tonight on r t may is right around the corner and that means another class of colored graduates is ready to enter the workforce and they're armed with today's diplomas and debt in july deadline could send interest rates sky high we'll show you what some students are doing in retaliation. ever wonder what's in your view or how the animals are treated before they're sent to the slaughter house well the answer to those questions are now a little harder to come by coming up we'll tell you about a new gag law that's helping hide farm abuse and don't count your delegates before the votes are counted it turns out ron paul actually won a majority of the delegates and iowa and minnesota looks like the oldest republican presidential candidate still has some fight left. it's wednesday april twenty fifth eight pm in washington d.c.

i'm adding martin you're watching our t.v. the american dream go to college to get your dream job so you can own your dream home with a white picket fence and live happily ever after however for many college students and graduates in the u.s. the notion of the american dream has become a full blown nightmare coined one t. day today marks the day that student debt has topped one trillion dollars exceeding the auto loan and credit card debt in the u.s. one of the biggest problems is the exploitation of the predatory student loan industry sallie mae america's largest private investor assigns low income students interest rates about twenty five percent let's take a look at some of the stats. to issue an costs have risen six hundred percent over the last thirty years average in-state tuition has risen by eight percent just last year and in two thousand and ten graduates have an average of twenty five thousand two hundred fifty dollars in student debt well it's a hot topic on the campaign trail with obama and romney agreeing that student loan interest rates congress and stated to freeze in two thousand and seven college cost

for you. action access act should stay at three point four percent without intervention this year they'll jump to six point eight percent when the act expires which was another thousand dollar burden of debt per student loan and with this mounting debt on the shoulders of those entering the workplace it's almost impossible to going to job or actually own a home in response of this crisis today the occupy the student debt campaign is holding rallies and doing direct actions and at least twelve cities nationwide artie's honest takes us to a rally in new york. i think. the first thing here if you spend one dollar per second it would take over thirty one thousand years to spend one trillion dollars sound unimaginable not one of commerce college debt in the u.s. protests across america working college reaching got a staggering one hundred dollars trillion dollars in debt like why is the burden becoming on the student just the wrong way to run any society i started out with

seventy seventy thousand dollars in debt and despite the fact that i pay triple quadruple the minimum payments and still twenty five thousand dollars in debt after seven years a national day of action taking place in about a dozen cities where people have come out onto the streets to say enough student debt is a crime and the fact that people are being penalized essentially for trying to get an education something it's a basic human right you know the something you need to try and get a decent job in the society which even with that it's pretty impossible the fact of people being penalized for that is a crime in new york city in the crowd to march the streets to protest the fact that student debt is actually higher than credit card to find a country where when i'm inside and. leave. these people are chanting the system i don't like what's going on i'm sleeping in the same bag no the u.s. government asked me what kind of change are you looking for you look like you're having a nice time of the back them and i'm sally maine so it's my day to day it's a trillion dollars in debt and it's my party this is a revolution and don't wait for barack obama to do anything every year

a college graduate in the united states walks out into the real world with an estimated college debt twenty five thousand dollars like an entire generation of debtors now for college tuition is said to have risen by over nine hundred percent over the last three decades skyrocketing the number of college grads sucked into debt slavery a type of debt that can almost never be written off in case of bankruptcy on to college grads for life the whole student debt system the whole bit. it's criminal it entire generation has now been enslaved by. us in the west are traditionally a good education will get them to live the american dream but for these students as well as millions across the united states the american dream has turned into the american nightmare that the just can't wake up from. are to. the protesters over student debt is new here in the u.s.

but over the last year and a half we've seen thousands of students come out to protest tuition hikes and university privatization in london chile and just last week in montreal they've all turned violent earlier spoke of student debt activist larry hales i asked him why well why don't we see students coming out in droves to protest the outrageous student debt crisis in this country why did it take the debt to hit one trillion dollars we first seen actions like this organized on the ground here's this take. what i think part of it has to do with fact that the general political consciousness here around the right to an education all the way from kindergarten up to university. you know we've been used to paying for it for so long so i think that that partly has a little bit to do with. and so people are told that if you want something it's good that you have to pay for instead of it being a general right that you deserve is the people because you are a human being and you deserve to be able to elevate yourself beyond you know where

you are your life at that particular point. yeah definitely seems like people still are trying to achieve that american dream. and when it doesn't happen then there is an element of kind of denial that comes out of it larry obama and romney you know this is a hot topic obviously on the campaign trail and obama just said the other week that michelle and him just alleviated their student loans just eight years ago do you do you think that that's true or do you think he's just kind of politically pandering to the student vote. it's ours no you know he in the show was quite a bit of money i think that came out that before he was president their income was you know it put them in the top you know point five percent of people in the country not even top one percent so i can't imagine a situation where he was still in on the student debt but you know. who knows i. haven't got a chance to look at his bank account and where is money goes but i know that they

are fairly wealthy couple i mean who knows with him out of student debt that really exists that is a possibility i mean i know you did go to harvard law. so what can the federal government really do about this predatory student loan industry is there anything they can do or they're just waiting on congress to kind of figure it out. well it's interesting i was watching the interview with president obama and they were talking about what what he's trying to get passed to congress. to not allow the interest rates on the student debt to double from three point four to six point eight percent and it's funny to me because people have a hard time painting at the current interest rate and if you were to look at you know the total student debt is over is more than total credit card debt in this country one trillion dollars. and they said one in two student students graduate in don't have access to a job so you're facing a whole generation of people that are going to be faced with whether or not they

pay their student debt at the you know the health care or they have a place to live and they don't you know so i think that if the federal government can spend twenty trillion dollars billon our corporations and financial institutions then it very well has the money it's actually erase and wipe off the map completely of student debt which should be an obligation for you know we should be fighting for it to actually do that because you know we have a right to education and the average student graduates with i think somewhere over twenty three thousand dollars in student debt that they have to pay back so it's a tremendous financial burden on people and all they're really trying to do is to participate in the society and try and survive provide a useful service that's why they go to school well unfortunately students aren't really lobbying like the banks are to these political candidates so i would imagine that has something to do with the why they don't want to kind of expunge the debt of students but if these interest rates are indeed frozen at three point four

percent wouldn't that extra six million dollars be absorbed on the taxpayer and is that a vicious cycle to have taxpayer debt instead of you know increasing it for students . it is a vicious cycle i mean you know we've seen that the we have no say and we're actually our tax dollars go through anyway so. you know the government will spend seven hundred fifty billion dollars on buying weapons of mass destruction and waging war on people. you know i think that really the the thing that we should be fighting for honestly is not just the you know the interest rates stay where they are but for they're not for students that i have to mortgage their future to get a higher education because the money exists there are real resources in the funds exist to actually make that happen exactly i mean considering how. half of all students in two thousand and twelve are unemployed and jobless i mean is it time to

start rethinking higher education. it is. it's actually time to start thinking education in general in this country in words when going in the past thirty years of standardized testing in doling critical thinking skills and just preparing drones you know because the society itself and the corporations don't need you know it's highly skilled workers as they once needed in different generations. and i think that probably has you know a lot to do with that also represents what they're doing education in general that the banks and financial institutions are salivating on getting their hands on that you know that billions and billions of dollars are spent on education that's you know why you see the privatization that's actually happening. so when you start talking about education in general what it means in people's right to have it. switching the conversation just really slightly you know private universities like

harvard stanford princeton i mean their annual tuitions rates are like something like fifty thousand dollars why is it that you think that they have tax exempt status but they continue to get out students year after year i mean isn't that kind of counterintuitive when they can be kind of helping to alleviate this dead. yeah you would think so but you know g.e. also doesn't pay any taxes. and there's a lot of corporations they get tax subsidies if you look at wisconsin and you know they were talking about. the dead of like one hundred thirty seven million dollars and they gave wal-mart one hundred fifty million dollars something like that and accept cities in the state and so that would account for more than the so-called debt of that but you know the private universities are the only one is it that they don't pay any taxes and get subsidies from the federal government. continue i'll go ahead i'm sorry well where your student at activist talk

a little bit about what's going on i know that you weren't able to make the protests today but where do you see this going you know it hit one trillion dollars today the debt for student loans where do you see this going in is this hopeful that people are finally galvanizing going out there and really taking a stand against this. it is hopeful you know we've been doing it for the past few years especially after the crisis hit. and we started to see a more aggressive attack on education in general especially through privatization and you know we all got a shot in arm with the occupy wall street movement and i think that is you know elevated this idea of the majority of people in a society being used and abused by the small small percentage of the population the super rich are super wealthy. so the fact that they're raising wipe out student debt is important and i think it actually you know these struggles have to begin to

merge with all the other shows the struggles against more struggles for a moratorium and against foreclosures and evictions. you know as well as a show against war and against racism and things of that nature they have to merge and put together a general program of our interest and our needs as working people and students and children indeed students are part of the ninety nine percent and let's hope that unlike chile london london and montreal that these protests don't get violent that was larry hales student activist. with mad cow disease on the rise ammonia treated beef and pink slime nuggets do people have the right to know what they're eating and how their food is made well that's left at the big agribusiness and factory farms the answer is no and if you try to find out you could be charged with a third degree felony they're called agag laws which make it illegal to conduct undercover investigations into the treatment of livestock on factory farms in utah already passed a bill this year that bans the practice and missouri could be close behind so these

laws protect farmers and their businesses like legislators claim or is this just a desperate attempt by the food industry to cover up their unsafe and humane practices i was joined earlier by matt reiss director of investigations of mercy for animals i asked him why if they have nothing to hide are they hiding everything here is we have to say that is a good question abbi and undercover investigations by mercy for animals and other groups across the country have exposed egregious cruelties unsafe work or working conditions unsanitary conditions factory farms and slaughterhouses nationwide and in response rather than improve conditions for animals it makes things safer for customers pro factory farm legislators in some states are working to criminalize these undercover investigations and prevent the public from finding out what's happening behind the closed doors of these facilities what exactly do these bills criminalize and what are the penalties. well there's

a number of different states and each bill is a little bit different but most of them focus specifically on making it illegal to take photographs or videos of anything happening on a factory farm or slaughterhouse or other facility that raises and kills animals for food these are blatant violations of free speech and freedom of the press and thinly veiled attempts to keep consumers in the dark about how and where their food comes from you mentioned before about previous undercover investigations that have actually led. to some legislation passed and you know we saw there is an act passed that actually unstated safer practices for hens and things like that can you talk about some of these investigations that have actually led to safer food practices and caused practices a change. well one of the biggest beef recalls in the united states history was prompted by an undercover investigation done by the humane society of the united states in california and this was at a beef processes. excuse me

a beef slaughterhouse here in california and what they found was just not only agree just cruelty to animals but unsafe and unsanitary practices and downed animals as animals who were too sick or injured to stand being pushed prodded forklift and water boarded in order to get them on to the kill floor and into the human food supply and they found that this this beef was actually on its way to the national school lunch program and the scariest part is that there were u.s.d.a. inspectors at this facility and yet these for these things were going on and they were not being stopped and in many cases u.s.d.a. inspectors have said that even when they speak out all that happens is they get reprimanded and sent to another facility so really there are no meaningful watchdogs at these facilities and so it's vital that we're able to conduct these undercover investigations and expose these practices and get laws in place and protect not only the animals who are being treated cruelly but also consumers who

have a right to know where their food comes from that's a really good point you know a lot of consumers just expect that the u.s.d.a. a part of agriculture is really taking care of this and they really shouldn't care about it because of course you know they're being done safely why would these regulatory bodies allow these practices to go on package spoiled me abuse animals but really as you said it does go on and a lot of people are reprimanded for trying to expose that which is a huge problem who is backing these bills matt. well these bills are being backed by the giants in the factory farming industry including monsanto one of the biggest ones and if you look at the legislators the pro factory farm legislators that are trying to push these through and almost every single case these are people who have been receiving massive campaign contributions from the agribusiness industry so it's a very thinly veiled attempt again to silence whistleblowers and keep the cruel and

unsanitary in unsafe practices of the factory farming industry hidden behind closed doors with companies like monsanto and other huge agribusiness is backing and you know funneling thousands of money in a campaign contributions for these legislators how can the consumer really stop it . well the exciting thing is is that as people are becoming aware of these issues in these ag gag bills across the country consumers have been standing up and they've been contacting their legislators in many of these states and in like new york and tennessee these bills have actually been shot down once the public spoke and let their legislators know that this is not in their best interest and if you can think about it these this is an industry that's proven time and time again to be incapable of self regulation and no other industry has these kinds of protection if you could imagine these laws being passed to protect daycares so that people couldn't expose child abuse or sexual assault at a daycare or senior home that wouldn't fly but factory farming industry

unfortunately has so much money and so much power they're able to influence some corrupt politicians to push this time by legislation through often under the nose of their constituents but once constituents find out about it they're outraged and they want to know they want more transparency in food production not less and they're speaking out against it you know these two bills that are already passed seem to be passed to really quickly and now we have another bill in the forefront and it happened in such a quick period of time i mean are you worried that this type of legislation is going to be mimicked and passed in more states and and if so how can we really rally to prevent that we are worried these bills that passed in iowa and utah are setting a dangerous person it nationwide to keep the cruel practices of the factory farming industry hidden behind closed doors keeping consumers in the dark about where their food comes from this is a dangerous precedent that threatens public health threatens animal welfare and

it's the wrong direction so people really need to speak up go to our website mercy for animals dot org find out more about these ag gag bills and how you can take action to stop them and we will be pursuing every legal avenue to overturn the bills that have already passed in iowa and utah. not to wrap up the segment is there any truth to the business side of it that says you know we're not doing anything wrong we just feel like these activists are coming in here and trying to bring us down and really put forward a slanted truth that that's an exaggeration. well you really have to wonder if they are unwilling to show the public what's happening behind their closed doors what they have to hide and we have seen every time we get into one of these facilities we're documenting. the shock and horrify most americans were documenting unsafe working conditions were documenting sick injured in diseased animals interim the human food supply that's what they're trying to hide and we're trying to expose it these industries are corrupt and they know it and the only defense they have

against these investigations is to criminalize them. to write a lot of people are so detached with what we eat and it really takes something like this for people to wake up to how their food is really made that was matt rice director of investigations at mercy for animals everyone stop the presses seriously stop the presses republican presidential candidate ron paul just won iowa i know first we were told romney won that it was santorum turns out ron paul was right all along even though they only won twenty one percent of the primary vote he gained fourteen out of twenty eight i was delegates which brought him in first place for the state don't believe me take a look at these headlines ron paul wins in iowa and also minnesota or at least tied for first place once again the delegate strategy paul predicted worked in the state where he got only twenty seven percent of the primary vote but gained twenty out of forty of minnesota's delegates even though the corporate press loves to tell romney as having the nomination locked in ron paul continues to throw an interesting

wrench in the narrative in the face of the growing military industrial complex poles ideas of smaller government and nonintervention isn't continues to prove its place at the table has a base of grassroots support nationwide that remains ever vigilant in the first quarter of two thousand and twelve alone poll raise. over ten million dollars most of which came from under two hundred dollars small donors donations the delegate strategy works for paul and i won minnesota but at this earth unorthodox approach actually work enough and enough states for paul to win the g.o.p. nomination the answer to that and more i was joined by volunteer organizer and ron paul supporter mary wilson i asked her if the strategy could actually work here's what she had to say yes absolutely ron paul's a strategy has been brilliant all along the campaign didn't just start this year you know there was a lot leading up to it after his first campaign and the campaign for liberty began and the delegate strategy was quite brilliant and i don't expect to see him doing poorly in

a lot of the states actually we've won now minnesota as well as iowa but i also think we've done incredibly well in colorado i don't expect to see anything. small out of nevada maine. washington there's a lot of states where this strategy is paying off big but a lot of ron paul supporters cite the nineteen twenty warren harding strategy as really a means for paul to win is not really just an archaic interpretation of a system that's changed pretty vastly since then. i'm sure the rules have changed in the system it's changed but it's still a two party system the way that the one thing that all delegates have in common what i like to say the one thing that delegates all delegates have in common is their patriotic they care they've gotten motivated to do something positive about the situation of things and i think no matter if you originally got on board

because you supported santorum or michele bachmann or whoever you supported when you became a delegate i think at the end of the day when you get to tampa and you're there and you've invested so much and you come to realize that mitt romney is obama there there is absolutely no difference between the two of them and mitt romney has already lost the general election he can't even debate he's never won a debate before if you put them on the stage together between obama and romney it's going to be a love fest they're just going to agree oh you and your obama care yeah well you're the author of that so i think the delegates will realize when you have everyone talking among themselves and speaking out about why we all support ron paul i think that there's a lot of people who originally supported other candidates who are going to support ron paul it is interesting the corporate press has already kind of locked in romney in you know when you see ron paul kind of cynically getting ahead in this strategic

way but you know every state has different rules when it comes to caucuses and their primaries and delegate strategies how i mean how many states can ron paul realistically do this in. well throughout the caucus states the rules are different in every state whether they're bound delegates or unbound delegates but like i said when you get to the convention that's when things will be to determine you can't say right now who's winning because these are these delegates are people they're people who care about the future of our nation and they're going to you know not everybody's you going to do what's right for the party they're going to do what's right for america that's who these people are so just because you know everybody has experienced it before they've seen what you know when the party chooses the candidate like john mccain you know we don't win and we one thing that every delegate has in common not only are they patriots the one common thread is that you

know the motivation is defeating barack obama getting barack obama out of office and most people know already that romney is obama that they're both financed by goldman sachs we already know that goldman sachs and you know five other banks are controlling our federal reserve system where they know that the media is controlled by five corporations americans are waking up we have access to the information now that's why they're trying so hard to take the internet away and censor it with their sopa and pipa and everything else because americans are a lot more informed now and the ron paul revolution isn't just about a delegate strategy i mean we've got a senator we've got an ophthalmologist into the senate without a hick up and there's a lot more people on the ballots for the selection and i know that there's one hundred thirty liberty republican candidates on the ballot in my county alone who are you know becoming the new party so or you know reviving recess attaining the republican party that's on its last legs so. it's true i

reseated us so far we've seen a lot of military support for ron paul a lot of the political action committees for you know obviously his his message is ringing loud and clear for a lot of people and a lot of can. all in the military active duty are giving him contributions and that really does say something that the corporate media doesn't really like to talk about but let's just say this mary let's say that november fifth comes along and ron paul for whatever reason his name is not on the ballot what then would you write him in. i believe as they will be on the ballot i like i'm like i'm saying there there's no chance of us having a mitt romney presidency it's not going to happen there's no doubt in my mind that ron paul is going to win the nomination i know but what if he doesn't win and i mean i mean let's just say hypothetically. that he doesn't would you write him in i mean would you say would you recommend that people do right in. sure absolutely i'm

not going to recommend that somebody vote for romney or obama or bomb any. and you know in two thousand a mary a lot of ron paul supporters were pretty upset after giving him millions of dollars for his campaign that he didn't run as a libertarian i know that he was also going to run for congress again and maybe had something to do with it and people like to put him in the box of your libertarian or your republican libertarian or what not but would you say i mean would you support him running libertarian you think that that's a chance a chance that he would run as a libertarian if he does not win the nomination i mean it's his last hurrah you know what do you have to lose. i really don't know if running as a libertarian is the answer i i would definitely encourage him to run i will make as big of an you know support for him as i can no matter what the name of the party is or whatever but i really strongly feel our roots are in the republican party

people are joining the republican party getting it back to its roots that was volunteer organizer and ron paul supporter mary wilson well that's going to do it for the news tonight but stay tuned the big picture is coming up at the top of the hour on tonight's edition of the lone liberal bramble host tom hartman will take on a panel of conservative guests on a bunch of topics first up two years ago the worst oil spill in american history plagues the gulf of mexico affecting millions of people and thrown an entire ecosystem in disrepair and tuesday someone was finally arrested for their role in the disaster. because guess why it's taken so long to get to this point and if we should expect other arrests of follow that's just one of the topics this all-star team will take on the night so stay tuned for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website r t dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter at the marc.