this is why you should. only. be on rest in the middle east bros violent protests are spreading after an anti islam film sparks outrage our t.v. is on the ground in cairo with an update we'll also take a look at the implications of the protests on u.s. policy in the region. and today we learned the u.s. congress is basically calling it quits until after the elections in november this while the president and his challenger are crisscrossing several swing states looking for votes what does this say about our political system the outspoken jesse ventura ways and today on our t.v. .

it's friday september fourteenth four pm in washington d.c. i'm meghan lopez and you're watching r.t. . all right topping the news this hour it's a scene millions around the world have watched unfold a moment in history captured on cell phone cameras and through eyewitness accounts on twitter for many the arab spring was a total upset of the past decades policies in the middle east government officials looked at the protests with an arab skepticism many others with a glimmer of hope for what peaceful rallies can accomplish we watched as the protests flared up topple governments and then died down but now in light of an anti muslim film entitled the innocence of muslims dozens of protests have broken out across the region this time the unrest isn't focused on each individual country's government but against the u.s. here's a map highlighting some other regions we know of gaza city tripoli cairo bengazi

bangladesh baghdad jerusalem sanaa and tunis. poor tehran kabul kuwait city algiers saw a. whore and berlin and that's just to name a few for the very latest on the unrest in the middle east correspondent paula is in cairo hi there paula so you're on the ground right now can you describe the climate for me today. well it's about ten o'clock this evening local time and there is this heavy presence of mostly youngsters that have been on the streets since the early hours of this morning i was caught up in that demonstration on my way to this live position they are burning tires they've sealed off parts of the road and these are all the roads that surround the american embassy here in cairo and essentially they're holding a standoff with the security forces now throughout the day they've been holding large chunks of concrete stones and shards of glass at these security offices they

in turn have erected a security barrier that separates the protesters from the police officers and every so often you have the police firing rounds of tear gas and i spent most of the day feeling of the sting of that tear gas it's very very strong and that's why we have seen people here being rushed to hospital every couple of minutes even now you hearing ambulances rushing past we're also hearing reports of the first person who has been killed in this latest round of unraised here in egypt and paul i understand you couldn't leave your hotel for a period of time you kind of touched on that a little bit but can it can you go into detail of what was happening there and. well that's right i mean the scenes here to some extent are in minnesota of the arab spring and what it was like here when i was here last year the internet has gone down in several areas and as a result the communication is very very difficult in this is largely because of the overload of people in one specific area i was caught in the hotel where the hotel

staff had actually barricaded the doors in the windows and were frightened to let any people out so on the one hand you had this bizarre scenario of people who needed to catch planes who needed to get to the airport and it was simply barricaded inside the hotel i'm not quite sure if this is making it into the mainstream media but there has been a lot of loosing here in cairo all the shops in the businesses around these hotels and i'm talking now in the vicinity where i'm standing which is essentially not far from the american embassy here in cairo there has been a lot of looting there's a lot of lawlessness you have these youngsters just running amok speaking to some people here there is the feeling that this isn't necessarily a revolution so they're not the same kind of excitement that they was in some court has little more than a year ago a year and a half ago but what you're feeling today on the streets of cairo is anger is frustrated but there is certainly an element of criminality in all of this and paul i know that president mohamed morsi has come out and actually spoken out against these protests can you talk

a little bit about that i mean he said that something to the to the extent of that these people are guests that these protests are not necessary can it can a comment on that. well it's been interesting watching the muslim brotherhood deal with us of course the violence today is the first real space of violence that the new egyptian president mohamed morsi has had to deal with since he took the presidency he is currently in europe where he's trying to shore up investment pillages and so far he has managed to get some one billion play just put forward for egypt but there was a lot of criticism for him here back at home saying this is a very real crisis why isn't he here and why is to be dealing immediately with the situation on the ground on friday the muslim brotherhood did call for nationwide strikes to protest against this this and this american based anti muslim film but later in the day they withdrew that call and said they needed to be smaller more symbolic protests that message is not filtered down to the street and certainly be

muslim brotherhood is taking a back step when you when you see the anger in the frustration and you talk to the protesters here in cairo they don't really care what the muslim brotherhood is saying visa take to the streets they are angry it's doubtful of course how many of them have actually seen the video but certainly they've heard enough about it to make them go to the streets and paul i know that there was a lot of questions over the muslim brotherhood taking over and then i guess the what you're saying is that you know they are even trying to calm it down there. are anti america protests and they're not even able to qualify selves. well set in the muslim brotherhood and here we're talking also about the egyptian president mohamed morsi is walking a very fine line you have seen a lot of countries withdraw investments what he said on the fence waiting to see what develops here in the country and whether or not they'll continue to lend financial assistance another kind of support to egypt then at the same time you have the brotherhood trying to to keep these neighbors happy but certainly doesn't

want to lose grassroots support and at the moment that grassroots support is very very much anti the united states so they're having to treat this very very fine line looking at the the profile of protesters on the streets there isn't necessarily a strong muslim brotherhood presence certainly i did notice that when morsi was elected and in the last few months of and we still in egypt there has been a brotherhood presence in a brotherhood face to the protests i haven't noticed that specifically today looking around at the demonstrators i would say that mostly the youngsters you do get a sense of people taking to the streets and for some of them they are angry but certainly for some of them it's also just just something to do to pick up some stones to pick up some rocks and to hold them at police and we are seeing scenes that are reminiscent of the kind of violence that has plagued this country for the last year and a half or so and paula from where you are saying would you consider these protests to be simply and say on america or or just take this film is this speaking to

a larger narrative here i am at this moment at this moment i would say the protests are anti america they are very specifically geared towards this movie although as i say there is this element of criminality and just a lawless innocent monks then the question of course is what will happen to these protests moving forward and here what's particularly worrying is that we've seen the growth almost spiraling out of control that these protests have happened you mentioned earlier in your intro that we are seeing protests now in afghanistan we seeing them in lebanon where at least one person has been killed and several dozen were injured we're witnessing similar such protests even in northern sinai. where there was an attack on an multinational security force there with full multinational security force keepers being injured in the al qaeda flag being held up the latest that's coming out of libya and of course this is where the first person was killed related to the violence linked to this movie and that was the american ambassador on tuesday the latest there is that an investigation is

underway and that both the united states as well as the live in authority is all pointing fingers towards al qaida and we have seen all kinds of flags popping up at various other demonstrations throughout the region so the question is whether one of these demonstrations can be contained or whether or not they'll lead to something much more far reaching and i certainly can give you a sense from the media on the ground and that is that these demonstrations seem far from likely to quell or to stop anytime soon if anything they seem to be intensifying in the violence and paul i know that egypt has actually banned friends often in a power amount of time in order to try to prevent people from watching this film we're going to have to see how this plays out in the coming days r t correspondent paul sawyer please keep us updated. now as we watch the situation develop there are still many questions we simply don't have the answer to what was the point of making this film why did it instigate such unrest and who is behind it there's also

a bunch of questions about the bigger picture here what these protests be for the geo political picture and more specifically for the u.s. for a look at the bigger picture i'm joined by rima. our terabit correspondent hilary muscle let's start off by talking about just from the u.s. standpoint what does this mean for us well the fact that there is a film there that is. touches upon the life of the prophet mohammad that in itself raises a lot of questions for the arabs and before watching it of course you are you're going to see a lot of people criticizing the fact that you have people in the u.s. producing this film let alone that this film actually turned out to be very insulting to the muslims very insulting to the religion of islam and to the prophet so a lot of the people out there who simply do not know what's going on they know that the there is a film produced in the u.s.

so for them that's insulting and for them they see that the u.s. produced this film they do not know who particular who in particular produced this film they know that this film came out of the u.s. and therefore they have the u.s. consulates and embassies do their anger add on and for them this is the only way to express their anger at this film and we have seen this before this is not the first time that muslims are outraged at films produced or cartoons depicting their prophet or anything that has to do with their religion this is not the first time and or whoever made this film knew exactly what to expect especially that this film comes at this very very sensitive time. in the arab world and if we've seen protests before in the us i mean we are against the u.s. i should say we saw protests when pastor terry jones wanted to burn korans we stopped

protests when korans were actually burned in holy text or burn in afghanistan so we seen it several times why is this film in particular causing not just one country a protest but this slew of countries to protest well first of all because it talks about the prophet muhammad and for them muslims are taught to learn to love the prophet more than they love themselves so for them this film dokken about their prophet in a very insulting way is the reason why they want to go out and protest that of course you're going to see this happening in all over the arab countries all over the muslim countries more so when you know in countries other than other countries but you're going to see this happening in every single muslim and arab countries they're all going to brought this the documentary the film that is made about their prophet and regardless of what is in this film if you ask people on the street now have they seen this film most of them don't even know the name of the film that was

produced a lot of them only know that there is a film talking about their prophet and this is an insulting film and they have to promote this as this is. a lot of when when the cartoonist from denmark also drew these tunes of the prophet a lot of them also started protesting against the dentist consulates a lot of the times also against scandinavian consulates and embassies in the arab world so this is not for them whoever made this film should be punished them for them they only have them but isn't the consulate. again to take their anger out so it seems like to many of them the fact that it's not necessarily the substance is the fact that it was made in the first place so let's talk about the instability in the region it's obviously sparked up again. is this instability really that surprising i wouldn't save wouldn't say so i mean when was stability in the region i there was a facade of stability in the region and now we just see it unfolding because there

is a big event we've seen it unfolding so many other times before for other reasons for different reasons this time it's for the for the film and again i mean what's going on in the arab world a lot of it has to do with the film but also a lot of it has to do with you have young men in those arab countries hope seeing what protesting does and they're still energized they've done it before for the past two years now and for them this is again a good chance for them to go out protest on the street it just happens this time to be against a film that docs about their religion and do you think we're going to be expecting more of these anti american protests is this only going to grow i don't think it's going to day are die out anytime soon not from what we're seeing i mean we're over the past two days it's only grew in numbers and spread out in other countries now

we've seen the protests in more than a dozen arab countries so i don't think this is going to die out anytime soon unless governments in those countries take concrete measures and at the same time while maybe they're able to do that they cannot take those measures at this time because they will be seen and regarded as people who are submitting to the west submitting to countries that produce films that were insulting about the prophet so for them this is a very tricky situation while they probably want stability they probably want the demonstrations do to calm down at the same time they can only do that much to stop them and remind mean we're starting to see if we follow the protests first build up really in the country where we really stepped in back there. rules made a point of saying gadhafi needs to leave power and that's where the protests started first to really you can say so is this a case of us meddling really getting in the way of prevent of progress in the

region is this the democracy the us expected to see in libya i don't think so i don't think the libyans expected that themselves a lot of the people who are went out on the streets afterwards after the killing of them batter and the three others after the rocket attacks on the embassy said that this is not us this does not represent us but again what happens there the u.s. goal there of funding arming those groups this is just an expected result of that and we've seen voices now in the u.s. a lot of the people that i've talked to from the arabs and from think tanks say that maybe we should reconsider what we are saying and doing in syria because the now with what happened in libya this is like shooting ourselves in the foot and we shouldn't be doing that not at this point when the arab world is avoiding we also saw what happened in tunisia and now in sudan as well this is not an easy equation

for the u.s. but it's also not that easy question for the arab world either and i think we're going to see a lot more come out of it obviously the u.s. is sending two warships into libya they have sent fifty marines that are actually on the ground were who were not on the ground when the uprising began for the overthrow of gadhafi so i think that it's only going to build up and it is going to be up to us to just watch and saw what happened a lot of people actually now i'm following twitter facebook from different parts of the arab world and a lot of people are seeing that as a new occupation. a lot of people are saying maybe this is a conspiracy theory maybe this is not but a lot of them are saying listen we knew this is going to happen it was only a matter of time before the u.s. how. it's boots on the ground in libya and in other places and they were just looking for a chance and we just gave it to them right. because they are arabic correspondents

so sorry about your name thank you so much for joining us we really appreciate it thank you all right switching gears now he is possibly one of the most compelling figure figures of independent party politics his rhetoric for the political establishment has to fend has defined his career and helped fuel third parties across the u.s. has taken on whole colgan president obama and everyone in between he was a wrestler actor governor and military veteran and now the author of a new book that compares democrats and republicans to gangs jesse ventura certainly isn't the only one to hold back isn't one to hold back his opinions and he joins me now to express a few more of them the new book is called demo crips and republicans no more gangs in the government and jesse is in our new york studio to tell me why hi there jesse nice to see you so let's go let's get to your book in just a minute but first i want to get your opinion on the news coming out today from the middle east in the wake of this anti muslim film what's your take. well my take is

i very much i'm very much like congressman ron paul i think that we should pull out and remove all foreign aid we should get rid of foreign aid and don't have it anymore because all foreign aid is bribery and if they don't like us then why are we there you know that's the way i view it and it's that simple to me and foreign aid is no different than what they've set up here in the united states with our political system it's all based upon bribery ron paul put it great when he said here's the definition of foreign aid taking money from poor people in the united states and giving it to rich people in other countries that's what foreign aid is and so if they don't want to show over there i'm all for pulling us out bring us home and let them fend for their selves why should we be there what's our purpose in the middle east and as a little while there you are anything like the riots in the middle east we have

seen a movement that attempted to take back the streets of course talking about occupy wall street now you of course the court at the moment i think i even read a report that you were. you a little hardware store and you bought as many hand warmers as you can get your hands on to give them out to the protesters can you talk about the occupy movement as a little bit well the occupy movement i agreed with that because their message was simple they were asking wall street to quit buying our politicians quit bribing our politicians and i agree with that one hundred percent and every american in this country should have supported that movement even if they didn't agree with why they were doing it because all those people were doing were exercising what is supposedly their first amendment rights instead they were pepper sprayed and ran off with dogs well maybe someday you're going to want to protest something and you won't have your first amendment rights anymore either they'll pepper spray you and run you off with dogs we need to get back to the constitution and. the bill of

rights and uphold them i went to court against the t.s.a. reasonable search and seizure it got in front of a federal judge and she ruled she didn't have jurisdiction now how does a federal judge not have jurisdiction over a constitutional question that's why i don't fly anymore today because i refused to be treated like a criminal at the airport we need to remember in this country and we seem to forget the great words of benjamin franklin and that was for those of you that will give up your liberty for security you shall have and deserve neither yeah i remember that very well jesse now let's start talking about your book a little bit as of course called democrats and republicans go ahead and explain it a little bit and who are they were as and tell us what you were hoping to get out of it well they're just like street gangs they've even stolen their collars and you know all the gangs have collars well what's a blue state that's a democratic state blue happens due to the color of the street gang the crips the

blogs their colors naturally read what's a red state that's a republican state and they're there hierarchy and the whole thing is just like gang gangs first allegiance is to the gang second allegiance is how the gang makes money third allegiance might be us the people we may be third fourth or fifth i'm not really sure but they are set up and they operate just like gangs they acquire turf if any third entity ends into the turf the two gangs will team up to expel that third entity or absorbed that third entity so the mindset is identical to the street gangs the crips and the bloods and i apologize to the crips and bloods for having to do that too i'm. and jesse in your book you say that the third party movement tends to start whenever there is a crisis in the country do you believe that that was the case with the occupy movement. it could be but i do wrong i go longer support the third party movement i

now support the abolishment of all political parties and i have pretty good people that stand behind me in the book if you read my chapter two you'll find that george washington the father of our country thomas jefferson and john adams all agree with me that party should not take over governments and apparently we're not listening to him because we have the two party dictatorship here that completely is taking control of our government and in this upcoming election i got news for you it doesn't matter who gets elected you are still going to have the same government going forward as you have right now and fact i say i think in your book you wrote that if a third party was to come into power it would have to require a lot of money and that you would see not up to two headed monster but a three headed monster but back in two thousand and eight we saw the party movement really gave the third party movement party with an excuse me really gained steam they of course had powerful financial backers you had said in your book that you

think it was co-opted by billionaires now they're still going strong in the us and changing its political discourse because of that now that hasn't happened as much with whatever us movement is change the dialogue yes but change the policy maybe not as much so is money the only option. well money is what drives it all you know they they've created a system now the worst thing that ever happened was them the supreme court saying corporations have the same rights as individuals and money is free speech do you realize china could control an election here now all they have to do is form a corporation and they can funnel all this money into these super pacs and the real bad thing about it i'm not necessarily post all the money but there should be full disclosure where does the money come from and they don't even have to do that now so a foreign country could literally control the elections of the united states of america

by pumping money and that used to be illegal here but now thanks to our supreme court it isn't anymore and jesse actually in your book i know that you kind of made a funny joke about the fact that president obama and mitt romney and all the other candidates might as well be wearing nascar suits we actually made a graphic just for you to show you what our artistic interpretation of this is so it's mitt romney and barack obama in their little nascar suits with all their little sponsorship stickers so you. wrote in this book that you now no longer support third parties i know that you supported ross perot not once but twice in the presidential elections and now you're backing gary johnson but in your book you said you don't even support third parties anymore so are you sticking with gary johnson oh absolutely i'm sticking with gary johnson he was governor of new mexico when i was governor of minnesota i have to vote for someone

because i do vote in every election i just never vote for democrats and republicans and you know they always tell you if you vote for a third entity you're wasting your vote i'd like to reverse that fog and have people understand if you vote for a democrat or republican you've wasted your vote because you're going to get the same government no matter who wins. over there and i'm supporting governor johnson i urge people if they truly want to strike out against government if they're angry against government like the polls say that they are then do it at the ballot box because that's the only thing we have left support gary johnson the libertarian candidate for president but jesse i mean what you're saying is in your book you're saying i don't believe in third party politics i believe you call that no party system but now you're saying you support third party no i'm saying i have to vote for somebody in the parties are still there i'm calling for the abolishment of all parties well that's not going to happen overnight but there's one thing we could do

that would help immensely and even at the local level why do we allow party names on a on election ballot why not just the name of the candidate that's done to support the parties because you don't even have to know who the candidates are if you're conservative you walk in and look for the name republican if you're liberal you walk in and look for the name democrat take those names off the ballot republican democrat or any party then it becomes inherent for the voted to educate themselves what is joe johnson's stand for now parties could still endorse a candidate the same way the teacher's union endorses the firemen and nurses union money going to doors but just get those party or gang names off the ballot that would be a huge first step you're not going to accomplish that accomplish this overnight this could take decades but we need to start working towards that end in myopia and

jesse i know that you have also spoken out against the voter id laws and and a lot of other things we're going to have to get to your opinions later jesse ventura thank you so much for joining us that's going to do it for us for now have will be back in a half an hour with more news. wealthy british style sun. sometimes it's much more accurate than the.

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