distinguished career he's one of the pioneers of alternative media in many dimensions he has he was the producer for more recently plunder the crime of our times mixed book and video  so i've been following all of this and partly it's a follow through to the work i've been doing since two thousand and five on the financial crisis my st film in debt we trust which basically warned of the financial crisis you did and then i've written another book called squeeze another book called plunder and now the crime of our time arguing really that this whole financial crisis is not just a business story but a crime store owner crime doesn't mean that these people actually he acted with intentionality they knew what they were doing it wasn't a mistake it wasn't you know people who sort of made it was an accident they set out to transfer wealth from the poorest people in america and the middle class of america to themselves and they've done that now we have a situation where you know we talk about in terms of the ninety nine percent and the one percent but it's actually the point one percent o percent and the ninety nine percent in other words you have a super rich minority which has grown more powerful wealthier and has a lot more influence over what happens in this country and the majority are sort of left out because we don't have the access to lobbyists to the powerful people behind the scenes who are just making the laws and making sure that the laws work in their interests so that's what i've been working on errol published by cold type got net yeah there's a magazine based in canada there's an excellent job every month or i of offering news and analysis for free to a large global audience so i did the book with tony sutton the editor of cold  as i've done earlier books with him ok so the idea is to try to do something in a timely way a problem that you face in publishing is that a crisis happens by the time you get the book out it's treated as history not as a current ality right now this financial crisis is just getting worse not better and there's no recovery underway there's no job creation really going underway and as a consequence people are hurting in this country they're hurting because they don't jobs they're hurting because they're underpaid and the jobs they do have they're hurting because of inflation they're hurting because they're losing their homes and they're losing their hope and this is why this occupy wall street movement occupy movement is so exciting i mean in just six weeks there were protests in a one thousand cities across the world never no it's never heard of anything like that before and i want to actually we did you find it did you find it as a surprise that it can jumped up like that it just happened i mean well i to some people i'm glad i lived long enough to see something like this trying to appen because i felt like it was always needed almost all of my adult life but it's something happened or something came together that this thing happened and took off the way it has well you know when i did it in that we trust and i did my room and wonder you know i was calling on people please get involved in this issue let's go after the banks let's talk about what's happening to working families and working americans and most of the people i must see in the progressive world on the left and they weren't interested in those issues they are interested in you know st the obama election then they were interested in all sorts of gender issues and racial issues and other problems but not the problems that resonated with most people who were sort of out of touch with it partly because they didn't sell us were well educated middle class or upper middle class and were not really connecting to what was happening and a group of people in new york began to say ok we can do something here with the you know active call by a magazine called adbusters yes from canada there was an attempted occupation of they're selective they're not consistent many cases hypocritical and they're all serving the system yeah and you know in this case we don't like this park because there's too many people in it mothers can't bring their their children there during the day so the lawn then and then we just close the park now and shut it down nobody could use it and that was the solution and now because of there is the indication that that was totally illegal to do it now the park has been reopened but under the control public space you didn't get a waiver on your zoning you can put in more apartments you can build a building higher in other words there's a trade off it's a way in which in exchange for this we'll give you that so in the end the real estate interests profit on all of this it's always they do and the public gets a little you know recognition but not really usable space and they're all trying to saying this right we have the right for the citizens to what is it in the constitution to address grievances to gather to address grievances they sing and say we are we are in accord with that well there's been a suspension basically the st amendment right on wall street you cannot protest on wall street tw can you know there's an old saying you know they can do what you can't stop them from in this particular you can't fight city hall well you can fight city hall but in this particular case the n y p d you know bloomberg going to slip it's used as an institution of social control so they were down there and they had the thing we had a lot of people down there doing stuff where they were under the tarps and the thing and then what was the january th is that when they invaded was it the i forget the date they came in political people saying well the people have the right to well in redress grievance there was and then all the sudden they cracked down and they threw them out of the park and what is it what went what went what what happened to that commitment that even the politicians had the right for people to assemble in the redress grievances and sid that was as though it was holy writ out of the constitution well st of all people in power had no idea that this thing would take off the way they always thought that would just fizzle out the allow this whole thing to develop and they began spying on it they have twenty four hour surveillance they have all kinds of specialized units they infiltrated and all the rest of it but it grew and it grew because guys the world it grew because the problems across the world are very similar economic problems and lack of justice the inequality that's happening worldwide and so it became an inspiration  and it was emulated by others that's what happened with the cairo movement yeah it triggered the whole arab spring and then we had the automobile weakening here in america ok and so on climat asean called it the year of the protester why now because it's always been on just have been thirty million people in poverty in egypt every war and there are now i mean it's always unjust the world is unjust there's never been there's always been reason to have an uprising by the people against the injustice of the system what happened that it came to a point where everyone seems to come to a new dimension where there may be real lasting protests of the system itself at a systemic level if that's what's happening well  factors of all maybe a new aeration it doesn't have the legacy of defeat the sense that you can't do anything the sense that it's impossible to change things and secondly social media more interactive which allows people to interact with each other and not rely just on the major media so that through twitter through facebook through you tube through other technologies the movement was able to tell its own story ya know  the internet even not rely on the press which at st ignored it then they the right it is then they made fun of it and then finally they had to acknowledge this was a real rudiment and so you had these factors which which led to this and once people see something happening that seems to have it impact it seems to be you know affecting people giving people a sense of hope and possibility they will participate in systemic lee questioning the whole system they're going horizontal that's what i see that they they want to go more and more inclusive i think that's good rather than being divided and conquered by one issue at the time that going on it on the net and ride and conquer and their culture was you know maybe more anarchist stick more up democracy direct democracy leader listen there was no ego tripping going on there by a handful of people trying to run the show you know people could really ventilate what was really on their mind which is the corruption in our system that our system is insisting is not one issue is not black man or women whatever issues that have been there and they've been meaningful it doesn't mean doesn't mean there aren't the same contradictions right you know male female seltzer active ingredient but and they talk about going as i make sense to you they're going out and they're not getting on one thing they're trying to go out and become inclusive to where they get to systems thinking right or systems analysis and a lot of people  upset with that because they want to focus on one issue that those people have been taught to divide themselves into in order to fight for one thing and then they can get not right i mean literally but this is maybe going to question the whole system that works for the world sync with a little and yeah true also harold you know you have another factor here is really very interesting you know is that when people get involved in a movement and they have the experience of actually fighting struggling for change marching demonstrating this they get a feeling of empowerment they have a feeling of they have a right to do this they have a duty to do it and need to do it to show i'm good to be good you see it st i was saying well what are your demands tell me you know what do you want other living in you know and what exactly do you want us to clean up you know and the thing is that the people resist wouldn't fall for that the reason for it is once you define yourself totally then the other side goes to work trying to discredit everything you're saying right st of all secondly divide and conquer the assumption is that if you have demands somehow and articulate them the system can solve those demand co opted options a big thing there which they can't really do because it's a systemic issue when you get to systemic you know and the rd thing is they're going after the seat of economic power that's  most of political protest was again you know the war in iraq is bad bush is to blame let's got sick let's go to the white house and yell at bush this is about when they talk about wall street you're talking about a network ships financial interests that are very deep at the viper's nest and they're they're basically making that the symbolic target and that they're getting to the real power structure and that's different and that's why so many people have supported them you know it started out fairly small number of people and then as it grew people would come to the park there were any people that say this is pretty cool you know they're really nice people here they're really listening to me i'm listening to them we're having a dialogue we're having a discussion and so the movement sort of begins to grow yeah grew and they were also going to go to the world is general assembly the right idea that the people involved could make decisions themselves you know and with certain simple i blog every day and news dissected you know writing like an angel ladies and gentlemen i'm here to tell you i've been on the telephone with him talking about something bringing up some it like setting up a program he's talking to me a one year and he's writing this blog the blog is coming up on the asked to ask deeper questions and try to go behind the scenes i'm not into conspiracy theories too much the reason for that is that there are two theories of history you know there's the there's a theory of history that  know basically the conventional theory and then the conspiracy theory of conspiracy theory is often very complicated and when it when really in reality a lot of things happen because of screw ups and want to know people set out to do something they can't really do it they're there you know limited by their own ego tripping in their own conflicts of interest so and not to say that conspiracies don't happen they do and there are politics having a medic fearing that basically is so complicated that nobody can do anything about it because they have all the power what we're seeing is that this movement that starts in a park with no money really  i think it's very important yeah but also we have to be open to being so critical critical analytical try to figure out what's not working what is working and not just repeat the same thing for example yes please i don't personally believe that the goal of occupy wall street is camping ok i wouldn't want to camp in the winter and in the summer even when i'm saying it's i you know it's the idea of building a community yeah but the idea of maintaining that park the way it had become i think it's almost you know the police almost did them a favor because now you have to go out and talk to people now you have to go out occupy the mainstream of america you have to reach out to an audience you know there are a lot of people watching us right now who are saying i quoted us people doing whatever they want whatever whatever and despite all the media coverage most of the media coverage is focused on x number of really behind all this is the analysis and the media is not really investigating hate is what they're saying about america right all right all the world or the day in the new york times says america as a country our country has they didn't have any of that so we need to find ways for people to express themselves to speak out to speak up and to try to ensure that some changes are made we need for regulation on wall street we need  i had nothing to do with the financial crisis but he was interviewed and he did say and it was in a new york times and he said you know the banks knew what i was doing yeah and they went along with it because they were all making money you have got from looting your made off copped a plea and pled guilty there are several possibilities one that he was being threatened by members of the russian mob and others overseas who lost money with him that's one likelihood another likelihood caught up you got to understand he was he was not tried there was no trial he had no defense really for any of this no evidence was was was actually put on the record other than the claims of the prosecutor we don't really know who we sent off to this day we don't know all the details what was his involvement with israel you know i don't know that hasn't been discussed in oh what was his involvement with with a lot of wealthy people in america who really wasn't examined carefully yeah but now what they're doing is they're getting down to the system itself and it seems to be they're getting away with things for people who can't afford clothes and people the rule of law we used to say we have a rule of law that we do the rules of law and the structure of the legal system is being ignored by the media is being ignored by the legal system is being lowered by the political class the whole legal system against things like does somebody have standing and these kind of i'm sure that's true you think that maybe in the offing now can have massive technological induced unemployment you've got overseas shipping you've got k mart i mean you've got wal mart you've got that container is asian all of this so that they're not going to be able to do just have the same old traditional thing and there's go be there's going to be there's going to be a problem growing upon problem you're going to have massive discontent in this country and around the world because they do not have anything that can deal with what the future requires or well not even have anything what i mean  means and great wealth but you know if i you know if i had the money which i don't lend you a large sum of money i mean i would say well what's the collateral right in this guy but i don't have any collateral exactly so only those who have collateral are able to line up in that kind of trough so he or we are in a situation where the financial times of london the last few days started a series called the crisis of capitalism all wonderful i'm glad to hear that so there's no progress on climate change there are no progress on financial regulation really europe is going to start imposing a financial transactions tax which is something that people have been calling for for years it's not like let's just look in the business section of the times a day this this regulatory agency doesn't have the money to properly regulate that's another thing they don't even have the ability to do it securities exchange commission or or that kind of they didn't even have the ability to run down any of the things that were done here's under and under the cover of darkness here's the point and then coop the people watching this program or watching am in partly the reason to watch it is to get information you don't get and the main networks get points of view to get here from people who have critical things to say listen to shakhtar and you know but it's not enough just to hear things yeah it's time to act and do things because if we just listen we may become a little smarter but the problems are not going to go away you think it's good do you think we have it down i you know i'm a fuller guy like bucky fuller and he wanted to get to an operating manual for spaceship  your question answers itself obviously not not quite but i was getting there well i would be getting there i would say the people in the know know more but that there are more people who are not in the know yet but we're getting to know more about what those people know and we're being able to catch up with them let's back up a little bit ok let's try to play or how far back to we'll let's try to find out why people know what they know what is it that they're watching that you know the lonely housewives programs the football games and lessly more and gauged as a citizen and this is the problem that we're in right now bigger bigger corporations are getting bigger you have more resources i like that you say th of one percent of one hundred the one percent where the tax thing went to one hundred the airplane grease they had slaves it depended upon slaves except let me just say this there are periods in history when people recognize some of this and take action collectively and make change what we need a break with feudalism do we not for the future and has to have something new at that level minimally at that level the enlightenment lives in the studio for sure harold and you are trying to you know enlighten people but what i'm saying is we have to find ways to not assume knowledge on the part of people not talk over people's heads not talk down to people but help people understand what's going on and on and learning do we understand well enough collectively the intellectual community what's going what are we talking about i mean we've got we've let me just say to you go by with three billion eight hundred million years evolution of conscious evolution began eighty three billion eight hundred million years ago we get to a point now where the weapon systems war something existentially new is abroad in terms of the universe howel no look i thiel like you have a you know you have a podium here and you're very good at preaching on it but what i'm trying to say to you ok i'm sorry a couple of steps back ok ok let's talk to the people of new york city or the people of manhattan in the neighborhoods of manhattan how can those people try to understand why prices are going up the way they are why the rents are really high why why they can't afford the lifestyle while their kids can't you know stay in school because of student loans why the educational system is has really gone downhill in many communities a lot of these people really forms the middle class and moved you know and moved into families moved up in their worlds today at that high school people are struggling to stay in right places right your are collapsing around us what can we do to try to bring it back to a level so that parents are not afraid that their kids are going to get killed when they go outside yeah how can we deal with the scourge of  you know dope and you know basics child abuse which is prevail in our community we have to talk about these issues in a way that people can connect with and say hey you know you're making a lot of sense you know what can i do how can i get involved what's next and this is what we need to do we need a lot of people's movement starts in the bottom up and as a start from the top down yes intellectuals can contribute good ideas and there are you know there are libraries filled with books but our book stores are closing ok the whole culture of books is chain yeah you know you know walking around you know plugged into their computers plugged into i tunes yeah you know and being entertained everything so yeah can we do to challenge that when there are people who are doing it we all have had inspirational teachers at all we've all had people who who've really inspired us there are people who watch you who you inspire i think yeah that's good news has to do more than it's doing has to have a bigger imprint has to have a bigger audience and it has a can't just talk to itself has to reach out to many different community assy to say a sidebar thing is everything because of what's going on in the computer lab there are things that are coming in terms of disseminating information that when i was on the verge of collapse it's been revived you know this building really been brought a lot to it you know i'm not saying there isn't progress smaller share of the overall yeah people are getting information from lots of different sources they sure are but you know also a lot of times the independent media the media that has a lot more to say that tell not sell that media doesn't have the distribution the promotion the collaborative tools that it needs to build audience and you know this is why part of the problem is that we the people who are in on the left are or trying to make change marginalized themselves they talk to each other they're afraid to reach out to other people you know i when i went to the school th going down ok so there's something going on the cause of things papo certainly are well part of what's going on where it was reagan is that is the amount of money that the right wing has invested think tanks ideas politicians so we're in a situation where the future of our country's at stake and at the same time our president has disappointed so many of his followers has has basically opted to align himself with the vested interest as to educate ourselves and we have to try to understand our world in a clear a way it's confusing you know very much for your for your viewers you know i my i don't claim that my blog has all the answers it's really good network i have several films plunder the crime of our time we have plundered the crime of our time dot com you know i'm trying to do what i can as one person to do a lot brother you do a lot you really i mean it really there's something there that isn't just a handful of people with some degree and if they knew how to market their ideas more power flowing to you think the idea is in a way that you don't think it's important for us to get our ideas great about what's going on no i do of course we do you do well i'm saying i mean i mean at that level i'm saying if this movement yeah nothing lasts nothing you know everything changes every grows morphs in different ways like it goes in lots of directions you think we're coming to the end of the human experience you know i think about it i'd say we have to start thinking that's a great question it is but it's also perhaps relevant because you know it's like we're coming to the end of a pregnancy when you get i'm sorry i don't think it's so on appropriate to think about the effect of the conscious extension of consciousness through technology but i want to get is the technology that is changing everything and we also have a technology not only could destroy that species do you think that's true they also have a capability a provocative for everybody we have a capability that our inherited is to do sions won't let us realize they could liberate the human society within an ecological minutes of coherent discussion and conversation and i really hear you her and your are you asking you ask deeper questions you don't just stay in the box so to speak but you actually broaden the discourse that's good and that's why you've been around for all these years because you've been working very hard to build an audience for manhattan neighborhood network you have conversations with lots of intelligent people you actually had a conversation with moammar gadhafi i think mo translator and he was ahead of history's curve we set up a paradigm that's out of date you need to have a defeat he set up a thing where that the people the way you form capital had to be did democratically learn about what's really going on what the different levels of experience something is the system that's in place is not adequate to what the future requires we need a new system we need we had to make a break with the feudal system in seven hundred and seventy six we have they're calling themselves historically legitimate with all their talk about elections and things and everything but it isn't they need something that has to do with the way capital is going to be formed and demands are going to be i mean you know right now in the end i asked them in the united states when   we're in a situation where there is an opening yeah but it is that way and occupy wall street pointed that out showed that handful of people in a park in lower manhattan could actually have a vibe that could you know empower people get people interested get rifle talking buzzing instead handed media is catching up and is doing a lot yeah you know i'm a blogger but i also in my in my blog every day try to look for what's the most interesting coverage what are the best sources  country but in other countries as well you so i feature you know articles from the guardian in england feature articles from south africa a few articles from other places where people have insight into what's happening that most of us don't know about aren't ok so we need we need to broaden our view is that's what i'm here pretty thing yeah yeah me too that's what i'm here preaching and i'm saying you can make a difference you mean i think you can but you can if you're willing to stand  up and basically take some action in your neighborhood in your in your apartment building on your block in your community in your city in your state in your nation we can make a difference we  resources to do the marketing that's the difficulty that's the challenge that we face how do we get people to know about what we're doing how do we get our books out how do we get our film seen how do we get our voices heard yeah i'm on the progressive radio network and its online network i do a show fridays from one to two is it a regular thing you know a regular thing because i spent ten years in commercial radio yes indeed and i know so now i'm doing this project this is gary v in iran good on your program right there on interview of the day so i would hope that i'm getting some audience but out i don't know about that yeah a little bit of time to get some pattern recognition or information overload permits seeing patterns between things that have been seen in isolation i think that's a good thing to develop and it does give some hope that this thing develop rather than not having developed this thing called occupy wall street occupy the world because it is really calling in to atten king being made a national holiday we're going to make my birthday a national holiday i wanted it to be a holiday so all the kiddies get out of school we'd all go have an ice cream cone right amount of that terrible thing that was going on john's birthday is that right yeah that media channels i know you can write to me and i'll try to respond thank you danny for coming in and all such a very very well this is a man to pay attention to and thanks for all the good work thank you to me and will be coming back again tomorrow that's it for now if somebody is at the