i am. welcome to the alone a show at the real headlines with none of the mersey can live in washington d.c. now tonight we're going to talk mayday an occupy actions are taking place across the country as part of occupies a general strike on the international workers day is being marked around the world so we're going to host a panel on labor occupy and the way forward then andrew blake is going to fill us in on the protests in new york today and what actually happened on the ground and we've been talking a lot about drones lately but as you know the f.a.a. has already approved drone use for twenty five universities we're going to talk about the new career opportunities and the drone age it could bring as well as the privacy concerns that come with it we're going to all of that and more free tonight

including a dose of happy hour but first let's take a look what the mainstream media decided to me. so there was some breaking news this afternoon as we found out that president obama took a surprise trip to afghanistan we have breaking news at this very moment we understand that the president is enough gonna stop one year to the day since u.s. special forces killed the world's most wanted terrorist the president of the united states is on the ground in afghanistan i'm hearing now president obama has made a surprise visit to afghanistan president obama arrived in afghanistan in kabul at two thirty nine pm our time this is new video we're just getting in of the president's arrival in afghanistan not that long ago you see on the cover of darkness pictures just of the president who landed in afghanistan that's

a powerful symbol the flag of the united states government of the flag ship of the military fleet on the ground there in afghanistan. now the president is going to be giving a speech tonight to mark the one year anniversary of the killing of osama bin laden and the signing of the strategic agreement between the u.s. and afghanistan which includes another ten years of dedication by the u.s. and that means aid reconstruction efforts funding and training of afghan security forces everything that happened after u.s. and international coalition troops are scheduled to leave there are a couple of things that need to be highlighted about this trip about this day about this war things that the mainstream media isn't touching upon other is absolutely no way to call this war success and quite the contrary we only keep seeing more evidence of cover ups when it comes to what an epic failure it's been and that includes the report that we touched on yesterday that shows that the attacks on american and international troops by afghan forces have been greatly under-reported

get another side right that one of the cornerstones of our strategy building up funding and training afghan forces is not working yes the president did get osama bin laden which in many ways it was a symbolic achievement the face that americans associate with al qaeda was september eleventh has been eliminated but the war hasn't ended yet and of course osama wasn't even found in afghanistan he was in pakistan so why are we still in afghanistan and i've yet to see the mainstream media truly ask this question of our leaders and i can bet that you will hear the president give a good answer to that question in his speech tonight and there is now a plan for the war to wind down for troops to withdraw and that's all of course a long overdue and obviously welcome but we can only look forward at this president's policy has always been we can't just say that it's coming to a close and be satisfied it's never too early to reflect in fact it's better to ask questions while it's actually happening until it becomes too late. so what is this

all for what exactly are we celebrating when more than ten years after we started fighting a war in a country the president has to arrive unannounced with a media blackout in secret for protection and it's also by the way only the third time that president obama has been to afghanistan since taking office and the speech well carol clearly it's going to be purely political it's happening at four thirty in the morning in afghanistan because this is a speech for the american public has a speech for the voters who have stopped supporting this effort if you look at any opinion polls so it shows you once again how little our war in afghanistan actually has to do with afghanistan itself now the ironic thing is that today is also the ninth anniversary of george w. bush's mission accomplished speech the one where he celebrated on an aircraft carrier made a photo op out of the whole thing and yet thousands of americans and iraqis continue to die for years after this speech is going to air after our show this evening so we'll definitely have more discussion of it tomorrow but let's be honest

we all know that it's not really about the speech it's not really about this trip it's about a ten year long war that's been an epic failure and most people are just too scared or too stubborn or who knows what to admit it the mainstream media especially so while they parse over the details of the president's flight every word of his speech this evening of how he got bin laden you can all be asking yourself why they waited until now why they waited until this year to only slightly start changing their tune only when there was one horrible occurrence after another in the form of koran burning civilian massacres why it took them so long to recognize failed policy why for so long they've chosen to miss. well there are actions happening all across the country today but one of the hottest spots definitely new york city they've been protest marches throughout the city since this morning brushes on banks and as promised

a heavy police presence are actually repartees ranter blake joins us from our studio in new york to give us more details andrea i know you've been out there all day so tell us how the events have been playing out you know so far it's it's just been fun. unlike what we saw last year with my movement kind of starting off with the not so pretty beginning today was. don't want to jinx anything but really positive it's been a pleasure watching all these people from different walks of life different ages different races get together and rally together for a common cause it's something that i haven't seen such a large scale. ever really at least in my generation is amazing to see so many people get together and they they say that you know after the winter came occupy would be over in the protest movement united states would just kind of fade into

oblivion but the sheer number of people that were out in the streets and just manhattan today really gives me faith that. maybe maybe something good will come of all this or any guesses when it comes to the numbers of people that actually came out because i know there are you know there is a lot of unknowns there are a lot of actions were planned but nobody could really say what the outcome was going to be. you know it's so bizarre because there are so many actions planned even still continuing into tonight i know i've been on the streets since around nine am this morning and at bryant park in manhattan from fortieth street that was expected to be kind of like a big hub for the movement today and by nine ten o'clock the numbers weren't what i would like them to be wasn't really what i expected and i think the organizers really expected a higher number two but by eleven o'clock twelve o'clock one o'clock the sun started coming up the rain one away and then by two by three all across new york city you can see people start coming out in droves there was one point actually we

are standing around two blocks north of union square in the heart of new york city and all of a sudden you just saw a parade of people marching down fifth avenue and it got to the point where you couldn't see the horizon any more assistance this foolery huddled masses coming together waving flags having a good time you know chanting they had their slogans they had their signs and they were all preaching a positive message and it seemed more or less that everyone was ok with that there was obviously you know what what these protests do without a little bit of overzealous police work but i think that was to be expected but so far in new york city at least it looks like everything's kind all right all right so you know when you talk about everybody coming together with the same message in mind what were the signs saying today what were the chants about today because obviously this is a big day for the occupy movement but it's also may day international workers day

around the world. that's what really brought a lot of people together it wasn't just the message of anding finance and politics the whole relationship that they have that's doing god knows what to america right now but people rallying for workers' rights people worrying for people's rights for immigrants people just equality in the workforce they were all things that you know i don't want to use the cliche but the ninety nine percent can really get behind equality in the workforce these are people who have well you know our jobs these jobs that we grew up with that we're going to have their families have these aren't the elite one percent to work on wall street these are people who can relate to everyday things in america and they understand that there needs to be equality in the workforce and we need to have an equal chance it was really nice to see all these people coming together and agreeing on more than just one thing more than just oh we can't do four more years of corporate buyouts or no we can't have wall

street shaking hands with washington it was people coming together for a lot of different things and it was especially the whole labor stating the whole a british thing that a man may already be a dog and i. said that labor thing you know worked in and stuff people could get behind that andrea levy emily amazing live before we go here to you know you say that it's overall been pretty have positive haven't seen a completely overzealous and y p d in a fact today where there are a lot of cops and they just weren't you know pepper spraying beating and who knows why or is there a police presence actually subdued. well there was definitely a big police presence in york city today i know i got off the train at penn station this morning and there were metro cops armed with rifles everywhere there are dogs going all throughout the train station on the streets there is definitely increased police presence i know walking around you could see the front of grand central

station today at one point there was one entrance to the building that had thirteen armed cops standing there not letting people in banks had private security working the door station inside a.t.m.'s there was actually was one point people were protesting outside of a chipotle in midtown for farmers rights and there were no fewer than around forty cops standing there with their baton is out with their helmets on i haven't seen too many bad things yet there were a couple incidents that did catch a couple things that i got of film that i think we're going to see an archie tomorrow however for the most part figures cross today has been very positive for everyone i've even seen some members of law enforcement actually having what appears to be a good time if that is possible well let's hope that it stays that way but how fitting right that the banks have their own private security force protecting them from the hordes of people protesting outside and we think they're going to send. absolutely. are we taking

a quick break but coming up next our all-star made a panel we're going to talk more about the occupy actions across the country i discussed the complicated relationship between occupy and the labor unions. sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then. the other part of it and realize that everything is. part of the big picture.

i'm lauren lyster. so you know there's a real headline with. the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and for what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. anymore if they want news they go online and read it but we're trying to take those stories that people actually care about and transfer them back to t.v. . is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like.

russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us. all right so it is mayday international workers day that originated here in the u.s. believe it or not but is now celebrated the world over and occupy will but it's time it's general strike a day of action here in the u.s. to coincide but aside from the specific actions the civic marches happening today or the broader question they need to be answered how can we look at the unemployment crisis the housing crisis the plight of the ninety nine percent in global terms and what is the relationship between occupy and the labor movement to look like to move forward on meaningful reform where to discuss it with me is mike elk labor journalist and staff writer for in these times kevin zeese an organizer

of occupy washington d.c. co-director of it's our economy and co-chair of come help come home america and to our studio in new york activist and writer jesse like brackets gentlemen thank you all for joining me tonight and so why don't we start with the basics and kevin i'm going to start with you to. nobody i mean i don't know the basics in terms of the history right of how this actually started in chicago here in the united states and yet if the rest of the world actually celebrates mayday and not it why is that well we kind of explore the put in place the much more tame labor day but it really started with you know serious worker revolt trying to get the work and and really funny for labor rights and we've kind of lost the bigger over the years and it's really good i think that occupy pick made a move first and i read very that right now labor is a very weak point in our history the share of workers income from the g.d.p. is a very low point and we have a lot of work to do really make workers be treated for so i think it's good to

harlem so mike as a labor journalist you know what do you think it is that contributes to the fact that labor is at a very low point that union membership is at an all time low that more people don't know about mayday and it's the occupy movement and not the big labor unions that are reviving it here so i think a big part of is the history of red baiting within the american labor movement which is that labor leaders are always too afraid of appearing too radical. i mean the original story that made it is that these labor leaders were executed for a role in a police riot you know somebody get killed a police right in the innocently really does wrecks a cubit and that was international workers day meeting because of something happened to chicago on may first one thousand nine hundred six but what happened is that they got red beat it and so when the u.s. the u.s. congress declared it wadded and so we moved it to a very piecemeal september labor day and i think that's a similar thing that happened today if you look at a fellow c.e.o. president richard trumka instead of being out in the streets today we're actually being at a factory workers are on strike like

a caterpillar and julian illinois he was out of bloomberg washington some speaking after alan greensburg on bloomberg t.v. i mean bloomberg t.v. isn't even on cable i mean he wasn't speaking any workers and i think this is a sad part of it i mean after that you know trump spoke to a conference of can some construction union members and it is you were mark he wasn't there on the streets with all the people he didn't even mention me jeffrey you know i want to bring you in here to tell me why you think it is the occupy chose this day how does it feel that richard trumka isn't out there marching with everybody. well to me i think one of the major difficulties is that we have this delineation between skilled labor and unskilled labor just the same we have the delineation between union workers nonunion workers to me the idea of the ninety nine percent means everybody you work for a living the majority of people in america work for pay we don't receive trust funds we don't have dividends we work for pay and i think one of the failures of the union movement in this country is not to mobilize nonunion workers to really

reach out to the fact that we're one industry unionize is and those people have collective bargaining rights it's better for all of us but is that i mean is this taking shape in any different way for the occupy movement per say you know is this just supposed to be a day to remind everybody that hey we still like this and yeah it was a long winter now that rough let's be honest it wasn't that cold but we are back and then focus on our target actions you know what do you think the purpose really is today. well as usual there are so many things that are broken it's hard to tackle it from one angle to another but i think we can all agree on the basic principles that poverty has grown exponentially since the year two thousand when bush versus gore was decided by the supreme court that the middle class is under siege at the same time that the wealthiest one percent have it better than ever so i think it's a very important that all of us get out in the streets and demand rights not only for ourselves but also for people we feel that we're in solidarity with and being the son of a union card but i feel very strongly about the founding union rights are there's

something i want to talk about to you which are you know aside from things like the actions that are seen today on a mass scale which there have been targeted programs that occupy has been trying to go after including occupy the s.e.c. right there pushing for the vocal role they've been here on capitol hill they're going to sit down with paul volcker to actually talk about it and so kevin how do you see that right because that is working within this the third step well there's so many different strains of occupy now i think in fact once once occupied moved off the encampments it really was a chance for growth and we're seeing growth in lots of ways the volker thing is one but you're also seeing occupy our homes which has saved more than a hundred people from being evicted it's continued to be very effective it's actually does multiple things at once keep people in their home attacks the banks builds the movement shows was more about other people than about ourselves we're not a narcissistic movement occupy. the justice system going after privatizing of prisons and wells fargo for funding that the whole bank of america there's

a lot going on it's too much going on that was not too much money and i think the fact i think it's great we're going to restrain this will be a long movement is not a one year we want to shift power to the people from the one percent is probably a ten year efforts not to be a short term you know one occupy it's over we have to build a nonviolent transformative movement and these are steps toward building that movement you seem like you might be i'm sure about that like now i think you know i think you're right but you know i think with the. brother said earlier about you know labor movement not reaching out to nonunion workers i don't think is entirely true i think the labor movement tries they don't quite do it properly but they've done a lot of experiments like working american other things the reach out and i certainly think some of the rich trumka understand that the problem is they're not bold enough but i also think there's a problem in the fact of occupy i was looking at some coverage today i think it was a progressive magazine where they said well we have folks on the ground in chicago new york and san francisco the people that we need to organize in this country

there's a lot of organizing going on that there's actual strikes going on in places like julia illinois fort worth texas there's a big want to lockheed big lockout up in north dakota i mean there are places where there are actual real workers struggles going on in san francisco that a lot of ferry people so ferry workers that were out on strike today for a one day strike and so i think what we really have to do is is just not i think you know a lot of what occupy has done is focused on getting media attention in a lot of ways especially in new york and other places as opposed to digging in on struggles that actually have day to day consequences i grew up on that i want to honor we're going to take on that. hungry. well i think you know it's not really a matter of the content that we produce often a lot a lot of times the media grabs what they want if it bleeds it leads so to speak so those more of those actions that we take that are beneficial to average working class person that gets lost often because there was an arrest or because there was a broken window or some silly nonsense like that so i would agree with the

gentleman who spoke just a moment ago i think it was kevin who stated that you know we need to kind of go beyond these large metropolitan centers and really talk about middle america the places where people are hurting and you're not seeing that improvement and i would be glad to champion that cause myself i think the movement itself would be very well served just focusing on small communities where people have been hurting and there really is no one end in sight to their shared sacrifice while wall street continues to reap corporate you know massive profits as mike by the way said that but you know it's interesting because you say that they focus on the philly little things every now and then like the rest but maybe that's part of the reason why more people don't take part don't join up i want to play a clip that we have today from tom morello who was obviously there had a guitar me march. down the street thriving on their guitars but he had something interesting to say in terms of juxtaposing the situation here right now in the u.s. with tunisia egypt greece everywhere else take

a look. the occupy movement is very unique in that it does identify classwork he's more people from getting involved is because because there's a high price if you risk privilege and that's something that we all have here you know like it doesn't come free like if you come out today for the general strike or if you're arrested on the brooklyn bridge if you live your life in accordance with your beliefs sometimes there's a very high price to be paid to me yeah and so that i think that that's that's certainly one of the reasons why whether the differences between say what occurred in egypt and occurred in libya in occurred in tunisia and what's occurring in greece and spain was happening here is that we have to look at the end of the clip there he was saying that the difference is that we have more. you know i think we have more lives we don't get organized we've been losing a slow death since the peak you know salaries one hundred seventy three are not a reason decades it's like when almost a fifty year drought for working americans it's time for us to really get organized

and that's where we get i would think we have more to lose by not getting a way to counter that is at the same time you know you've had your i phones. and your microwave then your nice cars and your as your visa or whatever it is all this time and so you have you have more of these comforts of the world to lose but i also think you know it's interesting tom morello there talking about people have things to lose a big part of the reason we have a reform things is that people aren't willing to shape people on the left and the rose pretty guilty of this he claims he's an ideal b.w. member but he went out and he played a big concert for jimmy hoffa when hoffa was running against a reform candidate for president the teamsters i mean this is jimmy hoffa who's been under god knows how many federal investigations and tom morello the ultimate radical of propping up this ultimate insider so i think we do want to really change the left we really got to get folks into organized labor and i think we could be really powerful as a lot of folks from occupy organizing their workplaces getting involved in unions and shaking them up because we have the most corrupt inadequate overpaid labor

system in the western world and i think today's protests where you know the president. doesn't even mention made a protest in front of a crowd of two thousand construction workers i think that shows it right there jesse what were you you were going to jump in there on tom morello. to me i just wanted to comment on something i hear frequently which is basically saying you have these material pleasures all look at the technology doesn't that prove that capitalism works and i wonder if the roman said it once i would say the seedling of the plebian of their day oh they have togas what are they complaining about you know if i have a six hundred dollars a piece of technology that doesn't mean that my future is secure doesn't mean i have job security doesn't have a retirement or health care or any other basic necessities of first world living so to me i see those people who stayed oh you've got technology what do you complain about what i can't eat an i pod can i and even if i could it wouldn't feed me for the next thirty years either to me i just find it very nebulous way of parsing the terms i also find it hard to with labor because labor you know the tie the

democratic party is such a such a destroyer of relationship with occupy because we look at the democratic party it's a wall street party you know obama's three chief of staff all tied to wall street his economic team is all wall street and you know leaders out there are spending hundreds of millions of dollars and lots of person hours to relearn this team and it's that's a real hard thing for our you know the really important point to make but so in that sense you know how does this election matter you say this is a movie that's going to take ten years if not more to actually get going and elections are going to come in elections are going to go should occupy be focusing on bringing a third party into the system if you actually want to shake things up and one side or the other is always going to have to pick someone to go with in order to get at least i guess to the lesser of two evils into power maybe we should really try to change the system first by having more than just two parties to take i'll get money from from wall street. well we have more than two parties there are multiple where

you get the little party where is the problems we have that we have that we are on the raj election system that has put up all sorts of barriers to third parties where you really need to have as one of the major groups tied to the democratic party breakthrough there will be labor african-americans women or the environmentalists those are the big groups and you to break for them right now none of them look like it there's some talk in labor you know certainly at the lower levels as a lot of. opposition to that even at the higher level you trump the rhetorical talking that way we're not seeing the action and if we have a real leader board this country where they are put their money into the labor party and and work with the people who are disaffected by both parties you have a real system and you know you do see a growing is more of a libertarian movement here in the us right people that i want to know that. i think independents are the largest growing constituency you know in the pen the independent independent and a libertarian then do tend to lean libertarian well i think i think what's interesting is that you know i think what the brother is saying here about what we

need to do with the labor movement is it is interesting i mean i was in a room yesterday with two thousand construction union members of president obama and everybody shouting four more years and hooping and hollering up meanwhile the white house is sitting on an ocean right now that prevent them from breathing in cancer causing silica dust so it's just sort of like and i know they're upset about this and even the construction unions aren't going to the d.n.c. they're upset they're protesting but everybody at the end of the day gets up in the hoop and they holler and they feel like it's like the thing we need to do there's like this muscle memory of like oh yeah every four years shut up and do something but over the long period that hurts building movement so i think third parties perhaps but i think we've got to be honest and we have to be honest and we have to challenge people we have to actually hold people accountable as opposed to every four four years i got to wrap it up and i can suggest i just want to give you one more word here everyone's hooping and hollering for obama for four more years not everybody well not everybody but you know what do you have to do to break that the change that maybe you need to write like you're in greece. well i mean

unfortunately have a two party system and i think i speak for myself when i say that i think it would be an epic disaster of millionaire mitt romney were to become president set us back to the george w. bush agenda and have the same time how do we make the democrats do the things they say they're going to do they love the campaign and we fight for workers we fight for the middle class and then when it comes push to show of they're going to go with austerity and whatever paul ryan or john boehner is going to demand i look at this as if to say if we were to create a third party system you're going to attract voters from one party the other and that's going to shoestring one of the parties maybe one that's going to be more beneficial to the average working class person to me i look at politics through a lens of sticks and carrots and i like heavy portion of the stick so i know what i'm getting out of the republican party more class war what i feel my job is to do sometimes is to keep these guys honest and demand that they do what they say they're going to do and democrats like to look at it like well you know we all like to make demands i guess and i got to cut you off because we've got to get this break down and i do want to thank all of you for.