"BP has gotten away with this, the government has helped them get away with it, we can't even get cooperation from the government to test the carcasses of dead mammals washing up on the shore because they're joined at the hip with BP," says Mike Papantonio, radio host and attorney representing Gulf Coast residents.

Here in the US all we seem to hear about is deficits and debt. Yet even the countries that hold a lot of our debt are concerned for our lack of investment at home.

"There is a hunger out there for some kind of serious approach to the big issue of the day, and you have to be creative about it—but that’s our job," says former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert of today's media landscape. Bob joined us in his first in-depth interview since leaving the New York Times in March of this year.

"The real issue here is that modern humanity looks at nature as a great big resource for our pleasure, profit and convenience, and we do whatever we want with it. We're in trouble," says Maude Barlow of our current relationship with the our natural world. She and Shannon Biggs have spearheaded the discussion over the legal rights of nature, a discussion that has gone all the way to United Nations, where arguments are now being heard.

"We need to stay loudly and clearly that there is an alternative. The debate underway is suffocatingly narrow," says Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, of the way the conversation about jobs and the economy has become a conversation about spending and deficits. Meanwhile, she notes, outside of the Beltway, independent media and independent activists like US Uncut are fighting hard to change the conversation.

"We need to stay loudly and clearly that there is an alternative. The debate underway is suffocatingly narrow," says Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, of the way the conversation about jobs and the economy has become a conversation about spending and deficits. Meanwhile, she notes, outside of the Beltway, independent media and independent activists like US Uncut are fighting hard to change the conversation.

Laura Flanders and Ed Schultz discuss Sarah Palin's appearance in Wisconsin, and the Republican race in 2012.

Is there a journalism school tradition that teaches up-and-comers to put stories in little boxes? Half our job, in independent media, it seems to me, is putting the connections back.

On April 15, thousands of miles away from Bahrain, protests took place in Washington D.C. going from the Saudi Embassy to the White House, and finally ending in Central Park as thousands of Muslims and sympathetic Americans from around the world attended to show their support of the "forgotten oppressed."

"What's at stake is whether assaults on working people will prevail," says Ellen Bravo, who fought with the Family Values @ Work Consortium to get paid sick leave for Milwaukee's workers only to see it banned in the state legislature--and the ban broadened to include the entire state. Meanwhile, to heighten the already tense situation in that state, Sarah Palin was there this weekend to speak to a Tea Party crowd.