i tonight on r t one nation under god might be wanted to kick god out of the equation for the growing atheist movement here in the u.s. so is this growing demographic about to flex their political muscles we'll debate plus getting a degree in debt american students are walking out of college with a more than a higher education degree and then most are racking up major debt and the problem is about to get a lot worse we'll tell you how congress is making students learn about finances the hard way lights camera pentagon the do d. and white house released top secret info about the raid that killed osama bin laden to a hollywood director and is this an attempt to gain positive attention an election year we'll explore.

it's wednesday may twenty third eight pm in washington d.c. i'm abby martin and you're watching r.t. the first amendment clearly states that congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion the founders clearly understood the importance of your right to practice or not practice religion in this country however in a predominantly christian nation the significance of atheism is growing popularity has been underscored in today's social dialogue atheism is one of the fastest growing social movements in the country yes it is a movement and it's also gaining substantial political ground earlier this year d.c. as reason rally brought in twenty thousand people in the pouring rain to stand for atheistic ideals so as atheism a force to be reckoned with and what will this mean to the dynamics of our country in the future to answer that i was joined earlier by david silverman president of american atheists here's his take on the role of atheism in america today. well it's been largely ignored or marginalized because really. jand wants it that way

and religion does not want their parishioners or their flock talking to atheist because quite frankly we make a lot more sense than they do so they tell them they tell their parishioners that we're bad we're evil we're grumpy we have no morals and the atheists in this country are getting really tired of it and thanks to the internet thanks to the communication of the internet provides nobody in this country the atheists in this country no longer feel like they're alone we can connect with each other much more easily in fact effortlessly and as a result we can organize much more easily and that's where we got the reason rally and that is why atheism is the fastest growing religious segment in all of the fifty states which is something that's very encouraging to all of us david let's talk about the internet for a little bit i mean you talk about atheism growing so rapidly you guys are finding and reaching out to each other on the internet i mean religion is primarily culture

based and as the internet allows the homogenization of culture worldwide would you say that you know religions will be. evolving or that more aid you know more atheist will find out or for abandon their religion and discover atheism and what do you think about that. well religion is always been evolving christianity itself is just the latest incarnation of the mythologies that have been with america with the human race since we evolved. religion always evolves and it splinters and that's why there are more factions of christianity than there are sentences in the bible but yes as people get more and more educated as more information is is presented to the american public they will be able to understand just how wrong their religion is and just how normal

and reasonable it is to throw all that mythology aside and actually deal with what is now and what is real in the human in the human condition today they are going to say that atheism is a form of religion in the sense that you you do claim to know that there is no god i mean could you can you identify what is the difference between agnosticism and atheism really quickly and that's a really good question gnosticism and atheism are actually not on the same continuum continuum and you just misspoke we do not specifically say that there is definitely no god some atheists do but the definition of atheism is just the absence of a belief in god so you can be absent of a belief in god and be fully aware that we don't know everything in which case you'd be an agnostic atheist agnostic system is simply the realization that we don't know everything which kind of means that agnosticism has very little meaning

because nobody knows everything but what we do. you know is that we have a complete absence of evidence for the existence of anything supernatural and that is a an absolute statement that i just made in the history of mankind there has been no scientific evidence supporting the existence of the supernatural just like there's been no scientific evidence for this support of the existence of leprechauns or any other mis mythological creatures so david it isn't equates pretty much to critical thinking and is about your thing in a critical way and ism is the direct result of critical thinking that's what we say atheism is the direct result of critical thinking that nobody can really look at a mythology or religion and think critically about it as far as we're concerned and come up with yeah that makes sense to me and invisible magic man in the sky yeah.

that stands up to critical thinking no it doesn't if evidence comes forward ever and supports it i'll listen but until then i'm an atheist let's hear a little bit from what people thought of this train back up how this is a growing trend let's play to thoughtfully quick. or so i mean that's a part of everyone's life it's it's sort of hard to not have religion because that's you grow up with religion or most of the time and if you're raised with it that's how you base your ideas also i think i'll always be around i don't think that we can ever really. move away from people's per you know their personal opinion in and then i think that they use their personal opinion to stand behind their religion or the use their religion to stand behind their personal opinion i think church and state is really something meant for the institutional processes of government as opposed to the decision making process is inside the minds of the

policymakers who are human just like anyone else atheism is still small enough in number where there is not a significant degree of votes to be picked up by specifically reaching out to that group on the other token i think there are a lot of groups in this country that they are still not comfortable with atheist so i would say that the risk is probably more than the reward if he has a religious preference where morals are standards that i agree with coincide with mine that i know he's not going to push the genders that are different from what i what i go with the role of religion in politics in our country today is pretty big and i think people associate a good president or a kinder person with someone who is christian so i think at this point. romney and obama are probably going for the i'm the better candidate i'm a better person than he is so i think that's probably why they're not going to atheists group at this point. you know as these people say to religion is plays such a huge role in the political spectrum and you know it seems like there correct me

if i'm wrong but it seems like as every political cycle happens you have people who are even more extreme than michele bachmann's these people who are saying you're bringing up these wedge issues like birth control borsch and gay marriage it just seems like it continues to get more out there what do you think that this turns people off i mean what do you what do you see happening politically with this extreme this extreme rhetoric. well the religious right really has no leg to stand on when it comes to politics ok and what they do is they lean on religion because it gets them votes and it does work that's how george w. bush got elected not on issues but on religion and when you look at how this affects the public what it doesn't especially with this political cycle is that it really highlighted just how ridiculous religion is and how bad it would be if these people were put into a power position. contraception regulation this is something that's that's fifty

years old and backwards what really needs to realize and what americans need to realize is two things number one atheism is not out there to try and eliminate religion all we're looking for is equality all we're looking for is respect all we're looking for is a place at the table that we deserve number two most important is that the separation of church and state benefits every american citizen except the preachers and the politicians in their pockets and if you look at the people who are some who are against the separation of church and state who actually are for proposed merger. these are preachers who are going to financially benefit from that merger and the politicians and the people who follow those preachers david and what david just just threw out of this i just want to ask you you know as times get more tough you know there's a recession looming over us globally do you think that more people will turn to

religion to try to find answers. what i hope people will do is turn to the government and say hey it's time to start taxing religion because as times get tougher people need to realize that these huge mega churches take approximately seventy nine billion dollars out of the american public's pockets every year just so they can pray to a god that doesn't exist and i am sick of it and i hope that the people who are facing financial hard times realize that we can help this country dramatically if the church just pays their fair share it's an interesting point you bring up david thanks for joining us i was dating for hillary on that was david solomon president of american atheists it's the ball and chain that stays with you until the day you die it cannot be expunged or forgiven it's the student debt bubble a looming crisis hanging over the head of every american weeks ago mark the day that student debt hit the one trillion dollar mark and for the students who are the

lowest economic tear things just got substantially more tough starting july first federal pell grants are set to be cut for thousands of students here the students will be most affected sixty five thousand new college students without diplomas or g.d.s. sixty three thousand students who have been in school more than a maximum of six years and three hundred thousand students who will have their grants reduced or eliminated because of more stringent economic requirements for their income so what is going to happen when the student debt bubble bubble bursts and can this crisis be averted to look more into this i was joined earlier by sarah jaffe associate editor at alter net dot org we first discussed discuss the recent pell grants and see and take a look at what she thought. oh well it's class war i mean how else do you phrase it i mean i was out in a march last night with a bunch of student activists here and their new chant their new favorite chant is one two three four tuitions these are class war the pell grants go to the poorest students they go to the ones who don't qualify for merit aid in this case they're

cutting them as you said to students who have been in school for over six years which is usually working people who are going back to school or who can't afford to go to school full time so they're taking it away for once again the hardest working people who are trying desperately to live the quote unquote american dream that says if you go to college and get a degree you'll get a better job and you'll have a better future so why do you think these austerity measures are always targeted toward toward the lowest economic i mean down at the top the people who need it the most i mean i know you're saying it's class or it just seems like it's just over and over again these talks of eliminating the and it's always just focused right on the people who need it the most. those are the people who can afford lobbyists. i mean it's pretty simple right who you kick people when they're down they have a harder time fighting back what do you think about this interest rate debate the freezing of the interest rate do you think that this is do you think of this is

really. going to change things if it's frozen or not presently do but there's a bigger issue at hand and this is kind of a distraction from the bigger issue. well here's the thing if they do actually let tuition the interest rates double that will materially affect a lot of students that's going to be thousands and thousands of students who will be paying twice as much interest on their student loans it's absolutely an issue that we should be concerned about the problem is right now that both parties in congress agree we should extend the tuition freeze the tuition interest rates for a year that's one year that's still not going to help the economy is not magically going to be one hundred percent better next year and meanwhile they're just fighting over how to pay for it when by the way the government makes money on these loans ok even at the three the lowest interest rate even though around three percent they are lending and they're making more money back than they are spending on these loans so having these stupid arguments about how to pay for it it's

ridiculous. that you're wearing a red ribbon and i know that in solidarity with the canadian protests that are happening right now how does their struggle relate to the struggle about the student debt crisis could you talk a little bit about bout it. so the red square is actually it comes from the phrase i'm sorry my french is going to do it but it's a reference to being squarely in the red or. so it's the same struggle they're right the students in come back have been striking for yesterday was their hundredth day of striking over to mission which is essentially is going to be more debt and there are students in australia protesting tuitions hikes there are students around this country protests intuition hikes the students here at cuny in new york and protesting tuitions hikes and they have adopted the red square as part of their own movement it's a symbol of the debt that we i have student debt i have had the same student debt for the last ten years because i have essentially been able to only pay the

interest on it for ten years since i've been out of school. it is a global movement just like the austerity is the same it's not exactly the same but the policies are targeting the same people and they are heading in essentially the same ways around the world and the students and come back and the students here in new york have been in communication and people that i know here have been up to come back to work with the students up there to learn their student union model and other tactics so that they can figure out how to get how we get four hundred five hundred thousand people in the streets of new york in the streets of los angeles and st san francisco or just going to say you know it seems like in other countries there are massive protests of students fighting against this debt crisis in their countries and it just seems like why did you have to take the student out to hit one trillion and we're not really seeing that influx of you know thousands on the streets protesting this i mean to do but it's just kind of blew me now and that we're going to see if nothing's done about this. i think the thing with debt is

that it's delaying it's delaying your payments right when you are taking out a college student loan you don't think about having to pay it you just think i'm going to get through school i'm going to get a good job and i'll pay it off and that has sort of been true. although like i said i graduated ten years ago and i'm still carrying the same ball and chain. but now that the job market is terrible that something like half of all recent college grads are either unemployed or underemployed you know. we're seeing the fallacy of that story which is that you can go to school and you will get a good job and it doesn't matter how much debt you took. i mean for the first time being up on us here for the first time more and more of those unemployed or college graduates the not i mean so what is the solution here other than of course alleviating the expunging you know offering for you to be able to declare bankruptcy on all these things i mean should people start looking at alternatives other than going to college. i am

a big fan of education master's degree i learned it i did i went to school as an undergrad i was an english major which was certainly not going to get me a great job but i did it and i loved it and i don't want to be the person who is telling people not to go to school however i would say that if you are going to take out a massive amount of debt you should think about where you're going to school how much it's going to cost you why you need to take out that much debt and also we need to be organizing this needs to be a movement this is why i'm wearing this this is why a lot of people around the city and around the in this country are now wearing the square because we need to understand that this is a political problem it's not just a personal problem it can't be solved by you taking out a little bit less or a little bit more debt each year we need to freeze the tuition rates at the interest rates we need to lower interest rates we need to write down the principal on these loans we need to fund public universities so that kids can actually go to school for free or very little money i mean we really need to entirely rethink the

way we pay for higher education in this country it is a shame when people have to choose between going to college or you know thinking that it's not worth it anymore and it really is a sad state of affairs. it's going to be a really important crisis and struggle to follow thanks so much for your work sir john if you editor associate editor at alter net dot org. so ahead on r.t. the white house is heading to hollywood taking a secret mission of the seal team six to the silver screen and that's just one big p.r. move to boost president obama's support that story next. 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.

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 you you buy a lot of sort of these is thousands of times was stronger than any kind of the body and they were put you know. all right folks well we all knew that the obama administration is no stranger to go in hollywood and neither is the pentagon so it wasn't long before directors came knocking on the white house's door looking to capture the heroic efforts of the seal team six and the next great hollywood blockbuster however the details of what exactly happened that night were kept tightlipped for the sake of national security

until now it appears the white house granted hollywood filmmaker and oscar winner kathryn bigelow access to those involved in planning the raid and some of the methods they used to do it that's according to newly released a government documents so much for national security now we've seen a huge boost in supply and support for president obama after he announced the death of a song for the lot and so was this a big p.r. move by the obama administration to generate votes come november and when did hollywood get all the access to our national security secrets to answer that and more political white house reporter josh greenstein joined me earlier today here's his take. well it is reason really puzzling you may remember there was a big burst to publish that he a day or two after the seal team raid that killed osama bin laden and then all of a sudden at least publicly the administration put the brakes on and said look there's been too much talk about this it's getting out of hand no more information should be put out we're troubled by what's come out already well it turns out behind the scenes they continue to meet with these hollywood filmmakers and to give

them at least some sort of pretty interesting special access not just to the decision makers involved but even to some of the secret places that the cia used to get ready for this raid what do you think this says about the relationship between hollywood and government is this an unprecedented thing or have they done this before maybe in the flight ninety three movie or is this kind of unprecedented i don't think it's totally unprecedented i mean hollywood there are a whole units that the defense department that are set up to just interact with hollywood and the kinds of war related movies that are made what's unique here i think is to have the government coming out and saying we can't release this information for national security reasons and then have private meetings where they're at least cooperating with hollywood and the interesting thing is they told the hollywood people they needed to keep this on the q.t. because they feared the bathtub list that he that came in the last twenty four hours when all this became public. josh you know it is interesting that hollywood

is getting us exclusive access after they said they can't release any details in the public i mean first they said that they had live feeds going on all the the helmets of all the seal team six and they haven't really provided any evidence put forward to solidify their story do you think that this movie is just going to be kind of put segmenting this unfounded fantastical story that the government has put forward. well i don't really think it's a fantastical story i think this story has come out in dribs and drabs in different places in new yorker magazine articles in t.v. stories right after the raid happened you're right there was quite a bit of discrepancies in the early accounts of what happened in this raid but there's no question that the reason that the pentagon and the cia cooperated with these filmmakers was because they thought it was going to be a positive portrayal of what had gone on here they really trusted bigelow because of the hurt locker movie and they decided that these were people who were worth

collaborating with in order to make a very positive movie at least until this became controversial and now they seem to have backed away from the whole deal. you know you don't think it's fantastic i mean had the story changed so many times i lost track first using the wife as human shields i mean i don't even really know what the final story is i mean has the press been given is the press privy to information i don't maybe know about that solidifies what the government says to be true. i mean as you say it this story did change i think some of the initial reports a lot of them come out based on anonymous sources so you don't really know if those are people who actually know what happened and or not or if they know what happened in our telling something that's not true the story did change pretty dramatically the public one that the white house offered from day one to day two on issues like the human shield and so forth but i don't think there's anybody really disputing the basic idea that u.s.

commandos went in there and killed osama bin laden i think it's pretty evident that that happened and it seems like overall save for a helicopter that went down a pretty successful mission and that's basically why the administration cooperated of course one side bonus here was that this movie was supposed to come out just before president obama would be up for reelection and some of those involved have now gone on to work in the president's election campaign i still i still find it interesting i mean you might say it's undisputed but it is interesting that they did not provide any evidence d.n.a. evidence i mean why not but josh let's talk a little bit about the timing like you just said i mean this is coming out right in the midst of this reelection cycle you know they did postpone the date to december but i mean there's probably going to be trailers playing over and over again around the time of the election. there's no question this is a story that the white house wanted to tout in fact i think some of the confusion you saw in the early accounts wasn't actually because the white house deliberately

wanted to put out false information they were just so eager to get this story out because they thought it was such a beneficial story for president obama and helped change the narrative from sort of democrats being weak on national security and can't be trusted on issues like one ton of two triumphant president. you know killed bin laden something that his predecessor had not been able to do so there's no question this is a very politically story so whenever you hear about secret deals being made to give certain people information in a way that might benefit the public narrative you do have to wonder if there's some political motivation here do you think that it will be historically accurate or do you think kind of you know i mean just putting obama on this amazing. hero. right you can i can argue about historically accurate and i guess it depends on what your thoughts on as much of a hero he is of meeting carry out the raid himself you made a decision that others may or may not have made there's already been a debate with mitt romney about who would or wouldn't have made this quote gutsy

call you do see that in the papers that were released in the last few days that the pentagon and the cia were pushing the line that the president had made a gutsy decision but whether it's historically accurate there's no particular reason to think that it will be because the pentagon when this became controversial apparently last summer seems to have cut off the filmmakers access to information so they may now have to rely on sort of second hand and retired officials to try to figure out what happened it is also interesting that you know when hillary clinton was was addressing the specifics about the raid she said this isn't really unusual i mean we do this kind of we do we've probably done this kind of thing about a thousand times and you have to ask yourself when night raids just going in there just in this criminally you know taking people out i mean it was a very interesting statement so yeah you could you could argue that hero card or not but it is interesting that this is apparently happens all the time and you know

only when they have this kind of person to put up in the limelight which is the bin laden thing that's when we hear about and it's really pressed on us josh really quickly though i mean how long do you think that obama is really going to use this spend a lot in killing i mean he we just saw him do the victory lap at baghran. how long could this really be used for all the way up until israel action i mean do you think this is really going to get him re-elected. i don't think this alone would get him reelected although i think it does underscore sort of a theme of competency that the white house is hoping will spill over from the national security arena into the economic arena but if you think about what foreign policy issues are likely to be significant through the fall and into the november elections there's no reason to think so you will start we have to wrap up that was political white house reporter josh bernstein now to give a brief update on an issue that artie's been covering extensively a key senate panel voted yesterday to extend a two thousand and eight provision involving

a foreign intelligence surveillance law that's set to expire at the end of the year this new vote would extend that provision until mid two thousand and seventeen phases of course the foreign intelligence surveillance act and the obama administration is trying to renew the expanded authority of the act to monitor e-mails and phone calls of overseas targets and an effort to prevent international terrorist attacks on the u.s. soil this vote is the first step in getting that act renewed as quickly as the administration can the next step a vote in congress although it's not clear when a vote will take place meanwhile the a.c.l.u. has filed a lawsuit challenging the two thousand and eight law urging public hearings and more disclosure about the information the government is collecting before congress votes on reauthorization and two u.s. senators have already spoken out against the law senator ron wyden of oregon and mark udall of colorado so they x. they oppose the extension of the law on civil liberties grounds we'll continue to bring you the latest developments of this act as it makes its way through congress and that does it for now for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com

slash r.t. america or check out our web site r t dot com slash usa you can always follow me on twitter at abby martin for now have a great night and we'll see you tomorrow. we just put a picture of me when i was like nine years old i like to tell the truth. i confess and i am a total get of friends that i love rap and hip hop music and pretty. she was kind of a yesterday. i'm very proud of the role that out she has played.