Occupy Wall Street - Chris Hedges Shuts Down CBC's Kevin O'Leary

Obama clip on CBC: "I think it expresses the frustrations the American people feel, that we have the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across mainstream, and, yet, we are still seeing the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight effortts to crack down on abusive practices that got us in this problem in the first place."

A polished female presenter speaks, the label Lang & O'Leary Exchange soon appearing in a graphic.

Presenter: "That was President Obama commenting on the growing frustration being expressed by the Occupy Wall Street movement protesters. That movement is spreading to cities across the United States, and across the border to Canada starting next week. Chris Hedges is a Pullitzer Prize winning reporter and author, and participant at the Occupy Wall Street rally at New York last week and in Washington today. He joins us from our Washington Bureau."

Graphics read "Toronto" on her box, "Washington" on his.

"So Mr. Hedges, you were a participant in this protest? How would you describe your role in this movement?"

Chris Hedges - a graphic reads, Author, "The world as it is": "I'm not an organizer, I'm speaking tonight at the rally in Washington, and I've given interviews and participated in events in New York."

Interviewer box suddenly pops back featuring male instead of earlier female questioner. His tone of voice is highly suggestive.

Kevin O'Leary: "So what exactly is everyone complaining about, and is - also, can you give me a sense of how much momentum this movement has, because it looks pretty nothing whatever so far, a few guys, guitars, no-one knows what they want, they can't even name the name of the firms they are protesting against, very weak, low budget."

Chris Hedges: "I wouldn't agree with that assessment at all. They pulled thousands of people into the street last night, and here in Washington when everyone marched past the Bank of America, then knew, they were shouting, 'Shame, shame, shame', they know the names of these firms and they know what these firms have done; not only to the American economy but to the global economy and to the criminal class who runs them."

Female presenter, sounding patient: "Well, Kevin made this point of, you know, nobody knows what they want. What do you think of that? I mean we know that this is a very diverse group, there are many different agendas at play, what is the sense you have of what this movement would like to see happen?"

Chris Hedges, clearly: "Well they know precisely what they want. They want to reverse the corporate coup that's taken place in the United States, and rendered the citizenry impotent, and they won't stop until that happens. And frankly, if we don't break the back of corporations, we're all finished anyways, since they're rapidly trashing the eco-system on which the human species depends for survival."

"This is literally, a fight, for life. It's that grave, it's that serious. Corporations on federal capitalism is as Karl Marx understood is a revolutionary force, it commodifies everything, human beings, the natural world, which it exploits for profit, until exhaustion or collapse..."