"You can't sustain a democracy in an oligarchic state. The writers on Athenian democracy understood that 2000 years ago," says Chris Hedges, whose new book The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress explores the problems of a crumbling empire, inside and out.

Three years ago today, on May 12, 2008, the first episode of GRITtv hit the air. Given life by Free Speech TV, the project we imagined was a daily forum for changemakers that would welcome new voices and celebrate diversity.

"You can't sustain a democracy in an oligarchic state. The writers on Athenian democracy understood that 2000 years ago," says Chris Hedges, whose new book The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress explores the problems of a crumbling empire, inside and out.

We first met the steelworkers from Metropolis, Illinois in Madison, Wisconsin early this spring, where workers from all over the country gathered to defend the right to collectively bargain. Until their lockout in June of last summer, these workers ran Honeywell's uranium conversion plant, the only one of its kind in the country, and they depended on their collectively bargaining rights to defend the health and safety of themselves and their small community.

"I imagine a world in which my seven-year-old daughter doesn't say to me 'I can't be the president because I'm a girl.'" Anika Rahman was horrified and yet not surprised when her daughter expressed that sentiment. As the new CEO and president of the Ms. Foundation for Women, Anika works to empower women to fight for their right to control their bodies and their lives.

"The message of public vs. private, fight against each other, isn't working," says Jean Ross of the Minnesota Nurses Association, who joined the protests in Madison, Wisconsin at the Capitol building against Scott Walker's union-busting bill. Jean and the National Nurses United have been traveling and talking to their workers, hearing firsthand about the impact of the economy on nurses and their patients.

"The message of public vs. private, fight against each other, isn't working," says Jean Ross of the Minnesota Nurses Association, who joined the protests in Madison, Wisconsin at the Capitol building against Scott Walker's union-busting bill. Jean and the National Nurses United have been traveling and talking to their workers, hearing firsthand about the impact of the economy on nurses and their patients.

Teachers right here in New York are facing more than just cinematic attacks—Mayor Bloomberg is laying off 4100 teachers and eliminating another 2000 teaching jobs through attrition. The Mayor blames Governor Cuomo, but the story is the same as the one we've heard in Wisconsin and around the country: there's just no money for those greedy union teachers. Our friend Brian Jones and the Grassroots Education Movement have crafted a response to that message in a film, The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman, and they're premiering it on May 19 in New York City.

World War I was called "the war to end all wars," but nearly 100 years later, war is far from over. Adam Hochschild, co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, has written a new book looking back at that war and specifically, those who objected to and fought against the Great War.

"The USA has got to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to everyone as a right, not a privilege," says Senator Bernie Sanders, who this week is introducing a new bill in Congress that would provide a single-payer health care system, administered at the state level, that would treat health care as a human right. Sanders' home state of Vermont is on its way to being the first state in the country with a single-payer plan, but he notes that all Americans should have that same right.