almost want to put that in air quotes happened and you know what do you make of the events last night and who was behind it. well there was there was a tragic event in the evening the tragedy really is that it stepped on the really incredible achievement that the protesters it pulled off imitate before during the day there were thousands of people in scattered protests that were remarkably peaceful and beat the police maintain a minimal presence and this culminated in the evening as you said the introduction with ten thousand or more people taking over the port of oakland and shutting it down and then departing on top of the container trucks it was several hours later that a small group of protesters about fifty decided that they would occupy. and abandoned

former homeless shelter that had been foreclosed on by a bank and the plan was that they would use this to be a kind of a smart ration place where the uk are still getting out of the cold and get electricity the sequence of events is a little it's a little important to get right after fifty or so went over and did just that rumors went around the camp that two hundred or more riot police were gathering to go and evict them and it was only when the rumor started to circulate the camp that there was going to be a violent action by the police that i know there are two hundred or so protesters went down there and that's when they built the barricade that's when things started to get rockets and you know i think that the lesson here and i've seen this again and again in oakland is that we tend to analyze what happened in the split seconds before an act of violence comes out but there are strategic and tactical decisions

taken at a command level that are really crucial to whether things remain peaceful or not and i believe that had they chosen they could have taken another approach to dealing with that a regional small contingent of fifty or so protesters the following day this was in the middle of the night and i know on residential street i'm not really sure what the earth. i think you can add with a lot of good you're getting right being the third least you know have they got it right ok jay in new york city there's been a lot of anger in the streets there's a lot of people in the streets you've got we have within the movement both a few people who are going off in directions that might not be appropriate or could be considered provocative we have no evidence of infiltrators provocateurs and you've got police violence against people who in some cases are behaving simply appropriately how do you how are you dealing with this that the occupy wall street

in new york zuccotti park it all has to deal with these multiple dynamics that are so much in flux particularly given you know just in your parents' generation the the experience of moving from nonviolent protests in the early and mid sixty's to you know literally cities on fire in the late sixty's early seventy's. well it's that's the question facing occupy wall street right now there are constant meetings going on with all sorts of working groups trying to deliberate how best to deal with things like this luckily the protesters in new york haven't turned violent and i would note that the protesters in oakland didn't turn violent they started vandalizing things which is a lot of people would contest that that's an act of violence there is a big sense of nervousness in new york city that there is an imminent attempt in the works of n.y.p.d. to evict the denizens of zuccotti park so there's a lot of nervousness down there but so far everyone's remaining calm i just left there there was a little chamber group playing music and a man and bagpipes and people there was sort of an eerie sense of calm there i

think that there is a sense among the people who organized the site in occupy wall street that nonviolence really is the best weapon that we have in you call it a class war in a couple segments ago and then they can use violence and we must not. get when we use violence we will lose and i think most people in new york know that and it's a pity when people forget that. and chris here in washington d.c. you've actually talked about how the one percent or less of people in the occupy movement who are calling for or engaging in things like vandals or what arguably are forms of violence or wall lawbreaking shall we say are actually doing the bidding of the top one percent what what is being done here and is there communication with other groups around the country about what to do about that

whether they are you know crazies and vandals and you know just you know young people out for a good time that otherwise would be going up mailboxes with firecrackers or whether there are people who actually think that violence is the best way to draw attention to their cause or whether their agent provocateurs who are coming in from right wing groups or police. agencies but every occupy group deals with problems on its own through its general assembly and so you're dealing with hundreds of different groups around the country rather than a sort of coordinated national means of solving this problem but we've already seen today in not not the full occupy oakland general assembly but within a meeting among the people in the cabin if they agreed to the vandals and apologize to local businesses and assist in the cleanup how if they're going to be able to sort of keep that that one percent of the violence even less than one percent point seven percent of the protesters who engage in vandalism away from the main protest

remains to be seen but it's going to be a problem that it's going to have to be resolved campsite by campsite because there is no national working group if there is no i well there is no national occupy wall street group is you know ultimately lead to a leaderless movement and just to wrap this up back to you joshua in california where do you see since oakland has been the epicenter of confrontational action over the last week or so where do you see this going. it's well as as chris mentioned there was a meeting this morning and there's another meeting scheduled for this evening at seven pm to discuss this very issue and i need to just point out that they take it very seriously as a matter of their own security speaker after speaker this morning was saying look we're putting ourselves in teams or when we fail to intervene with that small number of very small number of people who are looking to have confrontations with the police they are redoubling their efforts we've already seen a lot of

a lot of self policing by occupy oakland and i think that we'll see a lot more of that in the coming months weeks and months since the actions continue joshua j. chris thank you all not just for the great work you're doing out there in occupy occupy the country but also for showing up on our show that thank you it's much appreciated you know revolutions are funny things and they tend to go too and make no mistake about it this is a revolution and they tend to go two ways two hundred years ago revolutions were fought with guns and getting these days they're more often fought with money or by people taking to the streets rich people for example and you know they actually produce revolutions create revolutions but they tend to be barely noticed because there were allusions are basically revolutions of systems institutions you know the reagan revolution for examples and sold relentlessly even today i mean the

reagan revolution is still still being sold to this moment. a seven hundred thousand eight hundred thousand dollar giant bronze statue of ronald reagan was put up at the airport here in d.c. this week as part of the reagan revolution reinventing his whole history but really the core of it was economic control the koch brothers have been running a revolution in the united states for the last thirty years starting the cato institute. the heritage foundation the american legislative exchange council alec reason magazine the reason foundation the tea party all of these things they're like silent takeovers that are being funded by the millionaires and billionaires for wall street revolution in one thousand nine hundred ninety two thousand we didn't notice it when phil gramm came in with phil gramm leach reliably in the commodity futures modernization act and basically set up the whole situation where wall street could be could be a money machine for a few people and could basically take the.