corporate

This weekend, the New York branch of the nationwide budget-cut protest group US Uncut tried a new tactic-- it held teach-ins in not one, but two Bank of America locations, explaining economic issues to a crowd of interested listeners (and bank customers) until they were chased out by security. Thanks to US Uncut for producing the video!

"It seems that when you flip the switch too late you actually promote the revolutions in your country. What would've happened if Egypt hadn't flipped the switch? If people are home blogging their discontent they're a lot more controllable, a lot less dangerous," says Doug Rushkoff, author of Program or Be Programmed, of the role of the Internet in the recent revolutions. Doug joins us via Skype to discuss corporate control over our communications, the fight for Net Neutrality, the AT&T and T-Mobile merger, the attempts to defund NPR, and more. Bradley Manning, the accused leaker of many of the documents posted on the website WikiLeaks, remains in jail under increasingly harsh conditions. This weekend, protesters, including regular GRITtv guest Col. Ann Wright and Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg, were arrested at Quantico Marine Corps base, rallying in support and demanding better treatment for Manning. This Saturday, protests are planned in the UK, the US, and Canada against corporate tax avoiders and government austerity cuts. The UK Uncut movement has been going strong, occupying retail outlets as diverse as Vodafone and TopShop, and its solidarity movement in the US is just getting started. Using street theater and organizing largely on the web, the direct action movements aim to make tax dodging a whole lot less profitable for big banks like Bank of America and corporations like Verizon and FedEx. Allison Kilkenny has been covering the US Uncut movement for The Nation, and she joins us along with J.A. Myerson, a "tax avoidance consultant", to discuss the new resistance to paying for corporate welfare. Finally, Republicans have declared war on Elizabeth Warren. But what will it take to get Warren some real power, enough to really put some fear into banksters and their allies in Congress? Distributed by Tubemogul.

"Now we think not only us are going to have to review our sense of comfort. I am not very comfortable." says Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers union. Gerard himself was once a union representative at a facility that mined and refined uranium, and he represents many workers in such dangerous conditions across the country today. The USW has long been part of the Blue-Green Alliance, creating a labor-environmentalist coalition, but stopped short of calling for an end to nuclear power--but will that change after Japan? Leo joins Laura via Skype to discuss the crisis in Japan, the situation of the workers there, and why this crisis is linked to workers' protests around the US. Republicans have NPR and PBS in their sights once again, and once again progressives and media reformers have to fight for every penny that public media gets. Just how many pennies is that, though? Sally Kohn of Movement Vision puts that funding in perspective in this video. "You see this coming together of networks of educated people—I call them the graduates with no future—with the urban poor, with sometimes organized labor. This mixture is there everywhere the protests have been," says Paul Mason, Economics editor of BBC Newsnight and author of Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global. Mason notes that from student protests in London to workers in Wisconsin, revolution in Tunisia to uprising in Libya, many of the same characteristics are visible. Paul joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the global protest movement, the role of social media, what different areas have in common, and much more. You can see Paul and Laura along with Cornel West and Barbara Ehrenreich in New York on Friday night at the opening plenary of the Left Forum--more information here! Finally, the US Government paid $2.3 million to have CIA contractor Raymond Davis freed in Pakistan. But what are other lives worth--or other jobs? Distributed by Tubemogul.

President Obama needs to go after Republicans as aggressively as they go after him, notes Mike Papantonio, "not just for his presidency but for democracy." ; The new Congress gets sworn in this week, and Darrell Issa is already announcing his investigations, but Papantonio notes that Democrats still control the Senate and that they can still push back against Republican attacks.Papantonio joins us via Skype to talk about the coming year in politics: conciliation from Democrats, attacks from the Right, and maybe more revelations from WikiLeaks, who just revealed that the U.S. State department has been doing the bidding of corporations--ones like Boeing, who outsource jobs by the thousands while dictating U.S. policy.The price of freedom from an overly harsh sentence in Mississippi? Apparently, one kidney. That's the promise Mississsippi governor Haley Barbour extracted from Gladys Scott--that she would donate a kidney to her sister Jamie in order for both of them to have their sentences commuted. The sisters had served nearly 17 years in prison for an armed robbery worth $11, and a prolonged grassroots effort finally paid off in achieving their freedom--though it may have more to do with Barbour's attempt at making up for his recent approving comments about the White Citizens' Councils.Joining us to discuss are Anthony Papa, author of 15 to Life
and manager of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance, and from Mississippi, Jaribu Hill, executive director of the Mississippi Workers' Center for Human Rights.Finally, the snow is mostly melted here in New York City, but the chilling effect is being felt around the country as conservatives attack public employees. Laura discusses.