the economy. the long term are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture one year ago occupy wall street hit the streets of new york city park in the beginning of one of the largest grassroots change movements in modern american history where has occupy come in the last year and is a really independent movement or part of something much larger also one of those fiery and impassioned speeches that the d.n.c. was given by elizabeth warren as she fought back against corporate personhood as

warren's rebuking of corporate cash and power helped her chances in massachusetts and how has it sparked discussions of corporate personhood all across america and conservatives in washington argue the low taxes on the one percent well actually benefit all of us in the long run and even put americans back to work how did this law get started and how much damage has it done in the last thirty years. you need to know this happy birthday occupy wall street one year ago today americans started occupying zuccotti park in lower manhattan and over the next several weeks hundreds of similar occupations popped up all around the nation the movement went mainstream and average middle class americans were drawn to it because it targeted the two fundamental crises facing not just working people in america but working people around the world first being the corporate coup to our

democracy the second being the subsequent corporate takeover of our economy and the emergence of a globalized corporate financial economy that is today collapsing under the weight of its own corruption and one year later these two crises are still threatening us all so the occupy movement is just as. important is one of the ghana on the first front there's a new report written by an international commission chaired by none other than kofi anon which sends a warning to the world's democracies specifically the united states about the corrupting influence of corporations and money in the democratic process as the report titled deepening democracy a strategy for improving the integrity of elections worldwide states quote across the world uncontrolled political finance threatens to hollow out democracy and rob it of its unique strengths and the report directly calls out our supreme court's citizens united decision which has quote shaken citizen confidence in america's

political institutions and elections and a quote as our nation attempts to bring american democracy to the middle east with mixed results this new report suggests we should be focusing on restoring our own democracy first right here at home which is exactly the message coming from occupy . and that brings us to the second message the calling out of wall street is the main culprit in the rise of global capitalism that a europe is on the verge of collapse thanks to global corporate capitalism the american manufacturing sector has been a vis aerated as transnational giants who hold no allegiance to our nation or any other nation search the globe for cheap labor to move their factories and jobs global climate change is speeding up as the demands of short term profit trump the demands of leaving behind a habitable planet for future generations occupy camped out next to wall street for a reason and it succeeded in putting a face or at least a name to the forces that are violently consolidating wealth and power at the

expense of the ninety nine percent rest of us thanks to occupies work over the last year we've seen some strides a national dialogue has shifted from debt reduction to wealth inequality people are openly talking about corporate personhood but just a few years. no nobody even knew what the heck i was student loan debt is an issue front and center in the national debate and just today president obama is taking a tougher stance toward china by any complaint with the f t o a leader alleging that china is unfairly harming u.s. industries of illegal subsidies this may well be a political move but it may also well be a were an inch in the right direction and if occupy can get on board and keep pushing the president and who knows what might happen next if the pressure is kept on him then maybe the more nefarious globalization policies pushed by the corporate elite like the t.t.p. the transpacific partnership can be defeated. it's worth

a shot at least after all what other options do we have left after brutal police or pressure the occupying camp months may have disappeared from the public eye but occupy hasn't really gone anywhere it's been working under the radar saving americans from foreclosure helping students with debt and helping workers organize our nation is in a crisis and in response the american people are pregnant with revolution occupy was simply the first tactic in the burgeoning grassroots revolution that's happening right now what comes next we don't know for sure but it's absolutely essential to pick up on what occupy started a year ago get organized get active to take on the corporate one percent that have taken over our government and economy and are destroying the american middle class . now for more on what today means and where the fight goes from here i'm joined in studio by jesse a journalist an occupy wall street participant and from new york robbie ahmad both

the activists and us participants welcome to you both thank you very much and great to have you with us ravi let me start with you you're in new york city today and i understand there were a number of arrests today is the anniversary of the event what's what what what's the upside of what happened in new york what's the downside. well i think the most wonderful thing about today and i have to say i was concerned about how today would go from a police suppression point of view the the the word that comes to mind about today is joyful this has been an absolutely beautiful day when i showed up at seven am for our actions i couldn't find my friends because there were so many people there we we have become a community that understands how to do civil disobedience how to trust one another how to listen to one another we can turn on a dime and respond really beautifully i saw a few really unpleasant situations for sure we had a new york civil liberties union legal observer was arrested as well several

journalists which was really troubling both of those things i believe the total for today is one hundred fifty arrests however the discipline of our community in not responding to police provocation was a sign of maturity and i think i found it really really inspiring to watch that that is that is genuinely a sign of maturity and in the movement particularly a movement that is using nonviolence as a tool just say you've traveled all around the country in promoting the occupy wall street movement what are you hearing from everywhere else what it what have you like i hear the same enthusiasm that we had over a year ago and i think that's part and parcel because we have the same exact problems if anything i'm thrilled that we're interjecting this conversation on income inequality and corporate control in america at the time where it matters the most right before the election because these problems need to be addressed i think that there are a lot of people who are hopeful that we can rebuild the middle class and rebuild

the american dream the way that our fathers and their fathers founded at the same time that we had a tidal wave of unionization in the thirty's we had the great society we had security medicare and now we're in a place politically where one party financed and representing the wealthiest one percent want to take all that away so i think the time is right for occupy because those are the major issues of our earth. and the other party has its problems with money and politics through their problems with him to have an awful lot of problems about and entitlements yeah but still there's little as there are some differences but the issue is coming up and i think that's such an important thing. rob where do you how is occupy wall street at wall street doing without a physical presence or has there has a physical presence emerge that just isn't known to the world is there a particular church that you media plays real hang out or whatever but there are two things that have happened and it's very interesting to watch what's happened in

america as sort of tailing what has happened in spain and in egypt and we're sort of you know we're learning from those countries and we seem to be falling into some of those patterns which is very interesting so after after the encampments were were forcibly disbanded across the country what we found at least in new york and i think this is pretty common we found in our neighborhoods creating community space is going we have a project called occupy a town square where we go into public parks all over the new york city different communities staten island in sunset park in a story out in the borrows to sort of take the spirit of what we do to take direct action trainings legal advice medical services whatever we can provide to these communities to help sort of this conversation keep going and expand in terms of physical location i think of us as kind of like a traveling carnival in some ways it's a really again joyous sort of experience we have

a bunch of i think we're up to now seven neighborhood general assemblies in new york city and a number of specific actions around specific in union square as well as downtown around trinity church we have place specific occupations you said keep this conversation going. can you define that conversation in a sentence or three or four. well i think it's a lot of what you spoke about in our in our in your introduction actually it's the problems that are the problems that we face in this country are so obvious at this point they affect ninety nine percent of us i mean they really really do whether it's the climate crisis and the quality of food in school kitchens or whether it's you know red control or red stabilisation or tendency reform whether it's you know it's everything from the most mundane stuff of life where are you going to send your kid to kindergarten to where you can get your medical benefits from people's concerns really have started to transcend class lines in

a way that is very interesting and so obviously people may depending on their class position may be affected by these problems in different ways may approach them in different ways but we can see we have common starting points which is really exciting that's brilliant just see to what extent would you say there is so many of the things robbie just went through working within the system versus working to change the system. your thoughts on that what kind of dialogue is going on in the occupy community on that essential debate i think in my experience most of the conversation is about changing the system and personality for with that i think that we need two sides we need to engage a system from within the political world as well as put pressure from the outside and you know when you talk about bringing democracy to the middle east well it doesn't do us any good if we allow wisconsin to lose there so when i see the voter suppression throughout this country and republican states when i see the real battle for the soul of democracy whether we should be

a country that coddles the ridge or a country where one hundred percent of us can prosper these issues take real group i only wish in my heart of hearts that those of us who are passionate about what occupy wall street stands for takes that passion that we use when we assemble in the general public and takes it to the voting booths as well and ravi your thoughts on that same question. well i think we're just you know and it's just me and i it's really funny jesse is somebody i know by by association i know people who worked with him he and i have never actually met and i think occupy is full of these interesting relationships and sort of connections one of the things that we believe very strongly is that without substantial change at the grassroots level political action is not meaningless but it's not going to as effective as it could be we have very low rates of voter participation in this country and as somebody who's struggled about who to vote for and whether to vote at all for me personally that comes from a sense of where are the values being expressed in public life the amounts of money

required to get into public political into political action are so immense that for many occupy activists i think on the ground for us the issue is less let's adopt a candidate and more let's create conversations and spaces where people can figure out what their values are and maybe they want to run for city council that's alderman that's for state senate for president robert. and jesse thank you both for being with them and that's what i think's we're over. here is mitt romney trying to figure out the name of that thing that the americans call. a donor. i'm sorry but this is the guy here's what you said. you know what that is my other terror cells. want to listen

to featuring the only liberal the current. sort of. you know the super committee of the structures from what you and i should care about because they're a profit driven industry that sells of sensationalistic garbage because of breaking news i'm having martin and we're going to break this but it's. the first. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom hardy welcome to the big picture.

in the buzz of the us the news is one political candidate that the occupy movement is pulling for most or if there is is elizabeth warren in massachusetts and there's some good news for this week in her bid to unseat republican incumbent senator scott brown two new polls released over the weekend show warren receiving

a post d.n.c. speech in the rays one poll shows warmed up by two points while another gives her a larger six point lead here was warren at the d.n.c. using that massive platform to speak out against corporate personhood. mitt romney's the guy who said corporations are people. no governor romney corporations are not people go over you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you for people the fact that warren was even able to state neck and

neck in a senatorial race with a guy who's soley doing the bidding a wall street proves that our message against corporate personhood and in defense of the middle class is being heard and the occupy movement has been right alongside are demonstrating against corporate personhood as well or more of those ever david cobb joins me hey david welcome back to the program thank you tom it's always a pleasure to be on with you thank you is elizabeth brown the perfect example of how important it is for democrats to run as actual progressives agents of change including opposing corporate personhood if they want to be republicans instead of as republican lite as the conventional wisdom has been for the last decade or so well you know what the way i would answer that question is this that the overwhelming majority of americans understand that the ruling elite have hijacked the leadership of both the democratic and the republican parties i believe this that any time any candidate of any party begins to speak straightforward about how

corporations and wall street have hijacked the political parties they will be rewarded and there's no doubt about it elizabeth warren is being properly rewarded for the position she's taking opposing corporate constitutional rights well in their brand and the banks and the banks to. are pouring tens of millions of dollars into this race to defeat or let's let's hope she ends up in the senate have you been bringing up the issue of corporate personhood to end with the occupy movement and if so what kind of response of god well tom i'm here in new york city now and you know literally thousands of others and i was part of the education i was part of the celebration and i was part of the action because this was that weekend long series i can tell you and i want to be clear i would never dare to speak for occupy but move to amend happily collaborates with occupy and we have been collaborating doing our small part of the celebration this weekend but remember this today september seventeenth is not just the one year anniversary of occupy it's also

constitution day this could almost not be better scripted by frank capra to recognize that i believe that the best instincts of the occupy movement are certainly part of it really does tales with move to men move to mend is a multiracial multiethnic coalition of groups and individuals from across the country dedicated to a concrete campaign we do have a specific demand a constitutional amendment to abolish all corporate constitutional rights and make it clear that money is not speech that demand is something in my experience most supporters are willing to get behind it may not be their only demand but it's part of what they are searching for and we are happy to be collaborating with them and i have been welcomed in probably fifty different occupy encampments when the encampment still existed giving teach ins and conversations just engaging these mostly young people but people intergenerational multiracial it's just been

a phenomenal thing to be working alongside these folks and i think that the relationship is only going to strengthen and get better david it is seems to me that in many ways is the your move to amend or. argument petition the constitutional amendment to say corporations are not people and money is property not speech. at at the core of many not certainly not all but many of the goals or this is the various stated goals that we've heard over the time and as you correctly point out there is no one's spokesperson there is no one declaration of the occupy movement that we can point to but so many of them seemed to they rest on that basis of getting power influence and money out of politics and you know states i think that's right tom and for me the move to and then part of what's so exciting about it is that i have successfully given presentations at occupy wall street encampments at churches at community centers

and at tea party meetings and by making it clear that i support a democratic republic the idea that we that people rule we are sovereign and we have the ability to create the society that we want to live in and the acknowledgement that the one thing government can never do at the local state or federal level is to violate the inherent and a little constitutional rights of a human being and that's the crux only human beings have inherent and a double constitutional rights and that message at its core i believe can genuinely and sincerely unite liberals conservatives radicals moderates republicans democrats greens libertarians anarchists you name it we can i think agree in this country that the best principles and values of the united states of america are that we're supposed to be a democratic republic we may have disagreements on issues and to be sure i do have

strong position on issues as you know tom but when it gets down to the principles of how our governing institutions are supposed to operate i must stand strong and proud only human beings have inherent and a little constitutional rights money is property not speech it can be regulated in the political process and that message is you nine hundred people across the country we got a day or a million people in an hour to. tony with you we have we have we are the. flat out of time i'm totally with you and i absolutely agree and brilliantly thank you so much for joining us thank you david cobb national spokesman for the move to amend former green party nominee for president states. the message of economic equality that we hear coming from the occupy movement hinges a lot on tax policy one of the main gripes that i could buy is laid out over the last year is that the top one percent no longer pay their fair share in taxes conservatives don't disagree but they argue the low taxes on the one percent will

actually benefit all of us in the long run they say it's all about helping the so-called job creators making sure they keep more of their money to. create jobs it's the basis of reaganomics or trickle down economics but as we know today it doesn't work trickle down economics works only to create a nation of p.r. it's since this trickle down economic philosophy was adopted in the reagan eighty's job creation has slowed relative to the four decades before it and since bush put it on steroids with his tax cuts for the rich economic activity has been totally stagnant and only the very very rich the top one percent have seen any economic green gains they've actually seen massive economic gains over three hundred percent all the rest of us have seen real losses and now there's this new report by the congressional research service nonpartisan that delivers the death blow to trickle

down reaganomics the report examines tax policy since one thousand nine hundred five to determine whether or not low taxes on the rich actually benefit the economy reports conclusion they don't. as the report says the results of the annal analysis suggest that chant changes over the past sixty five years in the top marginal tax rate and the top tax capital gains rate do not appear correlated with economic growth however the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. in other words low taxes on the rich only help the rich get richer. so is this the intellectual death knell of thirty two years or reaganomics joining me now is david seeley conservative commentator and pro-business advocate david welcome back it's thanks for having me tom it's always a pleasure so i would like to wish all of the infidels in your audience happy

jewish new year. a infidels if. you mean do you mean jews or infidels. knows i meant everyone else who is not in the tribe i see ok. why do you hate arithmetic. oh you know i don't hate arithmetic what i don't like and i suspect even the most credulous of your viewing audience doesn't like is when they monkey with the numbers cook the books and then claim that this canard is somehow nonpartisan it most certainly is partisan and i don't think it takes into. account any of the real realities you know one thing i will. add mire about this administration is that they have the brass of a burglar you know they think we'll just believe anything. higher taxes will

somehow stimulate the economy like they did during clinton's time or during you know during hours time or during kennedy's time or during it's just like going on over dinner and. what we need is to lower taxes and ease these onerous regulations well barack obama has lowered taxes on working people over three the average working person in america person making under one hundred thousand dollars a year right now is making is he has has over three thousand dollars a year tax cut as a consequence of barack obama's policies over the last you know as a consequence of what the obama administration has done more people than ever are not paying taxes remember a person is not a title that has to do with bush's recession may pay again well i don't want to necessarily blame bush what i would like to do is why not live in the moment and address the fact that the david twelve years ago bush came in with his tax cuts we had the worst eight years of job creation since the great depression

a financial collapse almost as bad as the great depression and record deficits how can you defend bush anomic reaganomics wait a minute are you saying that. that was worse than what's happening right now i mean you've got a lot of people in your viewing we had thirty straight down so i arrive in a sector job creation thirty straight months and when bush left so he really was in the seven hundred thousand jobs a month yeah it's a hell of a lot better you know this reminds me of animal farm when that little pig would come out read those amazing statistics or stalin's five year plan the fact of the matter is there's an awful lot of people out of work and they need an opportunity and we can't keep penalizing corporations if we would reduce the tax ease the regulations these corporations would have more money that hire more work out so well during wars opportunities and i'll tell you all of those newly hired americans would pump money into their local economies not to mention the increase in the state in the federal tax coffers and we need that money to yeah really worked out

well during the bush administration that's david ceiling thank you for day being with us david thank you tom and alfie they're saying we'll be right back.

you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harvey welcome to the big picture.