so we were headed to canada and i just met some folks from spain who live in vancouver who came down for this event tonight where we were headed up there and we came to the border we were just driving up it was raining hard and they took our passports and they flagged just so over and said we had to go into you know customs into the big border facility there we walked in and they called me up to the counter and they said we want your notes on what you're going to be talking about today and i said you're kidding i said we already gave you our passports they said i want your notes the customs officer said you know fully armed i want your notes so this is the thing i don't really speak  and i said just a minute play so i ran out to the car and i got the book and i brought it in and i gave them a copy and one of them was typing in a computer and there of the customs agents started to read the book which i thought was a good thing they said what are you talking about to me and i said well this is the thing i sort of riff from columns in the book and you really could come to the talk tonight because it's an open top i wasn't planning to give it on the border but  he said i need to know what you're talking about so i said well i thought i would start with the last column in the book it it says imagine the scene america two thousand and nine forty five thousand people have died in a year an average of almost more than one hundred twenty a day who's taking them out what's killing them to investigate president obama might be tempted to call on jack bauer the fictional rogue intelligence agent from the hit t v series twenty four who invariably employs torture and a host of other illegal tactics to help the president fight terrorism but terrorism is not the culprit here it's lack of adequate health care so maybe the president's solution isn't chack bauer but rather the actor who plays him the star of twenty four is played by keifer sutherland whose family has very deep connections to health care reform in canada sutherland is the grandson of the late tommy douglas i just where and he just told you the story of tommy douglas the pioneering canadian politician credited with creating the modern canadian health care system as a youth tommy douglas almost lost his ailing leg his family could not afford treatment but a doctor treated him for free provided his medical students could observe as an adult the impact of widespread poverty caused by the great depression train just a minister he had a popular or style he moved into politics joining the co operative commonwealth federation party after several years in parliament he led the party's decisive victory in the  democratic government in north america douglas became premier of cisco natural one and pioneered a number of progressive policies but his biggest battle for which he is best remembered is the creation of universal health insurance called medicare it passed insists catch one in one nine hundred sixty two guaranteeing hospital care for all residents doctors there staged a twenty three day strike supported by the u s based american medical association despite industry opposition the sisk actual and medicare program was so successful and popular it was adopted throughout canada while tommy douglas was fighting for health insurance in canada a similar battle was raging in the us resulting in the passage of medicare and medicaid giving guaranteed single payer health care to senior citizens and the poor i didn't plan to read the book to the border agents but there we're waiting for more so i talked about someone who is again gotten attention especially in these last few days rush limbaugh rush limbaugh fox news channel's glenn beck an insurance industry funded groups have encouraged people to disrupt town hall meetings this was leading up to with members of congress a number of confrontations you might remember around the country this was in two thousand eleven rush limbaugh said twenty four was one of his favorite shows he even visited the set well he should learn from the real life actor who plays his hero jack limbaugh and his cohorts might find truth not as satisfying as fiction rush in two thousand and four a canadian broadcasting corporation poll named tommy douglas the greatest canadian at a protest in two thousand against efforts to roll back the medicare system in the province of alberta keifer sutherland defended canada's public single payer system he said private health care does not work america is trying to change their system it's too expensive to get comprehensive medical care in the us why on earth are we going to follow their system here kiefer sutherland went on to say i consider it a humanitarian issue this is an issue about what is right and wrong what is decent and what is not maybe jack bauer can save the day and the canadian border guards said what else you can talk to me so i said you know you're stopping me at the border you're detaining me and i've come to applaud your health care system sarah pailin has been trashing it why did you letter just come through poverty what else and then i thought maybe this is what he's getting at i was going to talk about the wars in iraq and afghanistan what else are you talking about he said and i said i was going to talk about you know the economic crisis he said what else i said it's not that long to talk that pretty much i cover say and he says are you denying right here right now that you're going to be talking that you're not going to talk about the vancouver olympics about the olympics he said not the vancouver olympics and i thought he meant president obama well i said to him you mean president obama going to copenhagen to try to get the lympics in chicago and he said and you didn't get them i said i know who we didn't get and i said i said are you talking about the and he said you know what i'm talking about i'm talking at the vancouver olympics this was right before the vancouver olympics i actually didn't even know the olympics were going to be taken place which was even more insulting and made him think that i was not telling the truth and i said well i wasn't planning to talk about until now so they went out to our car i was traveling with to democracy now folks and they went through everything in our car combing through our notes when i went out to check on them they had our computers open and they were going through the computers they told me to get back inside when they came back and they took me into a back room they took photographs of me and my colleagues and then they stamped  with they called travel documents in our passports that said we had to leave canada within forty eight hours so we headed to vancouver public library and we were about an hour late to the talk but thank god asking them what was so significant and then we headed to the university of victoria where i had been invited to speak the next night and were staying at a bed and breakfast and i got there were eight around six o'clock when their news was showing at night right before the talk and i walked in and everyone in the bed and breakfast was having tea before dinner and so i took a little tea cup and some tea and they turned on the news and the top story was me getting detained at the border and everyone turned and looked and said and they had made this an issue and i learned from the following stories after the report of detaining a us journalist and that was that as the vancouver olympics were about to begin they passed legislation that athletes were not allowed to criticize the corporations that were sponsoring the olympics you couldn't have a sign in your house against the olympics or they could enter the house there was a real crackdown on free speech and so when we came back to new york the next day and the next over the weekend we devoted  broadcast to the vancouver olympics now never never lied if they said that the state determines what we do but this kind of crackdown on speech and behalf of corporations is of grave concern and we're seeing it more and more but i mentioned rush limbaugh and it is so important to talk about what is happening today you may have heard in the last few days what happened well it started a few weeks ago when there was a congressional hearing where they were going to be talking about birth control and the hearing did not have one woman on the panel  my congressman one of our congress members in new york carolyn maloney was so enraged she was on this committee she said here we are talking about birth control she said where are the women i don't see a single woman representing the tens of millions of women across this country who want and need insurance coverage and women congress members walked out of the hearing there had been a woman there had been a woman who was supposed to testify she was thirty years old she's a law student at georgetown jesuit university in washington d c her name is sandra fluck and her name is becoming a household word because she was prevented from testifying she came into my kitchen i was the first radio national radio she did the next show she did the next morning and she talked about what she had planned to testify about there about how important it was for women to be able to have access to preventative medicine and that is birth control she was representing many women at georgetown and she was talking about one in particular who is twenty seven years old a friends of hers who suffered from poly cystic go varian syndrome and the reason she needed the pill was to control the syndrome and because she was unable to get access to it she had to have an ovary removed and then went into went into premature premature menopause it is not only used for contraception though she was speaking out for women having access to birth control as comp's contraception as well and said we have that right as a result of her daring to speak out whether you agree with her or not and saying that catholic institutions catholic universities and catholic hospitals where most of the staff are not catholic  should have to provide insurance insurance companies should provide for birth control just as they do for any other institution and even though most people who work for those institutions millions of them by the way this isn't a requirement of parachuters but this is a requirement of universities and hospitals even though most of the people who work there are not catholic ninety eight percent of catholic women have used birth control so this is really for everyone as a result of what she attempted to say rush limbaugh has made her the target of his venom and wrath and you may have heard what he said over the last few days calling her a slut and a prostitute this young woman who wanted to testify before congress calling her a slide on a prostitute saying that and asking the question why should the american taxpayer have to pay for every one of her sex acts and he said if we do have to do she should have to post videos of having sex on the internet as a result president obama called sandra fluck to congratulate her for being so brave and speaking out and told her to tell her parents that they should be very proud of her to which rush limbaugh responded he hasn't backed off he has just become more fierce every day you are telling a you are telling a thirty year old woman that she should tell her parents to be proud last night o'reilly went on the air to support rush limbaugh now what has happened over these last few days has also been amazing the reaction of people across the political spectrum pro choice santy choice whatever your view is but the kind of insults that have hurled at this young woman and so people have organized a boycott putting pressure on his advertisers and the same way in the same way basketball team which forced him off the air this boycott of rush limbaugh has been extremely successful in just a matter of hours and so now i hear that someone just said started to pull out one by one this so this is news to me today so after this very same mean this is happening so fast i think he has been shocked and money talks and so what will happen to him we will say but all i could think is when we're talking about issues of single payer or just health care for everyone in this country you never know when the magic moment will come i mean you  people like dr quinn young and p h p and advocates for decades who have been working on a kind of medicare for all system in this country you never know what will be the tipping point but if you are involved with activism on any issue you will be a part of making history when that moment comes and it's often a moment you cannot predict and i think this moment of this young woman speaking out could be one of them because it infuriated so many people in all the different parties and there are more than two and more than two can really make a difference in this country people of every political persuasion and any every generation who are just horrified at the insults that were being hurled you know it makes me think of rosa parks and it's i think it's very instructive to go back to the smallman you've heard some incredibly good speeches today on the health care system they are the experts i mean teresa and dr quentin young and g the folks who are speaking to you tonight now i'm not an expert on health care but covering movements i think it's very important to see how strategy works i mean rosa parks the story that is not told about her you know when she died a few years ago democracy now raced down to washington to cover the big memorial service for her before she was buried the big funeral in detroit and when the media told her story again they said that she was a tired seem stress she was no trouble maker but that was not true rosa parks was a first class troublemaker i don't know if we can call quentin young the rosa parks of the health care movement but rosa parks knew exactly what she was doing on december first one nine hundred fifty five when she sat down in the bus who was the president and he had worked with one of the greatest organizers of the twentieth century with a philip randolph as they organized the brotherhood of sleeping car porters very relevant in washington state because the brotherhood of sleeping car porters with the african american porters in the pullman trains named you know paul the name for george pullman you pullman washington and the conductors were all called george it's not that their mothers had all named them george but that's what they were called to give you a sense of just that level of racism not to mention what they were subjected to but they brought in a philip randolph to organize them and then a philip randolph went on to organize the one nine hundred sixty three march on washington where dr king gave his famous i have a dream speech and he did next and worked with him he came out a radical labor politics and he worked with rosa parks as they tried to most effectively challenge the racist laws of the south she had trained at the highlander center where dr king had been also white and black together as they most strategically were to it wasn't just enough to say we're against this and we want they wanted to figure out how to accomplish the challenging of for example the laws integrating the transportation system and so when she sat down on the bus she knew just what she was doing now she had sat down on the bus before interface to get up or away passenger in fact other young women had done the same but you never know when that magic moment will come but if you are working for social change you will be a part of determining the future four days later on december fifth one nine hundred fifty five after she sat down and got arrested she was in court and the monk amerie improvement association had their meeting to elect a leader to lead the bus boycott that would lead to the integration of of the transportation system of this country and they elected a young minister who had just come into town dr martin luther king rosa parks had helped to launch the simonton day civil rights movement and helped launch dr martin luther king into the public eye and to what w hat we all know happened after that it is amazing what she accomplished and to show how brave she was just go back a few months to the summer of one nine hundred fifty five that was the summer of emmett till that was the summer that this fourteen year old african american boy who lived in chicago with his mother mamie she sent him to money mississippi to be with relatives for the summer to get out of the city and he was at home sleeping with us a uncle and cousins one of white mob came into the house they ripped him out of bed they tortured him they beat him and he ended up in the bottom of the tallahatchie river they said he wolf whistled at a white woman when his was dredged up and sent back to chicago his mother made me did something incredibly courageous she said she wanted the casket open for the way in the funeral she wanted the world to see the ra racism the brutality of bigotry thousands walked by his casket and saw his distended mutilated head and then jet magazine and other black black publications took photographs and they were published and they were seared into the history and consciousness of this country mamie till had a real lesson to teach the press of today show the pictures show the images and that's what we need the press to do when we talk about issues that are of concern to everyone like the national debt we just had david cay johnston the two time pulitzer prize winning new york times reporter now works for reuters on talking about mitt romney's tax plan there is a connection here mitt romney's tax plan saying you know the tax plan he's put forward would increase taxes on the poorest one hundred twenty five million americans but decrease the taxes for the one tenth of one percent at the top by something like more than four hundred sixty thousand dollars a year and he was talking all about this and about mitt romney's offshore you know accounts in the cayman islands not only his own personal ones but also bain and he ended up the discussion though by saying if we are concerned about the national debt in this country the number one issue that we have got to deal with is health care simple as that he said is health care and that is something that republicans and democrats can unite on if the media actually shows this and tell us the story of people all across this country like michael in the audience who just came up to me twenty five years old where are you  dealing with there you are is waving his hand has a cast on his arm doesn't have insurance dealing with second stage cancer hoping to conquer it so that he can go on to get his ph d in political science at santa cruz and we all wish you the very best  t showing those stories telling those stories every single day i've always believed if the media puts these stories front and center the stories of people you know fighting for health care like you might have heard our story just a few weeks ago with elizabeth benjamin who's vice president of the community service society in new york and hope rebel who headed the times described hope they didn't say that she was a democracy now if you are but she is but they said bernstein wrote a very good piece this is about new york but i think it could be about all of the united states for most of her life hope rebel was a healthy woman with good medical insurance an unblemished credit history and a solid career in graphic design but on the day an ambulance rushed her to  manhattan hospital emergency room shortly after her forty eighth birthday she was jobless uninsured and having a stroke ms rebels a medical problem was rare or a result of a benign tumor on her adrenal gland but the financial consequences were not unusual she depleted her savings to pay seven hundred thousand dollars for surgery to remove the tumor and then watched emotionally paralyzed she said as eighty eight thousand dollars in additional hospital bills poured in eventually the hospital sued her for the money yet that year the hospital new york presbyterian weill cornell had already collected fifty point two million dollars from new york state's so called injured in indigent care pool to help care for people like mr bell who have no insurance and cannot pay their bills this is new york story new york's charity care system partly financed by eight point nine five percent surcharge on hospital bills is one of the most complicated in the nation like new york's several passed laws curbing hospitals pursuit of unpaid bills including illinois california and minnesota but this new study by elizabeth benjamin at the community service society who we had on with hope a study of new york's hospitals practices and state records finds that most medical centers are violating the rules without consequences even if the state government ignores glaring problems in the hospital reports the hospitals have gotten something like four hundred sixty million dollars to pay for people like oh you know if you go into the hospital and you're brought into a hospital sometimes you're not conscious you're not deciding what hospital you're brought into your uninsured hospital then you're done to firm money tries to get money from you say i don't know what to do in two thirds of the hospitals in new york state they don't tell you that they have this indigent care program they don't tell you they don't give you a financial form that says lay out what your finances are because they overall the system they get something like one point two billion dollars from the state but they don't tell you this sometimes they put your debt into collections they give it over to a state collector they sell your debt and then they get money for this and then that gets you a lien on your home for example if you own a home here you are at your sickest and you are now destitute that you have a lien on your house this is a system that a deeply believe americans across the political spectrum would not stand for if they understood what their neighbors and so often they themselves are going through how often this happens in this country and it's our job in the media and your job as media consumers to demand that these stories get told every single day i put this i put this war not only the poor because we are talking i mean in colorado sixty percent of the state's uninsured have jobs sixty percent of the state's uninsured have jobs we're talking not only about the media dealing with life and death issues of the wars abroad which we must look at but the war at home have always said that if for one week all of us and all of the media we run and consume right people have their own facebook pages we read the newspaper we go online to find every facebook wall if on the front page of every surviving newspaper in this country we showed the images of war like in iraq and afghanistan right the babies dead on the ground the soldiers dead and dying the women with their legs blown off and drone attacks for just one week if it was the top of every t v and radio newscast every tweet that you sent out dealt with war and one of these stories i think americans are a compassionate people they would say no war is not the answer to conflict in the twenty first century i also think i also think that if we did the same thing with the war on the poor at home and also not only the poor but the lack of health care in this country if we made it the topic of everything we did for just one week american people would unite and say we have to solve this issue i think that's why the occupy movement has been so broadly supported in the united states despite the fact that the corporate media first ignored it then ridiculed it it is amazing to think how much support it has gotten because it is tapping a basic american sentiment in it is about phrase you know first they ignore you then they ridicule you then they fight you then you win that's really a description of what happened in the media you remember what happened when the first  encampment began september seventeenth the new york occupy wall street so democracy now is the only national media outlet that covered it even before september seventeenth because we cover movements and we saw this was coming and our  reporters were at the meetings and were covering this then it took weeks for the media to cover firstly it and then they started to attack it viciously i remember watching it was m s n b c in the morning and they were saying if these people had something important say they'd have a spokesperson right here the problem is they have to be in but you get in right and they said what on earth are they saying they have no message what could be a more powerful message than we are the ninety nine percent it is something i generally don't drink bottled water  but what could be more compelling than we are the ninety nine percent and i also think in terms of sentiment a number of those in the one percent identify with that statement as well what has happened in this country is remarkable and it followed wisconsin which followed each up which followed tunisia we ha seen something the likes of which we haven't seen in the world in this last year i mean starting with tunisia this utter frustrated young man came out of the university name mohammed bouazizi who is only job he could find was the fruit and vegetable marketplace selling fruit and vegetable and the authorities started to go after him and harass him and he was so utterly frustrated when they took his scale away from him that he set himself on fire and that was the spark that ignited the tunisian revolution  then went on to spark the egyptian revolution there were other things as well like wiki leaks and we cannot underestimate the power of information when it is made available to us you know when the wiki leaks documents came out the afghan war logs the iraq diaries the state department cables that have come out people in tunisia saw that i mean they knew that the tyrant that their dictator but they saw that the us understood that as well and continued to support him and this just infuriated them further and then you move on to egypt what took place there i mean maybe many if you live did each day because of the remarkable reporting of sure if democracy now  jury just won the award from the park center for independent journalist named for i f stone by stone who famously said to students if you're going to remember two words remember governments lie in terms of doing good journalism but there was sharif who flew back home he's an egyptian american who flew home as he was getting tweets and tax from home from people who are not political from his cousins from family members from friends saying i will die for this revolution and he knew he had to be in the place which he said he both loved and was ashamed of all of his life and he flew home and even as he came through the airport and basically landed in talk rear he said this will never be mubarak's egypt again and the revolution began because democracy now has always been  very creative in not having the financial resources of the networks when they send you know during a saddam hussein's iraq when he had a fire wall up they were giving him millions of dollars to send on his satellites their video democracy now in jeremy scahill was in iraq reporting for us during saddam hussein sudan saddam hussein's time he and jackie so when a big noise films were going into internet cafes  video reports that they would send with him through one hundred fifty emails you know broken apart using a computer program we would piece it back together on our end and run it so and so when mubarak took down the internet in egypt  sharif had a way to get around and he became one of the top tweeters in the world he had a job sharif he said that you know mobarak downfall was taking down the internet he said because after all we're egyptian we were all home you're you're on facebook he says you're on the internet and then he took down the internet mubarak did and so we all had to go outside and see what was going on families the internet then went back up but the thugs went after the satellite so you had people like anderson cooper of c n n in his hotel room and he would be looking like democracy now on sk and he would it would be saying the lower third would be saying reporting from an undisclosed location and there was sharif naming himself in the middle of tottery or saying i'm in the safest place in egypt and he were sporting for all the networks and the networks were reporting showing his tweets c n n was showing what he was saying each day as he was bringing out the voices of people and tougher and through him you met in a while so dawi the seventy nine year old  doctor who ran for president who is imprisoned under saddam who is in exile under mubarak this remarkable woman who had run for president in egypt you met deaths with the great writer who wrote  as she described coming leaving ta career and when they heard mubarak fell she had been with two very pregnant women and she said now they can give birth in freedom you met the young high school student  is putting out these broad she says of top three are in the shadow of this state media building that had controlled the images for so long you met people that could have been your aunt your uncle your mother your father he made it personal he made this rule of revolution as if it could be happening in your own family and he introduced you this is the power of grassroots media is showing the way grassroots action and there he was translating what was happening in his country for all of us that was egypt and then there was libya and now there is the agony of syria which we continue to have to deal with and the world must deal with when you have a crisis like this with the thousands of people being killed and that cannot be separated from how the u s is dealing with iran right now is there no memory i mean does this remind you of two thousand and two and two thousand and three weapons of mass destruction weapons of mass destruction saddam hussein has weapons of mass destruction one of the fact he did not in iran you know they are getting a nuclear weapon when if you listen to the most belligerent country in dealing with iran israel that continually is threatening to bomb iran their own heads of mossad have said they will not be getting a nuclear weapon for years and yet we continue to say this as if when pulling out of afghanistan that we cannot pull out soon enough and pulling out of iraq we must have some country that we are attacking  need to attack the serious problems right here at home  and we need to have a space in this country where people can express dissent that's what the occupy movement has been about and i think we can learn from right here in seattle which was really i think the birthplace of the occupy movement when you go back to one nine hundred ninety nine in the battle of seattle taking the corporate powers it was incredible to be there it was the first time democracy now was during radio and television was back in one nine hundred ninety nine for this incredible week you know we came in force to seattle because we saw how all the movements were converging at this remarkable moment at the end of november in one thousand nine hundred nine and i  writes for the new york daily news the largest new york paper he's a columnist and he has for many many years now when democracy now headed to seattle in one thousand nine hundred nine we said to one will you come and he said ok let me ask my editors at the daily news and he said to them he wanted to cover this movement that was going to take place this protest against the w t o and they said the who and they said the w t o and they said how does that affect us in new york we absolutely no reason why you should be able to go there so that was the giant democracy now was the was the end but we brought with us and though the daily news didn't want him to go and so he came to seattle and to say the loose least all hell broke loose or you might say all have been broke loose but suddenly one is getting calls from the daily news to do daily updates and then hourly updates and that they could say they had their men from the beginning on the scene but this incredible movement here in seattle of thousands of people high school kids environmentalist's unionists doctors nurses farmers from all over the world recognizing what it meant to have unbridled corporate power determining even overturning the rules of states of and countries recognizing the danger of this unbridled corporate power this began back in one thousand nine hundred nine and it's also really instructive to see the tremendous police repression that everyone was space with the tear gas the rubber bullets that were being denied by the city authorities here and so c n n was simply parroting that line where in the media was getting more hits on their website telling the truth showing the pictures the handfuls of the rubber bullets that were being held they were getting more hits than c n n on their website and indian media was really born here and then you have you know norm stamper who was forced to step down who feels that what he did here was his greatest mistake and he has become an eloquent spokes person now the police chief seattle the former police chief who presided over this one who knows against the militarization of police in this you know we have had them on several times and we most recently had in mind when we had a spokesperson for the police federation who had coordinated a call between police chiefs around the country on how to basically stamp out occupy how to deal with the occupy movement how to shut it down and when the guest came on with norm stamper he said norm we want to congratulate you first we came on because chief stamper was going to be on and he said want to congratulate you you're really the model of how we see we should deal with these encampments around the country and never say no no no i do not want to be the model i should be the model for the opposite because i think what we did was wrong  and how significant this is and this profound point he made beyond the using of the rubber bullets and the tear gas when you have this militarized force and their riot gear with their shields the police set up a wall between them and these peaceful protesters that is very frightening what happens when you create such a gulf when you don't see people anymore as your neighbors as your kids or your friends as a kid's friends that suddenly you see them as the enemy i have this theory that i mean you know the the pox comic act in the united  states which says that the military can't walk through the streets of the united states that the way we are getting around this is by the militarization of the police and this is an enormous problem when they are getting more than a billion dollars and they are getting tanks and drones the police departments of this country i mean we deal with a level of this at the republican and democratic conventions and i think this is important even in having a discussion about health care because health care or support of this movement of resistance in this country that is having an expression like we have never seen and who knows what will happen in the spring movements don't usually begin in the fall this one did and then it met the coldness of winter and the militarization of the police but there is a spring to common it is converging on converging together with an election year when all people are particularly attuned to politics this is a moment when politicians listen they have to i mean yes the need money and they take a lot of it but they also in the end need votes and so there is this moment when your demands truly do make a difference don't forget that president obama was a community organizer  k the community organizer in chief became the commander in chief and the question is now how do you community organize and what happens when the person that possibly many of you voted for you disagree with how do you express your point of view especially at a time when you see i mean i think this is what happened in two thousand and eight all movements converged i think the main difference between obama and clinton in the democratic primary was simply that he had been  in iraq that was the main difference between the two and she refused until the end until it was too late to say she made a mistake in supporting the war in iraq and so here was president obama swept in by the antiwar movement as well as a number of other movements with people having tremendous expectations of him i think the day he was elected the world he decided for a leaf i mean so many people felt they had been hitting their heads against a brick wall and suddenly that wall became a door but the question is would it be kicked open or would it be slammed shut right when he is in the oval office and those who are used to having the ear of the most powerful person on earth whisper in his ear if he can't point out the window of the oval office and say if i do that they will storm the best deal if he doesn't see anyone out there he is in big trouble and that's when he agrees with you and what about when you disagree with him well there's no more important time to express those views than now i mean the great harry belafonte whose life is the story of resistance in the twentieth century the great artist singer actor and activist you know part of the great movements of the twentieth century and particularly the civil rights movement told me about the time when eleanor roosevelt told him could you imagine that there is someone who are saying when eleanor told me told him about bringing a philip randolph to the white house and meeting with f d r her husband she brought that meeting together and a philip randolph told f d r about the condition of black people in this country of working people in this country and f d r responded to him i don't disagree with anything you're saying but you're going to have to make me do it make me do it you've heard that story well when senator obama was running for president and he was in the backyard of new jersey house with about one hundred people and they were asking him questions he was about to leave and a guy in the back raised his hand and said what are you going to do about the middle east and obama told the story of a philip randolph meeting with f d r and being with make me do it make me do it that's really the challenge to all of you and all the different issues you care about right now there is a moment right now and you have to just i whether you're going to do something about it or let it slip away and i think one of the fundamental issues now are this issue of corporate control it's an issue that unites people all across the political spectrum i mean it occupy the i had the most fantastic signs you know written on the back of pizza boxes because pizza parlors around  were sending in pizzas that were sent in you know people would put in orders from egypt from wisconsin to support the occupiers they called the pizza pie is occupies and they used every they used every part of them right they ate the pizza and they used the boxes for signs when there was this freak snowstorm in october you know climate change i'm not going to get into tonight but that's a health care issue is well they removed all the science except for one hell snow we won't go but usually they had many signs out and people would carry these signs that said things like we'll believe corporations there are people when texas executes one  but this idea of this moment in time and the power of corporations and how this has been a challenge in our country from way back go back a century ago denison i just  wrote this column russ feingold you know the defeated senator in wisconsin who has now been named one of the thirty five co chairs of obama's reelection campaign very interesting because the day he was named this last week russ feingold came into democracy now studios for an interview and we went to the home page of his website he runs a  now called progressives you know did and across the top of his website it said the president is wrong those four words headline the website of progressives united founded by obama campaign advisor rest feingold he's referring to obama's recent announcement that he'll accept super pac funds for his reelection campaign find gold writes the president is wrong to embrace the corrupt corporate politics of citizens united through the use of super pacs organizations that raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations and the richest individuals sometimes in total secrecy it's not just bad policy it's also dumb strategy he says it's dancing with the devil in nineteen zero five president theodore roosevelt said to congress or contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law he signed he signed a bill into law banning such contributions and nineteen zero seven in two thousand and twelve this hundred year history of campaign finance controls died thanks to five u s supreme court justices who decided in the two thousand and ten citizens united case that corporations can use their money to express free speech most notably and their efforts to influence federal elections this fundamentally is what hast to shift in this country and i think with the super pacs with this undisclosed money you know president obama says he's going to raise more than a billion dollars and that's the democrat in the presidential race the obama campaign has it is said that they are going to raise more than a billion dollars how do you think if that is just allowed to go on you know unfettered if the american people allow this to happen how do you think we're going to fare when it comes to issues like health care when you have this massive amount of money we don't know from home coming from the drug industry coming from the insurance industry coming from the oil the gas the coal industry coming from the weapons manufacturers and yet still it's all timidly your voices that make the difference there is a force more powerful and it is all of you in this room joining with people all over this country who make a decision about the course that we want our country to take this is a pivotal moment