Like Diamond, Bernstein wanted to make a difference from inside  -- but he left the administration this April in order to work more effectively on the nation's priorities. We spoke June 7th at his new perch, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities..  The full interview will be seen on The Laura Flanders Show, coming this fall, to public television stations nationwide.

Hours later, in the worst bloodshed since the 1973 war between Israel and Syria, up to 23 civilians were dead and hundreds wounded after Israeli troops opened live fire on the protesters in the Golan. In the West Bank, Israeli troops used rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds injuring more.

These latest protests come just three weeks after more than a dozen Palestinians were killed, and more than 100 others wounded, including 23-year-old American citizen Munib Masri, by Israeli forces while peacefully commemorating the Nakba, or dispossession of roughly 725,000 Palestinians during Israel's creation in 1947-8.

Fadi Quran is a Palestinian living in the West Bank. He is the founder of an alternative energy startup and also works as a coordinator within various youth movements involved in what is called The March 15th Movement marking their first nonviolent protests this spring. He is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Human Rights and Constitutional Law, and graduated from Stanford University with degrees in Physics and International Relations. We had a chance to talk sh0rtly before the Naksa day demonstrations, in New York.\

NOTE: this post was first posted 6/3 then updated thereafter.

In those three years, we've brought to public attention hundreds of fresh thinkers not seen anywhere else, and drilled down hard, and day after day, on critical themes like the foreclosure crisis and the Wall Street meltdown. We spoke regularly with real experts as well as real working people.

We traveled to D.C. for the inauguration of President Obama. “What are we going to inaugurate?” was our question. And we stood in the cold with labor protesters, week after week, in Wisconsin.

Special guests I remember -- the extraordinary Eduardo Galeano reading aloud from his book Mirrors, labor rank and file like Angel Warner describing what it is to organize. The much missed Juliano Mer Khamis with his students from Jenin talking about theater and freedom. When the National Portrait gallery caved to the censors we played David Wojnarovicz's video on homophobia and AIDS for all to see. And we platformed the work of our brilliant GRITtv Commentators, GRIT Group partners and friends at The Nation, Brave New Films, Women Make Movies, and many more.

Three years later, you can find all that work permanently archived at our website. Just check it out. Effective today, though, we're suspending daily production to retool.

Come this fall, with your help, you'll see a new project: a one-hour weekly program, right here, and also on PBS stations from coast to coast. You can contribute to that effort online, right now.

I think of the words of a few recent guests. Vandana Shiva reminded us of the principles of Gandhi: self governance, self-sufficiency, struggle for truth.

The reality is that effective self governance requires a free media, but independent media makers have yet to make ourselves self-sufficient. We hope a weekly show will have a better chance. But today it breaks my heart to close down a daily platform for movements, and to say goodbye to an extraordinary team - Gina Kim, Diane Shamis, Sam Alcoff, Rich Kim, Diane Pottinger, Sarah Jaffe, Jason Abbruzzese, Danya Abt and Rebecca McDonald---  most of whom have been with me since day one.

We asked Bob Herbert recently if it's hard to stay on the beat of the "left out" people when our money culture so prioritizes insiders and fame? His answer -- it's what I'm interested in. The same is true for us too.

Fight for Truth. While we're taking a break today, that work will carry on. You can support GRITtv at GRITtv.org and support Free Speech TV. We'll see you in the next place soon.

Chris joins Laura in studio for a conversation about the death of Bin Laden and the continuing concern over terrorism, the end of empathy in the U.S., and what avenues are left for progressives to fight back.  "The elites are not going to help us," he warns, "We're going to have to help ourselves."

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.

A few weeks back, United Steelworkers Local 7-669 came to Morris New Jersey to exercise another right--their rights as shareholders of the very company that has locked them out.  Our own Danya Abt traveled there to get the story with cinematographer Zac Halberd.

Finally, three years ago today GRITtv first went on air, and on our birthday Laura says goodbye, for now, and introduces you to the next chapter for our organization--a new weekly program on public broadcasting stations.