let. me. hello 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 shut down greece's plans to hold the national referendum on whether or not they should be subject to another bailout the banks traders and we'll have the

latest on the front lines of the ninety nine percent protests here in washington d.c. it's a comedy part from oakland 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 the americans defined as the poorest of the poor living in 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 the highest jump scene in

nevada and florida both states with republican governors this is a national tragedy it republicans today again filibustered legislation in the senate to put hundreds of thousands of america. it's 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 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 and one hundred sixteen 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 are federal taxes and federal income taxes and nearly the entire republican party still lots 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 eight district and running to be the next congressman from that district congressman grayson welcome thank you the occupy movement is highlighting the class warfare 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. but let's

purpose to translate birth of political victories i'm sorry to say the word tea party would be able to annoy us that much and so there is a tremendous consensus of equality it's going off where us but asked to be translated into political victories. helps the little. survive and getting rid of those people who made themselves the enemy is a little but that's why we've seen a little stronger. america the media has been going nuts about violence and oakland than 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 the sociedad with poverty and violence increase in child abuse of spousal abuse of suicide of homicide of all the social ills associated with poverty that are being brought upon us by this class war your take on it.

well a tremendous pain that's being searched for and the interesting thing about all the republican candidates they all seem target tremendously high threshold of pain as long as someone else has it you know they are from their perspective look it's our president the only real problem but rich. well i disagree and most people i know disagree and i think that americans are sick of this point there's a lot of and it's a lot of stuff and even even among those who are not actually the most yet tremendous insecurity the reserve army of the unemployed which only four million american know who can't find work are making the rest of the employed hundred million who are still working feel like they really are struggle if they're making ten dollars an hour lou somebody else will jump in and operate and the system that serves any good so they'll be rich if there's no one else the benefits stronger and

there's also a subjective indications of of last year for the first time in many many years in america the you boil on a ship or it's people no longer many people and no one of what a car but first of all and so when you look at the statistics what you see over and over again are people losing their pensions people are losing their health coverage people are losing their jobs the things that make a little person the middle class america it's all going away for us it was so what's that which took party are today nancy pelosi weighed in on this issue and you know 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 on election which i don't think has been the conventional wisdom of the of the talking heads up to this point and curious your thoughts on her thoughts on that on her comment on that and you know the sense a case of voters are more spilling into the selection. well anything as fast as we

know and know anything is possible but what you see is that people are waking up there will be up to. the war on unions thirty years of the war in the middle class for thirty years the war and i want to show that it makes them that looked at us and all this nattering about want it really something else that once there are are going to warfare or render. us a space in surrender that's why people are starting to you want to fight back so yes certainly it's possible. your it's possible of the republicans and you show that alice parents who are ordinary working people who burchill republican seem like well as bigoted schools of what tools of the wotsits it's possible it'll swing back all the way and current and we've seen it before it goes right now only through friends and won't go your mom up and the democratic party democratic party

is the last hope for a person speaking of that speaking of taking back the house in in the last minute we have here so you're running to take back your house seat the house seat that you held what can our viewers and listeners do specifically to help you out. well they think you know their shares good their computers or if you're at your computer you have to go anywhere go to go and join in our money our art wine fundraising efforts we know on sunday we be sure. from some get leading lights of progressive thinking here in america this week and we're going to have more people who go to our work so congressman. you show us or of these online parties each to be able to raise one hundred dollars or more but the main thing is that people understand that they see with their own eyes what we're doing is we're raising money for people who want nothing in return so. we're not trying to sell

off the government he's a piece or not but a lot of the better we're all equal in florida people all across the country who joined us in the last election we had almost one hundred thousand people house or a congressman. and make a contribution. alan grayson i'm totally with you thank you so much for being with us tonight and best to lock on this congressman with got stuck on thank yous are. great having you with us from one economic crisis caused by the banks here's 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 but now their boat has been cancelled under pressure from other european leaders financial institutions and members of his own party pub and rail walk back the idea of a national referendum and now he himself will be facing. a no confidence vote tomorrow they could lead to the collapse of the current greek government so democracy once again take a back seat to the demand of the banks there's here to weigh in on this is no need prince the journalist senior fellow of demas the most and former managing director at goldman sachs and i mean welcome back to the program thanks a lot tom could you please break down for us the situation in greece why is a national vote so frightening to euro leaders and in particular to global investors and how to greece get into this mess. ok excellent questions that the reason it's so scary the idea because first of all the global financial leaders and political leaders particularly in in europe in the united states i'm speaking

of know that if there were to be a referendum in greece that the people of greece would vote against taking another bailout from the e.c.b. in return for more punishing austerity measures pension cuts job cuts and continued degradation of their economy so so they knew where the vote was going to lead which is why as you mentioned just a moment ago they basically packed on two to five and radio and said you know that was a really dumb idea we're not going to let that happen and you know we don't want 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 peripheral countries in europe in general through the credit derivatives market on anything that looks like it could be a bet not not just 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 the international banking community particularly also a lot of the united states biggest banks have written to basically insure people investments if greece to thoughts 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 zero 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 bets 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 therefore it can't happen really what it would create is a lot of banks losing a lot of money because they bet against and the reason they bet for these bailouts to continue and against the greek population and the green didn't didn't be icelanders in two consecutive votes vote to say to the banks to take a leap and it wasn't going to the world or is this because they're not part of the e.u. and this also has to do with greece is integration of the you and what does all that mean for americans. well it is certainly iceland the population of iceland and backed by the government of iceland this this was

a dual joint out for it said you know we're not going to devalue our economy by but 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 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 for the greece has to do it 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 in the e.u. now or they never a good economy and so forth but it should be noted regardless of whether they were or 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 that 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 and growth in greece leading up to two thousand and seven two thousand and eight so that's really what was going on under three so they're in the middle of the 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 and not lose money by having any aspect of that euro any country in the euro default 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 another 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. they are. there is another one but there was five of them oh ninety seven percent of the credit derivatives that are related to greece and in general in the world s.

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 if 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 that don't want to lose money on their bets will go to our government to get money to support them or if they don't go to 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 it's money that's not going to jobs it's money that's not going to affordable lending for smaller me only we have

to believe it's just a just 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 tears are going to are going to win and either greece loses or we lose bad some other country is going to lose bad italy might be next but the bankers are always going to whims that is that the game is rigged and the game is very because the bankers and the politicians and the central banks the really different heads of the same entity ok nomi prins 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 at the house of representatives begging their members of congress to vote no on the bailout ultimately congress didn't listen to we the people they listen to them the banks toure's but times have changed here and all over the rest of the world today people are in the streets and the banks

toure's for once are starting to worry. going up by panel of guests from d.c. new york and california will have the latest on occupy wall street goes to coast. but drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who made decisions to break through get through it if you've made who can you trust no one who is you 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 a 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 a major entry point for ordered asian manufactured goods to shut down for the night but then after the crowd to disperse 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 back 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 violent cap on a peaceful day of action mean for the occupy wall street movement and discontent in general in america is it just a matter of time before the rage we've seen one in athens makes its way to the united states here to offer their. takes from california joshua holland senior writer and editor for new york j.d. meyers contributing editor contributor to truthout 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. was going 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 and the tragedy really is that it stepped on the really incredible achievement that the protesters pulled off in the day before and during the day there were thousands of people in scattered protests that were remarkably peaceful and beat the police maintain a minimal presence on this common it 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 carting on top of the container trucks it was real hours later that a small group of protesters about fifty decided that they would occupy. an

abandoned former homeless shelter that you can foreclose on by a bank and the plan was that they would use this to be a kind of base of operations place where the occupiers could get 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 i went over and did just that rumors went around the camp that two hundred or more riot police were gathering to go in and fix them it was only when the rumor started to circulate the camp that there was going to be a violent action by the police that another 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 happens 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 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 not residential street i'm not really sure what. the urgency of fixing them with a lot of if you're sitting right in the pearly you know have faith ok jay in new york city there's been a lot of anger in the streets as 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 of the occupy wall street in

new york's zuccotti park and all this to to deal with these multiple dynamics that are so much in flux particularly given you know just in your parents' generation the experience of moving from nonviolent protest 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 by them i.p.t. 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 what you call the class war and a couple segments ago and then they can use violence and we must not. hit 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 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 a 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 following up mailboxes with firecrackers or whether they're people who actually think 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 stations. 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 encampment that 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 going to have to be resolved campsite by campsite because there is no national working group there is no i well there is no national occupy wall street group is you know ultimately we do a leaderless movement and just to wrap this up back to you joshua and 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. well as as chris mentioned there was a meeting this morning and there is 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. after speaker this morning was saying look we are putting ourselves in danger 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 hence as these can 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 the thank you it's much appreciated you know revolutions are funny things and they tend to go to and make no mistake about this is a revolution and they tend to go two ways two hundred years ago revolutions were fought with guns and teens 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 are allusions are basically revolutions of systems institutions you know the reagan revolution for example it's been sold relentlessly even today i

mean the reagan revolution is still still being sold to this moment. a seven hundred thousand a hundred thousand dollar giant bronze statue of ronald reagan was put up at the airport here in d.c. this week that's part of the reagan revolution reinventing his whole history where 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 and heritage by. nation 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 the wall street revolution in one nine hundred ninety nine and two thousand we didn't notice it when phil gramm came in with phil gramm leach bliley 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 it's.