http://news.linktv.org Link TV News Videos (Filtered by topics: Occupy Wall Street) en-us Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:04:00 -0800 Copyright 2011 Link Media, Inc. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-sandy-takes-lead-in-nyc-relief-work?start=0 The Occupy Wall Street movement has spawned a massive relief effort for people in parts of New York City hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy. Occupy Sandy volunteers say the aid effort is following the principles of mutual aid and direct action that have guided the movement from its beginning.<br /> Thu, 08 Nov 2012 18:04:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-sandy-takes-lead-in-nyc-relief-work Occupy Wall Street, Hurricane Sandy, New York City, Occupy movement, United States, Activism, Voice of America The Occupy Wall Street movement has spawned a massive relief effort for people in parts of New York City hit hardest by Superstorm Sandy. Occupy Sandy volunteers say the aid effort is following the principles of mutual aid and direct action that have guided the movement from its beginning. http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-whatever-happened-to-occupy?start=0 Tens of thousands were expected but only hundreds showed up this week to mark one year since Occupy Wall Street began its protests in New York. Is the movement over or has it simply evolved into a new form of grassroots participatory democracy? Fri, 21 Sep 2012 12:04:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-whatever-happened-to-occupy Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Anti-corporate activism, New York City, NYPD, Wall Street, Anniversary, Arrest, We are the 99%, Protest Tens of thousands were expected but only hundreds showed up this week to mark one year since Occupy Wall Street began its protests in New York. Is the movement over or has it simply evolved into a new form of grassroots participatory democracy? Guests Marina Sitrin, Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, and Yates McKee discuss. http://news.linktv.org/videos/fresh-protests-arrests-mark-occupy-movements-first-anniversary?start=0 Occupy Wall Street protesters are converging in the financial district in Manhattan to mark the first anniversary of the movement's beginning. Similar protests are taking place in dozens of cities today. Mon, 17 Sep 2012 08:55:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/fresh-protests-arrests-mark-occupy-movements-first-anniversary Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Zuccotti Park, New York City, Foley Square, Tom Morello, Anti-corporate activism, Manhattan, Wall Street, Anniversary Occupy Wall Street protesters are converging in the financial district in Manhattan to mark the first anniversary of the movement's beginning. Similar protests are taking place in dozens of cities today. On Sept. 17, 2011, thousands of people answered the call originally put out by the Canadian-based magazine "Adbusters" to Occupy Wall Street. Protesters slept in Zuccotti Park for nearly two months before the New York City police raided the encampment. We look back at some of Democracy Now!'s earliest coverage of the movement. We interview Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello at Sunday's anniversary concert in New York City's Foley Square, and get a live update on the action unfolding today in the streets with Citizen Radio's Allison Kilkenny. http://news.linktv.org/videos/top-10-raw-videos-that-changed-the-world?start=0 <p>(WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES) Eyewitness videos were instrumental in catapulting Occupy Wall Street from the streets into international headlines. Now, as the movement marks its first anniversary on September 17th, Link TV News counts down 10 Raw Videos That Changed the World. These ten riveting and influential raw videos reveal how the simultaneous spread of video sites like YouTube and mobile video cameras in 2005 enabled eyewitnesses to easily record and share historic events like never before. Reaching over 35 million U.S. homes via DIRECTV and DISH Network, Link TV has a 13-year track record of connecting U.S. viewers to international video news they cannot find anywhere else. Learn more at http://news.linktv.org.</p> Sun, 16 Sep 2012 06:00:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/top-10-raw-videos-that-changed-the-world YouTube, Raw video, Viral video, Top Ten Raw Videos, Link TV, 7 July 2005 London bombings, University of California Davis, Egypt, Egyptian Revolution, Death of Neda Agha-Soltan (WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES) Eyewitness videos were instrumental in catapulting Occupy Wall Street from the streets into international headlines. Now, as the movement marks its first anniversary on September 17th, Link TV News counts down 10 Raw Videos That Changed the World. These ten riveting and influential raw videos reveal how the simultaneous spread of video sites like YouTube and mobile video cameras in 2005 enabled eyewitnesses to easily record and share historic events like never before. Reaching over 35 million U.S. homes via DIRECTV and DISH Network, Link TV has a 13-year track record of connecting U.S. viewers to international video news they cannot find anywhere else. Learn more at http://news.linktv.org. http://news.linktv.org/videos/labor-day-at-the-dnc-protestors-focus-on-shortcomings?start=0 Organized labor was a big part of President Obama's win four years ago. In Charlotte, North Carolina, protestors used Labor Day to strike a cord with Democrats ahead of the Democratic National Convention. Mon, 03 Sep 2012 18:33:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/labor-day-at-the-dnc-protestors-focus-on-shortcomings 2012 Democratic National Convention, Charlotte, NC, Democratic Party (United States), Trade union, US presidential election, 2012, Barack Obama, Politics of the United States, Occupy Wall Street, Protest, United States As organizers prepare for the 2012 Democratic National Convention and thousands flock to Charlotte, North Carolina, special attention is paid to organized labor, which was a big part of President Obama's win four years ago. Meanwhile, members of the Occupy movement went to the streets to protest. Ray Suarez reports. http://news.linktv.org/videos/hong-kong-last-surviving-occupy-encampment-faces-extinction?start=0 You may have thought the Occupy movement's protest encampments had all packed up and gone home, but the one under HSBC's headquarters in Hong Kong's Central still lives... for now. Mon, 13 Aug 2012 09:00:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/hong-kong-last-surviving-occupy-encampment-faces-extinction Hong Kong, Occupy movement, Central, Hong Kong, Eviction, HSBC, Protest camp, Protest, China, Occupy Wall Street, We are the 99% You may have thought the Occupy movement's protest encampments were all over, but Hong Kong's still lives... for now. CNN's Ramy Inocencio reports. http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-is-us-police-brutality-out-of-control?start=0 As protests erupt in Anaheim, California over the fatal shootings of two men by local police, and after a year of police violence against Occupy protestors nationwide, Inside Story Americas asks if police brutality has become an institutionalized problem in the US. Thu, 26 Jul 2012 11:13:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/inside-story-americas-is-us-police-brutality-out-of-control Anaheim police shooting and protests, Police brutality, Shooting, Occupy movement, Law enforcement in the United States, Pepper spray, Taser, Bean-bag round, Rubber bullet, Anaheim Police Department Extreme police tactics are not a new phenomenon in the United States. But in the age of social media, police violence, such as the shooting of unarmed people, the use of pepper spray and taser guns are being documented for the world to see. The Occupy protesters throughout the country felt the full force of police tactics - many were subject to violent arrest. Perhaps the most controversial example was at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) where peaceful protesters were pepper sprayed last November. Inside Story Americas leads a debate on whether American police brutality has become an institutionalized problem. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012?start=762 The PRI is favorite to win Sunday's election in Mexico, but could the Occupy-inspired Yo Soy 132 movement help Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who narrowly lost the 2006 election, pull off an upset? Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:28:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-28-2012 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Health care in the United States, Supreme Court of the United States, US health care reform, Health insurance, US-Mexico relations, Yo Soy 132, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexican general election, 2012, Mexican Drug War As the drug war rages in Mexico, voters will head to the polls on Sunday to choose a new president. Will the PRI come back to power, or could the Occupy-inspired Yo Soy 132 movement help Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a former Mexico City mayor who narrowly lost the 2006 election, pull off an upset? We go to Mexico City to speak with Tania Molina, a journalist at La Jornada, the main progressive national newspaper in Mexico; and John Ackerman, editor of the Mexican Law Review and a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). We begin today's show in Mexico, where voters head to the polls on Sunday in a historic election to pick President Felipe Calderón's replacement, as well as candidates in the national legislature, six governorships and 15 state assemblies. Since Calderón took office six years ago, more than 50,000 Mexicans have been killed in the nation's bloody drug war. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced. Calderón's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, is polling poorly ahead of Sunday's vote. The two leading candidates have both proposed rethinking how Mexico deals with drug trafficking. The front-runner in Sunday's race is Enrique Peña Nieto of the PRI, the party that ruled Mexico from 1929 to 2000. In second is leftist candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador who narrowly lost the 2006 race to Calderón. This is Enrique Peña Nieto speaking at a rally Wednesday. We are only four days away from winning the presidency of the republic. We are ahead in the polls, but, in a way, this could allow us to be complacent. On the contrary, this is the moment in which we must keep going and assure, with your free participation, your reasoned, informed vote, this July 1st, that we can really accomplish a conclusive victory that can't be objected to. That's what we want to accomplish on July 1st. Meanwhile, Andrés Manuel López Obrador received a surge in popularity, thanks in part to a growing national student movement against the return of the PRI to power. The movement, known as Yo Soy 132, has been inspired by Occupy Wall Street and the protests in Spain. López Obrador is the former mayor of Mexico City. He addressed his followers on the final day of campaigning. I come to tell you that we are doing well. We ended the campaign strongly. The strategy of Peña Nieto's patrons has failed. Tell the people that there will be justice, because we are going to end corruption. What is it that we're voting for on 1st of July? We are choosing if we want corruption or if we want honesty. Things are that clear. Voting for the PRI, voting for Peña Nieto is voting for corruption. Well, to talk more about the elections, we go directly to Mexico City to speak with two guests. Tania Molina is with us, a journalist at La Jornada, the main progressive national newspaper in Mexico. She's producing a pamphlet for Zuccotti Park Press by and about the Yo Soy 132 student movement in Mexico. And we're joined by Democracy Now! video stream by John Ackerman, editor of the Mexican Law Review and a professor at the National Autonomous University, UNAM, in Mexico. He is also a columnist for Proceso magazine as well as La Jornada newspaper. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Tania, let's begin with you. Can you explain the significance? What is at stake in this election on Sunday? Talk about the significance of it. And, well, at stake is, as López Obrador was saying in the speech that you ran, it's between the comeback of the old regime and the continuation of a regime that has only brought us 60,000 deaths in a war against narcotraffic that has not worked at all. And in terms of the resurgence of López Obrador in the polls in recent weeks, could you talk more about the movement, the student movement, that has helped to propel him forward and how it started, and what the name signifies of the movement? Yeah. Well, it all began in a Mexican University, private university, called Ibero. It was a big surprise for everybody. It was—the students were at an event that was with the PRI candidate, with Peña Nieto, Enrique Peña Nieto, and they confronted him. And it was a big surprise because it was a private university with, we could say, privileged students. So, suddenly, there he was with a roomful of—well, with many students telling him about his authoritarian past and about the corruption that he's linked with. So, the thing was that, after the movement, after that day, the event, which was on the 11th of May, the media—some of the media, the main media and the mainstream media, and the big political people were saying that this is something that was created by López Obrador, and we don't have—it's manipulated, these are not students. So, the next day, the students were on a video on YouTube saying—holding up their credentials and saying, "This is us. We're students. This is an authentic movement." And that was what triggered the movement. It was the media saying these are not authentic students and the PRI trying to minimize the movement, which was not a movement at that moment. So, we could even say that the PRI— And so, this was how they came to Yo Soy 132— Yeah. —because they are 132 students that confronted him, "I Am 132"? Exactly. And the student, 131. So the 132 is now that the Mexican population has—is in solidarity with them. We're also— So, I am 132. We're also joined by John Ackerman, editor of Mexican Law Review, also in Mexico City. John, Calderón beat López Obrador last time. Some say he stole the election. So talk about the significance of who López Obrador is and his connection to these students and—inspired also by the Occupy movement here in the United States. Right, Amy. That's a very, very important question. Six years ago, in 2006, there was a very close election between Calderón and López Obrador. Calderón officially came ahead half a percentage point—I mean, this was similar to 2000, Gore versus Bush—although many people thought that actually López Obrador had won and that fraud was committed, which would not have been something new in Mexican politics, Mexican elections. And López Obrador, basically, over the last six years has been on a grassroots campaign. He has visited every single little municipality or large municipality in the entire country, including all of the indigenous municipalities, thousands of them in the state of Oaxaca. He has basically conducted a ground campaign for the last six years, with very little money, not much financing or funding. And in contrast, Peña Nieto, his campaign has been run by the television duopoly. We have corporate media anywhere in the world, but in Mexico this is sort of over and over the top, because we have two television stations, Televisa and TV Azteca, who control 95 percent of all the channels. You know, they have four national channels, each one of them, and many local channels. So they really control what is and what is not news. Most Mexicans get their information through the television. And these television stations have cut a deal with Peña Nieto over the last also four or five years, and they have been promoting his image incessantly, constantly over these years. And so, we have a really radical contrast in terms of not only proposals and political ideology, but of real styles of campaigning and who each of these candidates represent. And, John Ackerman, could you talk about this Guardian series, articles that revealed that Peña Nieto had actually been paying the networks to get some favorable—to get favorable coverage? Yes, this is—this is very important coverage done by The Guardian and Jo Tuckman, who's a reporter down here. This information, some of it, had already come out in some of the local media, but the international attention and the extensive documents that Tuckman has been providing has been very important to demonstrate what most Mexicans actually kind of already knew, which is that these television stations are behind the candidate, but it's particularly scandalous that there's been actually millions of dollars funneled both from the state of—the state of Mexico, which is where Peña Nieto was governor, and from other sources that we don't know about, to literally purchase coverage to assure that the television stations give him—you know, it would be news unrelated to the state of Mexico very frequently, where he was governor, and all of a sudden they would go to the state of Mexico to interview him or interview his advisers about some sort of national issue. It was a classic case of manipulation and of direct support by a television station. Now, it wasn't sort of a public endorsement, where they weren't honest about it, and that's what is also an important part about the scandal, is that it was really designing their news programs and their coverage so as to support this candidate. They even had a little war room within Televisa, apparently, which was specifically designed to taking care of Peña Nieto's image. And this is why the youth uprising in Ibero and throughout the country over the last weeks is so important, because it has really sort of burst that bubble and has made people think that perhaps Peña Nieto is not the sort of pretty boy, perfect pretty boy that he's been made out to be. And, John, what about the third candidate, the PAN candidate, in the race? The PAN has now ruled Mexico for—under two presidents now, Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón. And many—from the outside, we're told that Mexico is actually economically in better shape now, although there's more polarization in wealth, but that it's in better shape economically than ever. So why has the PAN fallen so dramatically? Well, those economic numbers are debatable. Poverty has gone up over the last six years, and that's the most important number for me. We have had some basic economic stability, but, for instance, 2009 the Mexican economy went down 6.3 percent. It was the country that most suffered from the international crisis in Latin America. The thing here is that I think the population has decided that they want to kick the PAN out of power. That's one of the obvious things that's going to happen this Sunday: the PAN is not going to win. Calderón's candidate, Josefina Vázquez Mota, it's an important candidacy because it's the first time a woman has been running on a major party ticket, but she is way down in the polls, and people are really upset, as your other guest mentioned, about all of the deaths and the economic stagnation. And so, this is really about what kind of change the Mexican population wants: a change back toward the PRI or a change toward sort of the more progressive, corruption-fighting agenda that López Obrador is putting forth. The drug war, the—John Ackerman, the significance of the backdrop of this raging drug war in Mexico? Yes, very important. Once again, this is the central reason why the PAN, Calderón's PAN, is most likely not going to be re-elected in power. The interesting point is that actually this has not been a central policy issue that has been debated between the candidates. Basically, all of them are saying they need to—we need to change the strategy, something else has to happen, particularly—and this, I think, a good point that all of them, even the PRI candidate, is talking about—is that Mexico should be focusing principally on peace, reducing violence on Mexican soil, and not so worried about doing the dirty work for Washington in the drug war. This is something that the United States government has started to get worried about, actually, and has started to put pressure on Peña Nieto. And Peña Nieto, in response to that pressure, last week appointed Oscar Naranjo, who was the police chief for Uribe in Colombia as his top organized crime adviser. So, Peña Nieto is sending a very clear signal that he, at least, does want to continue on the same path as Calderón, following the dictates of the North American drug war. And, Tania Molina, as in most elections, turnout will be a big issue, how many people actually come out to vote. What are the historic turnout levels in Mexico for presidential elections, and are you getting the sense or are polls showing that more or fewer people will be voting this time? It seems that more people will be voting. And again, the Yo Soy 132 movement has a lot to do with it, because before the movement there was quite a big campaign among people saying that, "Oh, we shouldn't vote, because none of the three candidates really—we don't really agree with any of the three, so let's just not turn up." And after the Yo Soy 132, what they say is, "Yes, you should vote. This is very important." And they are trying to get people to inform themselves about the vote, and they say it's very important that you vote. So, this week they have a campaign, right before the election, which is called "Six Days to Save Mexico." And they're on the public transport telling people to vote. They're not with any political party, so they just say you should inform yourself and vote and go to the polls. And, Tania, the significance— And they're also doing rallies. Tania, the significance of the solidarity movement—Chile's student movement, the United States' Occupy movement, a Chilean student leader coming to Mexico? Have you seen this before? And what did she say? Yes, we had the visit of Camila Vallejo, the leader of the students' movement—well, one of the—the visible leader of the students' movement. She was here about two weeks ago. And this was a visit that was a coincidence, but it was a great coincidence for the movement. She was with the movement. She had several—a couple of mass reunions with them and with students and general population. And she said, "Thank you for putting the mainstream media on the—as a target, because," she said, "a student movement, our student movement in Chile, we always target government. We aim for a public education. But we had never targeted the other power, which is the media." So she was saying that it's a wonderful thing, and she was—she was very excited to be here. And the movement, of course, was very excited to have her here. And it was a great exchange of experiences. So that was one of them. The other is with the Occupy and with the indignados, there has been exchanges, as well. And there are people in Spain that have gone with the indignados, Mexican people that are with the Yo Soy 132. And all over the world, as well, there are several groups of Yo Soy 132 of Mexicans that are outside. We have them in London, in France, in several countries in Europe, and in the United States, as well. Let us, finally, go to John Ackerman to ask you about the role of the United States in these elections, if there is one. Oh, that's a big question. The United States has been—at least the U.S. government has been very attentive. Joe Biden had a surprise visit in February—I think it was end of February, beginning of March—and he met with all three candidates. This was kind of unprecedented that a vice president would come down right in the middle of the campaign or just before the campaigns were starting. All three of the principal candidates met with him. It seems to me that the U.S. government is particularly concerned about oil and drugs. You know, those are the—and by immigration, of course. Those are the three big topics. I don't think any of the candidates offer radical changes here, although obviously López Obrador is going to have a more sort of focus on Mexican sovereignty on all of these top issues. And Peña Nieto has been really doing a massive PR relationship within the United States to make the U.S. sort of establishment think that he is the safest candidate. But that's risky because Peña Nieto also has a very dark past. He is—he and his party have been coming out—people have been coming out showing all different sorts of scandals in terms of linkages to corruption, even to narcotraffickers. And the states, the local states which are governed by the PRI in Mexico, are among the most violent and the most corrupt in the country. And so, a return of the PRI, although some people in the U.S. government might see this as a positive thing because he's sort of more pro-American, in the end, from my point of view, this would actually be bad for U.S.-Mexican relationships because of the increase in violence and the lack of economic development that this could bring about. And, John Ackerman, on López Obrador's campaigning, after the 2006 election he led massive protests and sit-ins in town squares, challenging the results, but the reports are that this time around he's moderated his language, he's sought to win over more middle-class Mexicans to his party and his candidacy. Do you have a sense that this is—is this accurate, and has it had any impact in terms of boosting his support? Yeah, well, there are two sides to this. On one hand, yes, López Obrador six years ago led, you know, million-person marches downtown demanding a full recount. I think this was really an inspiration to many of us. You know, Al Gore in 2000 went home, didn't say anything. And López Obrador actually took to the streets and demanded a full recount, and this really galvanized society and has led to very important electoral reforms, for instance, after that election. But, yes, it hurt him in terms of, you know, estranging him from some more moderate voters, and he has radically changed his message this year. And he has actually garnered some really important support from business interests. For instance, the city of Monterrey, which is one of the industrial business capitals in Mexico, has been governed by—the local government by the PAN, the state government by the PRI. And a large group of very powerful businessmen has said that both the PAN and the PRI are equally as corrupt, and we are willing to try something new, and López Obrador is our candidate. And he has come back saying, yes, that he's not a radical leftist. What he's interested is in transparency and combating corruption and bringing peace to Mexico. And so, there's been a very interesting new relationship between López Obrador and, you know, middle-class, moderate business interests in Mexico, which has definitely strengthened his campaign in the last few months. John Ackerman, we want to thank you for being with us, editor of the Mexican Law Review, professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM, also columnist for Proceso magazine. And we want to thank Tania Molina, who is a journalist at La Jornada, the main progressive national newspaper of Mexico, producing a pamphlet for Zuccotti Park Press by and about the Yo Soy 132 student movement in Mexico. http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-police-arrest-journalists-for-covering-occupy-movement?start=0 The Occupy movement's protests in the US have drawn the attention of journalists from across the global, but some correspondents covering the demonstrations have found themselves behind bars for simply doing their jobs. Wed, 13 Jun 2012 15:17:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/us-police-arrest-journalists-for-covering-occupy-movement Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, Freedom of the press, NYPD, Journalist, Occupy Oakland, Press pass, Oakland Police Department, Arrest, Police officer The Occupy movement's protests in the US have drawn the attention of journalists from across the global, but some correspondents covering the demonstrations have found themselves behind bars for simply doing their jobs. We speak to one of those individuals. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-6-2012?start=1746 Joseph Stiglitz talks about how economic inequality is now greater in the United States than any other industrialized nation. "What's even more disturbing is we've [also] become the country with the least equality of opportunity," he says. Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:01:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-june-6-2012 Wisconsin gubernatorial recall election, 2012, Scott Walker (politician), Joseph Stiglitz, United States, Politics of the United States, Economic inequality, Wisconsin, Tom Barrett, Occupy movement, Campaign finance Several months before Occupy Wall Street, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz wrote "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%," an article for Vanity Fair. He returns to the subject in his new book looking at how inequality is now greater in the United States than any other industrialized nation. He notes that the six heirs of the Wal-Mart fortune command wealth equivalent to the entire bottom 30 percent of American society. "It's a comment both on how well off the top are and how poor the bottom are," Stiglitz says. "It's really emblematic of the divide that has gotten much worse in our society." On Tuesday, Bloomberg News reported that pay for the top CEOs on Wall Street increased by more than 20 percent last year. Meanwhile, census data shows nearly one in two Americans, or 150 million people, have fallen into poverty or could be classified as low-income. "United States is the country in the world with the highest level of inequality [of the advanced industrial countries], and it's getting worse," Stiglitz says. "What's even more disturbing is we've [also] become the country with the least equality of opportunity." We turn now to an issue that's gained increasing prominence in the last year: increasing inequality in the United States and the divide between the richest 1 percent and the rest of the country. Bloomberg News reported Tuesday that pay for the top CEOs on Wall Street increased by over 20 percent last year. The article is based on analysis of data reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission and finds that the substantial rise comes after a 26 percent jump in CEO salaries in 2010. Meanwhile, census data shows nearly one in two Americans, or 150 million people, have fallen into poverty or could be classified as low-income. Thirty-eight percent of African-American children and 35 percent of Latino children live in poverty. Well, our next guest has helped to popularize the expression "the 1 percent" and brought to light the causes behind increasing inequality in the United States. Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. During the Clinton administration from '93 to '97, he served on the Council of Economic Advisers. His May 2011 Vanity Fair article, "Of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%," serves as the basis of his new book, _The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future_. Joseph Stiglitz teaches at Columbia University. We welcome you back to Democracy Now! Nice to be here. I mean, this figure you have on page eight of your book, when you say, "Consider the Walton family: the six heirs to the Wal-Mart empire command wealth of $69.7 billion, which is equivalent to the wealth of the entire bottom 30 percent of U.S. society." It's a comment both on how well off the top are and how poor the bottom are. And it's really emblematic of the divide that has gotten much worse in our society. One of the points I try to make in the book is, none of this is inevitable. It's not just market forces. United States is the country in the world with the highest level of inequality, and it's getting worse. The highest level? Of the advanced industrial countries. The highest level. Highest level of the advanced industrial countries. And to me, what's even more disturbing is, we've become the country with the least equality of opportunity of all the advanced industrial countries for which there's data. You know, we think of ourselves as a land of opportunity, American Dream. And there are all examples that we know of where people have made it—you know, immigrants, other people who have made it to the top. But what matters really are the numbers, the chances. You know, what are your life chances if you had the misfortune of being born to a poor family or somebody whose parents are not well educated? What are your chances of going from the bottom to the middle or the bottom to the top? And they are lower in the United States than in other advanced industrial countries. I mean, it's a striking fact, because you talk about it a few times in your book, that now in old Europe there is more class mobility than there is in the U.S. And, of course, we always here think of Europe as being very class rigid. That's right. And this is a change, in many respects. And one of the other points I try to emphasize in the book is it has consequences. It has consequences for our sense of identity, of what we are, but it also has even more, you know, you might say, narrow economic consequences, because what it means is that if you have the—you know, make the mistake of choosing the wrong parents, the likelihood is that you're not going to live up to your potential. And we are, in that sense, wasting our most important assets: our human resources. You also say that, ultimately, the rich will also pay an extraordinary price for this inequality. How? Well, we're all in the same boat together. You know, there are a lot of people who are very bright, who work very hard in developing countries, emerging markets, who have very low incomes. The point is that all of us benefit from our education system, our legal system, the way our whole society functions. In those parts of the world where there's a large divide, mainly in, you know, emerging markets, developing countries, where there's a large divide, societies fall apart. There's political, social, economic turmoil. And in that context, not even the 1 percent can do that well. I wanted—I wanted to ask you about the people we value and the people we don't. You have an amazing set of examples. You say, "Few are inventor" — you say, "By looking at those at the top of the wealth distribution, we can get a feel [for] the nature of this aspect of America's inequality. Few are investors who have reshaped technology, or scientists who have reshaped our understandings of the laws of nature. Think of Alan Turing, whose genius provided the mathematics underlying the modern computer. Or of Einstein. Or of the discoverers of the laser (in which Charles Townes played a central role) or John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley, the inventors of transistors. Or of Watson and Crick, who unraveled the mysteries of DNA, upon which rests so much of modern [medicine]. None of them, who made such large contributions to our well-being, are among those most rewarded by our economic system." We have very different names that are tied to these so-called inventions, like of the internet. That's right. And the point is that the theory that was developed in the 19th century to justify the inequality that was emerging with capitalism was marginal productivity theory. It was the notion that those who contributed the most to society will get bigger rewards. It was a sense, you might say, of moral justification, but also an argument for economic efficiency. And what we now realize is the individuals who have made the most important contributions are not those that are at the top. The people—many of the people who are at the top, for instance, are those financiers who brought the world to the brink of ruin. And the moment of Great Recession, I think, was a really telling moment in our rethinking of what was going on. You know, we all sort of understood that there was something wrong. But in that crisis where you saw so many bankers who had brought the world to the brink of ruin, who actually brought their companies to the brink of ruin, walk off with pay in the millions of dollars, it was very clear there was a disconnect between private rewards and social returns, really undermining the theory that was the basis of the justification of inequality in our society. So when did financiers, though, come to have this kind of power? Well, it's been an evolution. But I think, in my mind, a really telling change was the repeal of Glass-Steagall, where we told the banks, you know, "Don't focus on what you're supposed to be doing, which is providing credit to new businesses to expand businesses." We brought together the commercial banks, which were the basis of the kind of prudent lending, and investment banks, who took rich people's money and gambled. And we put it together. We created these financial institutions that were too big to fail. And the result of that was they grew larger and larger, and the risk taking, gambling, speculation dominated, rather than the lending, which is the basis of a growing, productive economy. But in a way, the evolution of our economy, more generally, began about 1980. That's—if I would say, where's there a dividing point—where the CEOs began to realize that they could take a larger and larger share of the corporate income. They understood that we have deficient corporate governance laws. And so, we didn't require a say in pay. We didn't require—you know, shareholders are supposed to own the firms, but the shareholders had no say in the pay of the companies—of the managers of the companies that they were supposed to own. A very strange situation. I mean, if you have somebody working for you, you would say you ought to have some say in their pay. And the result of that is they took a larger and larger share. And if you look at those at the top—as I say, they're not the Watson and Cricks, the people who made these big changes—they're corporate CEOs. Who is Berners-Lee? Well, these are people who, you know, made the internet, the people who— But we think Mark Zuckerberg. We think Gates. We think Jobs. You know, all of these played an important role. You know, we shouldn't underestimate the importance of that. But all these rest on a foundation, and that foundation was largely publicly provided, publicly funded. You couldn't have a program if you didn't have a computer. And you don't have a computer unless you do the mathematical research that is—provided the foundation. That was the—Turing. Alan Turing. That was Alan Turing. You don't have internet programs unless you have the internet. And that was something that the U.S. government helped to develop, and these other people that helped develop the World Wide Web. So, you know, the irony is that the people who provided the foundation on which our entire modern economy is based are not the people who have done well. I want to ask you about the presidential race and about Republican candidate Mitt Romney's record. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, a supporter of President Obama, generated controversy last month when he defended Romney's former company, Bain Capital. Booker spoke on Meet the Press. MAYOR CORY BOOKER: I have to just say, from a very personal level, I'm not about to sit here and indict private equity. It's—to me, it's just this—we're getting to a ridiculous point in America, and especially that I know. I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital's record, it ain't—they've done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses. And this, to me—I'm very uncomfortable. Joseph Stiglitz, your comments on the role of private equity, and on Bain Capital, in particular? Well, let me first say, the financial sector is very important. A financial—you know, no economy can work well without a well-functioning financial sector. The problem with the United States is that our financial sector hasn't been doing what it's supposed to be doing. It's supposed to provide finance to create jobs, not to destroy jobs. It's supposed to allocate capital, manage risk. The concern about Bain Capital are twofold. One is that much of what they were doing was financial restructuring, which meant not creating jobs, taking money out of companies, putting them in a very fragile situation in which, a few years later, they go over the cliff, and jobs get destroyed. So, it is important to restructure firms to make them sustainable, efficient. But that wasn't what a lot of the enterprises that they were engaged in doing. The second problem, and I think most people find very disturbing, is that we have a tax law that says that those who are engaged working for this kind of restructuring—an important activity if it's done well and done in a way that creates more productivity, more jobs—why should those people pay so little taxes? And that—you know, going back to the upper 1 percent, their average tax rate is about 15 percent. We tax speculators at a lower rate than we tax people who work for a living. It makes no sense. Mayor Booker got a lot of flak for saying, sort of, "Back off Bain." But a number of Democrats have been saying that, and there's a war in the Obama administration now. Do you attack Romney on Bain, the company that he is running on, more than being governor of Massachusetts? And a lot of the Democrats are involved with Bain or have support from people at Bain or other similar companies. Your president, President Clinton—you served as the chief of economic advisers—he said, "Back off Bain." And you can see this tug-of-war going on, not only about Bain, though, and now you see them not really talking about Bain and talking about what you were just mentioning, Joe Stiglitz, but also about his offshore investments, offshore bank accounts, himself and his company. Can you talk about this and the fact that Clinton is one of the champions of saying, "Don't raise this. He's a good businessman"? Yeah. Well, first, we should understand, you know, that Romney is running on the platform: it's good to have a businessman running the White House; we do a better job. You know, the last MBA president we had was George Bush, and I don't think anybody would say that the economy was well run in those eight years. Deficits soared, and the economy finally went over the brink and into the Great Recession. So that qualification that he's touting, if I looked at that, you know, a Harvard MBA, I'm not sure I would say that that is a kind of certification that I would want for running the country. You have to understand public policy, not just how to make money for yourself, which they do a good job of doing, but that's not what's entailed in running the country. I have some sympathy and say, let's not make this personal. Let's try to keep this at the basic level of principles. And, you know, the basic level of principles are relatively simple: people should be paying their share of the taxes. And paying share of taxes mean you don't pay half the rate of other people who are working for a living. It means you don't use offshore centers to escape taxes. You know, why is so much banking going on in the Cayman Islands? It's not that the weather there is really particularly suited for moving electrons and running banks. You know, it's there for one reason only: to escape regulation, to escape taxation, to undermine the basic principles of our economy. And it's wrong for somebody who is trying to run for the president, who should be symbolizing, you know, making their fair share, to be using offshore accounts to avoid taxes and to avoid regulation. The other point is, businesses are supposed to be creating value, creating jobs in America, and new American business. Now, this is where we have a tax system that's distorted. But when you're running for the president, you should be out there and saying we don't want a distorted tax system that encourages jobs to move abroad, that encourages speculation over real wealth creation. If he had come out and said, like Warren Buffett, that it's wrong for him—that Warren Buffett to have a lower tax rate than his secretary—if he came out and said it's wrong to have a tax structure that encourages jobs to move abroad, you know, then I might have a little bit more sympathy. But so far, I haven't heard that. Ed Conard, the former managing director at Bain Capital, who has contributed to Romney, advises Romney, and argues explicitly for doubling income inequality? Yeah. I find that astounding. I debated him yesterday, actually. The point is, he believes in trickle-down economics, a notion you throw a lot of money at the top and everybody does a lot better because of their innovation. Given the level of inequality in the United States, I wish it were true, because if it were true, we'd all be doing very well. But the evidence is, you know, overwhelmingly against that. We've had a growth at the top, but what's been happening to the average American? He's not doing very well. Most Americans today are worse off than they were a decade-and-a-half ago. And the people at the bottom have done even worse. If you started looking at, say, male workers, a full-time male worker, people who work for a living, for a male worker today, the average, typical—half above, half below—his income today is lower than it was in 1968, almost a half-century ago. So the American economy has been delivering for the people at the very top, but it's not been delivering for most Americans. And you can see it in another way in the data. In the periods like the period after World War II, we grew together, inequality was shrinking, and we grew much more rapidly than we have since 1980, where we've been growing apart. So the notion that more inequality leads to more growth, to put it quite frankly, is nonsense. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012?start=0 President Obama marks one-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death with surprise visit to Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world marked May Day with marches and protests. Plus headlines, and more. Wed, 02 May 2012 11:22:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012 International Workers' Day, May Day, Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, New York City, United States, Anti-corporate activism, Protest, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Oakland On a surprise visit to Afghanistan, President Obama marked the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Osama bin Laden and announced the signing of a long-term strategic partnership. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world marked May Day on Tuesday by filling the streets and demanding better working conditions, greater job security, and improved quality of life. Several major unions joined with immigrant rights activists and tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City for a massive rally that marched to Wall Street. And in the city’s Madison Square Park, hundreds of people attended a "Free University" hosted by Occupy Wall Street. Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012?start=94 On a surprise visit to Afghanistan, President Obama marked the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Osama bin Laden and announced the signing of a long-term strategic partnership. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world marked May Day on Tuesday by filling the streets and demanding better working conditions, greater job security, and improved quality of life. Several major unions joined with immigrant rights activists and tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City for a massive rally that marched to Wall Street. And in the city&rsquo;s Madison Square Park, hundreds of people attended a "Free University" hosted by Occupy Wall Street. Plus headlines, and more. Wed, 02 May 2012 11:22:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012 International Workers' Day, May Day, Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, New York City, United States, Anti-corporate activism, Protest, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Oakland Labor and immigrant groups were joined by Occupy demonstrators nationwide on Tuesday in May Day rallies for economic injustice and humane immigration reform. In New York City, a long day of separate actions converged in a rally at Union Square and then a march down to Wall Street where the Occupy movement began last year. At least 40 people were arrested. In Los Angeles, thousands of people gathered for a march that snaked through the downtown streets. In the Bay Area, Occupy demonstrators canceled plans to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge and instead joined picket lines organized by labor groups. The protests turned confrontational in Oakland, with demonstrators vandalizing property and police firing tear gas. In San Francisco, the Occupy movement was blamed for a night of violence in which cars and small businesses were vandalized. And in Seattle, black-clad protesters allegedly used sticks to break downtown windows and ran through the streets disrupting traffic. May Day was also observed with large protests across South America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012?start=1974 Hundreds of thousands of people across the world marked May Day on Tuesday by filling the streets and demanding better working conditions, greater job security and improved quality of life. Wed, 02 May 2012 11:22:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012 International Workers' Day, May Day, Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, New York City, United States, Anti-corporate activism, Protest, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Oakland Hundreds of thousands of people across the world marked May Day on Tuesday by filling the streets and demanding better working conditions, greater job security and improved quality of life. May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, resonated with protesters from Spain to Bangladesh to Iraq and throughout the United States. "This is brutal and dictatorial," says Mariano, a member of Spain's General Union of Workers who denounced his country's conservative government for recently announcing job cuts in the health and education sectors as well as tax increases. Tom Morello, singing in Union Square yesterday. Tens of thousands of people turned out in New York, hundreds of thousands around the world. He was singing "This Land Is Your Land," as we move into the 100th anniversary of its author, Woody Guthrie. I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, here on Democracy Now! Nermeen? On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands of people across the world marked May Day by filling the streets and demanding better working conditions, greater job security and improved quality of life. May Day, also known as International Workers' Day, resonated with anti-austerity protesters in Spain, Portugal and Greece. Mariano, a member of Spain's General Union of Workers, denounced the conservative government of Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy for recently announcing job cuts in the health and education sectors as well as tax increases as of January 2013. MARIANO: [translated] This is brutal and dictatorial. They have the absolute majority. And that is why, in parliament and in senate, they do not take into account other opinions. They impose their law. May Day protests went well beyond Europe into Asia with demonstrators in Indonesia, the Philippines, East Timor, South Korea and Bangladesh—all calling for higher wages and better working conditions. Among protesters in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the National Garment Workers' Federation organized a rally where hundreds of women joined the march. FIROZA BEGUM: [translated] We demand that workers should get a good salary to live with a standard of honor, because these garment workers bring in foreign currency, and they keep the wheel of Bangladesh's economy active. We demand that we must get a sufficient salary, comparing the price hike of essential goods, and for the government to start a rationing system for us. May Day was also observed with large protests across South America in Bolivia, Chile and Venezuela. Meanwhile, Iraq's communist party members marched in central Baghdad to demand the government overturn a law banning strikes. Russia, England and Turkey also saw large protests marking International Workers' Day. And here in the United States, the Occupy Wall Street movement renewed its campaign against inequities in the global financial system with a series of May Day protests across the country. In California, Occupy Los Angeles united with immigrants, with protesters dancing to live cumbia and reggae music and lounging on the grass. DON LEE: Los Angeles and the whole entire nation of the United States is built on the work of immigrants, and every type of immigrant, from, you know, German to Mexican American. Not all of yesterday's demonstrations were peaceful. In Seattle, black-clad protesters allegedly used sticks to break down downtown windows and ran through the streets disrupting traffic. In San Francisco, the Occupy movement was blamed for a night of violence in which cars and small businesses were vandalized. In Oakland, police fired tear gas, sending hundreds of demonstrators scrambling. Occupy demonstrators in the Bay Area canceled plans to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge, instead joined picket lines organized by labor groups. Clarence Thomas is a member and former officer with ILWU Local 10, representing longshore and warehouse workers in the Bay Area. CLARENCE THOMAS: It's very, very important that we take these actions today, International Workers' Day, because this is the day that celebrates the struggle for the eight-hour workday in this country. It's also a day that celebrates worker independence. Workers need to be independent. They need to be able to organize and mobilize in their own name, and they need to be able to use direct action and general strike in order to gain victories for working people. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012?start=2180 Several major unions joined with immigrant rights activists and tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City for a massive rally that marched to Wall Street. Wed, 02 May 2012 11:22:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012 International Workers' Day, May Day, Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, New York City, United States, Anti-corporate activism, Protest, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Oakland Several major unions joined with immigrant rights activists and tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City for a massive rally that marched to Wall Street. "I'm here today to support the efforts of May Day in fighting as a coalition to protect working families, struggling families and individuals — quite frankly, known as the 99 percent — to make sure that our issues, our causes are not forgotten and that we are not demonized," says Barbara Ingram-Edmonds of District Council 37 AFSCME. Throughout the day, teach-ins, pickets and wildcat protests took place across the city. We also speak with Baruch University professor Jackie DiSalvo about the history of May Day, dating back to the Haymarket Massacre in Chicago on May 1, 1886. Meanwhile, in New York City, tens of thousands of protesters continued streaming into Union Square Park, then marched towards Wall Street in the evening for a General Assembly, among them, immigrants' rights activists highlighting the plight of undocumented workers and students. Democracy Now! spoke with one of the protesters, named Guadalupe. FANNY GUADALUPE: My name is Fanny Guadalupe. I am president for Sisa Pakari. [translated] The most important thing that we're asking today is for a multicultural, multiethnic and multinational society. We want full amnesty and the fulfillment of Obama's campaign promises. Today, we are asking once again for a leader who will make good on his word. These children have immigrant parents who are asking for the universal right to be free of borders, free of flags. We need to have work with dignity, not persecution, not deportations and not xenophobia. Here in New York, Democracy Now!'s Mike Burke spoke with professor and Occupy organizer Jackie DiSalvo, who reflected on the history of May Day, dating back to the Haymarket Massacre, Chicago, May 1st, 1886. I'm Jackie DiSalvo. I work with Occupy Wall Street, and I'm a liaison to the coalition that Occupy Wall Street has formed with labor and immigrant organizations and the May 1st Coalition. So I work both in the Occupy Wall Street May Day committee and on the solidarity coalition May Day committee. We're coming together under a labor alliance in Occupy Wall Street, but labor is in so much struggle right now, and it is all blacked out in the press. We organize what we're calling the "99 Pickets" campaign, and there are many going on today. In fact, right now, the National Association of Broadcast and Entertainment Technicians are picketing ABC-Disney. And they were going to pick up some supporters at—from Occupy at Bryant Square and march up to 67th Street. There's—this morning, the New York Times reporters were out in front of the New York Times. The Newspaper Guild can't get a contract. There are just—we have over 40 labor pickets, and then a lot of pickets that are going to the 1 percent, the banks, mainly. And can you talk about the significance of these protests taking place today on May Day— Oh, yeah. —and how this fits into the history of May Day? Yeah, it's really great that May Day is being revived. I mean, May Day was at the heart of a different kind of labor movement and a different kind of labor tradition. In fact, a general strike had been called, and in Chicago 60,000 workers went out, and the police shot them. And there was a demonstration to protest the police violence. And in that demonstration, what was probably a police provocateur threw a bomb, and the police shot more people, and then they tried and hung four anarchists that they'd probably been wanting to go after for years. And it was called the Haymarket Massacre. A few years later, in Europe, the—I think it was the first or second international—I'm not sure. It was the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution, that European unions proclaimed May 1st International Workers' Day. And it's been celebrated around the world ever since, particularly in Europe and Latin America. What happened here was that the 1 percent, already early in the century, were very threatened by workers celebrating a holiday that was about class struggle. And so, Grover Cleveland changed the labor holiday to September. So that's when labor gets a day off, not in—they used to just take off, in strike, on May Day. And then, in the period of the Cold War and McCarthyism, just shortly after the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which has crippled the labor movement ever since—you know, the Taft-Hartley Act prohibits a union going out in strike, if supporting another union, or even a boycott. And it's illegal to go on a general strike. In that period, Eisenhower changed the name of May Day to Loyalty Day, so it was supposed to be a celebration of patriotism, not of class unity, but of unity with the 1 percent. And the unions stopped celebrating it. They had continued to celebrate somewhat during the '30s, when they were in intense struggle, but when the unions got purged through the McCarthyist purge, where a lot of the militants were kicked out of the unions, labor started backing off on a lot of things, and they did not celebrate May Day anymore. In 2006, Mexicans in Los Angeles, for whom May Day was a holiday, resented the fact that May Day was no longer a holiday for them, and they were in an intense struggle over threatened—I think at that point the laws were going to declare it a felony to be illegal. And so, they called for a day without immigrants. And in order to have this day, they had to leave their jobs. And so, a million Mexicans—not just Mexicans, but a million immigrants left their jobs and went into the streets, shut down Los Angeles. Two hundred thousand marched in New York City, many in Chicago. And Labor Day was back on the calendar. Baruch College English professor and Occupy organizer, Jackie DiSalvo. In Union Square, we bumped into an entire baseball team: the Dodgers. Well, the Tax Dodgers, that is. We're a baseball team, and we go to bat for the 1 percent, not the 99 percent. We're the Tax Dodgers, the best team that corporate money can buy. And can you describe what you've got here? Well, we've got our full baseball team out here, and we've got all the best heavy hitters in corporate America who are part of our team: Verizon, GE, Citibank, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, Bank of America, Time Warner. You know them all. We're practically household names at this point. Then the Tax Dodgers broke into song. TAX DODGERS: [singing] Take me out to the tax game Bail me out with the banks Buy me a bonus and tax rebate Never pay nothing, not federal or state So just shoot, shoot, shoot for the loopholes It's law, so you can't complain Where the one, two, three trillion you're out Since we rigged the game. Take me out to the tax game Flip the bird to the crowd Losers pay taxes, we take rebates Cause we make the rules for the corporate state And it's wham, bam, slam through the loopholes We always win, what a game! We're the one, yes, the 1 percent And we have no shame! Go back to work, everyone! Strike's over! Those were the Tax Dodgers on Democracy Now!, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. Several major unions also participated in New York's May Day march. Democracy Now! spoke to members of CWA, Communications Workers of America, TWU, Transport Workers Union, the AFL-CIO and more. NEW YORK LABOR CHORUS: [singing] Solidarity forever For it's the union, yes The union makes us strong DOMINIC RENDA: Yeah, my name is Dominic Renda. I'm with the Communication Workers of America, also known as CWA. And I'm out here because workers need to take a stand against corporate greed and against the wars that only benefit the wealthy. May Day means dignity for working people. And May Day started here in the United States, and it's important for us to recognize that. There's a lot of people who are unemployed, and they deserve jobs, and a lot of people that deserve, you know, healthcare, and they're not getting health insurance from their employer. Pensions are becoming a thing of the past. Unions are becoming a thing of the past. And the thing is, is that working people, we really need to organize, because without the unions, there would just be the very rich and the very poor. PROTESTERS: May Day! Whose day? Our day! What day? May Day! Whose day? Our day! BARBARA INGRAM-DEMONDS: I'm Barbara Edmonds, and I'm with District Council 37 AFSCME. And I'm here today to support the efforts of May Day in fighting as a coalition to protect working families, struggling families and individuals—quite frankly, known as the 99 percent—to make sure that our issues, our causes are not forgotten and that we are not demonized, because we need to make sure that we protect the rights and the important value of the common good, which has been lost, quite frankly, over this last year or so, whether it's fights in the labor community, fights in our communities around the city and around the country, fights to protect those most vulnerable in our populations. So this is a day that I'm very happy to be here with my union family, AFSCME District Council 37, and many of the labor unions, faith- and community-based organizations across the city represented here. MARVIN HOLLAND: I'm Marvin Holland, Transport Workers Union. I'm the political director. TWU has always participated in May Day since we've restarted it back in 2006. And we're happy to say that this is probably the biggest one we've had so far. We just want to get a decent contract, with perhaps some cost-of-living wages. We think it's time to turn the tide on the constant concessionary contracts that have been happening to state workers throughout the country. BERESFORD SIMMONS: Hi. My name is Beresmond Simmons. I'm with the Taxi Workers Alliance. I've been driving a cab in New York City for over 40 years. And I'm here today to support the workers, because taxi drivers are some of the most exploited workers in New York City, and we need some attention from the authorities who are abusing us. LINDA HARRISON: My name is Linda Harrison. I'm with TWU Local 100. I'm here today for workers' rights. I was one of the laid-off workers. And I just came back to work the end of March, the last week in March. It was almost two years that we were off. And, I mean, we found money that the MTA had, that they could have kept us on, that services that they cut was unnecessary. And this day—so this day is a day for us to come out and unite as one. All the unions are here. Everyone's being represented. And we just want rights. We just want equality. We don't want them to give us anything. We work for whatever, you know, for our [inaudible]. They don't give us stuff. We work hard. We have, you know, sometimes dangers on the trains. We have different situations where our lives are in danger. And we still have to deal with it. We have to come back to work, and we have to, you know, go through different things and trauma and all these things like that. And we just want them to just pay us for what we give back, what we give to them: our experiences, our—you know, the skills that we have, and things like that. Like, we're not dumb. We've got—all of us have college. They got skills. They have classes for us, so we know that they know that we have these skills. And we're just asking them to just give us what we deserve. FITZ REID: Hi. My name is Fitz Reid. We are part of DC 37 Local 768, healthcare workers. We are here to support all the oppressed and the workers, students. We just want to get a movement going so we can redeem the dream, to get back the wealth that we produce and provide for the capitalists, so we can get our fair share, at minimum. The struggle should not just to maintain what we have, but we should have—we should have full healthcare, universal healthcare. And that would take the burden off the union, so we will not have to negotiate that, because all of us would get the standard care. We are all human beings. And if we cannot provide healthcare for the workers and for the masses, what else becomes primary? That's a priority. Some of the voices of organized labor at the May Day rally in New York. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012?start=2969 On a surprise visit to Afghanistan, President Obama marked the one-year anniversary of the assassination of Osama bin Laden and announced the signing of a long-term strategic partnership. Hundreds of thousands of people across the world marked May Day on Tuesday by filling the streets and demanding better working conditions, greater job security, and improved quality of life. Several major unions joined with immigrant rights activists and tens of thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters in New York City for a massive rally that marched to Wall Street. And in the city&rsquo;s Madison Square Park, hundreds of people attended a "Free University" hosted by Occupy Wall Street. Plus headlines, and more. Wed, 02 May 2012 11:22:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-2-2012 International Workers' Day, May Day, Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, New York City, United States, Anti-corporate activism, Protest, Occupy Seattle, Occupy Oakland In New York City's Madison Square Park, hundreds of people attended a "Free University" hosted by Occupy Wall Street, where professors gave free classes to May Day protesters. Activists said the event marked an alternative means of sharing knowledge outside the capitalist system. "This movement is all about building community and sharing and coming up with alternatives to the economic system that is so pervasive in our lives and in everything that we do," said Amin Husain, a key facilitator for the Occupy movement, who attended the event. "These are cracks in capitalism where we can actually give and take on our terms," he added. Ruthie Wilson Gilmore, a professor and co-founder of the prison abolitionist group Critical Resistance, brought her class from the City University of New York to the action. "May Day is a day in which we rise up and say, 'We should be free,' which means we should control the means of production so that we can have all the say possible in how we reproduce ourselves," said Gilmore. "Studying policing and studying capitalism and studying racism is a way toward figuring out how to change the future." [Transcript to come. Check back soon.] http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-1-2012?start=0 As Occupy Wall Street plans nationwide protests marking International Workers Day, we discuss the movement with reporter Chris Hedges, Amin Husain and Marina Sitrin from the Occupy movement, and author Teresa Gutierrez. Plus headlines, and more. Tue, 01 May 2012 09:46:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-1-2012 International Workers' Day, May Day, Occupy movement, Protest, Occupy Wall Street, Rupert Murdoch, Leveson Inquiry, News Corporation, News of the World phone hacking affair, UK Parliament As Occupy Wall Street plans nationwide protests marking International Workers Day, we discuss the movement with: Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Chris Hedges; Amin Husain, editor of Tidal Magazine and a key facilitator of the Occupy movement; Marina Sitrin, author of "Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina" and a member of Occupy's legal working group; and Teresa Gutierrez, of the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights. Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-1-2012?start=757 As Occupy Wall Street plans nationwide protests marking International Workers Day, we discuss the movement with reporter Chris Hedges, Amin Husain and Marina Sitrin from the Occupy movement, and author Teresa Gutierrez. Plus headlines, and more. Tue, 01 May 2012 09:46:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-may-1-2012 International Workers' Day, May Day, Occupy movement, Protest, Occupy Wall Street, Rupert Murdoch, Leveson Inquiry, News Corporation, News of the World phone hacking affair, UK Parliament As Occupy Wall Street plans nationwide protests marking International Workers Day, or May Day, we discuss the movement with Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, Chris Hedges; Amin Husain, editor of Tidal Magazine and a key facilitator of the Occupy movement; Marina Sitrin, author of "Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina" and a member of Occupy's legal working group; and Teresa Gutierrez, of the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights. We also get an update from protests on the streets of New York City from Ryan Devereaux, former Democracy Now! correspondent, now with The Guardian. “People all over the country are talking about May Day as our day, whether you want to call it 'workers' holiday' or 'immigrant rights' or 'the 99 percent,'' says Martina Sitrin, who notes Occupy activists hope to use May Day as a way to also build solidarity with the student movement and non-unionized workers as well. "This year is an important year to revive the struggle for immigrants in the wake of a million of our people being deported," adds Teresa Guitierrez. Meanwhile, a debate over tactics continues within the Occupy movement. Chris Hedges discusses his recent column titled, "The Cancer in Occupy," which critiques Black Bloc anarchists who cover their faces during protests and sometimes destroy property. "The Occupy movement expresses what the majority feels. The goal of the security state is to sever the movement from the mainstream," Hedges says. "The way they will do that is by using groups — and some of these people may be well-meaning, but by using groups that will frighten the mainstream away." But "nothing is off the table," responds Amin Husain, who says the Occupy movement needs to re-conceptualize how struggle works, how decisions get made through dialogue, and how to build power from within. Husain and Hedges also discuss how they became involved in the Occupy protests. Husain is a former corporate lawyer who was working on Wall Street when he decided to leave his position of privilege. Hedges went from being a New York Times reporter to getting arrested in front of Goldman Sachs, and challenging the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act signed by President Obama. We end the roundtable discussion with an excerpt of poet Stuart Leonard reading his poem, "Taking Brooklyn Bridge," which tells the story of the personal and political awakening he experienced while participating in an Occupy Wall Street march across the Brooklyn Bridge last fall. It is part of the Occupied Media Pamphlet Series published by Zuccotti Park Press. A coalition of groups spanning the labor, immigrant rights, Occupy Wall Street movements and beyond are joining together today for nationwide demonstrations marking International Workers' Day, or May Day. Well over a hundred actions are planned for around the country as a day of protest traditionally led by workers and immigrants is joined this year by added numbers from the 99 percent. The slogan: "General Strike. No Work. No Shopping. Occupy Everywhere." May Day actions are also being held around the world, as many countries observe official government holidays and hold mass demonstrations, rallies and marches to express labor solidarity and celebrate workers' rights. Protests are planned, and in some cases already underway, in Toronto, in Barcelona, in London, in Kuala Lumpur, in Sydney, among hundreds of cities in North America, Europe and Asia. Here in the United States, May Day is not a government-sanctioned holiday, even though the commemoration did originate here. On May 1st, 1886, the American Federation of Labor called a national strike to put an end to the 12-, 14-, even 16-hour days that were commonplace then. Two days into the massive strike, the police opened fire on a crowd of protesters in Chicago, killing four. The following day, a bomb was thrown at police officers as they descended on peaceful protesters in Haymarket Square. The bomb killed one police officer, injured many more. The police fired into the crowd, killing at least one, wounding dozens. Although it was never known who threw the bomb in Haymarket Square, the incident was used as an excuse to attack the left and labor movement. Eight of Chicago's most active labor leaders were sentenced to death, four of them ultimately hanged. News of these executions sparked labor protests throughout the world, and in 1889 the Socialist International declared May 1st a day of demonstrations. This year's May Day is the first to occur after the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street movement last fall. Organizers are hoping a massive turnout today will help relaunch the movement after a winter lull and propel it into the summer months. To discuss May Day, we're hosting a roundtable discussion with four guests in our studio. Teresa Gutierrez is co-coordinator for the May 1st Coalition for Worker and Immigrant Rights. Amin Husain is editor of Tidal magazine and a key facilitator of the Occupy movement in August 2011, leading the first General Assembly in Zuccotti Park. He's co-founder of the Plus Brigade, which has been central to the weekly Friday protests down at the New York Stock Exchange. Amin is a lawyer who left his job at a corporate law firm in Manhattan representing financial institutions to become an artist and activist. Chris Hedges is with us, senior fellow at the Nation Institute, former foreign correspondent for the New York Times, was part of a team of reporters that was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the paper's coverage of global terrorism. He's author of a number of books, including Death of the Liberal Class_. 20120116/">Among his pieces, "Why I'm Suing Barack Obama." He's suing the administration over the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, and was arrested in front of Goldman Sachs recently. Marina Sitrin is with us, postdoctoral fellow at Center for Globalization and Social Change at the City University of New York, author of Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina. And she's also researching and preparing in—participating in global mass movements, from Spain to Egypt to Greece. Most recently she co-authored the forthcoming Occupying Language, part of the Occupied Media Pamphlet Series published by Zuccotti Park Press. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Why don't we begin with Amin? I know that you—I don't even know if you got any sleep last night, but talk about the preparations for today and what you see happening. AMIN HUSAIN: I think it's been ongoing since we got thrown out of the park, and we started thinking how this movement can exist without physical space, since we became very apparent that the city wasn't going to let us have it because they recognized its power in how we organize. So we picked out May as another day to kind of build the type of solidarity that's necessary with other social movements that have already been doing stuff, so that we asked the question, "Where are students? Where is labor in all this?" and that if you want a mass movement, which I am a person that does, we need to create that space within this movement and get to work with each other. Teresa Gutierrez, May Day over the last years has been a mass day of movement for immigrants and people supporting immigrants' rights. Talk about how— Correct. Well— —things are going. —in spring 2006, we saw a tremendous upsurge of immigrant workers that took to the streets in the millions, not just once, but several times. And thanks to that struggle, May Day has been revived in this country. I think it's extremely exciting that the Occupy Wall Street movement has not only just made its effort to organize around May Day, but it's spent hours in deliberation with immigrant and labor organizations to find ways to come together. The OWS movement has a noble attitude of not applying for permits, for example. But when you are dealing with a vulnerable population such as those that can be—that are undocumented and don't just spend a night in jail, but could be deported, permits, security, marshaling, those sort of things are very important on May Day. So the OWS movement was extremely—it took a position to be in solidarity with immigrants. And so, the message of the deportations, of legalization, has not been lost, even within the solidarity that we are putting together with OWS and labor. So, this year is an important year to revive the struggle for immigrants in the wake of a million of our people being deported, so this year is very important for us. Marina Sitrin, the last decade has been major on this day. It has been the kind of—what we see now happening in New York today, you can actually go back for the last decade and see the roots of it. But I do want to say just—not just "Happy May Day," but that today is already a success—I mean, that people all over the country are talking about May Day as our day, whether you want to call it workers' holiday or immigrant rights or the 99 percent, but that it's already part of our vocabulary again, that we've taken this really important holiday. But going back to what Teresa was saying, in 2006 millions of the immigrant workers organizing in the streets throughout the entire country, demanding and then continuing to organize for rights—and then that also goes back even earlier in Europe, and coming out of the globalization movement, the kind of post-Seattle-1999 movements where people began to organize Euro May Day. I mean, Euro May Day was a linking of immigrant rights with precarious workers. So, as more and more jobs are not unionized, and workers face uneven, precarious situations of work, people started to talk about precarious work and organizing workers not just in the formal, traditional trade unions. And then also injecting some of what we saw in the global justice movement, of theater and play as a part of protests. So now what we're seeing planned for today is a combination of the immigrant rights movement working with the traditional labor movement, which is a part of May Day today—and, in fact, in some places there are strikes organized around the country called by unions—and then there are radical caucuses of unions that are participating, and then Occupy organizing direct actions and using theater. So we kind of see the play and the immigrant rights and precarious labor kind of redefining what May Day is, particularly over these last 10 years. Chris Hedges, you'll be speaking today on the issue of war? Yeah, I mean, I look at what's happened since September 17th, when Zuccotti Park was taken, as the launching of a process that's probably quite long. I think of where we're headed as a revolution. And all revolutions begin long before their ostensible date. The stamp Act of 1765 was sort of the dress rehearsal for the uprising against the British a decade later. The uprising in 1905 in Russia was the precursor, sort of created the system by which eventually the czar would be overthrown. And I think that it's unfair to sort of pin this movement on a particular day or a particular action. I think it's begun. I think it's going forward. I think it could be years in the process. But I think that the power elite, the oligarchic corporate class, is as corrupt, as fragile, and as decayed as bankrupt regimes in the past. 1789 in France was ungovernable. You know, the elite had retreated into Versailles as our elites have retreated into their gated compounds, utterly out of touch with the suffering of the ordinary American. And so, I think that what's today is momentous, not because of the numbers they may get or not get, but because this isn't going away. We're going to break, come back. Our guests are Amin Husain—among his titles, he's one of the editors of Tidal magazine. Chris Hedges is with us, Teresa Gutierrez and Marina Sitrin. This is Democracy Now! It's May Day. Back in a minute. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-30-2012?start=0 Bahrain grants appeals to 21 people, including human rights leader Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, accused of trying to overthrow the regime. Plus, a new documentary about a black Mississippi waiter who lost of life after speaking out about racism. Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:12:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-30-2012 Occupy movement, Bahrain Uprising, Occupy Wall Street, May Day, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, Bahrain, Protest, General strike, International Workers' Day, Booker Wright Bahrain has granted appeals for 21 people accused of trying to overthrow the US-backed monarchy after the Arab Spring protests began last last year, including human rights leader Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is on the 82nd day of his hunger strike. We interview the producers of "Booker's Place," a new documentary that tells the story of a black Mississippi waiter who lost of life by speaking out. And ahead of the Occupy Movement's May Day protests, leading social theorist David Harvey details urban uprisings from Occupy Wall Street to the Paris Commune. Plus headlines, and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-30-2012?start=115 Bahrain has granted appeals for 21 people accused of trying to overthrow the US-backed monarchy after the Arab Spring protests began last last year, including human rights leader Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, who is on the 82nd day of his hunger strike. We interview the producers of "Booker's Place," a new documentary that tells the story of a black Mississippi waiter who lost of life by speaking out. And ahead of the Occupy Movement's May Day protests, leading social theorist David Harvey details urban uprisings from Occupy Wall Street to the Paris Commune. Plus headlines, and more. Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:12:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-30-2012 Occupy movement, Bahrain Uprising, Occupy Wall Street, May Day, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, Bahrain, Protest, General strike, International Workers' Day, Booker Wright Labor, Occupy Prepare for May Day Protests Labor and progressive groups are preparing for a national slate of protests on Tuesday in what's expected to be one of the largest May Day turnouts since the immigrant rights marches of 2006 and 2007. Occupy Wall Street is seeking a turnout of tens of thousands under the slogan of "General Strike. No Work. No Shopping. Occupy Everywhere." Report: Banks, Police Share Occupy Monitoring Ahead of May Day, new reports have emerged of major banks working with police to monitor Occupy protesters. According to Bloomberg News, the nation's largest banks are sharing information about protesters' May Day plans amongst themselves, as well as with police. Tuesday's day of action includes a list of 99 sites in Manhattan where protesters will gather to rally against corporate power. The banks are also sharing intelligence in preparation for the antiwar protests set for the NATO summit in Chicago later in May. The information sharing is relying on video surveillance, robots and officers positioned in buildings to monitor protesters' movements. Hundreds March on New York Stock Exchange On Friday, hundreds of Occupy activists rallied in Manhattan as part of a weekly march to the New York Stock Exchange. A handful of arrests were made. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-30-2012?start=2846 On Tuesday, May 1st, known as May Day or International Workers' Day, Occupy Wall Street protesters hope to mobilize tens of thousands of people across the country under the slogan, "General Strike. No Work. No Shopping. Occupy Everywhere." Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:12:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-30-2012 Occupy movement, Bahrain Uprising, Occupy Wall Street, May Day, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, Bahrain, Protest, General strike, International Workers' Day, Booker Wright On Tuesday, May 1st, known as May Day or International Workers' Day, Occupy Wall Street protesters hope to mobilize tens of thousands of people across the country under the slogan, "General Strike. No Work. No Shopping. Occupy Everywhere." Events are planned in 125 cities. We speak with leading social theorist David Harvey, distinguished professor of anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, about how Occupy Wall Street compares to other large-scale grassroots movements throughout modern history. "It's struck a chord," Harvey says of the Occupy movement. "I hope tomorrow there will be a situation in which many more people will say, 'Look, things have got to change. Something different has to happen.'" Harvey's most recent book is "Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-25-2012?start=1891 Hundreds of supporters of former death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal marked his 58th birthday Tuesday with a protest outside the US Department Justice, calling for a federal probe into his case. As US student debt reaches $1 trillion, a coalition of groups plan to protest record-high college costs. Mumia Abu-Jamal speaks exclusively to Democracy Now! from prison on life after death row and his quest for freedom -- and talks to Danny Glover for the first time. Plus headlines, and more. Wed, 25 Apr 2012 10:16:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-25-2012 Mumia Abu-Jamal, Occupy movement, US Department of Justice, Life imprisonment, Death row, Protest, State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy, Solitary confinement, Prison, Eric Holder Today marks what activists are calling 1-T Day: The day U.S. student debt reaches $1 trillion. A coalition of groups from Occupy Wall Street plan to gather on college campuses and communities around the country to protest record-high college costs, and call for an extension of low-interest rates on federally subsidized Stafford loans. In a bid to court the youth vote, President Obama weighed in on student debt on Tuesday with a speech at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. "The vast majority of the $1 trillion worth of student debt is actually held by Wall Street banks," says Pamela Brown, a Ph.D. student who helped launch the "Occupy Student Debt Campaign" Pledge of Refusal. "Those banks actually securitized these loans, and they sell them off, and they make enormous profits from them," Brown says. We also speak with David Harvey, a professor and author whose most recent book is "Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution." "There has been this immense attempt by corporations and the wealthy and so on to pass the costs of education onto the people who are being educated," says Harvey. "They don't want to pay for training their own labor force. They want their labor force to train itself and then they'll use it." http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-17-2012?start=143 The Associated Press wins a Pulitzer prize for exposing NYPD's CIA-linked intelligence program, which led to widespread spying on Muslims. After 40 years in solitary confinement, two members of the "Angola Three" remain in isolation in a Louisiana Prison. And Norway's Johan Galtung, a peace amnd conflict pioneer, reflects on the Norwegian massacre and Afghanistan War. Plus today's headlines, and more. Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:08:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-17-2012 NYPD, Muslim, Angola Three, Johan Galtung, Norway, CIA, United States, Solitary confinement, Anders Behring Breivik, Islam in the United States Increased Shelling by Syrian Government Threatens Ceasefire Government troops in Syria have broadened shelling attacks on opposition areas, casting more doubt on a U.N.-backed ceasefire brokered by special envoy Kofi Annan. The number of people killed in Syria has been rising steadily after a brief moment of quiet when the ceasefire took effect last Thursday. On Monday, at least 26 people were killed across the country, although one activist group put the death toll at 55. Activists say shelling by government tanks killed at least two people in the southern town of Busra al-Harir. At least five people were killed when the government shelled parts of the central city of Homs in an apparent push to claim the last remaining rebel strongholds there. A six-member advance team of U.N. observers arrived in Syria over the weekend, and more monitors are expected to arrive this week. Australia To Withdraw Troops Early from Afghanistan Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced today Australia will withdraw its troops from Afghanistan earlier than planned. Gillard said troops would begin pulling out this year and most would be home by the end of 2013. Gillard made the announcement two days after militants waged a 18-hour attack on Kabul that left more than 50 people dead. Norwegian Anti-Muslim Killer Says He Would Commit Attack Again The Norwegian man who killed 77 people last year said that he would do the same thing again. Anders Behring Breivik has pleaded not guilty and said he acted to defend his country against Muslims. In a prepared statement Breivik said: "I have carried out the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack committed in Europe since the Second World War." Many relatives of the victims of the massacre in Norway are attending the trial. Trond Blattman lost his 17-year-old son. bq. Trond Blattman: "I don't think that looking in his eyes will give me any answer to anything actually. He gave one answer himself and that was when they showed this video of his crazy views of how his society should look like and how the world should look at him and what kind of a world he wants and that is not the kind of world we want to see and hopefully he don't have a lot of supporters for his views, either politically or ideologically. I think this man is a mass murderer and that is what he is going to be judged as." Senate Republicans Block "Buffett" Tax on Wealthiest Americans Senate Republicans blocked an effort by Democrats to advance the so-called Buffett rule to ensure the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share in taxes. The proposed rule — named after billionaire Warren Buffett — would have imposed a minimum tax rate of 30 percent for households with adjusted gross incomes of at least $2 million. Jim Yong Kim Named Head of World Bank, Maintains U.S. Lock on Post The World Bank has named Jim Yong Kim as its next president, maintaining a seven-decade U.S. lock on the post. Kim is a global public-health expert and president of Dartmouth College. He co-founded Partners in Health with Dr. Paul Farmer. Kim will be the bank's first leader drawn from the development world rather than politics or finance. For the first time ever, the U.S. nominee for the position faced opposition as candidates from Nigeria and Colombia challenged Kim's nomination. Palestinian Prisoners Launch Massive Hunger Strike in Israeli Jails Some 1,200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have reportedly begun an open-ended hunger strike. An additional 2,300 declared they would not eat for one day as Palestinians mark Prisoners' Day. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports the hunger strikers are protesting against what they call "humiliating" measures in Israeli prisons, including strip searches of visiting family members and night searches of prison cells, as well as the jailing of many prisoners without trial. Several Palestinians are already on extended hunger strikes including Tair Halala and Balal Diab who have not eaten for 48 days. Khader Adnan, a Palestinian who ended a 66-day hunger strike in February, is due to be released from prison today. Candidates Appeal Ban from Egyptian Presidential Race Three contenders for the Egyptian presidency have filed appeals after they were barred from running by the country's election commission. In total, the election commission disqualified 10 presidential candidates, including Omar Suleiman, who was intelligence chief under ousted president, Hosni Mubarak. Suleiman and two other candidates have appealed the decision. The commission's move came after a massive crowd gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday to protest the inclusion of figures from the Mubarak regime in the presidential race. Elections are scheduled to begin on May 23. Amnesty Report Slams Bahrain for Human Rights Abuses A new report by Amnesty International criticizes the U.S.-backed Bahraini government for continuing to commit human rights violations against anti-government protesters. Suzanne Nossel is executive director of Amnesty International USA. Suzanne Nossel: "It continues to hold large numbers of people in detention. It has imposed very harsh sentences on people without fair trials. There are 14 opposition leaders that remain in custody. There has been no high level accountability for those abuses. So we see window dressing in the form of independent investigation that gave an aura of seriousness on the part of the government in terms of living up to their human rights responsibilities, but very little in the way of follow-through." Japan's Last Nuclear Plant to Shut Down Next Month Japan will go without nuclear power for the first time in decades after the last plant currently operating in the country is shut down early next month. Japan's trade minister said two reactors that have been idling since the massive earthquake and nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi facility would not be brought back online before the country's last plant is shut down. Before the Fukushima crisis last year, nuclear power made up about 30 percent of Japan's electricity demand, but all but one of the country's 54 reactors are currently offline following safety concerns. U.S.-Filipino Military Exercise Draws Protests in the Philippines Nearly 7,000 American and Filipino troops have begun a major joint military exercise that will include combat drills near disputed South China Sea waters. The exercise comes as the United States expands its presence in the region. On Monday, dozens of Filipino student activists protested outside the U.S. embassy and called for all U.S. troops to leave the Philippines. U.S. and Filipino military officials claimed the military exercises were not meant to provoke China. This is Marine Brigadier General Frederick Padilla. Frederick Padilla: "Well this exercise, from our standpoint, is not linked to any particular situation. It is merely an opportunity for us to work on our relationship and be able to be ready. And again this year, the scenario is the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief scenario. So that's what we're focused on. It's to build on that bond, build on relationships where we can respond better should there be a crisis that comes." Argentina Moves to Nationalize Major Oil Company Argentina has unveiled plans to nationalize the country's largest oil company, YPF. In a major push to reclaim sovereignty over the country's natural resources, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner said Monday the government would seek a 51 percent share in the company. She accused the firm's majority owner — the Spanish company Repsol — of failing to meet Argentina's energy needs. The move has sparked an outcry from Repsol and the Spanish government. Taur Matan Ruak Elected Third President of East Timor Since Independence Taur Matan Ruak has been elected president of East Timor becoming the country's third president since it won independence from Indonesia 10 years ago. Ruak was the last commander of East Timor's National Liberation Army, Falintil, before independence. FCC Fines Google $25,000 for Impeding Probe of Data-Collection Practices The Federal Communications Commission is seeking a $25,000 fine from internet giant Google after the company "impeded" and "delayed" a probe of its data-collection practices. The FCC examined how Google secretly collected personal information, including emails and text messages, through its Street View location service. The $25,000 fine is the maximum penalty for failing to comply with an investigation. Google made nearly $3 billion last quarter, or $25,000 in profits every 68 seconds. Google has faced increased scrutiny in recent years over possible privacy violations. In 2010, the Federal Trade Commission dropped its investigation of the Street View service after Google pledged to improve privacy protections. OWS Activists Arrested at Foreclosure Auction, Near Stock Exchange In Occupy news, 14 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested after they tried to disrupt a foreclosure auction inside a Bronx courthouse. The protesters were issued summonses for disorderly conduct for singing during the proceedings. Meanwhile New York City police made several arrests last night near the New York Stock Exchange where Occupy protesters have been sleeping on the sidewalks for the past week. AP Wins Pulitzer for NYPD Muslim Spying Series; Manning Marable Wins for Malcolm X Book Columbia University has announced the winners of the 96th annual Pulitzer Prizes. Two online publications — The Huffington Post and Politico — each won Pulitzers for the first time. Other winners included the the Associated Press for its coverage of the New York City Police Department's clandestine surveillance of Muslims and the New York Times for its coverage of how the wealthiest U.S. citizens and businesses exploited loopholes and avoided taxes. The late Manning Marable won the Pulitzer Prize for history for his book, "Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention." Alaskan, Kenyan Activists Among 6 Winners of Goldman Environmental Prize Six environmentalists have been named winners of the 23rd Goldman Environmental Prize. Alaskan-Inupiat activist Caroline Cannon won for her work to protect against drilling in the Arctic seas. Caroline Cannon: "When I met with President Obama a couple years ago, he told me that he knew what it felt to be treated as a second-class citizen. He made a promise to work with the Inupiat people, and to protect our way of life, that gave me hope. Now is a time to hold him to that promise." Kenyan activist Ikal Angelei won a Goldman prize for her campaign to block the construction of one of East Africa's most significant infrastructure projects, the GIBE-3 dam, that could lead to the region's Lake Turkana drying up. Ikal Angelei: "The biggest the challenge was working with a community who's having already a lot of problems. Access to food, access to healthcare, insecurity, lack of government support. It's so hard when you're talking about environmental rights and resource governance when we are having people thinking 'Can I get a meal today?' and we will see what tomorrow brings. So that was the hardest challenge, working in an area where the community is already in conflict over resources, it was really hard to bring them together and say 'Listen, we understand what are the issues but as of now we have to speak as one voice.'" The other winners were Ma Jun from China, Evgenia Chirikova from Russia, Edwin Gariguez, of the Philippines and Sofia Gatica from Argentina. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-13-2012?start=0 Months after Zuccotti Park eviction, a new Occupy Wall Street camp has appeared outside New York Stock Exchange. Plus an interview with SDS founder and veteran activist Tom Hayden, headlines, and more. Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:49:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-13-2012 Occupy Wall Street, Politics of the United States, Occupy movement, Tom Hayden, New York Stock Exchange, Zuccotti Park, United States, Students for a Democratic Society, Brooke Harris, Sean Acre Months after Zuccotti Park eviction, Occupy Wall Street springs up outside New York Stock Exchange. SDS founder and veteran activist Tom Hayden talks about participatory democracy, from Port Huron to Occupy Wall Street. Arizona teacher Sean Arce is fired in the latest crackdown on an acclaimed Mexican-American studies program. And, despite praise and permission, a Detroit teacher is fired for helping students’ Trayvon Martin fundraiser. Plus headlines and more. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-13-2012?start=656 Occupy Wall Street protesters are camping out again, this time across the street from the Stock Exchange in downtown Manhattan. For the past four nights, dozens of activists have camped outside as they prepare for a major day of action on May Day. Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:49:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-13-2012 Occupy Wall Street, Politics of the United States, Occupy movement, Tom Hayden, New York Stock Exchange, Zuccotti Park, United States, Students for a Democratic Society, Brooke Harris, Sean Acre Occupy Wall Street protesters are camping out again, this time across the street from the Stock Exchange in downtown Manhattan. For the past four nights, dozens of activists have camped outside as they prepare for a major day of action on May Day. It's the first time Occupy Wall Street activists have set up an encampment in the Financial District since New York police raided Zuccotti Park five months ago. "This is Wall Street. This is where—for people, where the heart of all this economic injustice in the world comes from and exists," says protester George Machado. "So we're here standing in the face of that in blatant, explicit contest to that." Occupy Wall Street protesters are camping out again in downtown Manhattan, now across the street from the Stock Exchange. For the past four nights, dozens of activists have camped outside as they prepare for a major day of action on May Day. This marks the first time Occupy Wall Street activists have set up an encampment in the Financial District since New York police raided Zuccotti Park five months ago. Democracy Now! spoke with some of the activists last night. GEORGE MACHADO: My name is George Machado. This is Wall Street. This is where—for people, where the heart of all this economic injustice in the world comes from and exists. So we're here standing in the face of that in blatant, explicit contest to that. And we're also using this space to face outward to all the people who move through here, both—and trying to enter in conversation and not just be confrontational and agitating. JOSÉ MARTÍN: So, my name's José Martín. And now we've finally come out, using a law that was passed in 2000 by court order, to demonstrate on the sidewalk right across from the New York Stock Exchange, one of the main financial institutions in this country that is actually—is allowing the bankers to profit off of the debt of students, of workers, as well as the starvation of 20 million people every year, the homelessness of more than 10,000 people in this city alone, as well as many others across the planet, and the exploitation of workers in the earth, the world over. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-13-2012?start=755 Months after Zuccotti Park eviction, Occupy Wall Street springs up outside New York Stock Exchange. SDS founder and veteran activist Tom Hayden talks about participatory democracy, from Port Huron to Occupy Wall Street. Arizona teacher Sean Arce is fired in the latest crackdown on an acclaimed Mexican-American studies program. And, despite praise and permission, a Detroit teacher is fired for helping students&rsquo; Trayvon Martin fundraiser. Plus headlines and more.<br /> Fri, 13 Apr 2012 10:49:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-april-13-2012 Occupy Wall Street, Politics of the United States, Occupy movement, Tom Hayden, New York Stock Exchange, Zuccotti Park, United States, Students for a Democratic Society, Brooke Harris, Sean Acre We speak with Tom Hayden, principal author of the Port Huron Statement 50 years ago, the founding document of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The Statement advocated for participatory democracy and helped launch the student movement of the 1960s. Tens of thousands of copies of the 25,000-word document were printed in booklet form. "It must have been something in the air, something blowing in the wind, and we wanted to write an agenda for our generation," Hayden says. The youth-led movement changed the very language of politics, and its impact is still being felt today. "The logic of an occupation, I think, is if you feel voiceless about a burning issue of great, great importance, and the institutions have failed you, the only way to get leverage for your voice is to occupy their space in order to get their attention," Hayden says. "This goes way back to occupations of factories in the '30s. ... Occupy Wall Street is only the latest stage." Well, today we look at the birth of an earlier political movement, known by three short letters. This youth-led movement changed the very language of politics, and its impact is still being felt today. It might sound like a description of Occupy Wall Street, but over two generations ago, growing out of a very similar demand for change, emerged SDS, or the Students for a Democratic Society. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the 1962 Port Huron Statement, the founding document of SDS. The Statement advocated for participatory democracy and helped launch the student movement of the 1960s. Tens of thousands of copies of the 25,000-word document were printed in booklet form. The Statement began with this famous line: quote, "We are people of this generation, bred in at least modest comfort, housed now in universities, looking uncomfortably to the world we inherit." It ended with these words: quote, "If we appear to seek the unattainable, it has been said, then let it be known that we do so to avoid the unimaginable." We're joined by Tom Hayden, one of the founders of SDS, principal author of the Port Huron Statement. Tom Hayden has been deeply involved in social movements for the past half a century. He was a Freedom Rider in the Deep South, helped create a national poor people's campaign for jobs and empowerment in the early '60s, helped lead the anti-Vietnam War movement, and was indicted with seven others after the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention. In 1982, he was elected to the California State Assembly. He now runs the Peace and Justice Resource Center, and he's written a cover story for The Nation magazine called "Participatory Democracy: From Port Huron to Occupy Wall Street." Tom Hayden, welcome back to Democracy Now! It's an honor to be here. Good morning. Well, it was quite something to go down last night, near midnight, to this New York Stock Exchange. And it's interesting, because in the ground it says something like, "In 1903, this building, the original Stock Exchange, occupied this space." And right across the street are scores of people who are, well, doing what they did in Zuccotti Park. Very good. You write about the early movement, and you write about today, the significance of the power of these movements. Talk about where you were in 1960, 1961, when you wrote the Port Huron document. I was the editor of the Michigan Daily in Ann Arbor. I had read "Howl" by Allen Ginsberg and On the Road by Jack Kerouac, and I was a big fan of James Dean and Rebels Without a Cause and looking for my cause. And I met the young black students from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and I fell in love with them. And it was because the—they were the alternative to the life of apathetic absurdity that faced those of us like myself, and they were doing something that they believed in at the risk of their own lives and careers and reputations. And I had never met people who were willing to make that risk. And that was it. I was gradually converted to becoming an activist. It was not an overnight Saint Paul kind of conversion; it was slow. But I came to realize, just as I think Juan did, that you can be a writer, a journalist, an autonomous person, and be deeply engaged and not a propagandist. You begin to see things, see realities, by being involved. So, how did Port Huron happen? I don't know. It was a— Why is it even called "Port Huron"? It was a miracle. It's like "how did Democracy Now! happen?" A few people said—it must have been something in the air, something blowing in the wind, and we wanted to write an agenda for our generation. And 50 or 60 people did, and very inspired by SNCC. The first notes toward it were written by myself in an Albany, Georgia, jail after a Freedom Ride. Some of the SNCC people came. They were trying to recruit us. And we wanted to do something about the lack of student power. Students couldn't vote. We could be drafted. There were dorm hours. People would make out with their dates, but there were dorm counselors that made everybody have "two couples, three legs on the floor, please." I have to set the timing of this: 1960, '62, a very special time. So, we decided we would write this manifesto. And a professor named Arnold Kaufman suggested we use the term "participatory democracy." It also came from Ms. Ella Baker, who was the elder adviser to SNCC, who wanted the students in the South to have an autonomous movement, bottom-up movement, a self-determined movement, and not just follow the elder clergy. And the components came together, and the Statement was somehow produced. And it was called a living document, because we thought it should be open to revision. The sentence you read that opened it is not exactly The Communist Manifesto. You know, it's like we're people of this generation, bred in modest comfort, looking uncomfortably. And so, we're having a meeting at NYU, that everybody is invited to, all day today, a reflection. Many of the originals are there. And if you could talk about— And we're looking uncomfortably on the world we leave behind, perhaps, but— Yeah. Occupy makes us all very happy, very pleased. We've seen this come before and go, and come again. And it will. Tom, when you talk about some of the people who participated, talk about some of those early founders of SDS that were with you and that helped to develop the original Port Huron Statement. I can't name them all, and I'd hate to leave anybody out. But they're all at NYU. They're not relics. You can go see them. You should—you know some of them. Al Haber was the man carrying the idea of a student organization around. He was like the elder of the group. Robb Burlage, who I had dinner with last night, was a editor at the University of Texas newspaper. My first wife, Casey, was a sit-in leader and a kind of existentialist from Austin. There were student body presidents, student newspaper editors. SNCC people were there. Charles McDew, who's here in New York, was there. It's an interesting cross-section of about 50 people. That's all. I wanted to go to a clip of you speaking in the early '60s. You're talking about Bob Moses being arrested for registering African-American voters. Bob Moses was the field secretary for SNCC, for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and director of SNCC's Mississippi Project. Middle of August, when Bob Moses was arrested on his way back from Liberty, which is the county seat, ironically enough, of Amite County, he was stopped with several Negros who had just attempted to register unsuccessfully. And he was arrested by the officer, by the marshal, for disturbing an officer in the process of—in position of making an arrest, which essentially means resisting arrest. He was booked, and he spent a couple of days in jail. That was Tom Hayden in 1961. I want to go back to the Pacifica Radio Archive. Again, this is Tom Hayden in the early '60s, 1961. Tom, you're helping the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in Durham, North Carolina. In this clip, you continue to talk about the importance of voter registration. For a series of reasons, the individuals in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee have come to see voter registration as the kind of issue and the kind of goal that now is not only possible, but also very desirable, in many areas of the South, and the sort of thing that can complement a program of nonviolent direct action. That's Tom Hayden. Thanks to the Pacifica Radio Archive, we hear you 50 years ago. Voter rights is a key issue, even today, even close to 50 years after the signing of the Voting Rights Act, with voter ID laws— Exactly. —being passed around the country that are cutting back on people's ability to vote. Exactly. Well, the movement began with sit-ins, which were occupations of lunch counters. I was a Freedom Rider. I occupied a train from Atlanta to Albany, Georgia. But very swiftly, the organizers kept hearing from, particularly elderly people, black people in the South, "I want to vote before I die. I served in Korea. I want, just once, to be able to vote." And the principle was to help people accomplish what they already wanted to do. And there was a strategy also because the disenfranchisement of all these people was the power foundation on which the Dixiecrats, the white racist wing of the Democratic Party that dominated all the committees, was based upon. And so, it was not an accident that these projects occurred in McComb, Mississippi, or in Lowndes County, Alabama, or Albany, Georgia. And they weren't—it wasn't an either/or of direct action or voter registration, because the vote was a real threat to the status quo. And SNCC people made virtually a blood oath to spend at least five years—nobody knew who would live and who would not—but to attack this problem. And it took great courage and—but also strategic intelligence, listening to people who had been waiting for all these years. And it resulted in the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which, fortunately, had some teeth. That's why the right wing is complaining today, and the Confederate states are complaining, because they're still under a monitoring provision of the 1965 act. So, in a sense, SNCC accomplished that. I remember I was at a SNCC reunion, 50th, last year, year before. And the attorney general of the United States, Holder, was there, and he gave a talk, and he said, "You know, there's a straight line between those projects in the Deep South and where I sit today at the Department of Justice. And I owe it to SNCC." But, Tom, there's also another straight line, which is that, obviously, that Voting Rights Act and then the protests that occurred against the war in Vietnam led as well to the mass defections from the Democratic Party of so many Southern whites and, of course, the Nixon strategy in '68 to basically woo the South, the Republican Party, woo Southern Democrats away, and that really made a major shift in the political alignment in the country for a generation. I think—I think, Juan, that was a failure of the Liberal Democrats. The plan was this: risk your neck to do the voter registration and, in doing so, awaken a liberal constituency of clergy, of labor, of like-minded people around the country, and, yes, get the white racists out of the Democratic Party base, move them to wherever they want to go: the Klan, the Republican Party, whatever. Or change them? I don't remember that being part of the plan. They're entitled to their role. The plan was to replace them with progressive forces and realign the Democratic Party. And the failure, the absolute turning point, came where—1964, everything had happened. Kennedy had been assassinated, and SNCC launched the Mississippi Freedom Summer. I went into a long-term community organizing project in Newark— In Newark, yeah. —with 200 other SDS people. The idea was an interracial or a multiracial movement of the poor to galvanize everybody else. We did not anticipate the war in Vietnam and the draft and the polarization. But the idea was that—I think if Johnson had stayed out of the war, you could have accomplished that without the right-wing strategy that followed. It was the right-wing response to the draft resistance, the black uprisings and all that between '65, '67, that made it possible to have another realignment that favored the rising Republican Party, which is now the Tea Party. Tom Hayden, we're going to break, come back to this discussion. Tom Hayden, longtime activist, former California state senator, one of the founding founders of Students for a Democratic Society and principal author of the Port Huron Statement, written 50 years ago. This is Democracy Now! Back in less than a minute. [break] Our guest is longtime activist Tom Hayden on this 50th anniversary of the founding of—well, founding of SDS, but the writing of the Port Huron Statement. And Tom Hayden was the principal author of that. We're talking the early '60s. This is the time— It's got to be remembered. —of John Kennedy. Let's talk about some parallels between organizing in the age of Obama and organizing in the age of John Kennedy. He was not exactly your enemy. How did people organize? And then, what happened when he was gone? It's a good question, and there are parallels. I think, in short, the movement thought that we needed federal protection. And the problem with the federal government was that the Democrats in power had a power base that included liberals, but it also included the Dixiecrat, right-wing, racist element that prevented anything from happening. And I guess we thought, or gambled, that through direct action and voter registration we would make them choose. And so, we saw Kennedy, I think, evolve a little bit. There's dispute about this, but I think he evolved in three years towards more sympathy for the March on Washington, which he initially was worried about because he didn't want to offend the Dixiecrats—march for jobs and justice, not just for voting rights. It was a big deal. It was one year after Port Huron. And he also evolved on the question of nuclear—the nuclear arms race. And— I mean, did he evolve? He was pressuring King not to do the 1963 march. It wasn't that he let it happen; it's that King insisted. Well, the idea was that we had to make them choose. And when a president makes the right choice, you don't claim that you pushed him into it. You say, "That's what happened, and so we were successful." Similarly on the nuclear arms race, the Women's International—what was it? League for Peace and Freedom? The Women—no, Women Strike for Peace— Ah. Strike for Peace. —began the same time around radioactive testing fallout, mother's milk, contamination. Seemed like a very obscure issue, but very real, very human. And we saw Kennedy, especially after the insanity of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which we all lived through, two months after Port Huron, sign the first Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and then give a speech saying he was critical of the Cold War, that the Cold War with the Soviet Union had to be replaced by a peace race, had to end. And then he was killed. So, there was a kind of sense of the possible, that we had a hand in creating, but we became might-have-beens. We don't know what might have happened. We were on course. No professor or textbook told us that you should think about assassinations as part of the landscape of history and social change, and they can derail you or distort you in ways you can't even predict. Well, and the country was on course maybe domestically, but obviously internationally it was still involved in expanding the war in Vietnam and the invasion of the Dominican Republic in '65. But I wanted to ask you about the issue of the—you mentioned the occupations, the student occupations that then developed in the late '60s. I think that's when I first met you, in 1968. I was an occupier with you, I believe. Yes, at Columbia, and I was just a student, and you were like this already known— "Just a student." —known radical who joined— "Just a student." —who joined our occupation. He's a quick learner. And we actually have a clip of that Columbia strike. And if you could talk not only about that strike, after the clip, but about about the impact of these student occupations in the late '60s on the movement for social change in the country. But let's turn to this brief excerpt from the documentary The Columbia Revolt by Third World Newsreel. STUDENT ORGANIZER: In order to show solidarity of people with the six strike leaders who they had tried to suspend, they decided to take Hamilton once again. CAMPUS OFFICIAL: You are hereby directed to clear out of this building. I'll give you further instructions if this building is not cleared out within the next 10 minutes. STRIKE LEADER: I'm asking how many of you here are willing now to stay with me, sit-in here, until... STUDENT ORGANIZER: After three votes, a majority decided to stay. STUDENTS: Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike! CAMPUS OFFICIAL: If you do not choose to leave this building, I have to inform you that we have no alternative but to call the police, and each student who is arrested will be immediately suspended. That was a clip from Third World Newsreel's The Columbia Revolt. Tom— Juan, you recognize faces there. A few, quite a few, yes. But Tom, you— Frances Fox Piven. You were in the Mathematics Hall, one of the— Exactly. —one of the buildings that was occupied, along— It's my specialty, mathematics. —along with—along with some of the other groups from the community that joined the struggle then. Talk about not only the Columbia revolt, but all of the protests, and really the Pentagon protest of '67 against the war that really sort of spurred those movements. Actually, even before you do that, let's play a clip from that '67 march on Pentagon. This is how it was covered by Universal Newsreel. You folks are equipped. UNIVERSAL NEWSREEL: Thousands of demonstrators opposed to the Vietnam War assembled in the nation's capital for a mass protest, for the most part orderly. Minor scuffles did occur between the demonstrators and hecklers. A three-hour parade takes the demonstrators across the Potomac on their way to the Pentagon. The crowd, estimated at about 50,000 persons, was a loose confederation of some 150 groups that included adults, students, even children. It is at the Pentagon where the first test of strength comes. Military police contain the crowd, but clashes soon break out. Federal marshals arrest several who attempt to break through the protective line. Reinforcing the marshals, a second wave of MPs with fixed bayonets in scabbards move into position. That was Universal Newsreel covering the 1967 march on the Pentagon. So, Tom Hayden, that march, followed by the Columbia and university strikes all over the country? Well, the headline said that the demonstrators stormed the Pentagon, and the narrator's voice said it was a parade. I leave it to the visual. But I think that a lot of images of the '60s consist of bedlam, unless you were there. The logic of an occupation, I think, is if you feel voiceless about a burning issue of great, great importance, and the institutions have failed you, the only way to get leverage for your voice is to occupy their space in order to get their attention. This goes way back to occupations of factories in the '30s. You know the history. Occupy Wall Street is only the latest stage. And it's because of the failure of Wall Street, the collapse of the economy, the disappearance of an economic future for this generation of students, and the failure of the political system to deliver reform or jobs. So they occupy. And I think, at Columbia, Columbia was expanding its economic interests into Harlem at a time of great racism and exclusion of Puerto Ricans, of blacks, from the university. And they had war contractors that were making money off the war. And students had had enough. And then they tried to kick some students out of school. It's not unlike University of California today or Santa Monica College, where they're pepper-spraying kids, in response to tuition hikes. And so, you occupy. Then, of course, you have to transform. You can't occupy permanently. But it does—it's like the reason for trade unions is to get leverage for working people to advance their wages. An occupation gives the occupiers some leverage to try to get attention to their issues. And if we had leadership in New York state—pardon me as a foreigner from California—somebody should say, "Well, we agree with you. We're going to do something about Wall Street now. One, two, three." And maybe the process would move forward. But it seems stuck now, as it was in the early '60s, on the failure of the institutions to do something about a situation that people can't stand. What about the police response with the occupations around the country, the encampments, the total crackdown? Although people are now occupying right across the street from the Stock Exchange, and every day more and more come. Well, I would—you know, I think, from a politician point of view, they can only tolerate so much occupation, for their own reasons, but the police should really think about this, because they're public employees. There is a conspiracy theory afoot that they coordinated the crackdowns. I don't think we have all the evidence on that. For instance, the sweeping of L.A. was more benign—and it's never benign to have plastic cuffs on you and so on, but it was more benign than New York or Oakland or Chicago. I don't know why. But the police are not the agency to deal with Wall Street. And the use of police only creates further anger, further polarization. As you can see from this morning, it doesn't eliminate the desire to occupy, because that derives not from just trying to stand up to the police, it derives from the fact that you got—I'll tell you, like at Logan Square, I was interviewing a young man named Bobby. He's a TA, a teaching assistant, at Boston College. And I said, "Why are you here?" I was just interviewing people in my—that's my favorite mode. I should be a reporter for your program. He said, "Where else could I be? There's nothing else to do." So he was taking his stand in the freezing weather in this tent, because as a college-educated person and a TA, he had no future, and he could find no way to move the institutions to do anything about this obvious fact. And your sense of— And that's what they're like. And your sense of how the Occupy movement not only is a reiteration of past protest movement, but also an advance? What do you think that the Occupy movement has brought different to the movement for social change in America? Well, one thing—I'm a Port Huron expert. It's my little Talmud. I look at—it's the Dead Sea Scrolls of the New Left. And I found in it this really stunning reference that said, in the economic section, that 1 percent of Americans own 80 percent of the corporate stock. And then it went on, in the further sentence, to say, this despite the fact that the New Deal reforms occurred in the '30s; it's the same 1 percent since the 1920s, when these statistics were measured. So the failure of our generation, if you want to talk in terms of failure or inability, we couldn't—we could diversify, we could democratize, we could pluralize, we could create more space, but the 1 percent is still the 1 percent. That is the fact. And so, if this present movement concentrates on Wall Street, including its various tentacles and impacts, the question is, for me, can they take the legacy further and actually do something about the 1 percent, which has maintained its rule, or its influence—not rule, but influence—despite the black presidency, despite the rise of the black caucus, the Latino caucus, the immigrant rights base of the labor movement, the coming and going of the consumer movement, Ralph Nader, all through these years, the women's movement? They're still—all these changes notwithstanding, they're still the 1 percent. That's the great opportunity they have, to finally get to the business that we failed to finish. Well, Tom Hayden, I want to thank you very much for being with us. I know you're going over to give a major address at 9:30, which has been switched over to Thompson Street, is that right? Don't ask me. It's the Center—NYU Global Center for Spiritual Life. And there's a conference going on all day at New York University— Exactly. —which people can find online. Exactly. You can see us. It's—come to the zoo of Port Huron. And we welcome everybody. It's a big meeting, big gathering. Tom Hayden, longtime activist, former California state senator, one of the founders of SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, in '62, was the principal author of the Port Huron Statement, the founding statement of SDS. That does it for this conversation, but you can go online, and you can read the transcript, and you can get a copy of today's show at democracynow.org. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-groups-take-on-foreclosure-fight?start=0 Occupy activists across America say they have found a cause that represents an issue for the "99 percent" -- helping homeowners fight foreclosure and eviction. Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:14:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-groups-take-on-foreclosure-fight Occupy Our Homes, Foreclosure, Occupy movement, Anti-corporate activism, Occupy Wall Street, Politics of the United States, Wall Street, Wells Fargo, Chase, Citigroup Occupy activists across America say they have found a cause that represents an issue for the "99 percent" -- helping homeowners fight foreclosure and eviction. http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-040512?start=655 In a broadcast exclusive, Democracy Now! reveals the name of the police officer who allegedly killed 68-year-old Kenneth Chamberlain, a retired African-American Marine who was shot dead in his own home in White Plains, New York, after he inadvertently triggered his medical alert pendant. Plus headlines, and more. Thu, 05 Apr 2012 10:00:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/democracy-now-040512 United States, US Congress, Shooting, Civilian casualties, Barack Obama, Politics of the United States, Suicide attack, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Athens, World Trade Organization The Manhattan District Attorney has dropped charges against New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, who was arrested when the police cleared the Occupy Wall Street encampment at Zuccotti Park last year. Rodriguez was initially charged with resisting arrest and obstruction of governmental administration. http://news.linktv.org/videos/fault-lines-occupy-wall-street-surviving-the-winter?start=0 Fault Lines follows key Occupy organizers through the winter as they continue to build a movement even after violent evictions across the country. Fri, 30 Mar 2012 13:51:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/fault-lines-occupy-wall-street-surviving-the-winter Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Occupy Oakland, Protest, Foreclosure, Occupy Our Homes, Duarte Square, Anti-corporate activism, New York City, West Coast of the United States Fault Lines follows key Occupy organizers through the winter as they continue to build a movement even after violent evictions across the country. ---- When Occupy Wall Street faced violent police crackdowns around the country, most people thought it had come to an end. But the protesters had no intention of abandoning a movement that had already brought out thousands of Americans to demand attention to the country’s economic inequalities. Hundreds of protests and actions have continued around the country. "The economic, political and social conditions continue to deteriorate and as a human being - it doesn't matter where you're from or what your history is - you'll always revolt against that," says Amin Husain, an Occupy organiser. Fault Lines looks at how Occupy Wall Street continued to build itself through the winter months by following key organisers through planning meetings, days of action and assemblies - and how the movement must battle political co-optation in a US election year. http://news.linktv.org/videos/fault-lines-the-history-of-occupy-wall-street?start=0 Fault Lines tells the definitive history of Occupy Wall Street from its early days through the movement's rapid spread up to the brutal crackdown by state authorities. Wed, 21 Mar 2012 16:26:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/fault-lines-the-history-of-occupy-wall-street Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, Occupy movement, Protest, Occupy Oakland, New York City, We are the 99%, Anti-corporate activism, NYPD, Protest camp Fault Lines tells the definitive history of Occupy Wall Street from its early days through the movement's rapid spread up to the brutal crackdown by state authorities. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-protesters-mark-six-months-of-uprising?start=0 Hundreds of protestors gathered Saturday night to re-occupy New York's Zuccotti Park, marking six months since the launch of the Occupy Wall Street movement. NYPD officers cleared the park, making at least 73 arrests. Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:24:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-protesters-mark-six-months-of-uprising Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, Occupy movement, Protest, New York City, NYPD, Protest camp, Michael Moore, Anniversary, Wall Street Hundreds of protestors gathered Saturday night to re-occupy New York's Zuccotti Park, marking six months since the launch of the Occupy Wall Street movement. NYPD officers cleared the park making at least 73 arrests. Many people reported excessive use of force by officers, and several cases were caught on camera. For more we talk to Guardian reporter Ryan Devereaux, who has been following the Occupy movement closely. ---- This weekend marked six months since the launch of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which began last September 17th and launched protests around the world that gave voice to "the 99 percent." Activists in New York City marked the occasion by attempting to reoccupy the movement’s birthplace: Zuccotti Park, renamed "Liberty Plaza." A protest there Saturday drew more than hundreds of people, and included street theater and dancing. But police were also on the scene and appeared determined to stop any attempts to re-establish the Occupy encampment. At least 73 people were arrested. Many reported excessive use of force by officers with the New York Police Department. This is a protester describing what happened after activists tried to set up tents in Zuccotti Park Saturday night. PROTESTER: Some people wanted to reoccupy the park, so people were out here with their sleeping bags, and there were a few tents. The officers basically came into the park and smashed the tarp down that people were lying under, and they began trying to arrest people. In one widely reported incident, a young woman suffered a seizure after she was pulled from the crowd and arrested. Witnesses say police initially ignored Cecily McMillan as she flopped about on the sidewalk with her hands zip-tied behind her back, but she was eventually taken away in an ambulance. Meanwhile, not far from the park, thousands of activists and intellectuals gathered at the Left Forum this weekend to discuss the theme "Occupying the System." Renowned independent filmmaker and activist Michael Moore headlined the event Saturday. He said he had never seen a movement spread with greater speed than Occupy Wall Street. MICHAEL MOORE: I have never seen a political or a social movement catch fire this fast than this one. And, you know, I’m in my fifties, so I’ve lived through enough of them and knew about those that came before me. And what’s so incredible about this movement is that people have—it was—really, it hasn’t taken six months. It really just took a few weeks before they started to take polls of people, Americans, and they found that the majority of Americans supported the principles of the Occupy movement. This was back in October. And then they took another poll, and it said 72 percent of the American public believes taxes should be raised on the rich. Seventy-two percent. I mean, I don’t think there was ever a poll that showed a majority in favor of raising taxes on the rich, because up until recently, a vast majority of our fellow Americans believed in the Horatio Alger theory, that anyone in America can make it, it’s an even and level playing field. And now they—the majority, at least, vast majority—know that that’s a lie. They know that there’s no truth to that whatsoever. They know that the game is rigged. And they know that they don’t have the same wherewithal on that playing field that the wealthy have. At the end of his speech, Michael Moore urged people to join the movement and go down to Zuccotti Park. MICHAEL MOORE: I really want to encourage you to not let this moment slip by. Our ship has really come in. The spotlight is on Occupy Wall Street. And I think—I think this is our—this is our invitation to head over to Zuccotti Park. It’s a 10-minute—it’s a 10-minute walk. Five minutes if you’re young. Huh? AUDIENCE MEMBER: [inaudible] MICHAEL MOORE: All right. So, go ahead, start the banner. And again, thank you, everybody, for coming here tonight. Let’s not—let’s not lose the moment. The moment is ours and our fellow Americans’. Thank you. Occupy Wall Street! Hundreds heeded Michael Moore’s call and helped swell the ranks of the Occupy protest Saturday night. Democracy Now! correspondent and now Guardian reporter Ryan Devereaux tweeted, quote, "Today’s events feel like any given day last fall with #OWS." Well, Ryan joins us now to talk more about Occupy Wall Street. We’re also joined by two of the people who led a discussion at the Left Forum about strategic directions for the Occupy movement: Frances Fox Piven, professor of political science and sociology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York, author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, a frequent target of right-wing pundits; and in D.C., we’re joined by Stephen Lerner, the architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign, on the executive board of the Service Employees International Union, has been working with labor and community groups nationally on how to hold Wall Street accountable. We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Ryan, let’s begin with you with an update on what took place on Saturday night. Well, on Saturday night, protesters had been in the park since about 1:00 in the afternoon, and it had been a day that had been marked with some tension, but also a lot of joy. People were really enjoying the opportunity to be in the park again to talk to each other, to meet new people and discuss issues. At about 11:30, though, a representative from Brookfield Properties, which owns Zuccotti Park, said that he was working with Brookfield security, made an announcement that people had to leave the park because they were violating the rules. I asked him what rules they were violating. He said that they had brought in sleeping equipment and erected structures in the park, and these were violations of the rules. He made this announcement via megaphone, but he was drowned out by protesters. And I should say that the structures that I witnessed were a tarp that was strung over a cord tied between two trees, and protesters also had—they had symbolic tents up on polls that they were carrying around. It wasn’t as if they had created a tent city in the park or anything like that. But the protesters decided to stand their ground, and the police moved in, in lieu of the Brookfield security. And it was rows upon rows of police officers coming into the park through the front entrance, coming down the stairs. And the protesters, dozens of them who chose to stand their ground, were gathered in the center of the park. Their arms and legs were locked. They were sitting in planters right there in the middle of Zuccotti. And the police moved in to break them apart. It was a violent scene, by just about all accounts, police ripping protesters apart from each other, people being hit, people being dragged across the ground, multiple reports of young women being pulled by their hair across the ground. I saw a young woman writhing on the ground in pain with a white-shirted police officer standing over the top of her telling her to shut up. It was really gruesome. I talked to a lot of people who were there on the eviction on November 15th, and they said that the course of the day, you know, the interactions with the police and the protesters were the most violent they had seen. Following people being pulled out of the park, you know, dozens of arrests, there was a winding march through the city, which resulted in, you know, a handful of—a handful more arrests. What was really disturbing for a lot of people that were there on the scene was one incident with a young woman named Cecily McMillan who, witnesses say, suffered from a seizure. She was handcuffed in the street sidewalk area near the entrance to the park. She was on the ground. Videotape seems to show her convulsing. You can hear people screaming to help her, to call 911. Witnesses that were there said that it took approximately 22 to 23 minutes for an ambulance to arrive. People were really disturbed that there were hundreds of police officers there and no paramedics, and also disturbed by the fact that you see a number of police officers standing around this young woman as she’s convulsing, and no one seems to be doing much of anything. I spoke to a young man who said he was a paramedic in—an EMT in Florida, who was disgusted by the way that McMillan was treated. He said her head wasn’t supported. Numerous witnesses that I spoke to said that her head was bouncing off the concrete. The paramedics said that she could have easily died. McMillan was taken from the scene by ambulance to a local hospital and then transferred to police custody. Did they take the handcuffs off of her? Eventually they took the handcuffs off, but it was quite some time she was on the ground convulsing in handcuffs. And people were screaming to let her loose, take the handcuffs off, stabilize her. People felt like it didn’t seem like the officers knew what they were—what they needed to do to handle her. Is she in jail now or the hospital? She’s in jail now, as far as we know. Attorneys with the National Lawyers Guild are particularly concerned because, despite repeated efforts, they haven’t been able to speak to her. These attorneys have told me that in most cases, it would be easy for them to speak to a potential client, to speak to someone who is—you know, who’s in police custody but has been hospitalized. But those efforts have been stopped. It’s unclear exactly why. The police have released a video that they claim shows McMillan hitting an officer, hitting a police officer, shortly before her seizure. I don’t fully understand how that relates to her care or, you know, why it was that she wasn’t taken to the hospital. It seems irrelevant, and it doesn’t seem to address the issue of why she hasn’t been able to speak to an attorney. We do know that she is charged with a felony, but it is unclear what exactly those charges are, because, again, the attorneys haven’t been able to speak to her. But she was—eventually, an ambulance came? Eventually an ambulance came. Speaking of healthcare, what happened to the Occupy medic? This was after protesters were cleared out of the park. An Occupy medic, who, by most accounts, from people that I spoke to, is a soft-spoken, pretty nice young guy, was grabbed by police for reasons that are unclear to me. He was directly in front of me at the moment that he was grabbed, and he was thrown into a glass door. Some people said that his head hit the door, but I was standing there, and I couldn’t tell what part of his body hit the door. But it was a massive crack left in this glass door. People were shocked at the force that was used. The young man, as he was being pulled away by police officers, looked me in the eye and said that he had been punched in the face. I asked photographers there on the scene. They said he had been punched in the face multiple times. And this was something that, you know, repeated people—repeatedly I heard accounts of people who said that they had been hit in the face. I heard accounts of protesters saying that they were directly verbally threatened by police officers. I saw a high level of intimidation from a number of police officers towards protesters. And it should be said that there were police officers who seemed to be making an effort, or at least just trying to do their job, but it is the guys who go out of their way to not be like that that tend to stand out and that tend to scare people and tend to hurt people. And, you know, protesters were saying that this was really an ugly scene. The attorneys who were looking at cases that are developing out of these arrests are saying that they’re seeing more resisting arrest charges, which they tell me often sort of is code word for fighting with police officers or police officers beating someone up. We’re going to go to break, and then we’re going to come back. Ryan Devereaux with The Guardian now, used to be a fellow here at Democracy Now! It’s great to have you back. We’ll also be joined by Frances Fox Piven and Stephen Lerner in a moment. http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-occupy-protesters-return-to-new-yorks-zuccotti-park?start=0 Occupy Wall Street protesters clashed with police in New York as they marked the movement's six-month anniversary by attempting to set up camp in the city's Zuccotti Park. Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:11:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-occupy-protesters-return-to-new-yorks-zuccotti-park Occupy Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, Protest camp, Occupy movement, NYPD, New York City, Protest, Anniversary, Arrest, Raw video Occupy Wall Street protesters clashed with police in New York as they marked the movement's six-month anniversary by attempting to set up camp in the city's Zuccotti Park. http://news.linktv.org/videos/satirists-rally-for-romney-these-hippies-should-buy-their-own-politicians?start=0 In New York, dozens of protestors rallied outside a fundraiser for GOP candidate Mitt Romney. A satirical group calling themselves "1% for Mitt" offered a mock defense of Romney's candidacy: "You know, there's no gratitude here for the Wall Street executives, the billionaires who are financing our election." Thu, 15 Mar 2012 17:31:00 -0700 http://news.linktv.org/videos/satirists-rally-for-romney-these-hippies-should-buy-their-own-politicians Occupy Wall Street, Mitt Romney, Republican Party presidential primaries, 2012, Mitt Romney presidential campaign, 2012, United States, Political satire, Politics of the United States, Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, US presidential election, 2012, New York City In New York City, dozens of people rallied outside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Wednesday to protest a fundraiser for Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. Ruth Rodriguez: "I lived in Massachusetts when he was governor, and I can tell you that our biggest sign for Romney was a flip-flop. He's the biggest flip-flopper. He'll say whatever the audience wants to hear, and then he does whatever he wants to do. And the first thing he did in Massachusetts was to eliminate bilingual education and trash teachers." Adopting the language of Occupy Wall Street, a satirical group calling themselves "1 Percent for Mitt" offered a mock defense of Romney's candidacy. "Richard Thanyou": "I'm here today to, you know, tell these hippies that they should buy their own politicians. That's the American way. You know, there's no gratitude here for the Wall Street executives, the billionaires who are financing our election. Some countries can't even hold elections. You know, I think a little gratitude is in order. Some of my one-percenter friends are here to tell these hippies what's up. And I'm hoping that there's not a clash, but I think in the marketplace of ideas, you know, we've shown that the one-percenters will always prevail. Whether it's Mitt Romney or Barack Obama in 2012, the system is rigged for us. It's class war, and we're winning." http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-movement-shifts-focus-from-wall-street-to-vacant-houses?start=0 In New York, Occupy Wall Street is continuing to shift its focus away from occupying parks and squares to other actions, such as occupying foreclosed homes. In Brooklyn, NY an occupation of a vacant home has entered its second month. Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:17:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-movement-shifts-focus-from-wall-street-to-vacant-houses Occupy Our Homes, Foreclosure, Occupy movement, East New York, Brooklyn, Protest, Occupy Wall Street, Brooklyn, Homelessness, Take Back the Land, New York In New York, Occupy Wall Street is continuing to shift its focus away from occupying parks and squares to other actions, such as occupying foreclosed homes. In Brooklyn, NY an occupation of a vacant home has entered its second month. Jaisal Noor has this report. ----- Occupy Wall Street demonstrators protest outside a foreclosed property in the East New York section of Brooklyn in New York City, December 6, 2011. Protesters in several American cities demonstrated in a day of action billed as "Occupy Our Homes" to stop and reverse foreclosures demanding that banks keep families in their homes. http://news.linktv.org/videos/who-changed-the-world-in-2011-the-occupy-movement?start=0 Channel 4 News is taking a look at some of the people and movements that had the biggest impact on the world in 2011. Washington Correspondent Matt Frei nominates the Occupy movement as the person - or people - who changed the world in 2011. Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:09:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/who-changed-the-world-in-2011-the-occupy-movement Who Changed the World in 2011, Occupy movement, Occupy Wall Street, Matt Frei, Occupy Oakland, Scott Olsen, Channel 4 News Channel 4 News is taking a look at some of the people and movements that had the biggest impact on the world in 2011. Washington Correspondent Matt Frei nominates the Occupy movement as the person - or people - who changed the world in 2011. http://news.linktv.org/videos/nypd-crackdown-on-occupy-protesters-and-journalists?start=0 Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protestors gathered Saturday in New York City to mark the three-month anniversary of the movement. Over 50 people were arrested as demonstrators tried to occupy a new space following their eviction from Zuccotti Park. Tue, 20 Dec 2011 17:11:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/nypd-crackdown-on-occupy-protesters-and-journalists Occupy Wall Street, NYPD, Protest, Occupy movement, Duarte Square, New York City, Wall Street, Zuccotti Park, Press pass, Democracy Now! Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protestors gathered Saturday in New York City to mark the three-month commemoration of the now-global movement. More than 50 people were arrested as demonstrators spent the day trying to occupy a new space following their eviction last month from Zuccotti Park. While covering the protest for Democracy Now!, two reporters were harassed by officers with the New York City Police Department. After an officer "jammed his fist into my throat and yelled at me to get back," Ryan Devereaux says he "was certain I was going to be hurt, or arrested, or both" even though he was wearing Democracy Now!-issued press credentials. At the same time, another officer reportedly hit videographer Jon Gerberg, credentialed by the NYPD, three times in the kidneys as he filmed the protest. "It goes to show you that it doesn't matter if you're wearing the credentials that 'Democracy Now!' has or you're wearing the credentials that are supposed to protect you, the NYPD seems to think it's okay to treat you as second-class citizen," Devereaux says. This comes after a number of journalists were roughed up by police as they covered the recent eviction of Zuccotti Park. Major news publications, including, the Associated Press and the New York Times, have called on NYPD to treat reporters with more respect. ---- We turn now to Occupy Wall Street. Hundreds of protesters gathered Saturday in New York to mark the three-month anniversary of the movement. Demonstrators spent the day trying to occupy a new space following their eviction last month from Zuccotti Park. Two attempts at occupying the space were stopped by police, and more than 50 people were arrested. Among the people gathered Saturday was New York City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez. He said the movement would continue. COUNCIL MEMBER YDANIS RODRIGUEZ: This movement has been built on the need of the working class and the middle class. This movement is not going anywhere, is not leaving this city, unless we take particular initiatives to close the gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent. AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now! Jon Gerberg and Ryan Devereaux were at the demonstration Saturday and spoke to protesters. Here are some of the voices from the streets. NELINI STAMP: Nelini Stamp. And I've been involved in Occupy since September 17th. The last three months have been really amazing, and in my view, I think that we have sparked a national narrative of economic inequality and economic justice. And it's really great to see that, you know, even though we don't have the physical space of occupation, we are still around and, you know, are making a difference and a change. OCCUPY PROTESTER: This was essentially a confrontation on the 17th of December, the three-month anniversary, also the one-year anniversary of the self-immolation of Bouazizi in Tunisia. And this was meant to confront the police at allowing protesters to use this space. So I think that's why this happened on Saturday and why this was planned to happen on the three-month anniversary of the initial occupation. LISA FITHIAN: Lisa Fithian. I'm here with Occupy Wall Street. I think real space is critical to this movement, because it's a place where we can establish the commons and show that in fact you can have a different set of economic and social relationships than what we're used to outside our spaces. So, when we had Liberty Park, just like every other occupation, we began the practice of setting up all the social systems needed to support us being fully human. And we don't have those spaces in many places. And space gives us a place where we can meet and engage in that exchange. JESSE LAGRECA: Jesse LaGreca. I'm a New Yorker. I'm with Occupy Wall Street. Let's also celebrate the fact that we've really moved the conversation forward, because, you know, the reality is people are hurting. And three months ago, we were talking about austerity, about budget cuts, about what can we cut, taxes for the rich, and what can we cut, programs that working-class people need. And now the conversation has totally shifted. We're talking about income inequality. We're talking about campaign finance reform, reforming Wall Street, you know, a number of things. So, I think it's very important to be in public, talking to our neighbors, just having this basic conversation. DWAYNE HENRY: Dwayne Henry, Occupy Wall Street. It's a global occupation. And wherever you are, your community is what you occupy. You go to your community. There's Occupy Brooklyn. There's Occupy Bushwick. There's Occupy Harlem, Occupy the Bronx. There's Occupy Fayetteville, North Carolina. Like, it's your community. You take your community, and you organize your community. And you get the ear of your representatives and your senators. It's not about occupying Wall Street. It's about occupying everything. AMY GOODMAN: That piece by Democracy Now!'s Ryan Devereaux and Jon Gerberg, both reporters on the street covering the protest on Saturday, and both were roughed up by the New York police. Ryan Devereaux, Democracy Now! fellow and reporter, here with us now. What happened, Ryan? RYAN DEVEREAUX: Well, after the protesters had left the area of Duarte Square, they made a little loop around the area, to return to the area so they could enter the square. They set up ladders to enter the fence that had blocked Duarte, which they were attempting to occupy. I was right up at the front, along with Jon. We were watching the protesters enter the area. And a large police officer, who I've seen at multiple protests, grabbed me by the collar. I had rows and rows of people behind me. I couldn't move anywhere. He jammed his fist into my throat. He started yelling at me to get back. I repeatedly told him, "I'm press. I'm press. I'm a journalist." He put all of his... AMY GOODMAN: You were wearing your credentials around your neck. RYAN DEVEREAUX: I was wearing my credentials. Jon was wearing his credentials, which are NYPD-issued credentials. I couldn't move anywhere. I told him I couldn't move anywhere. I told him I was press, but he continued to put all of his weight into his fist, which was pressed against my throat. And then, after he did that, he wouldn't let me go. Protesters tried to pull me away from him, saying, "He's peaceful. He's peaceful." The officer managed to pull me out of the crowd. I was certain I was going to be hurt or arrested, or both. For whatever reason, I started mentioning the names of detectives that I knew, and he decided to let me go. Meanwhile, Jon, who was over to my left, was holding a monopod above his head, so he had both hands up, so he couldn't defend himself. And while he was doing this, a police officer apparently punched him three times in the kidneys. Jon was wearing NYPD credentials around his neck. So it goes to show you that it doesn't matter if you're wearing, you know, the credentials that Democracy Now! has or you're wearing the credentials that are supposed to protect you. The NYPD seems to think it's OK to treat you as a second-class citizen. AMY GOODMAN: When I went up to the police officer who attacked Jon Gerberg to complain, he told me, if I didn't get back on the sidewalk, he would arrest me. The police officer next to him said, "I have nothing to do with this," responding to the abusiveness of this police officer that had attacked Jon. Are you seeing an increasing amount of this? And what has Mayor Bloomberg said about going after reporters in these cases? RYAN DEVEREAUX: Well, it's hard to say if we're seeing more or we're just seeing more of the same. It's important to keep in mind that approximately one month ago, as we mentioned in the lede, occupiers tried to take this space owned by Trinity Church, and a number of journalists were arrested in the event trying to cover that. And this was right after a number of journalists were roughed up and arrested trying to cover the eviction of Zuccotti Park. Major news publications sent a letter to the NYPD, asking that they start treating reporters with respect, with the respect that they deserve when they're covering their job. AMY GOODMAN: Including the New York Times. RYAN DEVEREAUX: Including the New York Times, including the Associated Press. Ray Kelly, commissioner of the NYPD, then issued an internal memo to his police officers, reminding them that they need to respect reporters who are attempting to do their job. Since that time, more journalists have been hit, journalists have been arrested, and in the case of what happened to Jon and I on Saturday, we've been roughed up. And we're just there trying to do our jobs. We identify ourselves as journalists. AMY GOODMAN: And, of course, we'll continue to cover these protests. Thank you, Ryan Devereaux. http://news.linktv.org/videos/uc-davis-chancellor-apologizes-for-pepper-spray-incident?start=0 UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi addressed the crowd at the rally on the Quad, Monday, November 21, and apologized for campus police aggression towards Occupy Davis protestors. Tue, 22 Nov 2011 11:22:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/uc-davis-chancellor-apologizes-for-pepper-spray-incident Occupy movement, Linda P.B. Katehi, University of California Davis, Campus police, Occupy Wall Street, Pepper spray UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi addressed the crowd at the rally on the Quad, Monday, November 21, and apologized for campus police aggression towards Occupy Davis protestors. Filmed By: Andrew Florio, Stephen McKone, and James O'Hara. Edited By: Todd Kaiser and Spencer Harris. http://news.linktv.org/videos/the-making-of-the-occupy-bat-signal?start=0 An inside look at how the iconic "bat signal" images were projected onto the side of the Verizon building during the November 17th Occupy Wall Street protest. Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:52:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/the-making-of-the-occupy-bat-signal Occupy Wall Street, Bat-Signal, Occupy movement, Wall Street, Verizon Building, Brooklyn Bridge, New York City An inside look at how the iconic "bat signal" images were projected onto the side of the Verizon building during the November 17th Occupy Wall Street protest. http://news.linktv.org/videos/uc-davis-police-chief-put-on-leave-over-occupy-crackdown?start=0 The president of the University of California system said he was "appalled" at images of protesters being doused with pepper spray and plans an assessment of law enforcement procedures on all 10 campuses. Mon, 21 Nov 2011 09:21:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/uc-davis-police-chief-put-on-leave-over-occupy-crackdown Occupy movement, University of California Davis, Pepper spray, Occupy Wall Street, Protest, Police, University of California, Associated Press The president of the University of California system said he was "appalled" at images of protesters being doused with pepper spray and plans an assessment of law enforcement procedures on all 10 campuses. http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-police-pepper-spray-uc-davis-students?start=0 During peaceful Occupy protests, police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way. Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a police officer unnecessarily pepper sprayed the students to open a path for the rest of the officers. Fri, 18 Nov 2011 16:03:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-police-pepper-spray-uc-davis-students University of California Davis, Occupy Wall Street, Pepper spray, Student, Occupy movement, Arrest, Protest, Raw video, Police officer, University of California During peaceful Occupy protests, police came in to tear down tents and proceeded to arrest students who stood in their way. Once students peacefully demanded the release of the arrested, a police officer unnecessarily pepper sprayed the students to open a path for the rest of the officers. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-day-of-action-culminates-in-march-across-brooklyn-bridge?start=0 After a day of marches and arrests in New York, Occupy Wall Street protesters demonstrating against economic inequality describe why they turned out. Fri, 18 Nov 2011 08:56:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-day-of-action-culminates-in-march-across-brooklyn-bridge Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Brooklyn Bridge, Economic inequality, Street protester, Zuccotti Park, Eviction, Protest, Anti-corporate activism, Wall Street After a day of marches and arrests in New York, Occupy Wall Street protesters demonstrating against economic inequality describe why they turned out. http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-occupy-wall-street-protesters-arrested-by-new-york-police?start=0 Police arrested several protesters who were sitting on the ground one block from Wall Street and refusing to move during the latest "Day of Action" organized by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:40:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-occupy-wall-street-protesters-arrested-by-new-york-police Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Arrest, Street protester, Anti-corporate activism, NYPD, Protest, Wall Street, New York City, United States Police arrested several protesters who were sitting on the ground one block from Wall Street and refusing to move during the latest "Day of Action" organized by the Occupy Wall Street movement. ----- A NYPD officer clashes with an Occupy Wall Street demonstrator during what protest organizers call a "Day of Action" in New York. Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protesters marched through New York's financial district toward the stock exchange on Thursday to protest economic inequality at the heart of the American capitalism. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-seattle-interview-with-84-year-old-pepper-sprayed-by-police?start=0 In Seattle, an 84-year-old retired school teacher named Dorli Rainey was pepper sprayed in the face during an Occupy protest. "My problem is not only with police brutality," Rainey says. "It is with the progressively worse attitude of the police." Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:10:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-seattle-interview-with-84-year-old-pepper-sprayed-by-police Occupy Seattle, Occupy movement, Police brutality, Pepper spray, Dorli Rainey, Michael McGinn, Protest, Seattle, Street protester, Senior citizen Police departments across the country are coming under criticism for using excessive force against Occupy Wall Street protesters during the past two months. In Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn apologized Wednesday, hours after an 84-year-old retired Seattle school teacher named Dorli Rainey was pepper sprayed in the face during a protest. Photographs of her moments after she was pepper sprayed went viral, showing the chemical irritant and liquid used to treat it dripping from her chin. According to Occupy Seattle organizers, a priest and a pregnant teenager were also pepper sprayed Tuesday night. Dorli Rainey joins us from Seattle. "My problem is not only with police brutality," Rainey says. "It is with the progressively worse attitude of the police." http://news.linktv.org/videos/what-next-for-occupy-wall-street-after-judge-bars-camping-in-nyc-park?start=0 New York City police routed anti-Wall Street protesters from their campsite early Tuesday, and hours later, city officials won a court ruling that backed up their move. Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:54:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/what-next-for-occupy-wall-street-after-judge-bars-camping-in-nyc-park Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Zuccotti Park, Eviction, Protest camp, NYPD, New York, Court order, Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City New York City police routed anti-Wall Street protesters from their campsite early Tuesday, and hours later, city officials won a court ruling that backed up their move. Jeffrey Brown discusses the legal arguments involved in the New York protests with attorneys Daniel Alterman and James Copland. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-protesters-return-not-with-a-vengeance-but-with-hope?start=0 Thousands of defiant Occupy Wall Street protesters streamed into Zuccotti Park late Tuesday less than 24 hours after police forcibly removed them from their camp. Democracy Now! spoke with demonstrators as they regrouped after the raid. Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:54:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-protesters-return-not-with-a-vengeance-but-with-hope Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Zuccotti Park, Eviction, Protest camp, Street protester, Sleeping bag, Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, Tent Thousands of defiant Occupy Wall Street protesters streamed into Zuccotti Park late Tuesday less than 24 hours after police forcibly removed them from their camp. Police arrested more than 200 people, including about a dozen who had chained themselves to each other and to trees. As protesters returned, a judge upheld the city's ban preventing them from bringing backpacks, tents and sleeping bags with them into the park. Democracy Now! spoke with protesters as they regrouped after the raid. "The reason I'm down here is because I'm tired of seeing suffering of so many people while you have 1 percent who is accumulating all this wealth on the backs of all the workers," says Ray Lewis, a retired police captain from the Philadelphia Police Department. He critiques his colleagues for "basically just enforcing the laws of the dictators, which is the 1 percent. They're having their healthcare cut, their pensions cut, and their salaries reduced. And they don't even realize it." http://news.linktv.org/videos/new-york-mayor-eviction-timed-to-reduce-risk-of-confrontation?start=0 New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city plans on letting protesters back into Zuccotti Park but insists they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments. "There is no ambiguity in the law here," Bloomberg said. Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:37:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/new-york-mayor-eviction-timed-to-reduce-risk-of-confrontation Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Zuccotti Park, Eviction, Police raid, Protest camp, Michael Bloomberg, New York, Mayor of New York City, Sleeping bag New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg says the city plans on letting protesters back into Zuccotti Park but insists they will have to occupy the space with the power of their arguments. "There is no ambiguity in the law here," Bloomberg said. "The first amendment protects speech. It does not protect the use of tents and sleeping bags to take over a public space." http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-occupy-wall-street-eviction-november-15-2011?start=0 New York police raided the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan at around 1 a.m. this morning. There were numerous arrests and small scuffles with police, as well as some injuries. Tue, 15 Nov 2011 08:05:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-occupy-wall-street-eviction-november-15-2011 Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Zuccotti Park, Eviction, Police raid, NYPD, Protest camp, Wall Street, Protest, Foley Square At about 1 a.m. on the morning of November 15, police raided the Occupy Wall Street camp in Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan. This video shows events between about 1:30 and 4:30 a.m., as sanitation works moved in to clean the park, police drove everyone away, and protesters wandered the streets. There were numerous arrests and small scuffles with police, as well as some injuries. Later in the morning (after the last shot in this video) the demonstration moved to Foley Square, a short distance north in downtown Manhattan. http://news.linktv.org/videos/dozens-arrested-as-police-clear-occupy-camps-across-the-us?start=0 Police drove hundreds of anti-Wall Street demonstrators from weeks-old encampments and arrested around 100 people across the US in a series of actions during the weekend in Portland, Oakland, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Albany. Mon, 14 Nov 2011 09:16:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/dozens-arrested-as-police-clear-occupy-camps-across-the-us Occupy movement, Occupy Portland, Arrest, Protest camp, Chain-link fencing, Anti-corporate activism, Occupy Denver, OccupySLC, Occupy Albany, Occupy Oakland Police drove hundreds of anti-Wall Street demonstrators from weeks-old encampments across the US in a series of actions during the weekend. In Portland, Oregon, 50 arrests were made as the Occupy Portland camp was cleared, and a chain-link fence topped topped with barbed wire was erected to prevent demonstrators from re-entering the park, as hundreds marched in protest at the clearance. Authorities in Oakland, California, warned Occupy campers that a similar crackdown was coming, reflecting a hardening of attitudes since a man was shot dead close to the camp there in an incident thought to be unconnected to the protests. Authorities in Denver forced protestors to leave a downtown encampment, and arrested four in the process. In Salt Lake City, police arrested 19 people on Saturday when demonstrators refused to leave a city park. And in Albany, New York, police arrested 25 Occupy Albany protestors after they defied a curfew in a city-owned park. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-oakland-early-morning-police-raid-clears-camp?start=0 WARNING: Strong Language. At around 6 a.m., a line of police officers in riot gear marched down Oakland's 14th Street toward Broadway. They eventually moved in on the Occupy Oakland encampment, taking down around 100 tents and making arrests. Mon, 14 Nov 2011 08:43:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-oakland-early-morning-police-raid-clears-camp Occupy Oakland, Occupy movement, Protest camp, Oakland Police Department, Oakland City Hall, Downtown Oakland, Anti-corporate activism, Protest, Pre-dawn raid, Arrest WARNING: Strong Language. At around 6 a.m., a line of police officers in riot gear marched down Oakland's 14th Street toward Broadway. They eventually blocked off the 14th Street entrance to Frank Ogawa Plaza, where Occupy Oakland protesters were encamped, and moved in, taking down around 100 tents and making arrests. http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-police-beat-berkeley-students-at-occupy-cal-protest?start=0 This user-uploaded video shows police officers, wearing shirts indicating they were from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, beating students participating in the Occupy Cal protest in Berkeley on November 9. Thu, 10 Nov 2011 09:00:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/raw-video-police-beat-berkeley-students-at-occupy-cal-protest Occupy Cal, Occupy movement, Berkeley, California, University of California, Berkeley, Alameda County Sheriff's Office, Baton (law enforcement), Police brutality, Protest camp, Police, Protest This user-uploaded video shows police officers, wearing shirts indicating they were from the Alameda County Sheriff's Office, beating students participating in the Occupy Cal protest in Berkeley on November 9. http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-1052011?start=0 A short film by Mark Ledzian on what happened October 5th at OWS: "The day the unions came to visit... a Wall Street Tycoon calls the protestors anarchists, and calls me a monkey... Mike Myers chimes in... plus a discussion on the evolution of the message." Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:29:00 -0800 http://news.linktv.org/videos/occupy-wall-street-1052011 Occupy Wall Street, Occupy movement, Zuccotti Park, Trade union, Anti-corporate activism, Wall Street, New York City, Mike Myers (actor), Short film, N9 Productions A short film by Mark Ledzian on what happened on October 5th at Occupy Wall Street in New York. As Ledzian describes it: "The day the unions came to visit... a Wall Street tycoon calls the protestors anarchists, and calls me a monkey... Mike Myers chimes in... plus a discussion on the evolution of the message." OccupyWallStreet.org