capitol hill the demonstrations marked the four month anniversary of the birth of the movement and r.t. was there to capture all the action. and from internet censorship to worldwide protests is this just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to twenty twelve but the trends research institute says that the future is crystal clear those predictions in just a few moments. that evening it's wednesday january eighteenth eight pm here in washington d.c. who sees half of those and of course you're watching our t.v. . now if you have to dust off your old copy of microsoft and carter today because wiki pedia seem to be down not alone it has been lights out for some of the internet's most popular websites today all in protest of the anti-piracy legislation that is making its way through congress as we speak now the stop online

piracy act sopa for short was designed to fight well online piracy an effort that's critical to protecting american jobs or so say the music and film industries meanwhile opponents warn that so book it amounts to internet censorship and in fact internet censorship that could put the u.s. in the same league as china or iran that at least according to google's surrogate brit now the legislation would give the government and major corporations the power to effectively shut down entire websites are accused of copyright violations all without a single trial or court hearing it would also make streaming unauthorized content a felony crime and would punish any web site that gives users ways to get around those government blocks and google didn't completely go offline today but the site did a block out its locos you can see here linking to information about the legislation for more than seven thousand websites including with we could pedia what you see right here or read it craig's list or news websites like wired dot com and others

all decided to go dark again to protest what they call draconian provisions in the bill now their message this what you're seeing right here is what america's internet is going to look like if these bills go through in their court current form and folks some of this stuff certainly looks scary now there is of course a lot to discuss here a lot of technical details i want to bring in somebody who's been covering all of this from the start declan mccullagh is a correspondent for c.n.n. news and here's his take on how these pieces of legislation could affect you know this. form yes what they did was they create. and in blacklist a bag of ice that are accused of harboring piracy and that would allow copyright holders in the u.s. department of justice to going to order requiring that they seem to be in contact and want to return service or rather you use a home to block to them is something that hasn't been done before in history of the

u.s. internet and if they're not acted in their current form you know would change things but keep in mind imagine in their current form because the sponsors are now saying well hold on hope it's the worst part but we haven't seen the details yet yeah i'm just imagining the senator leahy or something sitting over his christmas ham with a younger i don't know step necessary something getting yelled at about the legislation but why why why would being called censorship efforts how would this actually curtail freedom of speech and well it in a few ways i mean little less going to be an example of how you have. both of them hosting web sites like a flicker or boob casa like what based on your on european soil using european servers call my phone the com. and actually michael does not come with them is making this up but then you do sitting here in the u.s. upload your family vacation photos to my father about tom and your toddler photos

and all of your favorite family photos my photos dot com and that and then someone else on there i use it to friends us copyright law well i guess it's going to happen is that there's going to be maybe a takedown notice as orders saying that is that i have peace in the united states can't connect to my photos i'm anymore and you better hope you know about because my photos are some i'm going to be offline now is this the so-called blogging section and protect these they in there they may not but we haven't seen the language yet and my understanding is that even language we have seen is kind of vaguely worded now. you know i don't want this to be misinterpreted but i mean the average agent in congress is a bit on the older side we saw the late ted stevens describe the internet as a series of tubes that gets backed up and that sort of raises tell me if i'm wrong the concern that maybe these guys don't really get the internet enough to be able

to legislate in a way that doesn't break it what do you make of that don't get the internet at it but in fairness is sitting i mean you have representative ron paul the libertarian leaning republican presidential candidate who signed a letter with as olof or has probably a grandmother by now representing our it's all about the same so it was a really bad if you don't go there. and so it's i'm here to hold on to the internet but it's their job to be generalists somebody probably don't understand details of defense policy or hold for all it was their own role in committee it's just hasn't been that has been perceived as compared to the interest of hollywood have spent in silicon valley companies between seven times to one and ten to one depending on what kind of metric you're looking at well let's talk about that because this is of course something that hollywood has been aggressively pushing for there's a lot of money involved sort of the titans of hollywood hollywood versus the titans

of silicon valley why why why is hollywood so keen on this to do these piracy efforts actually make the country lose millions of jobs like they claim. well you look at the amount of growth that silicon valley has created in the last ten fifteen years versus hollywood i mean i thought the scale of this it's all one value and so you're just talking about the economy then because the defense industry over but you're seeing a lot of stats thrown around because there are hollywood assumes that everyone who would have down or who downloaded something would have bought it was priced i'm probably not the case and so a lot of the figures are slightly fanciful in terms of the actual law you know so i mean hollywood has the motion picture association of america which has offices a block or so from the white house they're very well integrated probably chris dodd

he's not of the washington political establishment i mean they are the washington political establishment and so they're used to getting what they want i think this time he might have been off a little bit more than a job but i'm curious about that i've been reading conflicting accounts in terms of what people expect will actually happen yes you know to some degree you have these lawmakers do a sort of about face and they took out her watered down some of the more controversial provisions but i'm still reading that a lot of folks think that this effort will still go through in fact i think we have a quote from president obama the obama administration apologized which spoke out in opposition to this legislation but they still say that we believe that the on law online privacy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response that is why the administration calls on all sides to work together to pass sound legislation this year so declan is this effort continuing or is it going to be blocked by by protesters you know there's this is

a very fluid situation it's hard to say you know what's actually going to happen to the white house member very nuanced responsible who we can assign we steadfastly opposes not you. that's what i want to give one of the nice mil and you have just yesterday you know senator kerry represent whom are sponsoring the house and we're going to go right ahead with that market it's going to happen a committee vote next month or so and then of course you have the senate floor going to protect i the legislation next week by the handicraft is something that something is probably going to be enacted what it's going to be i just don't know if the today's protest is having some effect we've seen about four senators so far so they drop their support are all republicans as far as i can tell dropped their support and say we're no longer co-sponsoring this is a look inside some limited support i mean if you start with forty one senators supporting it and you only lose four and it's not a huge build impact i just think this whole issue raises an interesting other

interesting issue which is sort of the role of direct protesting with these companies right i mean they're not you know google isn't as google does have lobbyists but hollywood may have tons of paid lobbyists walking around capitol hill but as you wrote in some of your piece says voters and viewers have much more affinity to say facebook or google or these sites that they actually use and are therefore able to sort of stand up and protest against this kind of legislation should they find it disturbing what i guess my question is what does this say about sort of. pitting hollywood. tech giants for says lawmakers i mean is this a losing battle for the lawmakers if these companies can speak directly to their users ok one minute only a third of a sense of a real action and so they're buying a few years out if you're an incumbent u.s. senator if you really like this bill maybe you're going to go all the wonderful hollywood parties that you you can probably guess that in

a few years your constituents are going to want something else. and so that's a that's one flaw in the process in this process and also the tech companies aren't quite serious yet they're almost there but you don't see it as. see them saying please contact members of congress who don't have that sort of home page blocked out well the thing is find a petition now look i mean there's a petition to get five hundred thousand signatures big deal out of your member of congress you're going to want to you're you care a lot more i'm sure that one person or call in this was for and said i hate this legislation so i think it's always a little wary a little leery facebook can put anything on their own he amazon dot com have some link buried in the writer's even face contact members of congress either haven't done anything e-bay pay-pal haven't done anything that facebook does have laws that i thought that was not reaching everyone so there's still a long way to go to get serious about political activism and very briefly we haven't seen that much media coverage i mean

a lot of print coverage of course your work a lot of reporters say in print writing about this but not a lot of the networks discussing this someone had a raise the point that n.b.c. and fox news did have some vested stake in this legislation is that correct and what's behind that. was going to look at the motives of mining a soldier or was i mean i think in terms of the journalistic companies we're talking about the company is what are they in the end of the drift the journalists who are going to be reporting the stories i think you're probably going to see some more. some more coverage today after the week the media blackout and the wall street journal is covered pretty thoroughly as they go in the news pages that i did a fair job in utero because the we love soap and protect. all right well it seems like the battles only beginning in the deck when i know that you'll be covering all of this so we'll keep you in mind for the future to see how it all plays out thank you so much for your time of course that was a correspondent for c.n.n.

news declan mccullagh. well the occupy wall street protesters may be provera really fighting to change the system but one actual professional fighter has decided to jump into the ring with his support for the movement if you follow mixed martial arts and you'll know my next guest says the snowmen of course talking about two time a.t.c.c. world champion jeff monson who was with us earlier this month to talk about why his politics seemed to be getting as much attention if not more than his punch when he was back with us just a short while ago today and i started off by asking him if he agreed with the occupied by wall street movement's change of focus towards congress take a look well i think great what they're doing now because what the what the movement has done you know started four months ago is it led us to a feeling of solidarity that we had each other's back that we were you know able to make some changes and that if we you know plant the seed right now that the greater changes could come and even know some of you know corporations have gone out of

status quo you know i think that you know down the road there's going to be big changes and arsenal social change and so this is a continuation people you know have like i said have a solidarity and you realize that that with the strength of numbers and we can make things happen but congress theoretically supposed to be an extension of us the citizens the people right i mean we voted these guys into office do you feel are you i mean you laugh do you feel that our lawmakers represent us and our interests . well i mean it's a joke and it's one of the things they're frustrated me alive because you know we're supposed to have a democracy which means rule by people you know obviously because you know three hundred million people united states we have a representative democracy which means that they're supposed to represent the people of the united states you know we didn't want to be in iraq you know we're misled and you know afghanistan and you know they're not doing the things that we want to do you know it's ok for you know a company to pay a legislator you know

a certain amount of money to have him out on some something to a bill and you know a pharmaceutical or an oil company get some special privilege which hurts so much hurts incidence of the united states and it's legal and you know these people are millionaires and sometimes billionaires they do this so they don't represent us at all they represent the corporations and you know the mass media and you know if there's something else needs to be done by the people we have to take to the streets well take to the streets but at the same time we saw a couple hundred turnout yesterday and i you know i don't want to be dismissive of the movement i think it seems like they have at least shifted the national dialogue but do you really think that a few protests here and there are going to change things. well like i said i mean even the mass you know occupy new york movement occupy wall street. you know was an isolated united states as thousands of cities worldwide and you know did the

corporations have their profits reduced you know not really but what it did is planted a seed for the future and basically let us know i hate that we realize what's going on we're educating people we're educating ourselves and that hey there's other people like us and we are the working class the government and these corporations would have us like to fight each other you know they would have house lights you know fight race wars and you know. different problems within his cells but we are the working class without us nothing else happens you know we're the people who you know wash the cars who make the hamburgers to sweep the driveways who who build this country the way it is and without us there's nothing you know so i think in the future you know if we if we had a general strike or somebody died it was shut down wall street shut down this country in a heartbeat. jeff i mean you obviously have a sort of a mass media platform you're very well known for what you pay for what you do for a living very well respected other people that listen to you i mean if

a guy who cut his teeth i guess being an activist and a street organizer in chicago could be president fates are you willing or interested in stepping up and trying to sort of be the proverbial leader of this kind of way when they are talking about. well that's the thing you know it was funny because you know the media pretend like where are the leaders where we're you know whatever the man's of occupy wall street would have a want and i think that's what's so great about the whole movement it's a paradigm is change it's like we the people you know we were doing this it's not individual leading us we're not following anybody we're working together and that's the beauty of the whole movement is that it was a social class a working class of people united solidarity where people like saw each others the things that they needed a hey we can do this together and we don't need someone leading us yeah there's

going to be people you know educating and that's kind of my job you know as as an anarchist obviously i would be against what i believe you know take a political position or. you know a position of leading but you know i'm going to do my best to educate people and they say the best way to to lead is to to yourselves and i'm just curious i mean why do you think if these interests are so indeed entrenched in congress if they're so against the working man as you said working class person why do you think more americans aren't joining up with the movement. it's come for you know if you have a place so you're living in right now you're barely making your bills if you're you know able to get by are you going to sacrifice that potentially lose those things to go protest you know lose your job and you know have your kid not to go to school or you know maybe rouge not be able make your car payment because you're missing work so i think it's just comfort and as more and more americans are being

discomforted by losing their jobs and not be able to have retirement and working longer and those kind of things i think you're going to see the movement grow like i said i would definitely see has been planning but i said this last time i was on the show is that we need a social change not a political change and the only way that social change is going to happen is if the masses us the people that let them sleep at night stand up and say we've had enough because they're not going to do it themselves you know the corporations the government officials they're making money they're doing fine they don't have to worry about you know making the next mortgage payment or the next rent or you know if we're going to have a job next week they're fine we're the ones that are worried about this where the nonsense need to step forward and make a change but like i said more and more people get put out on the street or you know how their kids i can't my kids a four point zero student i can't it's for to send him to college this isn't right i think you're going to see people step up more and join the movement than that was

the very well known american mixed martial arts fighter and political activist jeff monson. that's still ahead right here on our team from government crackdowns to the american market the trends research institute has everything you need to know about what's in store for twenty twelve really get the inside scoop from gerald celeb day in just a few moments. lindsey lowe and vacuum. the great about women you know people are suggesting she's. you know. she says she's not going to stop.

people calling like you said for free and fair elections. again we're still reporting from the clinton you can hear behind me loud explosions . and. oh yeah. well internet censorship massive protests economic instability it seems like some of the biggest trends launched last year are only growing in force now that it's twenty twelve killed at the fact that nine euro zone countries were downgraded by the s. and p. last week the greek government is still scrambling to avoid

a default on the u.s. economy while it seems no closer to turning around so what does it all mean and where are we going when it comes to going forward where to answer that question we decided to bring on a guest who makes a little bit of a living off predictions in terms of what's in store gerald celebrity is of course the publisher of the trends journal in the founder of the trends research institute and he joined us a bit a bit earlier today i decided to start off our conversation by asking him about the occupied wall street movement and where he saw it going this year take a listen. it's global it's not only it's wide in eighty countries fifteen hundred cities worldwide and it just continues on it's going on in ireland as we speak so what it is it's basically when the money stops flowing down to the man on the street the blood starts flowing in the streets it's class warfare it's as simple as that far too much too much away too many have much to

a little and what's interesting about the occupy movement is that the very weakness that the critics claim it to be that they don't have one voice or one single message that actually is their strength for example we saw the wiki leaks movement dog i even though they were putting out very damaging revelations from the embassy cables because they chopped off the head so to speak of julian a songe so the occupy movement is just beginning it's not going to stop and it's going to take very different forms very different issues and again it's going to spread worldwide you cut off one tentacle another one grows misled to have forced governments don't like instability who does so we can assume. predict that they will take some sorts of measures to sort of calm things down a little bit or perhaps pass some tougher laws i think those who are in some of their predictions let's talk about some potential reactions that we can see either

from global governance or here at home with the n.p.a. bill. well exactly the n.d.a. signed on was new year's eve when very few people tuned in to the news happy and i was going on around the world what happens is it's lucy the bigger the screw up some government the greater they have failures the more they clap they clamp down on the people so we saw a way then we're seeing it in greece we're seeing it in italy we're seeing it in the hungry we're seeing it everywhere the greatest failure the bigger the crackdown so now what are they done they've turned america into battlefield america i mean you can't make this kind of stuff up with a just the it's the no bill of rights that they just have so they know what's coming they see that they see the protests worldwide last year at this time what was it tunisia that it went to egypt it went to yemen bahrain this still going on

is over in greece there are there are protests all that simon happened this summer over in the u.k. although it was just move against oh the occupy movement oh we know newt gingrich told us all the see people have to do is go take a bath and get a job that's how disconnected they are one level but the although level is they know this thing is coming down and they have the they now have what the military they repeal the cop posse comitatus act of eight hundred seventy eight the military could come in now and they can throw say no it's happened let's talk about that you bring up but economic martial law and one of our protections how could we see that play out that sounds quite terrifying to me frankly i'll go back anybody could google has put in john kors zines name the guy who brought m.f. global down he was running for reelection of governor in june of two thousand and nine the obama administration got sworn in in january two thousand and there's joe

biden vice president campaigning for corps and biden says. one of the first things the day we were after we was sworn in number one priority was whether or not to call a bank holiday that's how bad the economy was it's no holiday you can't get your money out that's the before the fed pumped in what sixteen trillion dollars and that lucy's before the european system started to collapse we are forecasting there's going to be a major major turmoil coming out of europe it's going to royal the financial markets and they probably won't blame it on that they'll be a false flag maybe an attack with iran something that will force them to close down the banks now i'm saying this because of people remember you go back to nine eleven you know what they did they closed down wall street you know what that meant that meant that if you had certificates of deposit for example you could not cash them in so we're looking at something of

a major magnitude because of the failure of the financial system that they are not able to fix all they're doing is throwing more money on top of bad money that they can't collect and this major meltdown that you're talking about you're predicting that for this coming year this twenty twelve specifically yes it is it's in the works now they cannot fix the european debt crisis and they're already priming the people for a greek default and then there's a dolly and then there's spain then there's portugal and then there's ireland and it doesn't stop look they just downgraded as simpy was nine countries and by the way they did that very slyly they did it on a friday afternoon after the markets closed and. at the martin luther king holiday so the impact wasn't felt right away well there was one of the top politicians in germany said that you know this whole downgrade thing this s. and p. issue with their euro zone that's really just part of the u.s.

trying to undermine the euro what do you what do you make of that do you think that the u.s. is trying to undermine the euro by everybody's on the line you know everybody year olds the whole thing is collapse the unit americans are trying to blame the europeans look what they just did they just increased our debt level in the united states so now when you have the problems going on in europe they the americans blame the europeans for a full have you know. really how recovery the europeans on the other hand they are in a mess over there now they're blaming the americans anybody these are politicians that's what they do well politicians we're almost out of time but very very briefly you mentioned something about the so-called big brother internet in a sentence or less what can we expect in that regard bring it back to economic martial law bring it back to battlefield america they keep taking our rights they keep clamping down on us and they're going to grab more and more from the internet

to watch us and stop us that every level of freedom that we have it's a trend that's been going on since george w. bush with the patriot act and it's excel aerated of the robot all right well some terrifying predictions there from our friend dave the publisher of the trends journal and the director of the trends research institute thank you so much. going to do it for us here in the news but coming up next in about a half an hour is the big picture with tom hartman look look at pedia reddit roster and others of the lock outs tom is going to tackle this issue to talk about privacy internet freedom and what these a web sites and the corporate lobbyists out in hollywood are trying to do. and he's also going to look at the whole issue of limited government and the sort of libertarian paradise has and vision to by the likes of wrong paul and some folks in the tea party is that really what our founders envisioned well tom will weigh in on

it all. and of course for more on the stories you saw tonight or any other night check out our team dot com slash usa or argue to page you tube dot com slash r t america and follow me on twitter that's at lucy craft and of getting. letters that say much given to you should be sitting on the mark with one featuring a wide range of issues the standoff between iran and western powers has branched out is the west preparing for a military confrontation. if you.