mobile device for johnson any time. raising money to help those in need but this is not a normal telephone supporting a normal cause we'll take you to the occupy jubilee telephone that's collecting cash to buy a debt and then forgive it. and the u.s. likes to talk about energy independence but what would happen if the u.s. actually was able to break their dependency from oil in the middle east what kind of relationship with the u.s. have in the region will question more. and t.s.a. madness they've bought those very expensive very invasive body scanners and now some of them are going into storage so what can travelers look forward to the next time they head to the airport we'll tell you coming up.

it's friday november sixteenth eight pm in washington d.c. i'm vegan lopez and you're watching our t.v. all right all week here at r t we've been telling you about the rolling jubilee real world debt solutions with the occupy movements unique brand last night the rolling jubilee hosted a telethon a variety show in order to raise money they plan on taking that money and buying up consumer debt for pennies on the dollar and the racing that debt forever or as the organizers describe it a bailout of the ninety nine percent of the ninety nine percent are to correspondent on a stasia churkin it was at last night's telethon and brings us this report. oh and . the ruling fund raising project to a race of huge burden on american society debt thanks to the evil genius of. our

every dollar you give us we used to buy twenty dollars of somebody's. supporters line up to contribute at the kickoff event nov. first. we all know someone who has had to mortgage their home for medical expenses or you know students who put. an end food on credit cards in order to get by through the semester dozens of trillions of dollars debt is crippling seventy seven point five of american households that collectors hound one in seven americans rolling jubilee organizers say this isn't an example of people living out of their means nearly two thirds of all bankruptcies have medical bills as a contributing factor over three hundred billion dollars credit card debt in the united states was used to pay for basic necessities that's just wrong strike debt a child of occupy wall street sets out on a mission to help billions of dollars worth of debt eradicated in the bank bailout

it's time for a bailout of the ninety nine percent by the ninety nine percent their tactic buying distressed debt for pennies on the dollar and then simply abolishing it people will get a phone call saying you know instead of getting a phone call from a collection agency they'll get one phone call saying hey occupy wall street bought your debt it's been abolished and if you feel like helping you know give us five bucks to help somebody else the group surpassed its initial goal raising fifty thousand dollars to abolish a million in debt through online donations five dollars and the telephone in a blink of an eye and twenty five dollars a pop tickets were completely sold out several days in advance and only one is enough to abolish five hundred dollars worth of debt the overall amount in donations so far hundreds of thousands of dollars raised to wipe out several million and die. and counting these guys have done a really good job at saying this is a real issue we're going to figure out a way to make it happen we need your help we need all of us to do this for all of us still some economists say it's

a drop in the bucket comparing effectiveness to giving teeth to a person living on the street with a goal to end homelessness it doesn't mean it's evil right to give a homeless guy a cup of tea it's not like some kind of crime against humanity but if you think your idea of homelessness then you know back to school what the rolling jubilee organizers say strike debt is here to stay for the long haul while its first purchase will be medical debt the group plans to buy up other kinds of debt in time they began to new york but now we have chapters like all over the country in chicago portland san francisco last year they did us this year we're going to build a movement to help wall street their broader goal of restructured economic system that doesn't force people to go into debt to pay for necessities like housing medical care and education growing jubilee is just one tactic in a much bigger arsenal resistance. techniques and conversations you've been having if eleven thousand of you would just donate one dollar having raised so much more

money than expected the question now is what kind of tangible impact the occupy movements and revolution can have on the country now and more importantly moving forward is the party. so is the rolling jubilee a tangible solution to solve consumer financial woes to talk about what happened at last night's events and more i was joined by aaron smith an organizer with strike debt take a look. last night was actually the end of our sixth day of donations we opened donations with sort of a test launch last friday morning early in the morning and due to an errant blog post by one of our mcs david reese we end up waking up to thousands and thousands of dollars in donations far more than we had expected and blew through our initial goal of fifty thousand dollars within thirty six hours so by the end of the last night actually early this morning when i checked we were at three hundred thousand dollars which is enough to abolish six million dollars of people's medical debt and

that's a huge number it's much more than i know than you guys were expecting can i ask you why you're deciding to focus on medical debt first versus some of the other debt the other number of reasons one it's simply easier for people to swallow we don't have to get into issues of deciding whether or not someone was prophet with their credit card spending or not we think that's an important conversation to have if you go to our website rulings you believe or again you go to the resources section there are a number of reports demonstrating that consumer debt even caused by credit card even did on credit cards is not usually caused by someone just running up the bills that's that's an old wives tale it's a story that that's passed around often and most of the people you find doing that are seventeen and running away with their parents' credit card and aaron i also know that you guys have been planning this for a little bit can you go and talk about the planning process how long this has been in the works and what you've got going for the future so this idea has been percolating in activists circles for a few years and earlier this year a man named thomas gokey just decided to go and do it for himself and so he ended

up buying fourteen thousand dollars of medical debt and erasing it and once he realized it were t. got in touch with us and we started thinking about how to scale it up simultaneously there's been a number of conversations that are coming out of people who met each other through occupy one of which was from the occupy student debt campaign last fall which circulated a petition to try and get a million people to pledge to default on their student loan simultaneously to to try. force a change in the way student loans and tuition is charged what they found is that about ten thousand people signed the petition which is far short of their goal but the reality is there are already five million people in to fall in this country and on the student loans alone and so we started referring to those people sort of the invisible army of defaulters in our conversations centered around ways that we could get them to unite and come out of the shadows and and create sort of a common interest class around debt and so strike that formed out of that desire we have a number of tactics the debt resisters operations manual is one of resisters organizing

kit which is available at strike or it is another it teaches you how to start your own strike to chapters and we're having a national summit january twenty first in new york city it's actually a global summit and there is money to copyright there i know that that you had you just brought up this occupy manual so for those of the hordes of americans that aren't lucky enough to have their debt are raised by your organization you put out this book if we could put it up it's called the debt resisters operation manual and it gives real world solutions to financial problems like how to haggle with creditors etc so let's the let's talk about this for a minute let's talk about the you know the difference between this health self-help book and other financial self-help books. yeah so you know i think you'll see a lot of financial self-help books out there just sort of trying to get you to be a more efficient inhabited of the debt system well this is much more about removing debt from your life entirely and it's a very serious piece of work. if you read it you can you can testify for me these

are very practical real world solutions written by people who've done the research and i know that one of the criticisms of the movement the occupy movement has been that it was all talk and no action that's kind of what we saw at the beginning was lots of protesting but i really do feel and maybe you can speak to this a little bit like we're starting to see this a little bit of this metamorphosis occupy wall street did of course and get involved in the sandy relief efforts and now this so can you talk about the shift to a more global action and what we can expect well from my perspective it was never really a shift occupy sandy which you referred to and strike are really exemplifying principles that have been in place since day one of occupy you know we focus on mutual we focus on the ground work to try and help people help themselves essentially so these are not charity projects and is not a charity project strict it is not a charity project we're trying to build common bonds with people to help us all resist a system that is that is prohibited all of us from living was that we want to live

and i also do know that obviously. you guys have put out a bunch of numbers concerning the debt that americans face every day we're coming into the holiday season and some of the numbers that you put out if we can go ahead and bring up that chart you talked about student debt and the fact that over a trillion dollars is it just the student debt and then we also have that one in seven americans is being pursued right now by a debt collector so we are seeing all of these numbers we're seeing all the these statistics coming out we're also in the holiday season but obviously you guys are going to be able to absolve all of america's debt. was this more of a symbolic kind of stance in your opinion it's. it's a political statement but it's a political state that happens to help people in the process and i don't think anyone should try to minimize that we are our goal is to foster conversations and you can see those conversations already happening about the double standard in the debt system about how the one percent of corporations are allowed to treat in this way but how the ninety nine percent are not allowed to treat it in this way and now

by banding together we're allowed to and we can shine a light on the predatory practices of the debt collection industry at the same time and i know that the ratio for forgiveness according to your web site is about one dollar absolves about twenty dollars worth of debt that's a substantial amount so would you say that people are more likely to give money to your organization knowing that it's not just a donation that is actually. a bigger kind of contribution that they're giving the people who said that's a very classic american response to you know what a deal you know you get for one dollar you get twenty dollars worth of debt or a sure absolutely and also another point with the rollings usually is that i know that you had a lot of different kind of celebrities kind of coming out you had. why and winsted from the daily show talk about their kind of contribution to this whole. event. they were fantastic david reese and lizz winstead did it absolutely incredible job pacing the night we had

a number of extraordinarily talented artists who provided the services for free and did this because they knew it was a cause that was worth fighting for and extremely happy to have them and they made an outstanding show you know i went to the show regardless because i was hoping to organize it but i was a rap fan the entire time anyway so you can get the video online rowlings you believe dot org and we know that it was live stream where we know also that you made a quite a bit of money we'll see how far that money go considering that most of americans death financial woes come from medical debt aaron smith organizer with debt thank you so much for joining us thanks again all right switching gears now one day after b.p. was slapped with record breaking fines for the two thousand and ten deepwater horizon disaster another oil rig burst into flames off the coast of louisiana today although no oil is said to be leaking now despite this news a new report from the international energy agency says that u.s. oil independence might not be such a pipe dream after all the i e a's world energy outlook says the future could come

as soon as twenty thirty five and that the u.s. could be a leading oil producer in the world by two thousand and twenty now that's all thanks to a new technology the same technology that led the way in natural gas production aka hydraulic fracturing in two thousand and five the u.s. imported about ten point five million barrels of oil per day that number shrunk to nine point five million barrels per day in two thousand and eleven and continues to drop to this day so much so that the u.s. could import as little as three point four million barrels per day by twenty thirty five mostly coming from canada so yes the u.s. will be less dependent on saudi arabian oil but that doesn't necessarily mean that american interests in the middle east will simply diminish to talk more about the u.s. energy future and what it means for american intentions in the middle east i was joined earlier by r.t.

arabic correspondent. she began by saying that there are a lot of questions surrounding how this could shift foreign policy in the middle east. i don't think anyone has the answers a lot of people are basically speculating as to how the u.s. policies will change in the middle east toward the middle east after they become energy independent that is if they do become energy independent and a lot of people see that the us will simply just leave the middle east and just leave it to other powers do other powers who are interested in the oil there for the years to come and other people say basically no this is simply not going to happen because of other interests in the region that the u.s. has the trade israel and other interests that simply is you know the united states cannot simply just leave the region and you know just give up on this now i for a long time now since we're speaking about. israel's involvement here for a long time now people have said that the u.s.

goal is in the middle east for to reason that oil and israel so will this shifting dynamic possibly change the way that the u.s. relates to israel and to other countries in the middle east will we see a lessening lower presence of u.s. military forces in the least a lot of people would hope so that's i would say a wishful thinking on the part of many arabs out there who are thinking and well if it's not for that well it's for the israel but if the oil is not there are you going to risk all of your interests just because of israel and i mean we don't know what the u.s. is going to do but given the circumstances given the situation as it is right now we know that the congress fully supports israel will not simply allow the u.s. any administration in the u.s. to simply say all right we're leaving the middle east you know israel can live in its own no aid no whatever and we know that at least this is not going to happen for some years to come and we do know that the u.s.

is also for a long time now supported saudi arabia saudi arabia of course is you know their support of the military and it's a fundamentalist a hobby government that allows. doesn't allow women to vote so could this shift the posturing when it comes to regimes like this like what we saw in egypt before before we saw that revolution happen will that shift the way the u.s. treats regimes in the middle east well i would tell you that a lot of people think one thing in the middle east when it comes to this the u.s. does not have permanent allies and they just have too many examples do to tell you we don't know if this is going to be the case in saudi arabia that really depends on how the u.s. is going to maybe shift its policies toward the middle east are not we don't know if they're going to do so because of israel because of other interests and because of maybe the trade pathways in the middle east it's i would say it's more on the part of the saudi arabia and other countries in the gulf to think

their own interests right now and to think what should they do if they become if the u.s. become energy independent and they simply become not as interesting to the u.s. and not as viable to its. to the u.s. basically and while we're on the topic a saudi arabia how do you think that this will change its position in the middle east and how it taught relates other nations well again a lot of people would tell you many different stories as to how the saudi arabia is going to react to this how the other gulf countries are going to think about this but one more thing one thing that a lot of people are talking about is how the these countries should maybe unite together and find other resources they depend on other than the oil we know that they're going to distill export their oil to other countries many people say that asia is going to be the next power but will the u.s. allow asia to be the power in the middle east and maybe control the state of the strait of her moans and control the arab countries and when we're talking their

countries when we're talking the gulf countries we're not just talking those. countries we're talking the middle east entirely so is the. i think it's going to let china india those rising powers other rising powers maybe to control that region simply because they're importing most of the oil from these countries and that's what some people have actually argued is that you know the u.s. wants a carter days has been defending the seaports and the seaways should be you should the u.s. starts handing over some of that power and backing away as aircraft carrier carriers and handing that power over to china what we've also kind of started to see is well first of all let me mention this the i.a.e.a. report says that by two thousand and twenty that they also are projecting that china and asia will actually take up about ninety percent of the middle east imports but should we start letting the chinese take over the seaports as well in a pull back our security and will that happen because like i said we've kind of started to see this reply shrink of u.s.

military into into the asian region true but at the same time they don't seem to us doesn't seem like it's just going to leave the middle east and we see a lot of bases still being established in the region we see the u.s. not wanting to leave iraq even after the. agreement that was signed between the two countries we see the united states and other countries as well and again how are they going to leave the middle east and just simply leave it to other powers that control and his will is simply going to be alone in that region are they going to let that happen and i will just given the circumstances as we see it right now that doesn't seem to be the scenario the most likely scenario. all right that was r t arabic correspondent rima dia well all throughout this campaign season americans have watched as republicans and democrats squared off over the important issues of the day one issue that comes up time and again is abortion and women's rights to

choose whether or not to abort now the g.o.p. has long taken the pro-life stance but it seems as if at least one republican congressman is not willing to practice what he preaches newly released divorce records of the u.s. representative scott this. show that he and his wife mutually agreed to have two abortions over the course of their marriage an interesting turn of events considering the representative stance on abortion and as if to add as if two abortions were enough the congressman has had a number of extramarital affairs at least one of which has resulted in an abortion one that some say he actually forced the woman into but while millions of a women across the country fight for their rights to own their own uterus it's likely that this congressman will continue to fight for his against abortion so is this the classic case of do as i say and not as i do only time to. we're just

a week away from an age old holiday here in the u.s. but before families sit down at the dining room table to give thanks and probably consume half their body weight in turkey and stuffing many travelers were need to catch a flight home first that means t.s.a. security scanners and as if to add insult to invasiveness dozens of those very expensive body scanners are now being shelved and that's not all the agency is up to to talk to the t.s.a. to talk to the t.s.a. leading up to the holiday rush i was joined earlier by. fagan bomb transportation policy analyst for reason foundation and he began by telling me what he makes of shelving these fourteen million dollars body scanners. it's hard to know what to make of it so they took these scanners out of some of the busiest airports and have basically shelled them for the time and are looking at putting them into smaller airports so it's good that they're getting them out of the bigger airports but it's

unfortunate that they're really putting them anywhere in my opinion and what exactly is the reason behind moving these security scanners as if they're too invasive or is there some other kind of problem with them so what has happened is they've gone ahead and gotten some new equipment in that are that is less invasive the screeners are actually less invasive in the bigger airports but the issue is they have so many of these scanners and as you mentioned a very high price they feel like they want to go ahead and make some use of them so that the idea is if they move them to the smaller airports then fewer passengers will be affected but of course if you're flying out of a smaller airport that's not exactly going to be news to your ears you're not going to probably want them to use them at all and work let me ask you this is this going to speed up the transportation security lines at all with these on less invasive scanners are does it really make a difference. i really don't think it's going to make a difference it should take about the same amount of time to actually go ahead and process them what the t.s.a.

is hoping that it will do is they're hoping it's going to cut down somewhat on the complaints that they get about these scanners people will think there's less of a privacy and security issue again if you're in a bigger port that's true if you're in a small airport and you previously had a metal detector or something else it's actually going to be worse for you so it really depending on where you are is either a benefit or a negative on what we do know is that although there is the they have been receiving a lot of criticism that yes i still have higher approval ratings than our own u.s. congress of course but another concerning development out of the t.s.a. involves the cash that you carry or that you hold on cards for a long time now the usa has not allowed people to enter the country with more than ten thousand dollars but now with the nature of cash changing people are more likely to hold those cards those money on cards prepaid cards in particular so here's a quote from a recent article that breaks the sol down basically says under a proposed amendments to the bank secretary act since then or the financial crimes

and forcemeat network will also require travelers to declare the value of prepaid cards that they are carrying known as tangible prepaid access devices the article went on to say that in force ability falls to u.s. immigration and customs enforcement and u.s. customs and border protection both within the department of homeland security which is also developing and this is the important part also developing advanced handheld card readers that can ascertain whether travelers are carrying credit cards debit card or these prepaid cards so can you help us make sense of this all is there a potential for abuse or is this just the nature of the changing cash flow. well in one way it is that it is the changing nature of the cash flow in another way it does worry me that there is some abuse we know that some of the airport secrete workers and airport security workers have been involved in issues in the past in terms of theft in terms of taking taking different devices from customers and it

seems like if you've got a large value on this card it's going to be very tempting for them to do it so we need to make sure that there is procedures in place to make sure that this can't hack but i'm a little worried that we're going to offer this service first or we're going to have this technology come onboard first and then we're going to develop the procedures later which is not the way we should be doing it we should make sure that we have the safeguards in place first as a good point oracle let me ask you how this will all i have i what we have to like whip out our wallets and scan every single card that we have. it sounds conceivably like that's what they're that's what they're considering and again depending on how long some of the lines are in some of these airports and depending on exactly what they're thinking of this could also cause delays this could also cause maybe some embarrassment depending on how they're going about this it's a little troubling and i would really like to see some more information some more guidance from the agency in terms of exactly what they have in mind why and now

it's an instance of going up is that thirty one airports across the u.s. have moved to this faster screening process and that allows you to use a background check in order to move faster through the lines and not have to stand in those long lines and have you heard anything about this process working as it is it successful. yes so i actually think that this process is one of the better things the t.s.a. has done what they're looking at is actually moving toward more of a base screening system where they go ahead and take a look at the individuals that are flying in this particular program the frequent flyers people who they have quite a bit of information about actually they realize that these are unlikely to be security threats and they found a way to basically expedite the screening and i would actually like them to go a little further than this i would like them to come up with a three tiered system where as they have this sort of the system for frequent flyers then they have for every day fliers a less if they said system they're still going to have to have some they're still

going to have to have security but the fact of trying to get rid of nail clippers and worrying about things that people could possibly use threats is a little silly and then another system that's a little more events for people with limited information lots of information we're going to have to see how this plays out over the holiday season. transportation policy analyst for the reason foundation thank you so much. there's a battle brewing in the city by the bay over the right to let it all hang out literally a group of nudists have filed a federal lawsuit to stop the san francisco board of supervisors from passing an ordinance next week that would ban nudity in the city the supervisors are set to vote tuesday on a proposal by a supervisor scott wiener that would prohibit displays of genitals or box in the city's plazas or parks the ban would also apply to sidewalks streets and public transportation if passed fines would start at one hundred dollars for the people

who break the law now last year the board passed a ban on nudity in restaurants and require nudist sitting on benches or other public seating to first put clothing on or some other material in between themselves in the seat we'll keep you posted on what happens in this legal skirmish and speaking of public nudity take a look at this piece of art it was supposed to go on display a few cents but u.s. customs officials had a problem with it at the airport customs officials haven't explained their decision to take the art away from the artist one could ask if u.s. customs is being too pritish here and making an ass out of themselves and that's going to do it for the news for this week but be sure to tune in next week we've got an excellent lineup in store for you first up conservatives lost major ground in the two thousand and twelve elections an election that became more polarized than ever before but beyond party lines religious affiliation played a big role in the way americans voted next week will take

a critical look at the political and social impacts that organized religion plays in the u.s. . and freedom of information freedom of expression expression meacher match mexico has banned music artists from rapping about the ongoings of the drug war any music that glorifies the cartels or illicit drugs that south of the border can land you in big trouble with local authorities next week we'll tell you about the day the music died and black friday is just days away while hundreds of americans lined up with shopping carts to get their hands on the best deals of the season wal-mart workers will be heading to the picket line to fight for better work conditions it's a labor square off on the busiest shopping day of the year and we'll bring you all of the details those are just a few of the stories we're covering next week along with more news and in-depth interviews so keep it to did right here to our t.v. and that's going to do it for me for tonight for more on the stories we covered go to youtube dot com.