only want what's in our interests and the taliban of announce that they'll be opening a political office in qatar and the u.s. reportedly will release a few taliban commanders from guantanamo bay in return on hopes of negotiations so are really getting to close getting this close to an end and is this a breakthrough or is it just a little bit more of a cave matthew who is going to help us with that we have all that and more for tonight getting a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. i will that's if the results from iowa are in with romney taking the lead by eight points santorum coming in second to ron paul third i'm going to skip on the rest for now because well you probably already know the results because some of them like michele bachmann have already suspended their campaign and because the mainstream media obviously cannot stop talking about it for one single second and so once again you're into this perpetual problem with the mainstream media because

even when they devote all of their resources all of their time to a single topic they rarely ever provide any information any analysis of any value they rarely discuss the issues or the angles that matter most to average americans now quite the opposite you're going to see anchors and pundits paid contributors they all live within the same tiny little bubble of a world discussing it amongst themselves. one two three four five you can't come in fifth place in the place you call home in the primary within the primary in the republican party for the conservative who can were unite the right rick santorum and newt gingrich now have to duke it out to see which one of them gets to go the distance with mitt romney if you look at the voter turnout was a record with it by a couple thousand of those but mitt romney didn't benefit from that at all looking towards the general election he already has a problem with lower and middle income voters and i think that's something that's going to follow him all the way through november should he be the nominee if rick santorum becomes the nominee of this party i mean it is going to be bedlam and

hysteria like you have never seen that live in history. bedlam and hysteria how low people do you remember there's an economic crisis out there they were fighting numerous wars that millions of homes are being foreclosed that we have a true crisis of leadership that's of finding a new leader that's what having a new election that's what it's all supposed to be about it's supposed to be about who's best equipped who's most trusted to lead to help solve our problems but to the mainstream media it's all about useless strategy and he said she said none of them even bothered to ask the average americans out there feel about yesterday's results how they feel about these candidates how they feel about the problems facing this country so you know what we did we went to occupy d.c. today to get their take on iowa on our political system overall and of course on the mainstream media and so first we asked them what they think the most important issues are in this upcoming election. through his speech and freedom of assembly right now should be a priority american public wants jobs economic security

a future for their children and all as you heard from you know iowa is how tough there are going to be against iran and you know. fundamentalist issues rolling back several of the laws in reinstituting others like but putting plasty though back in billing back to citizens united we have a key part of the constitution and the bill of rights being overwritten by the military industrial complex and by. the war on terror which is really turned into the war on the american people's freedoms basically legislation to get the money the big money out of politics. yeah i don't really hear any of that the mainstream media's post i will primary coverage that we also asked akbar's how they feel about our two party system and not the charade that we see played out over and

over again. i would not be looking at the democrat or the republican party for any answers when it comes to who we should stand behind for candidates because both of them receive major campaign financing from the very corporations which are controlling our government it's all the same they're all they're all from the same class of people they're all handpicked by the elite our entire system has failed at this point just like through. large corporations controlling everything that we have if even if we do have a decent president it's all about the money these days and it was the two party system doesn't work. right now we have. deep pockets on one side deep pockets on the other side. now obviously it's a small group of people here in washington d.c. that we spoke to today but you know they're not the only ones that are feeling this way you know that this movement has inspired people all over the country that approval for washington and for congress as an all time lows the public thinks the

two party system is broken and the mainstream media refuses to even consider that there might be other options out there they continue to play their role in this entire political game as if this is the way it was it is and it always should be but the people we spoke to had a few ideas for what they would like to see the mainstream media covering instead. maybe they should be looking at the ruling of the n.p.a. or sopa instead of dealing with people they are dealing with. material issues they need to be focusing on issues of the people that are struggling our nations in six wars right now we're in six wars and we're worrying about some caucuses i call it the lame stream media that they're again they're just a mouthpieces for the elite. sopa and da wars it's funny a lot of those sound like topics that we cover right here on the alona show and yet

what these people care about how elections affect them all of that the mainstream media chooses to miss. so if none of the presidential candidates none of the options that our political system has produced are offering any true alternatives any solutions to our financial system and who will let me introduce you to the alternative banking group consider a branch of occupy wall street it's not made up of your usual suspects their usual ninety nine percenters in fact that includes current and former investment bankers traders even lawyers for the securities industry all the financial experts who want to offer their services and their diverse ideas to the movement to help bring about real change in the way that our system works so can the alternative banking group help this movement offer up some concrete demands joining me to discuss this is carne ross founder and director of independent diplomat

a nonprofit diplomatic advisory group and he's also the author of the book at the leaderless revolution and the founder of the alternative banking group for occupy wall street part i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight and if you can first start by just telling us how many are there of you in this alternative banking group in terms of bankers and traders and lawyers and what not well thanks for having me on this course a lot i would say several school people who turn up to the meetings there's now two sub groups one of which addresses legislation to reform the current system and one of which is trying to imagine and set up a new kind of bank and this question a lot more who participated online and take part in the meetings by telephone conferences quite a lot of people so why do want to start this group. and i think the idea is that for me it was a flow from the basic skepticism that we could reform the system from the outside that we could look to washington which has been so corrupted by special interest to control an industry that is clearly out of control that clearly lies at the heart

of our current you can point problems and of course was instrumental in closing the credit crisis of late. oh nine so what would a solution look like perhaps we could set up a new system that would replace the current system what would that system be how could we set it up and that's that's the topic that we've been trying to get to grips with and we've made some progress why love to hear what's on your progress says right because one of the main critics opt in the people out there have for the occupy movement is that they feel like it's just a lot of angry people but they don't necessarily have a specific set of demands that you've got out you fellow and they are frustrated but what's next so what are you coming up with sure i think it is a very common this could misconception of the occupy movement actually from an early stage in the movement a lot of working groups were set up to try to do it was substandard to the issues and come up with really concrete ideas about how to change things for the better in our group we have set up a list of criteria for what an ideal bank would look like democratic transparent

available for everybody particularly the poor income taxes the current system very easily and would above all follow rip us banking principles which would not expose the broader economy to systemic risk is the current system unhappily does we're now looking to partner with or perhaps even a quad banks who might help us connect these principles in reality so that we actually set up a bank to fulfil these ideals this is not an easy thing to do banking legislation is extremely complex and it's basically set up to protect the monopolistic behavior of the big banks but we are trying one carious have you found any banks that you feel are worthy enough to actually work with and trying to enact this new system arena is there anybody out there that isn't in some way tainted. i think i think there are banks out there actually there's quite a lot of community banks local credit unions that are doing really excellent work and i think what we're trying to design and think about is

a bank that would take these principles to a much bigger scale that would have been profitable potentially for everybody in the come. where's the moma credit unions very limited they can have its customers because they're only allowed a certain subset of the population in each case so we've been talking to quite a lot of credit unions community banks there are banks out there which is triple triple bottom line banks which aim to fulfil social environmental and other ethical criteria as well as run a reasonably sustainable banking enterprise but at the same time what we are thinking about is how the new so we are talking to banks about being the vehicle for doing something different from the current system not just you know a repetition of something that that is already been done well so in your mind in order for something like that to work or to even exist then what has to happen with our current financial system do you have to get get rid of the big banks as they're set up right now or is this supposed to be something that can compete with them it

is something that would compete with them and ideally eventually replace them because it would be better not only because it would represent better values of the kind of describe it actually it would offer better services i have to say is the european now living in america for some time the services offered by the main street banks in america all italy call compared to those available for instance in europe so i think there is a competitive gap that's open here but the bank we would it is it would be a nonprofit bank so it would be required to make the the profits that the current private for profit sector seeks to make so there again there would be an intrinsic competitive advantage to all bank i'm not naive and we're not naive as a group of about the difficulties of this but i think there is potential to set up something of this kind and we are very actively trying to do that at heart i'm curious as to how you've been accepted by the occupiers are at least originally when you came up with this idea was it are they a little bit hesitant that they think that perhaps you were trying to occupy them

and people from the financial sector were coming in or did they accept you with open arms. the reception has been very warm within the occupy movement and we've been careful to keep in touch with the uk the movement more broadly attending general assemblies and sports council and informing them about a work and a work is completely transparent anybody can join it what it was set up i mean when i stood up at the general assembly some months ago you know i'm not a bank notes wall street person it was just set up by the ordinary person trying to start a conversation start a process to to design something better what then happened was extraordinary a lot of financial sector people came and joined the group perhaps because of the proximity of the public to wall street and this rampant financial area of downtown new york city that there are a lot of people within the industries who share our ideals and i don't think octopi is if a closed door to people who want to help now one of the things too about trying to

enact any kind of change any kind of change to the system is a depends on who's in the leadership and part of the what we think the occupy movement says that the entire two party system is broken but at the moment we do have a general election that is going to be coming up soon we have primaries that are underway and so i'm curious to see your take on the somebody like mitt romney one of mitt romney becomes president and then you have somebody who is worth hundreds of millions of dollars a true one percenter at the helm do you think of this notion of class warfare my you know just just become greater. well i says grow to the view that there is already class warfare by the one percent on everybody else that you know occupy is not talking about class warfare it's just talking about a fair chance for the ninety nine percent mitt romney is you know i have no objection to him as a person but he represents a system that is fundamentally unfair where a very small very very small number of people are extracting huge huge amounts of wealth in comparison to everybody else that is not the only problem of us or

represents bain capital of the firm the equity firm he set up trip since in many ways the worst aspects of capitalism in that it didn't vestige short term in stocks it played the markets this encourages the short termism in. the economy and the benefits of of of these companies that were invested by bain capsule were not shit by the workers or the customers of these companies but by a few small numbers of equity holders people who owed the shares these companies and what we're visiting in occupy and in our group is a system that is fundamentally different whether washington whoever is in charge that can allow that is another matter i personally don't believe that we can ask washington to produce this kind of new institution this kind of new new system given the fact that you know special interests at such an advantage in terms of their political access that also i think you have to settle and of the system yeah

also given the fact that it is the financial sector it is the big banks that are often the biggest donors at all these candidates barack obama included if you look back to two thousand and eight current thank you so much for joining us tonight thanks for having me. are we taking a break but coming up next i've heard our political figures say that they support democracy in the arab world but is that only apply if it's in america's interest like rain walk like this after the break. into i don't know what the mechanism to do the work of bring justice for accountability. i have a right to know what my government should do if you want to know why i pay taxes. but i would characterize obama as a terrorist and a version of american exceptionalism.

you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then something else here sees some other part of it and realized everything is. you don't know i'm tough hard welcome to the big picture. before. you. go to the capitol and calgon floor and mr.

to be there to lead the rock into. what is. testing nobody seems to know. the number of pepper sprayed the face but part of the argument that they're being overly dramatic . well hidden already figured out i think that it's pretty clear by the apathetic response from our mainstream media towards the president signing of the national defense authorization act that they don't really care all that much about our democracy and about what's happening to it and the same could be said of the example of the media's original lack of coverage and then mockery of the occupy movement but if you turn the tables if you remember the coverage of the arab spring up to rear square well there you get the impression that there is nothing of they

want more than for all the people of the world to live freedom and equality only problem is you know no matter how the media tries to spin it democracy in the arab world is the last thing the our foreign policy establishment really wants take for example john alterman from the center for strategic and international studies basically admitting that in the new york times writing that american interests call for a different outcome than the egyptian elections have resulted in that's right he wrote american not egypt interest so you have to ask is the jig up and if so then why does the mainstream media have such a hard time just speaking the truth join me to discuss this is glenn greenwald salon writer and author of the book with liberty and justice for some how the law is used to destroy equality and protect the powerful when thanks so much for being on the show tonight it's been a while since we've had you on and so before we get into this topic i have to get a few words from you on this and d.a. on what happened with the president signing it what's your take overall. well there

was some hope originally because the white house had threatened to veto the bill but it was very clear from the what the white house it said that their problem with the bill was never that it vested the president with very radical and extreme detention authorities instead their problem was that it purported to tie the ends of the president to take away the president's ability to choose to do whatever he wanted to do with detainees and once that was fixed in the bill by saying essentially the president can do whatever he wants but still vesting him with those radical detention powers then the white house's concerns were were obviated and the president went ahead and signed what is clearly one of the most radical bills to be codified in the united states in several decades because it allows the president more or less at his own discretion to imprison people based soley on the accusation that they are involved in some way in terrorism and not even necessarily involve terrorism but in some way supporting it materially what's a very broad term and they just double literates what is supposed to be the core guarantee of due process now one of the things that happened though is that in this

signing statement the president then promised that it's not going to apply to american citizens and i was i annoyed i guess you could say kind of shocked by the fact that people are responding and saying oh that's great that's great it's ok obama said that he's not going to do it why do you think that people still have that reaction why does anybody still believe any of these promises. well remember there are you know sixty million people or so who voted for president obama and they did so with the believe that he would do the sorts of things that he had promised to do when in office and p. it's very hard to come to the realization that you've made that kind of a drastic mistake people still want to believe that he's good that he's the person who they thought he was when they voted for him three years ago notwithstanding the mountain of evidence proving that he isn't and so that's part of it part of it is the a lot of people will justify an excuse whatever he does by saying well it's not his fault he had political pressure on him deep down in his heart he's still really

a good person but of course the real issue is not whether you believe president obama or not he could change his mind maybe he wald the issue is that even if you think oh president obama is too good of a person to imprison american citizens without due process the law that he just signed empowers him or any subsequent president to do so so maybe when we don't have such a bag now to mr neverland's leader anymore but have one of those evil republicans the power will be vested in that president as well and president obama's promise will be irrelevant also if you look at the way of the mainstream media has covered this and i mean you would think you know the media hasn't been going after him it off for the national defense authorization act something that really is an erosion of our democracy of our rights here and yet when it comes to what's been going on or what was going on in the arab spring right when it came to tunisia to egypt our mainstream media was cheering for democracy forgetting about the fact that perhaps we may have supported some of these leaders for decades but suddenly we support the

peoples so how do you you know counter the two things. well you know one of the ways that american exceptionalism is preserved is by constantly condemning other countries urging citizens in our country by saying oh look over there at the tyranny taking place in the middle east or in china or in russia or in a whole variety of other countries are verging our eyes what our own government is doing that's a very important tactic propagandistic leader of the us government uses to obscure its own acts and i can't even begin to tell you how often it is that whatever it is that the american media is condemning other governments for doing is something that the united states government does at least as much if not more so i mean i remember the huge brouhaha that took place when iran imprisoned one journalist an american arabian journalist and that became a major cause celeb in the united states how could the iran possibly imprison

journalists the same thing happened with north korean prison two korean american journalists and the united states imprisoned numerous journalists for not a couple months but for many years including in guantanamo without a whiff of due process al jazeera cameramen reuters photo journalist and others and you can barely find the name of those individuals if you search databases of american media because the american media loves to inveigh against the tyranny all swear and ignore the tyranny at home and this indefinite detention bill is a perfect example of other countries if iran or if russia or china have passed a bill like this that the american media would be horrified and outraged but our country does it and it basically gets ignored but you have to say that in some way that the american media must try to follow suit right they bring on these experts from the establishment here in washington d.c. and you mention this piece that we're in the new york times where basically he said well egypt elections didn't work out for american interests that does that mean

that the jake is up that people are finally starting to be honest about it to say that we don't like what's going on in the arab spring or what the results are of it because it's not good for the u.s. . well you know i think the key point here to realize is that you know one of the amazing things about the coverage of the arab spring from the start of the evening the coverage of the media coverage was very sympathetic to the protesters i mean the idea was that they were rebelling against evil dictators and of people regular people going out on the street and demanding the kind of freedoms that we have the united states and of course we've got obscured and that is that not all but most of those despots you were the target of those demonstrations were very close american allies they were people who have been able to stay in totalitarian power for ten or more a longer several decades by virtue of massive amounts of us aid military and financial aid we propped up those dictators we've entrenched them and kept them into office and it was bizarre to watch a country that basically kept those dictators in office pretend that we were

somehow suddenly inspired by the calls for those dictators to be removed and you know i think the key point is that the reason that america has kept those dictators in power is because they know that if there is democracy taking hold in these countries the result will be very bad for the united states because the need the beliefs among the citizenry in that country is very anti-american it's anti israel they believe that the u.s. and israel israel are the two greatest threats to peace they believe that it's ok for iran to have nuclear weapons even that it would be a positive for them to do so that the u.s. should be able to exploit middle east resources the way it's been doing it has no chance he said if the people's views in these countries were able to be honored democratically rather than suppress to the dictators that we install not only would we not be able to dominate the region we would be expelled from the region and so that's the reason that we've always wanted dictators and not democracy in these countries and that's the reason that even people like john alterman are now being forced to come out and say well look democracy would be really bad for us because

the thing that the people the things people in these countries believe are antithetical to our interest and they have no choice basically but to admit that they never really wanted democracy there. so we fear democracy essential in the arab world is what you're saying but so then it was so what should they say should people should our officials our politicians should they not say if they want to mock or see i mean obviously they're going to have american interests in mind right this is why they've been installed in their positions this is why they've been elected is to look out for america's interest but when they when it comes to diplomatic international relations what should they be saying. well i mean you can you know you have a question originally that why should the united states be attempting to interfere in the governance of other nations i mean lots of other countries are able to preserve their interests of that doing that but let's leave that question aside and let's assume the way that john alterman and all of the people in this foreign policy community who are our foreign policy experts always assume that the u.s. has the right to do whatever it wants including interfere in other countries and

determine how they're governed and that only u.s. interest should be the governing principle not more ality or at the edge of democracy or anything like that even from a perspective of pure self-interest it makes absolutely no sense to continue to suppress democracy because although the fact that we're doing that is generally kept a secret from the american citizenry the domestic propaganda is very effective at suppressing the fact that people in those countries know exactly what the united states is doing they know that the united states is responsible for their dictators for decades they know the united states is even now as it has pretty lip service attempting to prevent democracy there as well and what that does is that it increases levels of anti-americanism even higher than what they already are which makes sense i mean if a certain population knows that there's a form of our preventing them from moving freely in autonomous lee of course that citizenry is going to hate resent that foreign country from doing that so the more that we impede democracy the worse it ultimately becomes the united states because

the more anti-american sentiment there is in the citizenry's and we can only suppress democracy for so long eventuality they're going to have their say and when they do the behavior that we've engaged in and continue to engage in preventing them from living for you and democratically is really going to come back to haunt us on the longer we do it the worse it's going to be definitely something that needs to be said or you're right you know eventually the consequences will not be glenn thank you so much for joining us tonight always a pleasure thanks for having me. all right coming up next on the share a poem from one of our viewers and you said it i read it and the taliban is opening up a political office in qatar the u.s. reportedly will release taliban detainees being held that get mail in exchange so was the army for the war in afghanistan but if we can matthew hoh for them to come back.

to you they're still believe the repetition of. what a protester nobody seems to know. but never a pepper sprayed the face but part of the argument that they're being overly dramatic. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so silly you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hartman welcome to the big picture.