in the best of the rez the news the occupy movement is mutating it's no longer just parks and tents by wall street movement the granddaddy of them all turned four months old tuesday and celebrated by occupying congress over a thousand people swarmed capitol hill yesterday as part of a day of action against a corrupt political institution peaceful patriots won by the offices of members of congress and demonstrated outside on the capitol grounds they didn't even roughly fifteen hundred patriots marched to the supreme court building to demonstrate against corporate personhood and the citizens united ruling and then the crowd marched to the white house to protest the new indefinite detention law that the president had signed for an update on yesterday's actions and where the movement goes now that it's taken its message to the three branches of government america i'm joined by ben mann ski democracy advocate and campaign manager for the green

party's presidential candidate dr jill jill stein and ben zucker a participant with occupy d.c. ben and ben welcome because they had to be this new so let's see. ben. man's he will start with you i'm to go yes it would have i thought you guys did a great job i mean it's really incredible to see this new generation of organizers and activists taking it to the hill and it's very clear that there's a lot of deep thinking and this movement this is a long term human process i came in from wisconsin i was here with dr jill stein was out here to support the occupy movement and i think that we're we're looking at a similar kind of frame right now in which we're looking at the two thousand and twelve elections and asking how does this democracy movement move forward in the electoral system that is occupied by corporate money by big business and i think that the actions that you undertook then that that thousands of others are continuing through the dead of winter as out in des moines last week and people are out there in the negative zero degree temperatures this movement is clearly not

going away so bones are what what what was like what you know what happened it was a really great day and it was a really great day of protests yesterday in the morning and folks from all around the country from over seventy occupations came people took buses from oakland in l.a. hundreds of folks from buses all or all across the country and even folks came in from overseas to come to this protest and then at noon we had our general assembly which is our big nonhierarchical meeting where thousands over two thousand folks i think were at the general assembly at noon and so that was really awesome we had a lot of great conversations about where the movements now and where we're going and then in the afternoon we took some actions inside the halls of congress for some people had opportunities to meet with their congress people if they wanted or just protest through the halls of rejecting the current system that we are living under and that it was the awesome protest of the evening rejecting the current system what would you replace it with what would you replace it with a system where corporate money and power. in the financial money is really not

controlling our system to weaken their system or change you know changing the way the system works as opposed to you know tearing down ben you're a tenor living in the person where yes and the mayor is talking about moving you guys over to liberty plaza. another group over there and what's you know what's going on here what's i think that you're going to do the two groups have been able to work together in a really well with this occupy congress protests and it's unfortunate that the mayor and others feel like we shouldn't be at macpherson square i would think it's our responsibility as concerned citizens to be able to protest this these unfair systems and do they will they not allow tenser a little really the freedom plaza there are there are tents now they have an encampment there to it which is awesome and they have they do good protests it's created by. ben manske it looks like citizens lobbying is ending soap and pipe but those. those actions that citizen action you know the

here we had liberals and conservatives agreeing on it was backed by a billion dollar corporations like google who also served to lose and we could pedia huge you know multinational organization even though it's not a for profit corporation. there are other issues like the defense authorization act with indefinite detention where there was no organization no billion dollar organization that through much behind it that had anything to gain from it going down and it didn't go down even though a lot of us protested rather loudly. on the other hand the x.l. pipeline victory looks like what looks like maybe a victory maybe you know it is there that he's going to my head on the table so you know i'm curious your thoughts about you know citizen lobbying and the impact that the it seems to me like we're seeing a lot of impact from the occupy movement and any absolute i think if the debate has changed debate has changed radically in this past year and it didn't just begin in

wisconsin or at occupy wall street this is a movement that has been building for some time as you know it is a democracy movement i think it is more than tinkering around the edges that i think what you were saying earlier you know what is the change where i heard ben here saying was let's try to mock receipt let's see how it works and i think you're . analysis was very much spot on and i think it's correct that the reality is that capital in this country corporate capital is divided on many key questions there they're divided on insurance on health insurance they're divided on climate right they're divided on questions of free speech and net neutrality but on other key questions that matter to most of us. capitals not divided they're united and what has begun to change in the past on the war on questions of financing for public education austerity measures our system of taxation in this country and all those things corporations all lined up and lay all line up on the same side but what has changed this past year is that people have risen up as never before and we've seen

that the streets we've seen that in the public squares in wisconsin in my home state it feels wonderful that over a million people have signed on the dotted line to say we're taking our democracy back by recalling our governor who you never served us anyway and i think you're also seeing that electorally with the emergence of jill stein campaign which is attracting a lot of people in their early twenty's who are saying we recognize what the problem is we're sophisticated enough to recognize that that's the green party candidate and to recognize that we need to have a voice in this election as well is and that's what really represents a very good quick question about joel's campaign when david cobb was running as a green party candidate he said this is two thousand and four election i believe he said if you live in a swing state vote for john kerry don't vote for me there were some people who said that about him david didn't actually do i mean campaigned heavily in wisconsin he spoke to five thousand people fighting in two thousand and four we are campaigning everywhere across the country this campaign you know the reality is voters go to the polls and they will decide on election day or cast their ballots for and we

think voters deserve that choice and deserve to have a voice she's running everywhere and we look to be on the ballot across the country then the the lobbying in congress is this is the next step to. be doing this on a state by state basis you know what is next you said you had conversations about was thanks for the document and i don't think the analysis has changed i don't think occupy congress was a new phase in the movement i think with the seventeen in the port shutdown and and this action here really the announce this is the same the financial industry and the political system in our country are married and then there's no way you can have real financial or any sort of reform or change if there's so much influence with our political system and so really this is just another step taking it to congress and taking it to our political system is there much of a consensus of the occupy movement about for example the move to amend or you know amending the constitution to say that the con that this this legal fiction was

wholly created by the supreme court i mean no legislature ever voted for it no president ever proposed it they've all decried it many of them have decried it of corporate personhood that this should be just undone i wouldn't say it's a formal demand of the movement but definitely at the protest yesterday you could feel it we ran up the steps of the supreme court which usually is an immediate arrest but thousands of people ran up the steps of the supreme court and yelled in unison you know money is not free speech it was one of those powerful moments of not to be there friday we're doing an occupy renew it and all across the country that's happening this friday as well yeah sort of federal courts all across the country this is a exit exactly and move to amend is is doing that ben just if you're from wisconsin quick thoughts in wisconsin. how many millions of dollars do you think walker is going to bring back into the state to try to win the election and is it possible that he can spend enough money to recover his political career i don't think i think he could lose all the banks of saudi arabia and he still would not be able to

save his life or all he's probably is trying and i'm sure there certainly are a lot of out of state interest i heard that that fellow is wearing the madison rising t. shirt for his band i think madison wisconsin is going to after revoke his privilege of using our name and that way. ality is that scott walker is the most unpopular person in wisconsin's history he's more in popular than jeffrey dahmer he's more unpopular. in mccarthy i don't think that's i mean i don't know if you can get a million signatures around jeffrey dahmer in wisconsin but a million people said as my wife put it the other night a million people. walk or a million people said you stink ouch that hurts to be him and this is another i mean the democracy movement takes different forms and it takes different roads sometimes it's recalling a governor sometimes it's occupying the public square sometimes going to the steps of your federal courthouse on friday and supporting the move to amend its all and sometimes still science campaign it's all part of it's own it's all out there

working that's right and thank you both being with you about it thank you for sure there's been a successful day of action and many more to come keep it up more on the significance of tuesday's occupy congress in tonight's daily take. just. good the bad of the very very tricky tylo maniacally oddly the good suffolk county new york officials last week suffolk county new york officials gave local students samantha garvey and her family a new home barbie is not just a student she's a prodigy and recently was named a semifinalist in a prestigious national science contest she was also homeless after a family lost their house as a result of the economic crisis and recession her story of excelling in academics

despite living in a homeless shelter has garnered international attention and she was just invited by president obama to attend the state of the union address it's refreshing to see that in a society so polarized by political positioning and constant disagreement some of those in government can still come together and agree to do the right thing the bad republican governor tom corbett since last august governor corbett department of welfare has removed over eighty eight thousand children from the medicaid rolls in an effort to reduce waste fraud and abuse sadly the majority of these children's families can't afford legal help to regain their medicaid status and many of them won't even know they lost their benefits the state needs the money after all how else can you afford to give fracking companies a fracking tax break pollution and oil and gas profits over the lives of children that's how governor republican governor corbett roll and the very very ugly reverend jesse lee peterson reverend peterson

a super conservative african-american republican who has campaigned against the likes of urban jesse jackson and president obama told the huffington post that he would quote they call black people to the south and put them on the plantation so they were under. and the ethics at the couple working and went on to say quote i'm going to put them on the plantation they need a good hard education on what it is to work these remarks came just a day after newt gingrich seemed to suggest in the south carolina primary that african-americans don't have it. seems the reverend is unaware of the real problems that african-americans face like on equal access to education and discrimination in the workforce suggesting that we should restore alysha system of slavery to teach a lesson rather than work to solve the real problems that african-americans face is just very very ugly. after the break ron paul things our nation's founders wanted a weak central government surely he must be wrong right or just will tell us what the constitutional framers really intended all those years ago and what it means

for us today with things like obamacare. drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions it's going to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is you know in view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism is called sasha's when nobody dares to ask we do our t. question more.

watching the republican debates or g.o.p. t.v. or a ron paul campaign rally you think the biggest threat to america right now is big government clamping down on the so called free market at least that's what those who push for small governments and more corporate power want you to think but the american people seem to think differently new poll by the washington post asked americans which is the bigger problem for the nation over regulation of the free market or an economic system that only favors the very few. big majorities fifty five percent versus thirty five percent said that the economy that favors the rich is the bigger problem among independents that number was even higher with fifty nine percent of the nation saying an economy for the rich was a bigger problem compared to just twenty nine percent of who said it was over

regulation because the spin machine and g.o.p. t.v. needs to go into full gear perhaps more importantly though is the fact that our nation was never intended to be a small government libertarian paradise as ron paul in the tea party imagines fact our founders thought just the opposite their talk more about this issue is robert perry investigative journalist founder of consortium news author of several books including secrecy and privilege rise of the bush dynasty for watergate to iraq welcome back thank you tom great to see you so one what is the ron paul libertarian conservative notion of the founders idea the federal government's role in our lives and what do they have long about that notion well there's a narrative that's taken power in the united states which is that the founders wanted the small government they wanted something that would states' rights that they were not part of they did not favor this idea of having a strong vibrant central government and that's simply not the historical record what happened was that the united states had

a weak federal government was called the articles of confederation and it's govern the country from seven hundred seventy seven to seven hundred eighty seven and many of the key founders founded ex unworkable and especially general george washington who saw the effect of it on his troops during the revolution and afterwards where they were the states were sort of asked to provide funding for things like the revolutionary war and really didn't didn't show up so washington was was particularly offended by the idea of state sovereignty in the in the articles had article two of the articles of confederation said set out this idea of state sovereignty that the states were in the actual phrase right and that there wasn't really a government of the united states was called the league. in other words the states could leave if they wanted they were in they were sovereign so what happened in seventeen eighty seven which was washington madison and the other founders got together in philadelphia in secret because they knew this was kind of controversial within many quarters and they put together a much more

a powerful vibrant central government which wiped out the concept of state sovereignty eliminated it and instead had this idea that the federal government would would be able to create a country build a country that could compete with the powers of europe beyond the other factors of just how unworkable the articles it was also fear that the european powers would come in and try to split off both states and regions for their own purposes so you had this idea of having a unified government and the idea of state sovereignty was was eliminated so really what ron paul is describing is not the government we had post seven hundred eighty nine after ratification of the cost issue it's essentially fiction but it's the government i mean if he's pulling selective quotes out or if any of these people are the quotes that they would be pulling would be quotes in favor of arguably the first government and we had three presidents before george washington under articles of confederation nobody remembers their names you know we weren't really a country at that time like you said we were

a league of states and so really what they're talking about people say they're talking about well let's go back before the civil war let's go back before you know the great the great depression the new deal really with a time out is let's go back before the constitution to to the articles of confederation people will cite the tenth amendment in the bill of rights right which is which is sort of a catch all thing that says powers not given to the federal government by the constitution will remain with individuals in the states now that isn't doesn't mean much because so many powers are actually given to the federal government however you have to compare the tenth amendment to article two of the articles of confederation to understand what happened here. article two says. the states are sovereign independent and basically all power. the tenth amendment is a shadow of that its own people cite the tenth amendment as some kind of the founders wanted this powerful states' rights weak central government it's just not calling it even if even the tenth amendment actually even clearly says the states

are subordinate ago because this is any but ours not reserve the federal government devolved to the states exact it's not a literal quote but of very close to it actually i think right how is it that americans who so eagerly embrace the new deal big government involved in their lives you know helping helping the great depression embrace the great society. lyndon johnson. for all his failures of the vietnam war he still lifted half of the people in poverty the united states out of poverty created a middle class that didn't exist to a large extent. people so widely accepted and embraced those things and now here forty years ago forty fifty sixty seventy years later from the new deal there's this widely pervasive notion. that the that's big government that's evil and that's not the way that this country was intended it's not the way we should go how did that well i think there was a very powerful propaganda effort by the right and very successful one basically

what it meant a lot of americans have forgotten is that it's not only true that no one got rich in america by themselves it's also true that very few of us got into the middle class by ourselves the middle class was something that was created by the federal government if you go back to the great depression period and the policies of franklin roosevelt in the new deal following it through the post world war two period things like the g.i. bill which allowed you know my dad bought his first house out of the g.i. bill and you went to any calls that he had of going to law school and then built and created for a middle class life now a lot of us don't want to think oh gee we were we were believe benefited from the federal government kind of creating that environment but that was the truth and also the federal government if you go to that back to that theory. built in infrastructure i mean truman did the g.i. bill eisenhower did the interstate highway system kennedy to the space program which which was a huge effort in terms of building our technological strength as a nation probably won the cold war in effect because by us moving so far ahead of

the soviet union in terms of technological it's in the guardian's created the infrastructure for the internet and then for the internet so you have your actually did have a lot of the legislation that curry has it did although you know obviously the origins were earlier but what gore helped turn into what it became so this is a case where the federal government acted smartly created a framework for then entrepreneurs to then develop products and make money but what happened in with the seventy's in the one nine hundred seventy s. there was some stagnation because of higher oil prices and other factors and then ronald reagan came along and centrally sold the story that the government was the problem and we had thirty years of that propaganda and what's happened to the united states is that many americans have been turned against what actually helped create the system that they benefited from and they are buying into this idea that supply side economics which is you know tax cuts for the rich give them all the money they'll invest it somehow supposedly create jobs which hasn't worked we've had thirty years of this experiment as a failure as

a reaganomics has just ripped apart the but it is still a very powerful message that plays to a certain groups of americans who want to think we did it all on our own we got it we've got to go back on this rock thank you so much you have a brilliant writing great work it would be nice if the conservatives in corporate shells actually read the writings of our founders understood what the general welfare and commerce clause is for example mean. so what did we learn today we learned that ninety four million dollars in corporate lobbying can't by censorship of the internet we learn that despite both parties in congress care carrying water for major media and entertaining taman corporations fingers to the keyboard activism is a much much more powerful force and today after the largest online protest in the

history of the internet more americans know how destructive this so-called anti-piracy legislation is and how important a free and open internet is to a functioning democracy now legislators are dropping their support for the bills the white house is against them and it's pretty clear that sopa and pipa in their current forms at least are dead on arrival in congress we also learned that texas oil barons who want to cut a dirty pipeline through the middle of america are no match for an energized environmental movement and twelve hundred american patriots willing to get arrested in front of the white house we learned that despite tens of millions of dollars in lobbying and television advertising despite blatant lies about job creation and lies about environmental effects in the face of all of them the nation's largest oil interest group the american petroleum institute did not get its way with the keystone x.l. pipeline we learned that ultimately the majority of americans were able to speak louder and put more pressure on the white house and this president to keep his

promise when he said he would begin to heal the planet now the keystone pipeline is dead because the people of america said so. we learned that it was consing governor who was elected with money from millionaires and billionaires from mostly outside the state of wisconsin can't put his radical agenda to dismantle public unions through we learned that despite thirty years of constant warfare on working people it all it takes to spark is is a spark to reignite the labor movement and that spark drew hundreds of thousands to the streets of madison in protest and even more of the polls to recall anti workers state senators in wisconsin and repeal anti-union legislation in ohio and over a million people to sign a petition to recall their governor after just one year governor scott walker will face a recall election because even though corporations stole the two thousand and ten election with hundreds of millions of dollars in secret cash the people still have

their grip on democracy even if it's just the tips of their fingers at this point and the people can still determine their own fate now other radical governors around america know there are consequences to going after average working people and we learned that despite being ignored and ridiculed by the most powerful forces in the news media and our elected officials and despite being physically beaten and assaulted with chemical weapons by the police and despite having no billionaire corporate funders the truly grassroots movement known as occupy wall street is still thriving that it can still make its voice heard loud and clear in the halls of congress on the steps of the supreme court and at the gates of the white house. tuesday's four month anniversary of occupy wall street signified a maturity in the movement as thousands of people gathered to make concrete demands and take those demands to the source of the problems a capitol infested with too much lobbying power

a supreme court chock full of corporatists judges who created the doctrine of corporate personhood out of thin air and a white house which over the last thirty years has been addicted to more and more war and more and more police state actions now no one can say the movement lacks a coherent message or that it will just dissolve away as soon as apathy creeps in occupy wall street is here to stay but the most important thing we learned today is that change is still possible in a post citizens united america even though too many of our lawmakers are listening to money and the middle class is under attack and no one is looking out for our planet and future generations or so it seems and people in but we learned that people united and active can still make a huge difference this week media conglomerates oil barons corporate funded union busters and all powerful lobbyists wast. this week the people and

democracy in a constitutionally limited representative republic one and if we keep it up it will be the first in a long line of victories to come. as the big picture for the first night for more information on the stories we covered this is our web site the thom hartmann dot com free speech or. also check check all our two you tube channels there are links to thom hartmann dot com this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes and we have a free tom hartman i phone and a brand new i pad app at the app store isn't this feedback on twitter a tom underscore our on facebook at tom underscore hartmann on our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at tom harbor dark and don't forget democracy begins when you show up when you participate it all happens when we get out there and get active it's not enough just to vote it's we have to participate in this thing otherwise it doesn't work get out there show up participate get active tag your it occupy something suitable.

more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images and seeing from the streets of canada. for asians rule today. the book.

was. aboard sanctions in the works for syria as a pressure on the regime but moscow promises to block any move towards foreign intervention. led. the angry voice of romanians carries interest second week as the castros rage against highly cuts taxes and deteriorating living standards. led sparks flying in the persian gulf the u.s. says it's ready for armed confrontation with iran with forces on standby in case of iran decides to.