missions feed now in the palm of your. mission. don't call. it massive unrest and dozens of arrests as police and protesters clashed in chicago will give you a wrap up of the nato summit that's coming to a close over the next two days will meet the first his allies and then with president karzai and our international partners to chart the next phase of the transition in afghanistan. and while protesters clashed outside inside the summit world leaders world were busy discussing a way out of afghanistan how much headway did they make and will the troops come home for good some answers ahead. plus you can run but you can't hide

as the golden state sinks deeper into the red california governor jerry brown says deep austerity cuts are needed across the board and it seems no social program is safe let's tell you what he's planning to cut and how the public is reacting. it's monday may twenty first five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r.t. . well chaos in chicago as thousands of protesters clashed with police at an anti nato demonstration and it turned violent take a look at this. as protesters threw bottles and other objects up police decked out in riot gear using batons against them dozens have reportedly been arrested meanwhile iraq and

afghanistan war veterans joined the protests hurling their medals toward the convention center where nato officials were meeting are to correspond on a stasi a turk and i was in the thick of all the action in chicago to bring us the latest. chicago under siege. the last couple of days have seen oceans of protesters thousands marching under a blistering sun to vent their anger at the military alliance who are opposed to know that. this rally fronted by iraq and afghan war vets feeling betrayed by the system rules were there a little. after a minute of silence for those who perished in westwood wars. well rick's list we're seeing the clashes began as protesters try to get through the barricades that the police have raided on their way to the convention center. it was chaos but tons

of people shoved and dragged police thrown onto their knees bleeding faces right ok one officer stabbed dozens of protesters arrested someday use these men made peace or this conduct that they engaged in today unbecoming of the dignity that is demanded of them by their station hundreds and hundreds of police not just in riot gear but military armor with guns and but tongues that they willingly deploy on people. a date really or a smaller but louder march also took to the streets it's an ad capital is large i'm sure everybody here hopes to start a revolution they're calling it the chicago spring like the arab spring. signs ripped off crowds clashed with police but times and police bikes used to glauca off the crowds with more blood in the chaos. he delivered

a million dollars spent on new gear for chicago police a war breaks out with outraged americans fighting for change at home while he was president is busy hosting the summit and the future of warfare abroad and stacy dittrich in r.t.e. chicago they're in. for an update of what's happening on the streets of chicago i was joined earlier by our to correspondent on a saucy charkha. well it's right now we're standing on the avenue where the much of thousands took place on sunday we saw thousands and thousands of people walking down in this downtown area in chicago we're also about two miles from the convention center where the delegates are still meeting as we know of course the protesters were kept quiet far away and as we saw obviously there was a reason for that from where the delegates are holding the nato summit what it did up happening was they got a couple of blocks away from the convention center and there were about three or four lines of police including police on horseback including police with riot gear

trying to block them off from getting closer to the convention center after a ceremony of the veterans throwing their medals into the sort of the direction of the convention center there was a moment of silence like you saw in that report and all of a sudden all of a sudden the clashes began the protesters and the police were slamming into each other but tons were flying around people were falling into the ground it definitely got quite intense what ended up happening was police started issuing warnings that they might have to use chemicals on the protesters there were rumors going through the crowd that people should put in plugs to avoid getting hurt by the sound cannons that would possibly be used by the police this did not happen there was no tear gas no i l. rads used but there was definitely quite a bit of violence like you saw in that report big clashes hundreds of protesters hundreds of police and da about forty five people were arrested and the latest that we know right now is the majority of those protesters have been released but about

ten of them have been charged with felonies and. find common chicago there was another action earlier today where protesters marched to the boeing headquarters and held some sort of action there but it was not definitely not nearly as. while and big as the protests that we saw over the weekend and so on as i say what's the mood like today and things kind of simmer down over there. it's definitely simmer down the nato leaders are still here they're still in chicago meeting there are as i mentioned there was action earlier today there are still groups of protesters kind of going around town but we really are getting a sense that because of all the insanity really that went over that took place over the weekend people have kind of calmed down the protesters cording to them did all they could to try to get their message across including with the peaceful march and these clashes where they tried to get through so now things are on the calmer side

this of course comes after weeks of actions taking place here with the culmination that took place yesterday and on saturday all right an answer and sanity is aware that you described the crackdown between police and protesters things turned really chaotic on a sufi a what exactly where they protesting and what were they trying to achieve. will is i mean all of the protesters gathered here there were smaller actions directed at certain issues we saw nurses march protesting against hospitals being shut down there was smaller action against corporations there were protesters outside the cities the. mayor's office and home there was all sorts of action taking place but generally everybody has gathered here for these protests and marches people are here to protest nato as an organization as a military block all of these protesters are saying while nato is spending billions and billions of dollars on war including in afghanistan which is now it's gone on

for over a decade these people are saying it's enough time to put an end to this warfare they're seeing along the lines of the occupy wall street movement corporations are getting bailed out wars are being literally washing billions of dollars down the drain yet all of these people are going on hard and that's one of the biggest concerns all these protesters that were out here over the weekend so things are wrapping up today as part of this as far as the summit goes what to expect today. well what you expect today are possibly further smaller actions we are not expecting any sort of violence to break out today we have to say of course one of the marches at least that we attended that you saw in that report that took place on saturday was not something that was known in advance something that was known about in advance and that's what some of the violence broke out so we're going to wait and see how events unravel if there are some sort of on sanctions on sort of documented protests taking place that are not expected there could be some sort of

action taking place like that we're not hearing anything along all along those lines as of yet around a saucy thanks for at thanks very much for keeping us updated over there in chicago that was our team correspondent on a something a tear in a and from students to veterans to journalists the antenatal protests has brought together thousands of people from all walks of life one of those is independent journalist justin slaughter and he joins us now live hi justin so i know you've been reporting on this protest over over there in chicago how have things been playing out on the streets of chicago over there. well on saturday. rather tense. as you and your viewers know the. the clash between protesters and police was was quite shocking. but now today. the scene seems to be very calm. there was that i just got back from

a. rally outside of. iraq obama's campaign headquarters which was very calm very peaceful so i'm not exactly sure what's going to happen next so. things and as we've seen the video that's been coming in very chaotic what do you make over there the very heavy police presence. it was it was it was shocking i have never seen anything like this before. i have i can confirm that there were at least three l reds which is a military sound device that's typically that's been used on somali pirates in the past there were at least three of those yesterday yesterday. and just an overwhelming militarized. you know police force here that is i think that the that they're really trying to use intimidation to get

protesters to back down i have heard the sin of violence kind of taking place on both sides the police cracking down using the time and i also saw reports of the protesters hurling jackson and bottles at the police i mean would you say that the police presence was justified in some of the cases. i actually i believe that. what happened yesterday there was there was a maybe a handful of individuals who clearly went there to provoke the police and in those some sort of a confrontation but i i i also believe that this is the sort of we symbolisation. gets people riled up on necessarily so all right i want to talk more about what exactly the protests are about that's happening right outside of the nato summit so it's a what are the policies the nato policies that they are protesting against. well

basically just the overwhelming amount of money that's being used to. fight wars. abroad while there are communities all across the country here are facing extreme also there are the measures school closings health care issues a whole host of other things. and ultimately what are the n.c. nato protesters hoping to achieve. i believe that they are really just trying to what the people at the representatives at the nato summit know that. the people here in this country and around the world will not stand for the continued military violence and austerity measures here at home and today than

some new developments president obama spoke at the nato summit and he affirmed the commitment to and the war in afghanistan and transition military operations over to the afghans it's all in an effort to bring a very unpopular war to win and is this in line with what the protesters want or is it not enough i i don't see my sense here is that people don't have faith in obama. when it comes to afghanistan and other. military actions across the middle east right now in yemen and what not. the the sense is that the private contractors will probably be put in place in lieu of american troops just like of what's happening in iraq right now so that's i think that's where that lack of faith comes from that you know even if obama says that. the u.s. is going to be pulling out about ghana stand. they i think they interpret that as

meaning that american troops will be leaving for private contractors will take over all right and i'm also want to talk a little bit about what i call the black bloc protest i hear police say they are inciting the violence have you heard anything about that. i actually have not i mean i've been hearing there is reports of undercover police within crowds. and things like that so i i don't i haven't heard much about black like here is i mean for a lot of protestors i'm suspecting that there are agent provocateurs within their ranks are interesting and thanks for keeping us updated over there in chicago that was independent journalist dustin slaughter. well we saw the clashes at the nato summit between protesters and police but this unease began even before the

summit did this meeting along with the g eight summit that was moved to camp david was sure to gain international attention some even compare the two meetings to the u.s. hosting the world cup and the super bowl in the same week four days before the summit even began three men were arrested for allegedly plotting to firebomb president obama's campaign headquarters chicago mayor rahm emanuel's home as well as police stations and squad cars across the city the three men you see here are twenty two year old brian church twenty seven year old jared chase and twenty four year old brant vinson betterly they were arrested last wednesday after police asked a judge for a search warrant police say they found a written plans for assembling pipe bombs in confiscated a mortar gun swords a crossbow throwing star ninja knives and blades with brass knuckles and the men have now been formally charged with conspiring to commit acts of terrorism at a high profile locations and it was hailed as

a success across the mainstream have lines police now admit that the group was infiltrated by undercover agents well before the men made it to chicago but new allegations accuse police of entrapping the men and encouraging them in a bomb making effort take a look at this is it's. well the attorneys say that the same three men were pulled over by police as they drove into chicago it shows police verbal e intimidating the men it's a little hard to listen to we don't have that yet or that clip yet but hopefully we will have that later on in the day police apparently were not afraid to tell them what they thought of protesters and what they want to do to them and just yesterday two more men here they are sebastian's now. go x. and mark knew william they were charged with explosive terror charges not related

to nato three and once again police are accused of and trapping these men as well well it remains to be seen whether these men are innocent or guilty but the question now is how far are law enforcement officials allowed to go to protect national interest and where is the line between stopping criminal acts and creating criminals many can argue that the men had it coming but others say it was the police who planted violent seeds in these men's heads and that without their involvement the plans would have never gotten this far this can be seen as another example to spark the question how many rights are americans willing to let go in order to protect themselves from terrorism fears and a post nine eleven us. well still ahead on r.t. america the golden state seems to have lost its luster these days sinking further and further into the red and now governor jerry brown is taking a page out of greece's playbook calling for deep austerity cuts we all saw how well

that worked for europe coming up next we'll find out of california well haven't you better luck stay tuned. a lot of american power continue. on our show. might actually be time revolution. and it's true that a killer drink a starbucks or is it in radio. he just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old so if you tell the truth. i have a confession i am a total get a friend that i love rap and hip hop music and for. that he

was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the world without you see it's a place. pepper spray that just burns your eyes right right i mean it's like a derivative of actual pepper it's a food product essentially. this is much stronger than anything it's used by a lot of sort of loses thousands of times i'm stronger than any one of the ever put you know. r t 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. straight. up into the ilona so you know there's a real headline with none of them are 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. . what drives the

world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions to break through it's already been made who can you trust no one who is you know view with the global machinery see where we had a state controlled capitalism at its core nationals when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more. well we've seen the massive protests that have swept greece over its economic policies as california next the golden state has been falling deeper into the rat in california governor jerry brown sees austerity as the solution part of this plan is deep cuts to social programs including welfare and health care for the poor and elderly as well as slashing work hours for government employees the cuts are estimated to total over eight billion dollars that's aimed at cutting down on the state's debt. which is now in the ballpark of forty billion dollars so is the greek

tragedy a preview of what's to come in california earlier i spoke to dr caroline held men a politics professor at college i asked her what parallel can be drawn between the austerity measures in greece and the budget crisis in california take a listen. well liz i think one parallel that can be drawn is that both have a revenue problem and california has had an issue with its revenue that is raising enough revenue to provide the services that californians need since we passed prop thirteen in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight and really tied the hands of the states so that we couldn't we could only get revenue from certain sources which makes california heavily dependent on income taxes so this is not the first time this problem has come up it comes up every time there's a crash in the stock market there's a decline for example in income exacerbated by this most recent housing bubble so when the housing bubble burst and we're so heavily reliant on income taxes in this state we saw our revenues go down dramatically and california has further tied its

hands by requiring a revenue increase through the state legislature with a supermajority rather than then a majority so we're in the situation every couple of years and governor brown is responding and perhaps the most draconian way that he can and that response in the kind of what's at the heart of the controversy and california where these cuts are being made they will mostly affect the poor so can you talk about who exactly will be most affected by the measures and if this is really the solution. absolutely so the people most affected are those who are receiving welfare benefits we will be slashing health care for the poorest for the elderly we will be slashing hospital funding and nursing home care in addition to that one thing that is not being slashed but is being increased as to wish and so in the last five years in the u.c. system we've actually seen two wish and nearly double and that includes

a six percent increase again this year so it's the poorest it's the elderly and it's young people those are the people who are bearing the brunt of this when really we should be getting a more equitable system of taxation and taxing the wealthy year at rates that are commensurate with other states so clearly california has serious economic problems the state has the lowest credit rating of any other state it's falling deeper into dad so is this just a reality that they need to face that deep cuts need to be made because they can no longer spend beyond its means well if i think deep cuts are inevitable when your hands are tied we need to untie our hands we need to be able to raise revenue in an equitable fashion in the state californians actually pay a lower tax base than most other states we have fewer bureaucrats per individual or citizen living in california meaning that we could do better we could pay more

and the inequality between what the wealthy pay and what the poorest pay in the state is one of the biggest gaps in the nation so what we need to do is untie or hands get a more equitable system of taxation we need to increase our revenue in a timely fashion and in a way that serves the needs of our citizens in the state of california and until we do that then yes trick pony and cuts will be inevitable so you're saying that ferrety as not necessarily the solution here that a more fair tax system is what needs to be in place as a proposed alternative a possible solution to this. absolutely and we've seen that austerity measures simply do not work they haven't worked to store italy they haven't worked in european countries during time of economic downturn what you really want to do is get money into the hands of those who will spend it immediately so austerity measures do it precisely the opposite they don't stimulate the economy in fact i would argue at the federal level that the the stimulus package should have been twice the size and then we would have seen real growth what's happening right now

is that we are starving the economy both at the federal level and certainly at the state level in california now california is that risk of getting its credit downgraded and the governor there is arguing that austerity is the only way that can prevent this from happening. unless he's right because our hands are tied with prop seventy eight in the super majority required to raise revenue although it's good to point out that he has gone to the citizens of the state and said look we need a three person increase on those making two hundred fifty thousand dollars or more per year and we need a one quarter of one percent increase in sales tax both of which are temporary the sales tax for four years the tax on the wealthier californians for seven years and if that doesn't go through we face an additional six billion dollars in cuts but as it is because we can't raise taxes immediately even though we need to and our hands are tied these cuts will be going through and really it's affecting the californians who need help the most another proposal as you mentioned earlier another proposal is this intuition for college students in the state students there

we've we've covered this extensively i've been up in arms over the rising cost of college so can we expect more widespread protests in california as a response to the economic policies. well i think that as average americans look to washington and they see that corporations got bailed out they see that the economy was tank by deregulation and they're angry about it as we've seen with occupy wall street and the protests going on in chicago and certainly the protests throughout the u.c. system i would anticipate that once jewish and truly is doubled in five years happening next year that we will see students taking to the streets taking to their quads and that's of course the most american thing you can do which is protest something that is so blatantly patently unfair and let's say that these cuts are made what the governor there is advocating what would that mean for the people of california. what would that mean for the economy of california. it

means that those who are already hurting will be hurting more it means that the poorest californians those who are unemployed who are receiving welfare assistance sick people disabled people elderly people what it really means liz is when we spend money now we save money later for example in health care for every one dollar spent in preventative care that's five dollars we save in an easy our visit it really means that it's going to increase our our deficit our our budget problem in the future so it's really just shifting the problem to a later date and in causing californians who are already in pain to be an even more pain and it really speaks to the notion that the federal government which actually has the ability to coin internationally traded currency needs to step in and help the states in a bailout since they're digging deregulation actually led to this economic downturn and the timing of this it is an election year what are the significance of this kind of a crisis during an election year. i think for president obama he

already has a lot of his base angry at him as we can see in chicago in the protests with nato and occupy wall street and if you look at polls americans are really his base liberal americans are very unhappy. bailing out wall street and not main street so i think that this will will add to that in california it's a done deal we tend to elect democratic presidents so i'm i'm sure he's not worried about the state per se but i do think that he should be worried about the increasingly vocal protests of the left who is very critical of the fact that he is pro corporate. caroline thank you very much for coming on the show that was dr caroline how human politics professor at the dental college. that's going to do it for now for more on the stories we covered you can head on to head over to her you tube channel that's youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website it's r t.