Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
OLBERMANN: My next guest was last here on August 31st, concluding a month in which the
White House had made a cheesy deal on cuts, the Republicans staved off the recall of state
senators dedicated to gutting the safety net in Wisconsin, and generally hope seemed to
be gone.
In our number-one story - here it is, 43 days later, and the streets of 1,100 or more American
communities are boiling over with hope - thanks to a little movement that both of us dreamt
of, but neither of us could have predicted. The activist and musician Tom Morello, in
fact, went to see it at its birthplace and did a little activism and a little music for
Occupy Wall Street.
(Excerpt from video clip) MORELLO: In the squares of the city, in the shadow of the
steeple/Near the Relief Office, I see my people/Some are grumbling, and all are wondering/If this
land's still made for you and me. . . Tell 'em! . . . This land is your land/This land
is my land/From California to the New York islands/From the redwood forest/To the Gulf
Stream waters/This land was made for you and me. . . Thank you very much!
OLBERMANN: And as promised, here is Tom Morello who sings, authors serious comic books and
stands up for what's right. It's good to see you.
TOM MORELLO: It's nice to see you as well.
OLBERMANN: Good listing on the resume. Anytime you can invoke *** Guthrie in front of a
crowd of activists, is a good day to begin with.
MORELLO: Sure.
OLBERMANN: Is that your update?
MORELLO: Yeah. Well, *** would be 99 years old if he were alive today and he would have
been headlining the event.
OLBERMANN: I have no doubt.
MORELLO: Yeah. And 99 is an important number these days.
OLBERMANN: Seriously, how about that for timing. Is it amazing to consider that 43 days we
were sitting here going, sort of basically putting a brave face on everything that was
going on in this country?
MORELLO: Yeah. I mean, you never know. I mean, the struggle for justice starts when someone
starts it, and you never know where that spark is going to come from, you never know where
that match is going to be lit. And now, you know, Occupy Wall Street, you know - first
it was completely ignored, then they got pepper sprayed and New York City found out about
it.
OLBERMANN: Right.
MORELLO: Then 700 of them got arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge and the country found
out about it. Now there's over 1,000 Occupies around the country and around the world. It's
pretty encouraging.
OLBERMANN: And tomorrow morning at 7:00 A.M., the mayor of the City of New York who is a
business genius and has managed to circumvent the rules of the city to get himself elected
for a third time.
MORELLO: Yes.
OLBERMANN: He's actually going to be stupid enough to evict them during the middle of
the morning news programs.
MORELLO: Yeah. Well, if the pepper-spray incidents and the arrests were any indication, it should
be popular throughout the solar system by the time he's done with that.
OLBERMANN: It really is remarkable. I want to ask you about something. Tom Hayden was
on the show last night and gave - no offense to anybody else, yourself included - the best
answers to questions about this subject that I've asked yet, and - big surprise. I mean,
he's only been doing this for 50 years.
MORELLO: Exactly, that guy knows what he's talking about.
OLBERMANN: He predicted basically four channels for this to go down from where it is now.
And one of them was that he saw some sort of massive civil disobedience act in which,
say, 15,000 people or more were arrested at one point, but no violence. Just simple - "We're
not moving, you'll have to arrest us," clogging the intake system of the police and each of
them demanding a jury trial - clogging the courts until this thing became Gandhi-like
in its importance and its infection, if you will, of an already-infected system. That's
not going to happen tomorrow morning.
MORELLO: Yeah.
OLBERMANN: I don't think that's going to happen this year. Look, do you have any idea what
the near future is for this?
MORELLO: Well, I mean it's hard to say - we couldn't have predicted what's happened till
now.
OLBERMANN: Clearly.
MORELLO: And - just, I played at Occupy LA on last Saturday, and it's just - it's so
inspiring. Like, this is - there are some important differences between this and what
happened in Wisconsin. While in Wisconsin there were 100,000 people in the streets,
to an extent, the direction of it was top down. And there were certainly elements in
the Democratic Party that were steering it in a electoral direction. This is from the
bottom up. There's no arguing that. Like everyone's - you know, I'm getting emails and tweets
from friends who are in little hamlets around the county. They're occupying Libertyville,
Illinois. You know? They're occupying Vernon Hills now. And it is something that is very,
very encouraging.
OLBERMANN: You were there at - at LA.
MORELLO: Yeah.
OLBERMANN: And you were at Occupy Wall Street today.
MORELLO: Yes.
OLBERMANN: Give me your read on the sense, obviously, that they already had an idea about
what's going to happen tomorrow, or what might happen tomorrow.
MORELLO: Yeah, I mean it's - the people there are serious about what they're doing. You
know - there was a jubilant atmosphere as you could see from the performance - but there's
steel in the spines of the people down there. And the thing that - for me, this is different,
this and Madison are very different from the other protests that have happened during my
lifetime, 'cause there's an explicit class basis to it. You know, and that's something
that we really haven't seen. And, the numbers that I saw in The New York Times today was
that this - the Occupy Wall Street movement is popular among 34 percent of Americans.
That's one hundred million people.
OLBERMANN: Right.
MORELLO: And considering what it's about, that's very - also very encouraging.
OLBERMANN: Yeah, and 80 percent, roughly - these other national polls at 80 percent - 80 percent
of the country knows about it.
MORELLO: That's right.
OLBERMANN: And the Time poll says 54 percent approve.
MORELLO: Great. I mean, that's incredible.
OLBERMANN: And the same group - 27 percent approve the tea party, just for frame of reference
- in 26 days.
MORELLO: So, give us 26 more days, and who knows?
OLBERMANN: Yeah, you give us 26 minutes, and we'll give you the world. What - what do - when
you're there, what do the protesters ask you the most? 'Cause I found a theme to the questions
I got asked. I want to know what you're -
MORELLO: You know, I had just finished performing - like, "When are you coming back?"
OLBERMANN: Okay.
MORELLO: Dude, I just played.
OLBERMANN: I'm here now.
MORELLO: Exactly. I mean, one thing that is key, any - every successful progressive, radical
or revolutionary movement this country has ever seen has had a great soundtrack.
OLBERMANN: Yeah, sure.
MORELLO: And so, it's very important, I think that music and culture be a part of it.
OLBERMANN: And they're asking you for that?
MORELLO: That's right, they want me to come back, they want my - former iterations to
come and play as well.
OLBERMANN: Yeah, and if you can get Pete Seeger to come in and all that stuff, come on down,
and anybody else. It seems like - is it soundtrack, or is it, in fact, a very important part of
continuity? I don't want to say uniformity of opinion, because that's not -
MORELLO: No.
OLBERMANN: A liberal movement has no uniformity of opinion. But continuity of what we're doing
here and what in the past has worked. It really - when you sang that song, I imagine chills
went up and down your spine and the listeners - everybody listening to you, correct?
MORELLO: Yeah, I mean, culture is an important part of this struggle, like it is a part of
every struggle. And there's something in music in particular that speaks to the reptilian
brain of people - that when it's the right combination of rhythm and harmony and the
right lyrical couplet really feels like the truth in a way that, like, a written screed
can't.
OLBERMANN: All right - so this isn't about your reaction to how people are reacting to
you, and it's not about my reaction, or how people are reacting to me - but there's a
human element to it, which often fuels people's interest in this thing. And so - I need to
know what's it like when you go there and you feel like, "All right, I'm not performing,
I'm part of a serious effort at change that has a really good chance of affecting something."
MORELLO: Yeah, yeah. I mean, to me the vibe there at Occupy LA was like - I'm not sure
what's going to happen, but that's good, 'cause it feels like anything could happen. It doesn't
feel like this thing has a roof. This thing doesn't have a ceiling, like anything is possible.
And I love the - I mean, it's so democratically run. Like, there was - you know, before me,
there were two opening acts today to just - people with acoustic guitars were playing
their songs. And I came up and played mine, and there was someone after me. I really liked
that.
OLBERMANN: Yeah, no promoters.
MORELLO: That's right, there's no promoters.
OLBERMANN: No T-shirts.
OLBERMANN: No hot-dog stands.
MORELLO: Exactly, yeah, the vendor didn't take a portion of the T-shirt sales.
OLBERMANN: Hey, get your Tom Morello candy apples. Tom Morello, the activist, and the
musician on Occupy Wall Street and Occupy LA. Thanks once again, sir, and we'll see
what happens 43 days from now.
MORELLO: Exactly.
OLBERMANN: That's "Countdown" for Thursday, 390 days until the 2012 presidential election.
I'm Keith Olbermann. As usual, give yourself a round of applause for getting through another
day of this crap. Good night and good luck.