you live on one hundred thirty three bucks a month for food i should try it because you know how bad the less bad luck i got so. i mean. i know that i'm still really messed up. in the old story so personally. the. worst are going to go right out of the. radio guy for a minute. if you've never seen anything like this unfold. what's up i'm having martin and this is breaking the set so unfortunately as predicted we're seeing are ramping up of hate crimes and hate speech against muslim

americans in the wake of the boston bombings most recently about anger was directed to mohammad saleem somali an american cab driver who was assaulted by a man he had picked up moments earlier but luckily before this attack salim sensed the man's temper and recorded the entire alter cation on his cell phone take a listen. i am judging you know your. blind people up all over the world oh me yes yes you are if you read your jihad so i'm i'm not either. you're muslim you have you know that's why you bunch of me so very sad especially considering how salim is the furthest thing from a muslim extremist here's what he had to say in response. to most of the sergeant to serve. a sacrifice my wife. i'm not terrorist. i'm a muslim american. i mean this. it's truly

a shame what's even worse is that the ignorance and bigotry from the perpetrator is shared by many people in this country take for instance barry west county commissioner in tennessee who recently posted this on facebook yet how to wink at a muslim no not a terrorist a muslim yeah parents should be aiming a double barrel shotgun in every muslim in america now of course according to good old barry it's just a joke it's been a lax this is the exact same to show that incites people to turn a hate speech into action and this sort of intolerance business you have to join me because we got a whole lot of starts to break. yesterday's may day protests brought to light the extent of the workers' rights struggle in this country and one of the issues on the forefront is the minimum wage last november wal-mart workers staged

a walkout on the busiest shopping day of the year black friday five months ago new york saw hundreds of fast food workers strike for better benefits and just last week hundreds of chicago fast food and real workers at some of the country's largest corporate chains took some of their actions and went on strike to demand higher wages and union rights accorded the bureau of labor statistics the minimum wage should be ten dollars and fifty six cents today when accounting for inflation but currently the federal minimum wage is only seven dollars and twenty five cents and hasn't been raised since two thousand and nine in fact in the last thirty years congress has only raise the minimum wage three times just to give you an idea working full time at minimum wage surmounts to an annual salary of fifteen thousand dollars hardly a living wage for anyone hoping to live a comfortable life but there is a serious campaign by many employers who say that raising wages for low income workers would actually cause more unemployment and a less stable economy. well that's exactly what i talked with les leopold about the

director of the labor center of new york i asked for his response to the argument against raising it and here's what he had to say. the minimum wage i ring the big he's a real term and it's better than one thousand nine hundred sixty years ago it was real but then the argument is that somehow if you raise the minimum wage you'll cut down jobs but study after study has been done every. the same kind of business for the state with a higher minimum wage than the lower men on wages you can do when you have a higher minimum wage your workers become more competitive for work less less turnover less you know leaving the job less training costs to be employed and on and on not. you know makes a good point of business as gave workers a living wage then there would be more incentive to do a better job as the cost of living gets higher and higher by the year it only makes sense that minimum wage would reflect the cost of living doesn't seem like too much

to ask so on the heels of may day let's take a moment to think about this issue and the plight of workers who make this country function because their struggle is far from over. guys have made it is a day that holds profound significance for workers worldwide while it stems from the workers' rights struggle here in the u.s. the government has since whitewashed its meaning to distance people from its true origin but over the last century may day has come to represent an international workers struggle and they celeb are groups and movements like occupy wall street the true meaning of mate isn't reinvigorated here in this country millions of people all around the world yesterday protested from d.c. all the way to bangladesh demanding better workers' rights and l.a. thousands of people peacefully march for immigrant rights and better employee benefits but in seattle a may day protests turned violent resulting in seventeen people arrested so here to

join me now to discuss the may day events around the country in the state of the labor movement in general i'm joined by artie's honest churkin or new york city or ramon go lino from our l.a. studio thanks so much for coming on both of you ramon i want to start with you what yes to l.a. saw thousands of people marching give us a sense of what it was like on the ground and what people's minds were. sure well there was a day turns of people on the streets shutting down many few blocks in downtown los angeles we saw union workers we saw students we saw undocumented immigrants and of course there's a show of solidarity with those around the world demanding better working conditions but obviously main focus of yesterday's march was a push for immigration reform people are letting you know that they want immigrants to be able to work here in this country without having to you know worry about being deported or worry about being taken advantage of so a large focus on that yesterday here in los angeles of course reckoning back to the

origin of made in general where a lot of immigrants did ridgeley protests and. in the original it made events and also now turn to you what are your was there more of a presence this year than last year and it was kind of on the heels of the occupy wall street movement didn't center around immigration as well or was a more diverse well abbie we definitely saw a lot less people this year than we did last year of course like you mentioned on the wings and inspired and largely organized by the occupy wall street movement where thousands and thousands of people really flooded the streets of new york yesterday on may day we definitely saw hundreds maybe a thousand but nothing compared to the events last year even though there were marches and rallies organized throughout the city and definitely immigration reform was in the spotlight by dozens of other issues really brought up by folks who decided to come out and voice their discontent starting from wealth inequality corporate greed you know the situation on wall street the slogan of ninety nine percent versus the one percent this the sky high student debt and even speaking people speaking out against so you know

a wide range of issues lots of discontent but all of these issues obviously forming one system that these people see as flawed and ramona i want to go back to you i read seventeen protests of course were arrested in seattle's may day protests and what what exactly happened there and do you know of any other incidents of police brutality that happen around the country. sure well from looking at most of the demonstrations in major cities it does appear that most of them were peaceful just to bring you up to date as far as what happened in seattle several of those people who were arrested were rate arraigned today on destruction of property charges and resisting arrest what it seems like is that most of the day there was peaceful demonstrations later on in the evening and artists and police faced off there were some bottles throwing and obviously video has shown that flash bang grenades tear gas was used on the side of police so there was some destruction to some property.

and while the violence and the arrests are making headlines many in the seattle community and in the north west point out that you know this is kind of goes to show that there is a very strong dissident community still in the pacific northwest northwest and in seattle and people have to remember that you know may days origins does go back to anarchy is history here in the u.s. so in many ways people who are working an eight hour day and get paid overtime have an arc is to to pay back for you know to make that progress their origin of rebellion and that haymarket protest. and non-sterile you know let's talk about kind of the call from workers that are asking for more rights i mean despite a growing awareness about workers' right especially in light of the night percent versus one percent occupy wall street movement unionization is in decline which i thought was really interesting where do you think this disconnect is stemming from that's absolutely true abby and fact united nation is that an old at a ninety seven year low i mean that's almost a century we have

a situation right now where only over eleven percent of people in the united states in the united states are in unions and most of that eleven percent is made up by a large chunk of those that are part of the shrinking public sector so certainly the situation with unions is quite radical compared two to. what this country i guess is used to and what we've been seeing over the last several years is a certain extent of you know union busting on a state by state level this is certainly something that we saw being addressed at the protests on may day here in new york city certainly this general attitude i think has a lot to do with the general narrative that unions are kind of bad and people who are demanding more through unions are lazy and this is certainly something that we've seen on a state by state basis from politicians and from corporations and certainly this attitude and up being reflected in the way and making it really harder for unions to in fact get together and even though many economists are saying that certainly unions are a large impact have

a very positive impact on the way the economy runs and operates and are saying that certainly recession is a very good time for people to be able to organize to kind of get the ball rolling again but certainly that's not the case they're definitely going to be a concentrated effort to crush unions and especially with the whole wisconsin debacle and really when you look at these right to work states which is choosing whether or not you can join a union it is interesting to see that those states actually have higher instances of safety workplace death standards and ramon i mean. just this instance and west texas texas is of course is a is a right to work state a horrible explosion in the west texas fertilizer factory and as we know the occupational safety and health administration has been inspected the plant for years i mean you were there on the ground in the aftermath of this how you been following up are there any sort of initiatives coming out of the tragedy demanding for better workplace safety and funding of this administration. sure advocates of worker rights such as unions and some convers conservation groups there in texas

are trying to raise some of the alarms as far as what was going on the lack of oversight but we do have to remember that texas is a very pro-business state are not very receptive to new regulations and that. seems to be even the attitude even after the tragedy when governor rick perry was asked about it he you know said that any new regulations or new over say we wouldn't prevent anything like this now a lot of people would argue the other way around in when we think about osha which hasn't been to that plant since one thousand nine hundred five and we have to think that this is obviously a regulatory agency that may not be getting the proper funding or even have the proper power to really crack down on places like this so definitely something to look at but in the immediate aftermath it doesn't seem like you know worker conditions in dangerous places such as fertilizer plants like this is getting increased scrutiny at least in the short term yeah definitely hard in texas with

someone like rick perry and lastly let's talk about the other aspect of this struggle which is of course the minimum wage or better benefits for workers not you are in new york i mean when this fast food workers strike kind of on the heels of the other strikes that we've seen in the wal-mart and chicago we're seeing it spread to other cities what was the outcome of that that happened five months ago were they able to elicit any change in that strike. well i think it's a work in process at this point definitely you know the thousands of people who work in fast food joints here in new york making minimum wages like you said federal law seventy seven point twenty five cents an hour our have been fighting against this they've been saying that we want an increase to at least fifty dollars we want the right to be part of unions because we need somebody to defend our rights and certainly this was a quite an unprecedented fight in a sense for new york it was a huge effort last year to you know to try to kind of davina's this movement

surrounding that we have to say that some fast food joints listened to others didn't the fight is certainly continuing it certainly spent spreading to other states but you know importantly ready at the end of even a second time happened at the beginning of april this year where people working at fast food joints held a one day strike again calling for this to message of their message to be heard and certainly it's still continuing some have succeeded others haven't but definitely this is something that people are going to keep fighting because so many people you know these are adults we're talking about working at a fast food joint for ten fifteen years making minimum wage simply unable to support their families. just the beginning of a long struggle thank you so much for both of you for your time and room. for shit . if you want to know what i'm doing when i'm not on the air and on twitter and out in martin you can follow me there you'll find all my treats linking to segments from the show as well as random thoughts i have throughout the day and also please

help us get a break in the run being on twitter. you can get trending on the twitter sphere but only with your twitter at abby martin take a break my preaching for now but stay tuned hear what the ag gag laws prosecution of animal rights activists happen across the country. wealthy british style stock.

market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cause or for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines in two kinds a report. they all see themselves as dying swans in their dreams. but only one of the cells will ever make it to the top. of their need to give their lives for the chance to die on stage if only once. not even broken wings capital of them. for generations at the moment. they sweat and tears.

lately. a little more of you are saying that it was like. have you ever seen what goes on at slaughterhouses and how animals are treated before their butchered if you have them you know how horrific these images are they're so disturbing that they often incite public outrage in some instances garner enough support to put an end to some of those any humane animal practices but it's become nearly impossible to shine a light on this cruel treatment due to new state initiatives which many refer to as ag gag laws so legislation cracks down on those who report or distribute and images taken within the factories the language though even goes as far as labeling animal

rights activists as terrorists which could tack on a much more serious sense of found guilty one say that than act this legislation is the utah where no prohibited to take undercover videos photographs or any sort of recording of animal buz and recently a woman named amy mayer became the first person to be arrested under this new utah law so here to talk about amy's case where it stands ag gag laws and labeling activists as terrorists i'm joined now by amy and based upon an animal rights activist and co-founder of the sparrow project and thanks so much for coming on thanks for having me so talk to us about the case of a mayor what happened why did she get arrested and where does her case stand right now. so recently amy myers who is an activist in utah was on a public easement adjacent to a factory farm where she noticed that a an animal livestock was actually being transported on a tractor a piece of large equipment it was a down down a mole so for people to. others there were down animal is down animal is an animal

that can't get up of his own accord either because it's too sick or its legs are broken and it can't fend for itself so these animals were being kind of ushered to slaughter this animal couldn't fend for itself and was being pushed along with the tractor and so amy did what most people would do and that was reach for her cell phones she had not a phone she took it out and started recording it up live the video to you tube shortly after she was recording a farm manager came out and told her to stop local police came the farm manager tried to argue that she was actually on private property not public property the local police officer didn't cite her at the time but then some time passed and she learned that she was being cited by the state prosecutor as the first individual being charged under utah's ag gag law now potter broke this story two days ago when he broke the story it instantly shot to the front page read it and it was all over the internet democracy now reported upon it and there was tremendous public

pressure to say this this is an outrage the i gag laws us if you talk about people that undercover undercover in film inside factory farms themselves amy on the other hand was on a public easement she was on public property filming towards private property something that was in plain view and that something is protected for all journalists now what the prosecutor was trying to do is try to push the envelope even further than what the gag law allows for to test the boundaries in this first prosecution because there was so much public outrage the prosecutor two days later dropped the charges against amy so it's a victory for the activists definitely a victory and even as you point out i mean this is even farther than any of the ag outline i mean just standing on a public sidewalk simply filming it down animal being pushed by tractors shocking talk about the seriousness of these laws because miers case was dismissed which is great but what is the extent of the penalties if someone is charged under this legislation. well the penalties vary from state to. sometimes it's little as two

hundred fifty dollars in fines other times it could be up to five years imprisonment depending on what state you're in some states go as far as saying that individuals that film undercover footage and pass it off the billis could be registered as terrorists and that's some of the most chilling language as you hear within these laws but in order to understand these laws fully you kind of have to go back to the template that they were built upon and that template was written in two thousand and three by the american legislative exchange council and they penned a law at the time called the animal ecological terrorism act not the animal enterprise terrorism act that we're familiar with today there was this larger bill that incorporated things like undercover filming and undercover investigations and journalists that report on cruelty inside factory farms and in order to criticize such whistleblowers or criminalize such journalism that reports on the cruelty inside factory farms the reason why the industry in the lobbyists for focusing on this method was that after nine eleven

a lot of the very radical elements of the animal rights movement the animal liberation front the earth liberation front really tone down their direct actions it was that they stopped happening but i think a lot of people were concerned about having their activism conflated with terrorism and so they stopped doing these more aggressive direct actions and shifted more towards a very effective tactic of filming what goes on inside these factory farms and then delivering it either via social media or mainstream media to the public and what people were learning and what activists were learning was that a lot of people are concerned about where their food comes from and concerned about the welfare of animals they may or may not be vegan or vegetarian but a lot of people do not want to be supporting agree just cruelty to animals and so when they were seeing this footage it was changing their shopping habits and was changing their dietary choices and this was hurting the bottom line of a lot of these farms tremendous organizations came up during this time period mercy for animals compassion over killing and recent years the humane society of the united states has done tremendous work when. involving undercover investigations

certainly it certainly ended there is a dangerous trend of criminalizing activists who are giving immunity to corporations who are practicing this and humane treatment against animals or you certainly have a unique perspective since you were actually prosecuted in charge under the animal enterprise protection act of course later that was changed the animal were praised terrorism act what happened in your case and what the penalties have been different under the newly revised animal enterprise terrorism act for you. well yes the penalties would have been different the initial law that was used against me was written in one thousand nine hundred two it was designed to target individuals in the l.f. that targeted for farms and set me free and destroyed breeding cards what they did in two thousand and four was that augment that existing bill to cover the conduct that was involved with a group that i volunteered with called stop huntington animal cruelty usa and what they said was that because of causing financial damage through legitimate boycott it through direct action to stop protests and civil disobedience all nonviolent

that we could then be charged underneath this law because what we're doing is creating a fiscal disruption or physical disruption in excess of ten thousand dollars so when the government brought their indictment against us they said our campaign was so effective that over a short period of time we could have caused this much damage as three hundred eighty million dollars in lost revenue to an animal testing facility called huntington life sciences which is based in new jersey it had three facilities in the u.k. as a result when we went to court we had nothing to argue besides the fact that what we did should have been protected speech and protected conduct under the constitution but these new laws in the way they're all demented really left us with with nothing to stand on besides we believe this law is illegal and we shouldn't be charged this way unfortunately we were convicted we were sentenced and upon sentencing we didn't receive an official terrorism enhanced spent but underneath the a.p.a. it creates a space for of iowa. called animal enterprise terrorism and so i was branded as

a terrorist from that point forward and it actually changed the designation i had once i was in prison i wasn't assigned to a minimum security prison like the judge initially recommended but instead the bureau of prisons sent me to a medium high security prison for the majority of my stay and then finally to a high security prison a secretive unit called the communications management unit in marion illinois where in the individuals there are about seventy six percent muslim but all of them are political prisoners and all of them have political cases and all of them are prisoners of inspirational significance as they so well and i have it thank you for still fighting after they try to crush that dissent and and crush your activism i really appreciate your time animal rights activists co-founder of the sparrow media project and check it out. i think that for months all i kept hearing on the corporate media was the impending

sequester the apocalyptic scenario looming over all of our heads perhaps the most glaring example was the cuts to the f.a.a. check it out and it simply had to try and find a way to say six hundred million dollars between now and september and as a result they had to they had to sort of lay off. ten percent of action i think can show that this is in that time that lawmakers are clearly irritated because f.a.a. furloughs are causing massive travel headaches the chairman of the house committee blasted the f.a.a. administrator for not warning lawmakers about these cuts to the f.a.a. one hundred forty nine small and midsized airport towers were said to be shut down beginning this sunday to seek restoration the shutdown is over for at least another few weeks and it was a really quick vote believe it or not after all the name calling and posturing on both sides last few days there were no objections today the house of representatives voted for a bill ending the furloughs that went into effect sunday because some three thousand flight delays so crisis averted a little too easy for

a do nothing congress. perhaps it's because when it comes to the cuts representatives could be feeling the pinch too here's why what they're really doing is helping themselves because there's i'm sure you know there is no more pampered class of traveler than members of congress themselves who have extraordinary benefits and some of these benefits are just unbelievable there's a free parking lot for the national airport which results i think your colleague constable said that's about a hundred and close to eight hundred thousand dollars a year seventy thousand dollars a year in terms of taxpayer money going to free parking you heard that right all congress cares about is that free parking so wait we're talking about eighty five billion dollars in federal spending cuts and if the f.d.a. didn't get the burn f.a.a. didn't get the burn then who. the sequester hit surprise surprise it's affecting the poorest in the u.s. yeah those that need the most are being heard the least for example meals on wheels the charity program that delivers food to people in need is facing nineteen million

dollars in cuts that's nothing compared to head start the federal program that provides educational services for low income preschoolers will sacrifice four hundred million dollars in cuts and these are just a few of the many examples of services being cut to the poor so that those who can actually afford it because heaven forbid the representatives whose salaries we pay for with our tax dollars pay for their own parking like the rest of us but to be fair the f.a.a. didn't actually take a hit see congress decided to take the money that was allocated for future airport repairs you know like fixing potholes and runways and making sure planes don't crash now guys keep in mind we knew about these automatic spending cuts for months before it went into effect i mean come on this is the sole reason obama pointed that supercommittee so how do nothing congress actually done their job this all could have been avoided you know what i do but what i do know about protecting the

least fortunate among us is not as important as free parking. technology innovation all the developments around. the future. sometimes you see a story and it seems so for you understand it and then you glimpse something else you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you. are welcome is a big picture. goal .