victor you're damned if you were county and those slogans man is great if their city schools are important able to schools actually heard the children to do think politicians say even during this thing i need to spite so many political missteps they are the ones living in the polls to be calm the next g.o.p. presidential contender meanwhile there's a war going to war to prevent a nuclear weapon in the wrong you know it isn't worth while. candidates like ron paul and jon huntsman are being overlooked in the republican three ring circus so in the contest between sirius and sideshow what will win out. they say

ignorance is bliss but these days with all the depressing news stories coming out around the world it seems people are taking that mantra to a new extreme tuning out of current events and into current pop culture trends so despite all this new technology looks like people might not be getting any smarter . boyfriend really is they don't want to know that these people here. are very socialist. and see no evil hear no evil or in this case see no poverty here no problems this as more and more american families are left to sink or swim in a failing us economy one year later our t.v. is it's a tent city on the outskirts of new york. it is wednesday december seventh five pm in washington d.c. i'm christine for you're watching r t. one start by taking

a look at the economy as we are in the height of the political season about to officially kick off the primary season there is no doubt of the major cases who ever becomes republican nominee will have to make is that he or she will implement policies that improve the economy more than president obama has been able to do during his first term in the white house now for those out of work or about to lose their job this is crucial a change any change at all for signs of hope won't come soon enough for the thousands of people who have not only lost their job but their homes as well and you may see some of them on the streets on your way to work if you live in a metropolitan area but there are many more that you don't see they're not living in shelters but among trees and bushes now here's a look at one of those camps. people have erected tents or have felt teepee like structures to stay dry they spend the day gathering firewood to try to keep warm and this is not a third world country this is actually new jersey to correspond on a saskia chargen i have been there several times now but her most recent visit she

discovered something that may surprise you there are more people there now than ever. tent cities of outrage popping up all across the u.s. over the last months list visible to the public eye and much quieter. this tent city of hopelessness around for half a decade this is our third time at the village tucked away in the woods in about two years the number of homeless turning to the camp for hospitality keeps growing these days the population of tent city has tripled compared to when it was first set up the place is home to about seventy homeless people who have nowhere else to go a third are women there are shame to leave their tents in the presence of a camera the mood here has become increasingly politicized over the last year the politicians and the government has not protected the american people they've allowed outsourcing to run rampant you know and it's benefiting companies.

corporations are making more money than they've ever made before the average american worker and citizen is suffering at the expense of the agenda of the politicians. forty six year old angela villain whether with a love for confluence lost everything in the recession and has never found a full time job again it seems to be a growing trend unfortunately and you know the politicians better take note and freida stop their bickering and get to do something to you know to stop this or to slow it down or to make it better a bricklayer for two decades angelo calls himself a victim of the economy and this place home as does charles homeless for the last three years he used to play the harmonica but this is no longer there might be a certain degree of depression that might set in just the whole situation especially now where it's getting cooler and the days are shorter as if the sorrow

of these people wasn't enough officials have been trying to evict the homeless out of the camp they try to force out the poor and i call it discrimination by design for the sake of keeping the pushing the poor out and encouraging the wealthy or the people with money to you know to move into your town. wealth inequality has been at the root of the anger for occupy wall street protesters. but some of these homeless seem far from the demonstrators i support them but i think our our situations are a lot different you know we're homeless we had one no we have no where to go to sleep i'm sure they have places to go when they're done the little rally we've got our own occupy movement right here and in lakewood and it's more of an occupy movement out of the society of those who volunteered to help at the camp are not wealthy like donald who's an artist on disability he was also broke the neglect of the homeless is no surprise to him quite frankly is they don't want to know that

these people are here because they're ugly they're faceless they're nameless many of the residents of tent city used to blame themselves for their misfortune but with three point five million americans experiencing homelessness every year or over seven hundred thousand people on any given night their message for politicians has changed open your eyes. you know i mean all the help there we give out all over the world we need help here as night settles help was far from here all we have left are the roosters that live in their trees to keep them company but each homeless resident bases a horde truth by himself. or to likud futures kind of crazy i think i mean that camps like that literally exist in so many cities or outside of so many cities and it was interesting what the person in the story said

you know this is not. these people are not being helped by people that should be helping in the government who want to help other countries and said. you know this this one though this tent city that we just showed you very interesting because our correspondent has returned there several times now. and she said that this time not only were there more people people there felt more sorrowful so what will it take to make places like this obsolete and why are they on the outskirts of most major cities in the country well earlier i spoke to senior fellow at the campaign for america's future richard asco for his insight as to why there are so many homeless camps. sure i mean i think it's a combination of factors but one of them is that the number of people living in poverty keeps going up keeps going up i think we're seeing a decline in the social services that are available to them and if you look at the geography of poverty if you could look at the new data that's coming out with a you know with

a computer eye from above you'll see that the neighborhoods poverty are spreading the areas in pockets of we're moving across the country and getting broader border you're also seeing of course bank foreclosures and that type of activities so taken all together almost this is becoming a greater greater problem sued in security not knowing where the next meal is coming from it's become. your problem so i think it's a combination of factors we're not investing in fighting poverty we're not stimulating the economy the more the economy stagnates for the ninety percent or ninety nine percent that more people are likely to slip into poverty so it's an ongoing process of decay and this homelessness of course just one manifestation of this poverty this any quality gap that continues to grow and occupy wall street is a movement that has come to sort of embody that there's any quality gap camps occupy camps are getting shut down most recently in san francisco today there were

several arrests even here in d.c. if this sort of changes form if there's no longer people out there in people's faces every day occupying parks around this country do you think the message that has sort of been put out there is going to get lost. well i hope not look i think that there are this is a time to reconsider strategy i wish that the mayors in and whoever else has been involved in these. strategy discussions about how to shut down the occupy wall street was put is much creativity and imagination into sugar and our property but they haven't been doing that yet so i think it's a matter of to changing tactics look i think occupy our all which took place yesterday was a terrific idea and that was where or. as you probably know members of the occupy movement came and helped sam believes that it was fairly or illegally foreclosed move back into their own homes and that's the kind of thing we've got to see i think now it's time to say

a visible presence is important but let's take the fight to the victims of the injustice who are the people being foreclosed on the people who is in their arms the people living in under the people slipping into our beach let's make them visible let's make them him and to the rest of the population and real to the rest of the population so that people care enough to do something about this and more richard in time to those people who can actually make decisions people with the power to change things i mean what's going to take the u.s. congress doesn't seem to be getting any closer to dealing with that it's about to get really cold on who you know what they're going to take to get the congress to respond to this or to to get other people in power to actually make a difference it's gone through a relentless persuasion relentless pressure with relentless visibility look we just saw barack obama give a speech yesterday where he channeled the most radical and transformative progressive president arguably and american history certainly up there with

franklin roosevelt and that was teddy roosevelt now with the words in the rhetoric aren't exactly matching up as i as i said when i wrote about it. populism is a mode of action it's not a slam speech but. still we've seen this big change and that's directly i think attributable to the occupy wall street movement which in just two months has changed the the whole dialogue so either we get congress to change we keep the pressure on with things like occupy our arms and frankly we do have these kinds of tactics that get the banks attention because you know it's a fair to say that if you've got wall street concern you get the politicians attention and i think it's time to bring the fight to those areas sent to new levels well it certainly will be interesting to watch especially as we watch that debate that discussion sort of change forums with all the g.o.p. candidates trying to give their views on the economy it's an interesting and exciting time here in this country i think your fellow of the campaign for

america's future richard ascot. and while the homeless population continues to grow there are a lot of other major things happening at home and around the world the presidential race of course also the egyptians who came to him embody the arab spring they're smack dab in the middle of their elections and the eurozone is on the brink of collapse so what issue is on the minds of most people here well it turns out people are not counting down the days to the next meeting of the european union instead they're counting down how many shopping days are left before christmas at least that's what the resident that's laurie her for us found out this week on the streets of new york city. are people aware of what's going on in the world this holiday season are they only interested in shopping this week let's talk about that what do you make of the first gyptian election since the revolution. well what do you think is the importance of it. what's on your mind that shopping do you agree with britain's

choice to pull out of its embassy in tehran. we don't follow the news these days so i'm not so informed about what do you follow these days. only on the city do you think fired the rockets in lebanon is real border well since i just woke up this room a little bit cation i have no idea about the story and i apologize but i have no idea how do you think the european union should handle the greek situation. but hear me on that really closely now what are you guys been plowing the news. he watches the news i watch the. what is that h.d.t.v. and the cooking channel did you think nato had a right to. dan this is getting very political i'm on a five day holiday i'm not going to get into a political discussion are you happy with hillary clinton's efforts in burma i

don't know about hillary clinton's efforts in burma so i don't know about it sorry . why don't you know about it because i'm on vacation and haven't heard from her at all in texas so sorry going to call you up if she by you never have a cell phones or economy if you need me i don't mean the sit down not worldly but i'm paying more attention to what's happening over here it was in another country somewhat not affecting do you think that's what most people feel probably what about you probably whether or not you've crossed everything off your list this holiday the bottom line is you might want to consider taking a break from shopping to find out what's going on in the rest of the world. all right so it is the holiday season to be totally unaware of what's going on outside of the stores and to have it be such a common thing well there's got to be

a reason for this or maybe there are various reasons karen so you have got georgetown university journalism professor chris chambers let's get to the bottom of this i mean what do you think is the role in the media in all of this well a couple of things i mean we highlight we love to highlight. kind of emotional issues where we we don't give the context i mean there's a lot of stuff going on on the hill now that affects every day americans that a lot of these people probably wouldn't care about where. heard about unless you're in a specific interest group so fox viewers want to talk about obama's socialist judicial appointments or something but even there there's no context it's just boom boom boom appeal to a certain target demo and move on so even in domestic issues you know there's no context you're trying to grab that reptilian brain that firefly you know feeding your sex part of the brain and no context so what we're left with is ignorance is

bliss or it might be even be a new paradigm where it's like pathological in the style just i don't know what's going on i don't care what's going on all i know is now's the time i have to think about christmas shopping because that's all i have left meanwhile we're at a time when the economy is still hurting time and yet you know you turn on any of the mainstream channels and there's going to be in-depth segments about the latest holiday gadgets what's new what are the new apps for the i pad different things like that so i want to contrast that with for example what is going on in egypt you know so far they're sort of in the middle of their elections right now but so far election results show that the hard line conservative fallacies have captured about a quarter of the vote there and when you look about when you look at the southeast and for they are very anti-consumer and they are sort of all about being more and more spiritual and they've captured a quarter of the vote in egypt so talk about that and how it sort of vasily

contrasts with what we're seeing you know we're seeing here again is this paradigm that i have to close my mind off to everything and it's the opposite of the great depression like i said this is something new i mean the great depression there was a psychological to brush and here it's almost it's escape but it's not escape into the romans called bread and circuses spectacle and stuff like that here it's really just a mindless kind of turning a word. into these. these consumer means that are hit on in the media again and again and again in egypt on the other hand i mean you've had the entire society basically up ended politically militarily socially and economically which is that the base of all this and it is ironic that at the base of that is all this consumerism it's not anti israel it's not you know whether women should wear burkas it's really the consumer part of the western influence that they are rebelling

against and so you know you have those those two things in balance and you know we look at them and we say we don't care what's going on over there but we were the ones that kind of gave them that mean that shoved down their throats another going to shove it back at us and it will only be sold to the american public in bite sized pieces well this is bad for israel or this is bad for our military or these are people who are just terrorists and again they'll be no context and then we'll go into our shells again it is interesting and will be interesting to watch not just egypt but the other various countries part of the arab spring up there sort of uprisings going on if they will if that will be a trend of them sort of grasping to returning to their roots going back to spirituality guess what that western influence of whatever part of capitalism they got that's just not working well they're part of that's part of their pathological need i mean i think if we go back to something simple our problems will be solved i mean we saw that in two thousand and ten in the midterm elections and that has

a you know i mean maybe they're going to get into this or more of like ignorance in the skate eventually to when they realize that's not going to work either it's so funny how often you hear about the good old days do they actually exist i think a lot of it is sort of like this collective amnesia about let's talk about media ignorance i've got to play this clip from fox news i believe you know this is basically how they've been covering the elections in russia and i want you to pay attention to something pay attention to the landscape that the tree. thousands of protesters have gathered at last value lashing out against prime minister vladimir putin and his lonely russia party. them for widespread reform the ballot and irregularities in the vote count in sunday's parliamentary election all right so we're talking about people carrying not carrying maybe it's because networks like fox a misinform that i don't know if you noticed there are palm trees in that video palm trees they're not palm trees in russia that's because the video they show to talk

about people you know all up in arms about the russian like those were actually greek protesters. i mean there have been studies done that most fox viewers don't know any more than people who don't read the news at all they actually know a lot less i mean you know basically they're going after a certain target demo that's going to latch on to that stuff anyway but even even their target viewers once they get their fill once they get their fair share of the raw meat then they're still going to go out like zombies and hit walmart i mean you know or if they're yuppies they'll hit groupon online and then use their group on coupons because that's what we were led on to i mean because the world is too complicated the world is too scary and this time unlike any other time in our history and it's it's a combination of digital media platforms reinforcing that what we're doing is rather than being depressed or rather than seeking escapist entertainment we're

basically zombie find ourselves and going out and buying or christmas presents buying our gadgets dipping into our savings to do that you know you know and buying one of the you know people have smartphones people have i pads why is it that they're not more informed than ever well because there are too many outlets and they don't and they don't have the time to discern what's real across all these platforms specially all these digital platforms now and. we're talking about people who are very well educated imagine why. the service economy people the blue collar people who are getting hammered you know what what do they have to fall back on well then fall back on the same thing everybody is this new style do and this is the time of the year i need to close off this stuff i know things are bad but i'm going to go to wal-mart and get the flat screen t.v. on black friday you know. it's as simple as that i'm sensing that you make things easier just not to be aware like you said ignorance sometimes can be bliss

journalism professor at georgetown christian as always thanks well i want to take a look now at the rapidly changing landscape of the g.o.p. presidential candidate field now we all know over the weekend herman cain quote suspended his campaign so he's out so we want to talk about who is still in where they stand and what it all means for the future of our country so much to the dismay of quite a few people newt gingrich has a very clear lead you leave take a look thirty seven percent of those republicans who were polled compared to mitt romney with twenty two percent and ron paul hanging in there with eight percent now we've got to the point in the campaign four weeks away from the iowa caucus where the candidates aren't all playing nice anymore it's becoming clear that there are some market distinctions between them and here's one but here is one thing that all of the republican candidates well all except ron paul have in common they are all unwavering in their support for israel take a look here this is video from today candidates are in washington addressing the

republican jewish coalition courting their support and also their support of a packed the jewish lobby ron paul was not invited due to his quote misguided and extreme views isn't support the u.s. relationship with israel in the same way the others do i'll just play one of his recent comments on the issue we don't have a treaty with israel why would we have this automatic commitment that we're going to send our kids and send their money and leslie to to israel. well as you can imagine this is a sentiment not shared by others but there are plenty of ways in which they all differ a surprising thing for many is how much things change so let's take a look back michele bachmann won the iowa straw poll rick perry lead in the polls for a week or so romney was the assumed front runner until it was herman cain now it's newt gingrich this is the story on the surface but what are some of the deeper implications here and it's one of the many questions i have and to help me answer

that i spoke earlier with heather ceremony conservative political commentator and strategist i asked her what was she thought just to start out simply what made an ideal republican candidate take a listen. these are ideal public and candidate would be consistent unfortunately we don't really see that with many of the candidates of the two front runners right now that's our main problem that we have with them is that they are both flip floppers so to speak and so it's really hard to get excited about a candidate who we are uncertain as to whether or not he or she will continue believing what he says he believes now so that's the the top one and we want to have a strong defense we want to make sure that our domestic policy doesn't you know cost is too much and is consistent with the republican platform and you know many of the candidates that are out there have said some making things and that's why people have said oh we love we love newport now and then as we hear more things are like well i'm not sure we love you so more so much anymore and a lot of it also have to do with do we think that the people that person can lead

us and will be a person who's a good role model to other countries had there you are a moderate republican jon huntsman who you like romney jon huntsman well why is he not on the top of your list well first i'm not a moderate republican i'm pretty conservative republican i actually identify myself first as a conservative and been a republican but i am first of all very much against obama i don't want to see him be elected and so therefore i was a main reason i mean speaking for yourself it's about knowing that there's a lot of people who agree with you what's the main reason top two or three reasons why you don't want to see president obama back in the white house. well for one i think that he's created a huge government and has for years he's made our government much bigger and we have to pay for that and many of those things that he's created we won't have to pay for until after he's out of office he's a one termer i mean are you talking about health care for one of what apparently

according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office that's not something that anyone has to pay for because it actually brings in money you know that's actually very controversial as far as how it was a huge piece of legislation the cost for that are going to be far reaching and it's essentially i mean as a commuter it is a but there's no evidence so there is it's sort of amended so what other than hello there which is controversial it is something that obama has put in place that people should be concerned about having to pay for in the future right well as far as you know his plans for unemployment those things as far as how he attacks usual problems like unemployment like i said is his plans which of course you know have to be debated by congress he doesn't make legislation right but those plans would actually increase our government and would only like extending unemployment as and things like that again ending unemployment benefits and everything out of the whole view of how what he thinks america should look like and he really his view for america is much more like europe is much more like

a socialist type government i'm not calling him a socialist but i do believe the advocates are more socialist type of government so i believe this election is really about what do we want america to look like i mean what america to be an unusual unique place that really allows people to achieve the american dream or at least pursue it or do we want to look like other nations that have more of a socialist government and i believe that obama's for the social is go back to the question about huntsman why why not huntsman why is he doing so poor and i do think that he has some great ideas i think for him it's really a matter of having the network stablished to promote him in a in a right way but i think his ideas like his economic plan has been praised by can. rid of and moderates and actually georgia oil original right and george will wrote a column last week that was just really condemning of both. romney and gingrich and saying let's take a look at huntsman again and maybe even rick perry so there is still debate going

on and it's definitely not over yet let's remember huckabee won iowa governor huckabee they're public it was either public and nominee you know we still have a long road to go down but i do believe that regardless who the nominee is republicans whether they're moderate conservative will be behind the candidate because they do want to see the america that they love restored they want to see obama gone and i hope that the independents will see that as convincing to it's i realize you have to cater to those well and always this election is all about them on it we played you some of the things that some of the. you know candidates seen as french candidates or have said let me play now what's on the front runners have said and i will respond to that because you're there you know work out and those slogans man is great evidence in schools and poor neighborhood schools actually heard the children do things what to say in that process were actually learning to work learning to earn money they had money you know that enough to become a pimp or a prostitute or

a drug dealer i believe it's absolutely essential africa was a country on the brink now with the president he put us in libya he is now putting us in africa the very founders that rolled those documents and worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the united states. the. commerce and let's city. missouri. ok granted it always gives a good laugh and granted you're in favor of romney right now nothing and none of the gaffes really for him in there but you know when you see things like this victory or death and i realize bachmann and perry are no longer leading in the polls but they were at one time what do you think things like that say to the rest of the american people when they think that well i think that this is the opportunity discuss a lot of issues and let's be fair the democrats have.