the old posts are a sense for you now in the palm of your lists. on the dot com. rallying in the spring protests in for change it's may first and you know what that means from the big apple to bangladesh madrid to moscow people around the world are celebrating we'll take you around the world into the heart of the rallies and putting a stop at occupy wall street. it's tuesday may first eight pm in washington d.c. i'm abbie martin you're watching r.t. . no work no school no shopping no banking it's may day and today marks the first nationwide strike in u.s. history it's been a day that's been long dormant in the u.s.

but celebrated internationally since one thousand nine hundred ninety now the walking occupy wall street movement has resurrected the workers' holiday calling it a day without the ninety nine percent made it actually originated america in the one thousand century when undereducated capitalism ran amok in this to say the true origins of mayday were long forgotten until now to date as a storage occupy general strike in over one hundred thirty five u.s. cities for the first time workers students immigrants and and and the unemployed are standing together for economic justice and it's happening globally in france thousands took to the streets demanding economic liberation workers there are upset over policies many feel are strangling the hopes of economic recovery and this was the scene in indonesia some one hundred sixty one thousand people took part in events across the country and occupy oakland things got tense earlier today when there was a standoff with protesters and the police reports of tear gas were used also also in occupy seattle tear gas was used after some protesters smashed some windows and

reportedly black bloc and archivists were smashing windows and tear gas was used on them but let's go to our tease web producer andrew blake he's in new york city for more of the day's events and what is going on good you know i'm pretty sure we talked around an hour ago and i said things are a little calm do you recall yes i do and what did i say i thought i had a hunch right. so things are there things are tight you know yeah that's right it's been barely an hour i am currently in the heart of the financial district in lower manhattan and the last forty five minutes about a bit while the actual her mid march that was coming through lower manhattan came through here and as expected there were bold incidents. that were. one point. two months is the hermitage march with and why the p.t. clearance at one point you can still see the remnants of a behind me the talent is coming through right now but at one point the cops just

started riding through against traffic on their little scooters. and that trying to that didn't work out too well because get a bunch of of and why taxi cabs yellow cabs coming through as a part of the march and so when you got a couple thousand protesters a handful of taxi cabs and then a couple blue shirts driving around in little motorized bikes going the opposite direction things got a little rough. cops started pushing people around i got max around a little bit couple détente flying here and there i thought the reason why not arrest a couple people just got knocked over a lot of name calling and you know you know those n.y.p.d. they're they're not they're not to sleep hard that it's a mainstream media and they think they are at all times but you know it's still we haven't seen anything too crazy over here and it looks like the market self is pretty much coming to an end there is supposed to be

a an after party of sorts somewhere on the island no idea where people are going to be going from here or if they're already there but i'm going to try to head over there soon as i can and see what develops but it looks like more or less things things kind of popped momentarily and they appear to be fizzling out right now but you know it is still only eight o'clock here in the city and as they say abbie this is the city that never sleeps yes that is true andrea and you mentioned earlier about their plans to retake wall street tonight what's going on with that can you give us more information well most of the financial district is blocked off to pretty much everyone there is barricades going up and down i believe we are on broadway right now. i don't. can't confirm that one for you but this streets blocked off for at least two miles or so i'd say for a couple of blocks in each direction there's heavy police and horsemen. cops on

horseback cops and patrol cars cop scooters cops and golf carts cops on foot. they're looking at me right now i think we're ok though i think we're ok i mean but yeah i'm not sure where it was going to going from here we are we just walked past cody square where everything got started last september and not a not quite decided over there tonight i know there were some runs of going over to washington square park where they had major protests a couple months back some people are talking about going back to union square but. on the record what was actually supposed to happen what was permitted by the n.y.p.d. has as coming gone more or less so i mean we did see a lot of violence in seattle and throughout the west coast earlier today i still don't know if we're going to see anything that widespread in new york city. if it felt that way for a little bit but it's looking like things are starting to settle down there still

a lot of noise but we really don't know where it's going to go from here andrew i wanted you to mention you just mentioned seattle what do you think about the mayor taking that emergency declaration where he was saying that he can confiscate anything that could be deemed as a weapon what do you think about that i mean. it makes sense that you know people that are causing violence shouldn't have weapons i think anyone that wants anyone but most people if they some people will say that if you're going to be causing trouble you probably shouldn't have weapons on you i think i lost you there for a moment however i think it's a little ridiculous i think you know i obviously wasn't in seattle tonight or today i can't tell you how things actually happen down there how things went down but i'm willing to bet things are getting a little bit over overblown we've got a fence or a. national lawyers guild right there right on on right. well as you said and why you know new york is the city that never sleeps and we're definitely bound to see some exciting things go down tonight you said that that was the last permitted

action that was going to happen or they're more primitive actually better than actually i asked a couple members of that y.p. and they seemed kind of unsure and they knew that this was happening as per the agendas that were circulating yesterday as far as i know things are supposed to wrap up around seven thirty or eight tonight actually we got looks like more of the march i'm sure if you can see behind me there really isn't anything right now but it looks like coming up the street behind me there is a massive order of people walking down to let's say it's broadway you know for the sake of making a point so yeah it looks like i was wrong i was entirely wrong and i apologize to our audience but it looks like not over simply not over something is happening it's out noisy there's some pop and andrew to wrap up the segment really quickly you said that there could be some people going to union square is union square barricaded off as well and how many people would you say are estimated out on the streets right now but we definitely had it at least two or three thousand in union

square earlier today the whole area had barricades around it but they weren't actually in force they were ready to barricade people in or out of the park if need be a lot of that and was like that though so i don't really know if they have cars are going to try to crack down it's not going to try to kill anyone in were lots reports really can't tell you but i think we got a couple of hours so hopefully we'll get some video have it on the web tonight and evan on the air tomorrow and you describe the scene around you it's been very lively you said it's been mostly peaceful describe what you're seeing right now and what the general theme has been i mean you can tell when i was there and i was going to watch a bunch of happy people this is like the most positive. march in new york city that's got five movement began back in september you know like i said there were a couple couple. but really everything was a kind of just just a ok you know obviously police like i said rough couple people up myself included but what you got to do i think that if the under a dildo up as the sun goes down

a little bit more if only we could check back in an hour or two i think something might happen but we'll know tomorrow when all the dust settles and you're go out and just show us around you really quickly the scene there absolutely they're touching on what i believe is the talent of that permitted bar socially about they're about to run me right over so i hope you feel like insuring my back book. but yet. there you go that's that's you know it's there right now and there's a couple thousand people marching down this parade and there's a couple thousand people marching out throughout the rest of lower manhattan so i'm going to pack up this laptop i'm going to be where they go and maybe get a hamburger through will definitely stay tuned that was our key web producer andrew blake the event of an unfolding all day in new york archies on starting a church going to have been on the streets getting a feel of the may day protests here's a report. that's the beginning of the action in new york city by occupy wall street and already

a major street blocked off all of the traffic right here waiting to get through but they say that because about two hundred fifty people watching the street right now and only imagine i sit there like you get considering the fact that you have more people are expected to want to talk with you later on throughout the day challenging corporate personhood challenging the big body was ignited nine. thirty occupy it was. out. in the city i think it's really great to get everyone together in one place and see the potential that we as individual humans can have to create new systems by just coming together and making things happen with office workers looking down on them does. that the company inside. immigrant workers one of the major issues of maybe a sacred place one hundred one. where one of the.

people. here everywhere getting ready. to have we do remember of course that ever since occupy wall street party member last year as many as twenty one hundred people have so far already been arrested something is going to remain peaceful. this main action yes but there's supposedly other groups around the city that maybe not so much this is the latest attempt by occupy wall street attention is that. they're saying they. want the police. right now we're seeing the crowds are watching how to do it not show. adding it down we're seeing all these tourists here. on the market going to continue all the

way down fifth avenue in hopes that it will attract more attention to the people walking by because you know for that many of the country you know the city i really think having these people working there that god has obvious like they're sitting on their own through the crowd they're chanting god we've got those out years after a lot of there's been no real accountability money florida and all bankers in the united states the people are out on the street or misrouted presser out the way when occupy wall street are started grads were saying it would go away quickly but these demonstrators here today believe that into the second stage of the biggest protest america has seen in the years they're saying those critics were saying that they would become a thing of the past very quickly say this is proof that these people represent the working americans of the present and they will be the ones who end up making up is not determining america's future that you're going to parties to your as may day

protests continue in new york city is playing host to a wide array of community leaders activists and artists who will be speaking performing for thousands of demonstrators gather in lower manhattan earlier archy's marie marie marina porn i spoke with musician musician artist and activist immortal technique take a look. i want to say it all out strike is happening here in new york city but thousands of people have taken to the streets now converging a new renewed square this has been hours and hours of demonstrations taking place there are union members labor unions taking part in this event students and of course occupy activists and all those that have been supporting that there have been pickets taking place outside of banks and the offices of corporate corporations and multinational corporations the message of this movement has not changed they are still speaking out about wealth inequality in the united states about corporate influence on u.s.

politics there are students now in the crowd talking about that huge trillion dollar debt bubble now the problem right now is at union square as i mentioned because in just a few minutes at some time from now there will be a performance taking place i am actually joined right now by one of the performers that will be taking to the stage and when it's happening artists and activists you know the supporter of the opera i watched him and he's been very generous. let me ask you what is different about this movement now in the spring than what we saw you know begin in the fall of the gets a little more seasoned they didn't know what to expect from police they realize that they're going to be antagonized also i think they're paying a lot more attention to the way that the movement is marginalized i mean obviously there are things that can be shared with the public about the way that people are moving because i think that a lot of things are done not in private per se to to hide things from people but

rather to protect. the goals of the move which ought to exemplify the disparity even more between poor and rich you know that's not something that's only affecting people here in america it's all over the world and i think that's why occupy became a worldwide movement and not just something that was. relegated to zuccotti park absolutely but in the fall when the encampments were broken up by u.s. law enforcement. the movement did was sidelined because they didn't have anybody i mean and they were marginalized by mainstream media which at first said these are lazy unemployed americans they don't have anything better to do with their time or use on the weekends even employed americans were joining the movement well some some media some media i think the far right media didn't like the fact that there were very clear examples of class warfare that weren't invented by stalinists that live in america i think it's very clear that people here all in

trying to destroy the new york city they're not trying to destroy america they're trying to save this country from itself and for the people that have continuously profited from its destruction and its debilitation now the occupy movement was calling on the ninety nine percent to not go to work today to refrain from purchasing anything just to show that if they remove the labor and the spending power that that it's really the wealth of the one percent that depends on on the participation of the ninety nine percent we see new york is still moving people are still buying people are still working those demands weren't met and hundred percent what else can the movement really to my side from getting a lot of headlines to create a system systemic change what i think they have created some systemic change they put incredible pressure on governor cuomo for his millionaire's tax there's been a series of things that they've done besides just talking i think that they

definitely proved that there was an incredibly resilient movement you know that they're not going to just go away they're not going to fade and i think that you know the police and law enforcement took a little bit more credit than they deserved for breaking up the encampment in the fall. so really what kind of hurt the presence of people at zuccotti park was the fact that it's ten below zero. sometimes over there freezing cold conditions the weather played a lot of it into it you know being that want to rush in channel i think a lot of people learned that the hard way about invading that country whether it was adolf hitler on the pollie and that weather conditions and climate conditions cause a change but we're not going to just sit here and use that as a problem i think what's important for people to realize is that regardless of whatever happened in the fall we're still here and we're not going anywhere anytime soon refused to just surrender the city to individuals that have no caring for the

lives of individuals because they think that corporations are people too my last question for you the n.y.p.d. did that they have beefed up their security efforts today on a day international workers and occupy a stretch the street police officials have said that if and they will not hesitate to arrest anyone that breaks the law they are aware of party to what's been reported that those illegal i demonstrations are being planned what do you think will will happen in terms of u.s. law enforcement and how they behave with unarmed activists i mean i think this display here is not just an attempt to show strength but it also displays fear fear of the people united that. realistically speaking nobody wants to see another kent state you know and if someone starts shooting it's not going to be innocent activists students it's going to be police on armed civilians and how is that going to look and election moral technique think very much for your time even if you are

making demands are an hour from now that's hard to stop supporting. participating in the occupy movements the army first new york city. i was artie's marina port but hip hop artist and activist immortal technique. now as you've seen we've had correspondents all across the country covering these occupy actions earlier in the show we showed you a report from our very own churkin up on the stars who just got back from the station and filed another report bringing us the very latest from the city take a look. further than the eye can see the people filling broadway the longest street in new york thousands of people out on the streets protesting against wall street against the periphery and against the government sleeping in the same bed with bankers accountability and from the events of today we can tell that people have no intention of giving up their fight this is obviously the

biggest part city of the one time i think south think it means that the movement is still alive it's growing and people are taking notice of huge protests where what looks like tens of thousands of people are marching downtown to wall street and supporting part where occupy wall street initially started and if you could see people from all walks of life it's union workers it's mothers with children and students everybody the ninety nine percent as they call themselves have come out onto the streets to protest against the system they feel as corrupt as the champion of the ninety's that. right there we see independent journalist five six times in my dreams the globe or two that are there very mainstream media here surprisingly considering it's not every day that near the city see tens of thousands of protesters on the occupy wall street protesters holding signs and first rights or

human rights or walking so no really mad cow shopping in new york city of tourists watching all of these people are outraged and it could really get the feeling that they have no intentions of giving up this fight may day is really the first day of the second wave of occupy wall street that a lot of skeptics are saying will never come again. all of these crowds are headed to wall street back to the party part where they are expected to stick around for the rest of the day. we know that dozens of unions. joined the protests here today and we see right here at least five cabs that are part of the new york city. taxi driver union so far you're right. we had a presenting the ninety nine percent of the people and we just with them you know. the wall street first started a lot of people were trying to marginalize the group saying it will stick around for a long time but with tens of thousands of people marching in new york as well

a similar action taking place in over a hundred and thirty cities across the united states whether this group as well as millions of people across the united states left without homes and jobs are just a fringe of society is a very big if. that was our to correspondent honest from new york today is not only made it also marks the one year anniversary of the death of a solemn bin laden and a surprise visit to kabul afghanistan president obama arrived under veil of secrecy to give a speech in the middle of the night from baghran air base countless of lies have been lost in hundreds of billions of dollars and spent in the longest war in the history of the u.s. so is this just a victory lap from the president to remind us that the war has been worth it here to join me now is jake gilberto r.t. blogger and former u.s. marine. so jake you know hundreds of billions of dollars spent a somber lot of dead was the war worth it well of course obviously the the war i

mean the war on terror that the bush administration got us involved with can't be seen separately from the war in iraq that can't be seen separate from counterinsurgency in afghanistan so was the war worth it while the war was preposterous to begin with was protecting america after the attacks. but in our best interests short and should should we have gone after terrorists sure we should have but doing what we're doing now and then going after terrorists like we did the very beginning are two entirely different things and we just saw this attack ad from the obama administration against romney saying romney says that he wouldn't have gone to war after one man i mean do you agree with that premise should we have gone invaded and occupied an entire country to find one man well i made no bones about it i've always been a republican i'm a dying breed but died thing that's very difficult for my party to reject. war in general it's very hard for them for the republicans to use to not give into the

military it's hard for any president i do eisenhower said god help the man who sits in this chair and doesn't know the military like i do so it's very hard to say no to the military the military want to do something for the most part they're going to get it done so i don't know if i think that romney probably would have surge would have done whatever petraeus had to his chared in charge of centcom and mcchrystal the very beginning wanted to do well what about you know this this recent raid this footage from the raid they said initially that you know the raid they couldn't show us for national security reasons there's really been no evidence put forward because of national security reasons and now they're saying that there was a blackout during the actual raid i mean hillary clinton found there and if we were of course you that would be said you were leading the witness. but hillary clinton said you know this raid there's been thousands like it that you just don't hear about i mean your comment on that. yes coursers. j. saki and he's been conducting a series of direct action raids since two thousand and two in villages across the

the border of afghanistan and pakistan and the cia along with covert operatives particularly purchased by the cia have waged a proxy war inside of pakistan since two thousand and two as well and i think what you're telling me that we didn't know this on the bottom is in pakistan this whole time i mean here we are fighting this for that who are occupying a country where in pakistan already we're like this but the pakistani government and a sound a lot of been harboring them the whole time i mean well we know due to the interviews done after this on been right there was house cleaners and keepers that were working inside the the the compound that didn't even know that bin laden was there they just were told it's a snap it's an arab don't ask any questions so whether the n.s.a. in the cia knew bin laden was there or not nobody can know but it is fair to say that some bin laden was a very secretive individual who was able to manipulate a lot of things i think the u.s. probably knew which is why obama did the raid and rightfully so however i think

that there is a lot of there's a lot of information we don't know about the raid yet well jake we're going to play a clip right now from bin laden speech at baghran talking about his efforts against al qaeda we broke the taliban's momentum we've built strong afghan security forces we devastated as leadership taking out over twenty of their top thirty leaders and one year ago from base here in afghanistan our troops launched the operation that killed osama bin laden the goal that i set to defeat al-qaeda and deny it a chance to rebuild is now within our reach. so i mean is this still going to be accomplished i mean here we are the timeline keeps getting extended where he's saying that now it's going to be twenty twenty four we're giving over a billion dollars a year i mean what is this is this is a symbol. this is a critical question i'm really glad that you're asking this i just watched seven

news channels in a row nobody saw us insurgencies don't end in two years they don't and in ten years the end in twenty to thirty years there is no way in in anyone's imagination that somehow the the has been islami the economy network the h u d the j u d or the taliban the t.t.p. any of these insurgent groups are going to end sometime in the near future so there is no way that this war is over at all which is why there's a there is a strategic agreement for the u.s. to stay there till two thousand and twenty four this is the whole problem with the counterinsurgency idea you can't build a nation up from the bar from from kabul on outward you can't build a military to deal with the thirty year level of insurgency if the americans don't want to pay for well yeah but i mean here we are we're going to stay there indefinitely i mean the timetable keeps changing in times of economic crises in this global recession do we really want to be spending a billion dollars

a year to rebuilding this country and keep spending our foreign aid well we spend we spend a billion dollars every couple days so if that's what they say cite the figures. i mean more than our are we will spend probably twelve billion a year just on providing the salaries resources and equipment for the afghan army if we stay there until twenty four right around ten to fifteen billion dollars can't really can the u.s. afford it well yeah they can afford it should they spend it absolutely not this the but that's not the problem war doesn't just occur because you have an army and you defeat bad guys workers because there's political problems problems interests are. regional cultural issues the united states does not have the abilities to accomplish and defeat the means that's needed to bring the insurgency in the violence down because we don't have the capability to strong arm the culture we don't have the ability to strong arm the politics we don't even have and we could

also this we don't even have an interest to do that so our think the bigger problem here isn't about the finances it's about the lack of political and strategic vision for the future. well let's talk really quickly about his symbolic thing at baghran air base because a lot of people talk about now and no one really knows the baghran is you know some people say it's worse than get now what's going on are we passing over the afghanistan government or just hoping that they deal with the human rights abuses and these people who are just held indefinitely there well. is awkward sibley's to same as guantanamo we have a black jail we have a black jail in guantanamo there are series of human rights abuses going on there that many in the course the left would obviously there's human rights abuses i'm not sure that the right would say i agree with that but nonetheless are we going to give that to the afghans to the afghans know are we going to close or secret prisons across the globe you know we have a couple in indonesia and other places where.