it's the battle of the economic plans president obama pander to the middle class while mitt romney were presents a different vision for the u.s. and while they disagree about what that means in the end they agree what they both agree on is the need to change that change is needed to get back on track well to tell you the state of the economic union ever just complaining and begging them to cupboard porn issues like to build citizen journalists how to nothing there really well if they're not going to do it we're going to do it well if you don't like what you see on t.v. change it that's the attitude of today's citizen journalists many risking arrest to bring you the stories but now police are cracking down will speak to independent journalists. about the trouble he's encountered while reporting stories that go

ignored. it's thursday june fourteenth seven pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wahl and you're watching r t well get ready for a second amika wrath a battle of epic proportions on stage right now mitt romney is preaching tax breaks for small businesses and a complete repeal of obama's health care plan on stage left president obama who's begging for more than one term to finish what you started let's take a look now at the showdown that played out today in ohio. i said that this is a make or break moment for america's middle class the policies the president put in place to make america create more jobs how does generate good middle class

matter of fact made it harder for america to create more jobs our economy will be truly healthy a bill. that much longer and the rule of middle class jobs and the middle class and go. i want to make it once again america once again the most attractive place in the world for job creators and it's not just because of the job creators it's because i look job so there you have it different to two different futures although they disagree on the means both agree that the state of the economic union is weak but let's break down just how bad things are right now just last week there was a spike in americans applying for unemployment aid as hiring remains sluggish according to the federal reserve americans have seen their wealth plummet forty percent between two thousand and seven and two thousand and ten looking bleak for college grads fifty percent of them can't get jobs more than seven out of ten teens

without a job this summer talk more about the state of the economy and where it's headed nomi prins joined us earlier she's the senior fellow at demos and author of the book black tuesday i first asked what she thought of the president's speech here so take. i i honestly think it's an example of talking rather than doing we have seen this from obama in the pre-election campaigning last time he's been in post election mode campaigning really since then and certainly has ramped up recently and i think that's really where he's continuing to put his efforts into words and sort of gestures without content or at least without really understanding what needs to be moved in order to address this economy one of the main things for example was yesterday's. love fest between the senate and j.p. morgan c.e.o. jamie diamond where there was really no indication that there was

a relationship between what happens with risk taken by the largest bank and the rest of the american population and i think obama lives in that same disconnect and i want to take a moment we actually have a clip from both obama and romney delivering their speeches today let's take a listen first to president obama. was warning that we should look back to. workers really go over the edge they only really. right where there is kind of touting some of his achievements let's take a listen to mitt romney had to say a lot of people have had some real tough times and the policies the president put in place did not make america create more jobs as a matter of fact he made it harder for america to create more jobs all right where there are various on in attack mode as expected but know me if we can compare and

contrast i mean who is the right track in india and is there really a difference in their messages. well first of all i'd say that it's a bit unfair well it's politics of course but to say that what obama has done has detracted from jobs i think you know in terms of creation of jobs the fiscal stimulus package that happened at the onset of the crisis was perhaps useful and maybe it did keep jobs from being lost and i know that's the white house's line and what would have been lost without that additional money we don't know but we do know that in general the job situation remains belleek the nature of the quality of jobs which neither obama nor romney are really discussing in any of their messages remains bleaker than than the number of unemployed people and that people who do have jobs are finding it difficult to make ends meet and difficult to keep up with the inflation of regular costs such as health care such as food such as education

and so you have to look at those broader issues and it doesn't seem like in this fight between i did this and i saved the auto industry which it was helpful to get money into the auto industry and it has turned around to some extent but that's one industry of one in one component of america and there are broader issues across the country now you know me there is a little bit of irony and the speeches that were delivered today. and it could be a bit of a problem for obama given the irony of this speech two years ago bill clinton and deliver this speech in two thousand and ten the speech was delivered in the same exact place that president obama gave his speech today at the community college bill clinton said quote the democrats are saying something like this we found a big hole and we did not do that we did not dig we didn't get a failed in twenty one months but at least we quit digging gave us two more years and if it doesn't work load us out well now me here we are two years later the

economy is getting any better is the time to vote him out. i i actually think he will be voted out but you know that remains to be seen what happens between now and the election i think a lot of that is because of the job situation of the general economy and i think that a lot of people in this country are really sick of hearing words and not seeing real fundamental change around them you know that was a promise it was hope it was change it was different it was new it was bright and it hasn't been that. not only has it not been that there's been this real backing off from from fighting the fights like for example against the banking industry to make it more equitable for more people to have more foreclosures restructured rather than you know see people in these year year and a half long fights with their banks and so forth there's a lot of things that could be done at the bottom level to really shore up. economics personal economics for individuals that haven't been done that a point kind of been ignored at this point and that has been a real failing. also wanted to bring this to light now me recent government

data shows that it's the middle class that is suffering the most with american wealth plummeting forty percent wanted to take a look at this chart that illustrates this you can see in the u.s. job creation from two thousand and seven to today obviously when the financial crisis hit in two thousand and eight job creation plummeted and record numbers and then in two thousand and ten started to make a bit of a comeback but then you see the charcoals on the come back is slowly heading down once again so no i mean like what has contributed to this trend and do you expect it to continue. one of the things that contributed to the uptick was the fact that for a moment the financing engine of the country the banking system had received an enormous amount of guarantees of cheap loans and so forth and that was booing to some extent some of the money they would be able to lend on toward the larger corporations that

they hired a little bit but on the middle sized corporations and certainly the smaller businesses that amount was stifled and that's where we saw the biggest job losses and we continue to see no job gains that hasn't changed what has changed in the last two years is that the crises the problems the fraud all of the way in which the system the financial banking system has operated has reemerged into the light j.p. morgan again chase's loss that came to light the other day was just one example of an inherent amount of risk that is out there when there's risk in the banking system they don't want to lend they certainly didn't want to lend to small businesses to begin with now they're reticent about the larger business is that's going to lead to more job cuts and more job increases no matter what the policy is in government unless there is some focus as to what's going on with this financing engine and this is all affecting the average citizen no we have this economic downturn shaped everything from owning

a home to building retirement how has this affected on a mass scale the livelihood of american citizens. well for one thing and we look at these stats that in just three years the median net value the net wealth of of a family in the united states is down by forty percent that's significant that means that people who had saved money into retirement whether it was in their home or whether it was in different types of investments are now facing either not being able to retire not being able to retire and have health care or have health problems they can't afford to fix and all those sorts of issues on the older person side on the younger person's side the youth coming into this this system and this job market there they don't have summer jobs the fact that they don't have summer jobs means they can't put themselves in line for future jobs that don't even exist anyway so you have this whole sequence from from the young to the old of people that because of this flailing depressed economy can't either continue on with their lives or start their economic lives and then you have everybody in between that's trying to straddle middle age as well as deal with aging parents as well as deal

with what happens when when their children don't go to college or can barely afford to go to college or they have to come up with some obscene amount of loans to get there and they come out and don't have jobs so on every level of the the economy on every level of age on every level of different types of backgrounds this economic depression has a tremendous visceral impact and certainly a lot of people are getting disillusioned gas with the way things are going in this country and only you mentioned earlier j.p. morgan chase to talk about what's happening there you know c.e.o. jamie dimon testified before the senate he talked about the two billion dollar loss and credit derivatives what did you make of his testimony. as i mentioned before it was kind of a love fest between the senators and him and it seemed to me like at the end of day there were no. admonishments for the risk that he took he hand waved the fact that

you know i've got it in their control now it was only two billion but guess what that position made billions before that and then it lost two billion so we're kind of ok and i've got it and it's fixed and it's under control and for the most part with the exception of one or two senators who dug in a little bit into that attitude that was ok and the other thing that went on in that hearing yesterday was senators posturing for whether or not they should regulate or not regulate the financial industry and the ones they were predominantly republicans they were all republicans actually who didn't want to have any additional regulation or actually asking jamie diamond to support their view so the thing totally disintegrated the hearing into jamie dimon says that it cost him a billion dollars to use the new regulations from dodd frank you know we're worried about two billion he lost in trading but hey you lost a billion and regulation so that must be equivalent and it just it just went into all sorts of rounds which had nothing to do with looking at the structural problems in the banking system the fact that j.p. morgan chase among other banks exists on zero interest rate policy from the fed the

fact that that zero interest rate policy does not get brought down into people trying to refinance their homes or go to colleges or build small businesses or maintain jobs that it kind of stays there with the banks are putting on derivatives positions and none of that was addressed yesterday and i think it's interesting that you call it a love fast in the end i mean what does this all have to say about the strides that the u.s. has made since the economic crisis began back in two thousand a year saying that regulation is almost non existent. well i'm in love with there was a regulation passed the dot frank bill but it hasn't changed anything you know you look at the biggest banks they have twenty percent more derivative derivatives exposure than they had pretty the two thousand and eight crisis they are taking large positions that are swinging back and forth and saying it's ok mm being allowed to say it's ok they're not restructuring loans that any kind of rate that really helps people and when the people do and when vigils do want their loans restructured they have to go into default first and be on

a very in stable situation before they can even get twenty people on the phone and then five want to answer them to restructure and you have a situation where jobs are not being created at a pace that will help the economy grow where businesses aren't able to hire new people or keep the people they have where people who are unemployed are unemployed longer and losing more benefits where it's more expensive to go to school where you can't write downs i mean on any number of things we're just in a worse position than we were going into the crisis the only institutions in a better position are the banks right now me pleasure to have you on the show as always that was no me per and senior fellow at demos and author of the book black tuesday. still had an r t cable news ratings are on the decline so where people heading for their daily dose of headlines the future of the industry might just rest with the citizen coming up we'll tell you about the trials and tribulations of so-called organic journalism. it's part of american power

continue. things that are. might actually be time revolution. and a true indulge in a particular drug or story books or the surprising him really you. were here with me right. book and they alone are still you know get the real headline with none of them are the problem with the mainstream media today is that they're completely disconnected from the viewers and 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. .

to the capital account list or. put a picture of me when i was like no years old on the job with true. confession get a high low gravity hip hop music and. i do this kind of yesterday. i'm very proud of the role that

it's played. all citizen journalists are often there to report on things the mass media is not but this function is frightened by harsh treatment at the hands of police force and they are often lumped together with activist protestors which means they are sometimes subject to. being tear gassed be any even arrested someone says they are specifically targeted by officers are things obvious martin takes a look at how this all can pose a threat to democracy. the fourth the state something that's crucial to keep power in check but as the consolidated corporate media machine continues to marginalize the voice of the people most in more radical leftists they hate capitalism want to burn it but this system down or distort the truth yes the bank bailouts made money

for american taxpayers right now to the tune of ten billion dollars anticipated that it will be twenty billion dollars but i think i have citizen journalists and independent press outlets have picked up the slack instead of just complaining and begging them to cover important issues like the build a bear group citizen journalist just had enough and they're like well if they're not going to do it we're going to do it luke is the one man band of independent media who has built a custom rig for live streaming and video recording was able to put together in order to provide the best coverage i could possibly do great. coverage often watched by thousands however police are making it increasingly difficult for journalists to report the ground truth especially since the start of occupy wall street independent journalists who are considered outside of the u.s. corporate media are arrested on new charges whatsoever this guy just assaulted me can you please do something officer can you stop that meant they were singled out

they say for providing raw and unfiltered video footage of police action i've watched the semi p.t. arrest people for streaming just specifically target them in the crowd will point them out sam. some have been intimidated they didn't give us an explanation to why they're stopping us and we had homeland security target me and many other we are changed chapters during our nato coverage we had guns pulled on us scott campbell's citizen journalist from occupy oakland was shot with a bean bag round simply for filming a police line. i. oh i don't want to send them to send a message and also. possibly because i was out and work for them and we are now. so why the fear of citizens keeping a check on authorities and citizen journalists and journalists have. countered the spin put out by city hall about. this stablish man is scrambling to stay

relevant in a new media world but they're fighting a losing battle according to polls the majority of americans don't trust the mainstream media to provide them with accurate and unbiased reporting many see these networks as driven by corporate interests and dominated by their financial backers if truth telling and power challenging are not the most profitable thing then that becomes the sole. jurisdiction of non corporate media people who aren't specifically focused you know not product not for profit media citizen reporting live streamers things like that but with no corporate sponsors these dissident journalists pose a threat to the system they can bring the power back to the visual people by telling the truth and that could be dangerous for establishment as technology develops it will be increasingly difficult for the mainstream media to maintain control over the flow of information to the american people really no longer history but when it was just. a scary thought for the powers that be abby martin

r.t. washington so what exactly as a citizen journalists will our i spoke to luke rick koski and independent journalists who broke down this unique form of journalism take a lesson many different names for independent journalists citizen journalist i like to call them organic journalists that are not corporately modified to the corporations liking it's pretty much as people taking responsibility and power and seeing the failures of the mainstream media not concentrating not harping on them but actually being the mainstream media and driving that. we're going out to events press conferences and other conferences that are happening all around the country and asking the questions that need to be asked and you say that a citizen journalist can cover stories that are overlooked by the mainstream media can you give some examples of where where you are fellow citizen journalists have served this function well there's many issues that are not talked about in the mainstream press because there's a conflict of interest with especially with so blunt pipa those key pieces of

legislation that the mainstream media never talks about never brings awareness to citizen journalists have walked up to their senators and congressmen and question them on these very important issues and one of them build a bird nine eleven there's so much information out there there's so much that we don't know and i think the more people that grasp the power and actually become citizen journalists the more of a educated and better society we will have wanted to bring this interesting little fact that six corporations control ninety percent of the media here in america is not a problem and what danger can that pose of course because there's different heads of these corporate media is that all meet together all talk together it's pretty much the authority to control all media based pretty much on six small organizations or could be six people. thinking about what they want us to know and what they want us to think it's it's definitely very scary to see that but because of that you see the rise of independent guys coming up from all over the place all

of the country people are stepping up and they're going out there and doing the job for them and you see the mainstream media you see the six corporations failing and are pretty much slowly becoming more relevant as the day goes on iraq and as we saw in abby's story there the fact that a lot of these citizen journalists have got caught up in the mix and arrested would you say that they were targeted. i mean i guess so i mean what i do is a little bit different because i asked. a lot of powerful people a lot of tough questions and i have dealt with homeland security the f.b.i. federal marshals and it does feel like they are targeting us i mean we have the ultimate weapon in our hands you have the truth teller of smartphone that broadcast live i mean if an officer is doing something wrong they're not going to want to be filmed live where they can even destroy the footage and that's a huge threat to anybody in power right now and they're really afraid of it i have

seen a lot of times where i've been punched by undercover cops or i had officer follow me everywhere you go i mean homeland security started interrogating my friends about me in chicago when i was covering nato so i definitely do feel targeted but when i do i know i'm doing a good job and i know that i should continue doing what i'm doing and i think we do have some funded from taken from our camera man let's take a lot of you kind of caught in the middle of all the action which is really. to get the shot. where you want to. i want to. keep you going to do something. i was just trying. to you see i wanted to get there. so well get what exactly was going on there well that's officer lombardo who we made a funny youtube video of on our you tube channel and he found me and my friend was my camera guy targeted and tackled him on the floor when he was covering the march when he was separated from everybody the audio goes on and he even video which you

could see in full in our you tube general said that he's going to make up twenty reasons to arrest them and if he wants to be a journalist he should go film birds in the park in the morning and not be here anymore so now i'm assuming i get in take that advice now we didn't take that advice we were out there made another you tube video and called the the national geographic officer lim bardot that i definitely recommend people see ok and have you ever been or asked that before i was arrested once trying to question mayor bloomberg elite. detained by n.y.p.d. intelligence walked into a public venue where they were doing a public event before i even got in there police military telegin stopped me didn't let me leave the building i kept asking them to leave they said no i had that on camera then they came back and what a bunch of police officers that said i was refusing to leave the building and got me for a criminal trespassing all right would you say that citizen journalist and a pen and journalist like yourself are often when you're covering it that when

you're out are probably cast are often lobbed away at the protesters and the activists i mean it's hard sometimes to make a distinction because everybody is always out filming rightfully so but reno when you have press going to recommend people have their names and their picture out there so people know who they're talking to and who they're being on camera for when you have those press credentials when you obviously have a big camera and a big rig you're obviously a journalist reporting on there i understand sometimes it gets confusing i'm not saying it's always one hundred percent intimidation it's always one hundred percent repression but we know it's documented it does happen a lot of times so for the most part our citizen journalists credentialed. i guess i don't know i mean credential is pretty much a piece of plastic paper different people or prove me i mean i was disapproved approved by some police departments approved by some converts is disapproved by some conferences when they did a research background check on me it all depends i mean i think right now it's very

confusing to say the least but i think anybody who's coming out there and who's just filming is a journalist and should be considered a journalist and i mean and that was going to be my next question i mean. being a citizen journalist essentials i mean anybody can be a journalist is that correct i mean you don't need to go to school you don't need to. do anything except do your homework do your research go out there and film and participate and get involved in what's happening in our world and anybody could do this in your hand but i'm. just calling for everybody to do to do it because the more of us who do it the more safer all of us are and that all does sound great but i mean and that case if you have anybody being able to call themselves a journalist how do you how do you hold these people accountable basically anybody can say anything about anyone call themselves a journalist and not be held accountable for it. i mean how do you control or are make sure that these people do in fact maintain journalistic

integrity because if there isn't that then what do you what do you guy on the internet you have the court of public opinion that will call you out in the comments on twitter and will let people know hey this guy's being a liar he's being he's manipulating facts he's not being an honest reporter what he is what it what he's doing is wrong and there's going to be a lot of people who are going to call him a not take people credible as you start doing this i've been doing this since two thousand some the more you keep doing this the more credibility you build and if there's ever something i'm wrong and i admit to it because we have to stay home we'll because we're not perfect we're human beings we all make mistakes but it's our ability to be humble that makes most trustworthy and you know we all make mistakes. and lose would you say that the role of citizen journalists is expanding it definitely is it's becoming somewhat of a trending topic where almost everybody who wants to get involved wants to participate and it should be fascinating to see what will happen in the future as

the profits of those six corporations the control ninety percent of the mainstream media are dropping and there's more and more people slowly coming to the organic information that's being provided to him and that's also vetted online. and i guess that we are seeing the growth of citizen journalists there would you say that they are now rivalling the mass mass media the more traditional media outlets there definitely is a rival i think there's still a lot that needs to be done as far as the citizens part. to actually be more of a reliable source to actually be more of a credible source there's still so much work that needs to be done but i slowly see it happening every day people are learning people or are believing in themselves and they're slowly going out there and participating in this and becoming better at it the more they do it so it should be very interesting to see what will happen in a couple years very interesting elise thanks so much for stopping by and i will get it i was a little kautsky he is an independent journalist.