there we take. in nineteen thirty six franklin roosevelt was president and he spoke to the nation about a war now this was three years before germany invaded poland so he wasn't referring to world war two instead he was referring to a war with in america a war against the same economic forces that it crashed our economy a few years earlier in one hundred twenty nine and had corrupted our institutions of government it began in one nine hundred twenty one with a republican warren harding administration widely regarded as one of the most corrupt presidencies in american history then it continued through the republican coolidge administration and into the republican hoover administration complete with his stock market crash in one nine hundred twenty nine so by one nine hundred thirty two when f.d.r. came in the american people finally had enough to kick the republicans out of office and as roosevelt it is not alone a war against want and destitution and economic demoralization it is more than that

it is a war for their survival of democracy we are fighting to save a great and precious form of government for ourselves and for the world to roosevelt our democracy hung in the balance of nine hundred thirty six and he referred to the enemy trying to destroy us to destroy our democracy as economic royalists they were the banks toure's the corporations the industrial giants of agriculture and machinery. they were the forces that screamed that roosevelt's new deal with things like social security were communism yes they literally called social security was communism and they fought to stop the development of a middle class for the union movement they explicitly wanted a nation made up of the very rich and the working poor these economic royalists even recruited

a few hundred men and tried to get marine general smedley smedley butler to stage a military coup against president roosevelt so he really really was exaggerating it all when he talked about it being a war in regard to the tactics being used by the economic royalists roosevelt said this. they. ignore the maker royalists complain of that always saying so up throw the institutions of america what they really play into. is that we seek to take away oh in vain they seek to hide behind the flag and because. then the line miss they book guess what the flag on the constitution and fan. this is

a very important clip for us is that that moment in this moment because mitt romney the man who will likely be the republican nominee for president is an economic royalists except today we don't call him economic royalists anymore if we refer to these royalist as the one percent and mitt romney's trying to hide behind the flag in the constitution. here's what he said on thursday to a man who asked romney what he would do if you were president for the ninety nine er's that i had percent. of america is a great nation because we're united nations and those are trying to drive the nation if you're trying to do here as our president is doing her in this country seriously the right course for america is not to divide america drive divide is between one another on ways to come together as a nation that if you've got a better model if you think china is better russia's better. north korea is better run right here i'm on your right and you're wrong. america is right and

you're wrong and if you know i can't then just go live in north korea that's essentially what romney just said and this is the strategy of today's one percenters this generation's economic royalists their strategy is to deny that there is any quality in the united states to deny that they live in an america that they live in which is vastly different than the america that the rest of us live in and they hide behind the flag by saying that any criticism of there are enormous wealth and political influence is somehow un-american as romney says america's right but you're wrong but it's a lie if mitt romney wants us to believe there's no such thing as the one percent i'd like to hear his take on why is it that the top one percent have seen their incomes grow by two hundred seventy five percent since one nine hundred seventy

nine while the majority of our incomes of fallen or why the top one percent share of national income has skyrocketed while the middle classes has collapsed or why it is that eighty percent of all the new wealth created in america since one thousand nine hundred eighty since reaganomics has gone to just the top one percent. or why there are four hundred billionaires in america who are more wealth than the bottom one hundred fifty million americans combined or why the six walton heirs own more wealth than the bottom thirty percent of all americans or why the one percent pay a different tax rate than the rest of us a tax rate that like romney's averages around fifteen percent with no payroll tax paid one percent versus ninety nine percent it's not it's not campaign rhetoric it's not a slogan from occupy wall street it's math it's right in your face the only people in america who pretend that they don't see this conflict who say they don't see

their own class warfare or the one percent themselves according to a recent pew research center poll two thirds of americans across party lines across classes and across races strongly believe that there is a class war in america today as billionaire warren buffett said there is a class warfare in america going on right now and it's his class the rich class the romney class that's winning but i guess you can't blame multimillionaires like mitt romney or newt gingrich or billionaires like the koch brothers for not being aware of the class warfare because they live in a completely different country than the rest of us they don't care about paying their fair share of taxes to make sure our roads aren't potholed and our bridges aren't crumbling and they have their private chauffeurs their private jets they don't care of police budgets are getting cut they have their own private security their care of our public schools are running out of money and failing our kids in

their own private schools they don't care if our health care prices are skyrocketing their top notch insurance plans are just pocket change for they don't care if young men and women are being sent off to die in the middle east because they know their kids will never have to go. they don't care if a generation of young americans are saddled with over a trillion dollars in student loan debt because their kids will never need a student loan they don't care if seven million homes have been foreclosed on and another five million homes in america right now are on the verge of foreclosure they've got homes all over the planet but one percent have already seceded from the united states which is why the romney presidential campaign is so ironic this guy doesn't really live in america at least not in the same america that the rest of us live in the one percent have retreated to their mansions protected by iron gates and private guards and are sucking dry the middle class and then moving the money

into their offshore bank accounts in the cayman islands they've become a cancer and are just as big a threat to our democracy now as they were in one nine hundred thirty six when president roosevelt first warned us about his generation's economic royalists is generations one percenters in fact they're a bigger threat now because of the supreme court's citizens united decision because that decision has given the power to literally buy our elections to that one percent and that's where we have to start right as citizens united right at the idea that corporations are people and money is speech if we hope to turn the tide in this war the roosevelt started more than seventy years ago and the warren buffett warned recently is all about lost today federal courts across america were occupied by the ninety nine percent i showed up and helped occupy the supreme court here in d.c. an action organized nationwide by move to amend or to carry all of us forward in

a struggle for democracy and an economy that benefits all americans. repeat the mantra money is not speech it's property and corporations are people and should be forbidden from meddling in our politics go to move to amend or for more information. and that's the big picture for more information on the stories we covered visit our website to tom harmon dot com free speech dot org an r t dot com also check out our two you tube channel is there a link to tom harmon dot com this entire show is also available as a free video podcast on i tunes mr tom hartman dot com to download the audio podcast of tom's daily twelve to three radio show and we have free tom harmon i phone and i pad apps at the store you can send us feedback at twitter at tom underscore hartmann on facebook at underscore hartman and on our blogs message boards and telephone comment line at thom hartmann dot com and don't forget as tom

always says democracy begins with you get out there get active occupy something tag you're it.

more news today volunteers once again fled up. in these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. trying to corporations are rooted a. leg. it's. quite.

welcome to the lone a show where you get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going to live out of washington d.c. now it's not going to speak with chris hedges about what he calls a cancer within the occupy movement he's referring to the black bloc then colonel lieutenant colonel daniel al davis is going to join us and tell us about a report he just submitted to congress that says the pentagon is intentionally misleading the public about the war in afghanistan and edward harrison will talk to us about what federal reserve chairman ben bernanke said on the hill today we have

all that and more for tonight including a dose of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media decided to miss. last week we all saw the insane amount of money the outside groups have been pouring in to the campaign season in just the first four primary states documents show the outside groups spending on ads had risen sixteen hundred percent we also saw the g.o.p. centered super pacs were far away collecting more money than the left and so what you know looks like this made president obama have a change of heart as he's now signed off on a plan to dispatch cabinet officials senior advisers at the white house and top campaign staff members to deliver speeches at fund raising events for priorities usa that's the largest democratic super pac now this new policy the mainstream media all abuzz today. president obama is now giving the go ahead to wealthy

democratic donors to contribute to a super pac supporting him the obama campaign changing its position on super pacs in response to the massive amounts of money raised by those republican groups president obama makes a u.-turn deciding now for his team to help raise campaign cash for his super pac the president's campaign manager says look we cannot fight this campaign with one hand tied behind our back was this inevitable i think it was chris. all right so the question here that they ask is was this inevitable and like i never said we see said yes personally i'm not so sure on one hand this is a big flip flop and a cave on the part of the president not like we are used to seeing that happen by now but if disconcerting nonetheless at the same time this is a sign of our political system and the problems within it right now there is so much money flooding in from the right that the democrats and obama's reelection campaign obviously felt that they have to play the game if they want to keep their jobs now i'm going to get chris hedges take on this in our first interview tonight

but before we do that let me just delve into one more point that i think needs to be made here if you want the effects of citizens united are already drastic and yet really this is still just the beginning there is another way to handle this now this isn't the way that things have to be and so right now we see americans all across the country working fighting to get money out of politics we've seen a number of amendments brought up in congress to overturn this decision amendments that the president by the way said nothing about until today when his people signal that he supported that after caving and telling donors to contribute to priorities usa and we've also seen more than fifty local resolutions in cities to have citizens united overturn that's the right step if we really wanted the idea of a constitutional amendment to become a possibility it has to start local now this is also a key element brought up by many of the occupy movement we've even seen a few members of the media out there the young turks and dylan ratigan launch initiatives of their own to undo the damage done by citizens united so at this

point it's no secret that there is a public battle that is going on. and if the mainstream media has seemed entirely oblivious to all of it they're happy to report on the figures when it comes to how much is being spent how many hundreds of super pacs there are who are some of the big time donors think the koch brothers and adelson the man with a single handedly funding newt gingrich's campaign but on the other front on the side of the opposition the mainstream media has been almost entirely silent now i say it again with the exception of dylan ratigan a m s n b c but somehow his colleagues have just left it to him to do on his own it's funny too considering that this is the same mainstream media that will often bring on extremes just to try and prove that they show both sides of every story often in a very misleading fashion but hey two people yelling at each other always makes good t.v. right so why is it now when they have figures and stats to talk about the impact of citizens united do they only talk about the president's capitulation and act like

that's just the way that it had to be there is a movement out there public opinion is not in support of the influence of money in our political system we see giving one person insane amounts of power we see transparency completely flying out the window so the people have realized that something is wrong and the mainstream media continues to live in an isolated bubble the only monitor is what's happening at the top echelons they've decided that these are the rules of the game and so those pretend from now on that it's just natural to play that way but so many people want which are amendment city council resolutions you name it that entire movement they've chosen a miss. all right so let's continue on with our discussion of outside movements wanting to change the landscape take the influence of money out of politics wake america up to the rampant inequality and corruption overturning citizens united is just one step but for those that have been monitoring the occupy movement for over the last four

months you know that it's about much more but where does public opinion really stand on occupy now the majority of camps have been evicted even more so now that we've seen in some cities most notably oakland vandalism violence come into play and what's meant to be a peaceful movement our guest tonight specifically pinpoints the black bloc anarchists and calls them the cancer within occupy the destroy it so earlier i caught up with chris hedges columnist for truthdig and author of his latest book death of the liberal class i first asked him what he thought about the president's decision to send out his people and tell the donors to give away to super pacs. well he doesn't have any choice because the political system since citizens united in two thousand and ten has been rigged. if you step out of line these super pacs have the capacity to wipe you out. it was the death blow to american democracy it's a game obama has to play if he wants to retain political power and so he's playing

it well i think you could say that he's playing it from both sides as well right because now his aides are coming out saying at the president would support a constitutional amendment to get citizens united overturn but let's segue into the occupy movement right one of their things is also been getting the influence of money out of politics and yet you are writing about the black bloc and some of their tactics and call them a cancer within this movement can you elaborate why it is that you know you think that they're so detrimental. well because they alienate the mainstream i think you have to remember that the occupy movement if you look at all the polls articulate what the mainstream wants. nobody supports the bailouts the pfizer reform act the wars. the. continued failure to help homeowners that are underwater and losing their homes this disastrous obamacare bill which. is going to force us to buy

a defective product essentially you know two thousand pages written by corporate lobbyist so we have to look at the occupy movement as a mainstream movement now the prime mover behind wiping out the occupy encampments was of course a democratic administration and that's because they deeply fear this movement it is cold their bluff it has exposed them as corporate puppets in this two party corporate doggedly. i think that they realize that spite the efforts by move on dot org and van jones and others that they are not going to co-opt this movement and so on the one hand they will try to physically erase it we just have the d.c. encampment shut down and internally they will try and divide it we have to look back into the movements of the one nine hundred sixty s. to see how divisive. internal security apparatus in the united states can be

there's no doubt that that's happening here and the fastest way to alienate the movement from the mainstream is to paint it as violent destructive of property. and our kids stick in the worst sense of anarchism which is kind of chaotic random attacks against targets spontaneous attacks and so the occupy movement is going to have to draw some very. sharp lines. it's got to stop these block block groups from essential be using them as human shields because remember there are tiny these groups but they enter these large demonstrations and then use them as a kind of cover to carry out violent activities we've seen it not only in oakland but in denver los angeles in new york. antagonizing and confronting the police

because this is in essence a mainstream movement this is a movement that expresses the will of the mainstream it can't afford it only in a the mainstream and i have no evidence that there are tours but if there are i will provoke a tour's within this movement pretty good money there within the black bloc and even if they are not they are certainly serving the interests of the one percent and you know this is a movement that wants inclusive eighty and tolerance and a wide variety of opinions but it's got to draw the line on groups that essentially sabotage the work of this mass movement in the black bloc is the most egregious example of why i guess i'm wondering if that was inevitable if it any point if there was going to be some kind of a large movement specifically one that really started out on the streets of people physically camping that at some point there would. be become more difficult to keep

it nonviolent to keep it peaceful and i also i'm curious to do you think the occupy wall street was always a mainstream movement or you only think that now four and a half months in that's something that you can call it. no i think the reason that it resonated across the country is because it articulated the concerns of the mainstream which are not being articulated either by the corporate media or the political candidates who have descended into that and it is an absurdity these change the narrative remember before the rise of occupy we were talking about a deficit crisis with the rise of occupy we began to talk about inequality we began to talk about corporate criminality we began to talk about how unfair the american political and economic system is it it reverberated across the country and the power elite and i think in particular the democratic party was terrified

because if it could not co-opt this movement it had the potential to certainly restructure not only the debate but ultimately if it grew very configurations of power and so we shouldn't be surprised that there have been drug kone and forms used to try and wait these movements out and that has been manifested by the response of these encampments but you can be sure they're working internally just to sit as they have been working externally to get rid of occupy and so in that sense is that you know really a lot about public opinion if let's say there are more black people the end up showing up at more occupy rallies and you know what we constantly see reported on by local government officials and the authorities or you can even say by the media are some of these more violent tactics are cases of vandalism is the movement dead if that's the perception that gets put out there consistently. yeah i mean let's i

think a good sort of template for what we don't want to be is how we're portrayed and if you look at how for instance in the days and weeks before the encampment in zuccotti park in new york was shut down if you read the new york post there were portrayed as drug addicts vandals anarchists radicals they the authorities attempted to paint the movement with exactly these kinds of attributes and that's a pretty good example of what we don't want to be we don't want to play into their hands and the black bloc which are you know primarily why i sort of neal is stick. destructive embrace in sort of confusing petty vandalism in this repellent sort of cynicism with revolution. there are

exactly they conform to the stereotype that the enemies of the movement would like and that's a pretty good window into why they have to be separated from the movement if they were if they really were about confronting the police and confronting corporate power they wouldn't be using the movement to hide behind they would be going out striking out on their own to go after these targets and i think that's because ultimately and if you look at sort of radical block block area logs it's pretty clear that they are an enemy of everything this movement stands for and in particular nonviolence i want to switch gears really quick chris it's been a while since they've gone to catch up with you and you actually filed a lawsuit against the u.s. government because of the n.d.a. that was passed right that included that provision that allowed for the definite

military detention of american citizens and so i want. hear more of your reasoning as to why it is that you follow the file this lawsuit i think you like many others of us out there find this to be incredibly scary and unconstitutional and egregious and bridge the fence on our civil liberties but at the same time the obama administration while they don't like this being handed over into military control they were already doing many of these things throughout the you from within the executive branch. yes that's correct under the two thousand and one authorization to use military force act many of these activities were already being carried out including the detention of american citizens without due process that's what happened to jose padilla who was reputed to be one of the hijackers the did make a plane held for three and a half years in a military brig without due process it was under the two thousand and one act that the obama administration felt that it could serve as judge jury and executioner and

order the assassination of a u.s. citizen on moral locky in yemen. so yes but this is a radical interpretation of the two thousand and one act what we see with the national defense authorization act is the codification of this radical assault against basic civil liberties unambiguous li being placed in the u.s. law so not only can the u.s. military sensually it carry out extraordinary rendition on u.s. streets holding american citizens who are deemed to be terrorists or with associated groups i mean there's a lot of very sort of frightening leave vague language in there but then there are in the language of the bill held until the end of hostilities whenever that is this overturns two hundred years of domestic law. and it is in the hands of the state and utterly terrifying weapon the obama administration

has been very disingenuous it issued a signing statement saying that they would not use it against american citizens and yet we should remember that nancy nancy pelosi dianne feinstein proposed legislation or or passage to be inserted into the legislation that would exempt u.s. citizens and this was rejected by the obama white house and rejected by the democratic party all of the struggles over the wording of the bill with carl levin's office it was co-sponsored by carl levin a done. in crowd in john mccain a republican was over who would decide which american citizens would be swept up in the military dragnet and denied due process and which would be granted exemptions who would have that power the obama white house wanted that power for themselves they got it and once they got it they signed the bill into law but it was never a discussion over whether or not americans should be stripped of due process so these are not the kinds of tools we want to to hand.