Naomi Klein on Occupy Wall Street: Compassion is a radical act

Naomi Klein, a reporter whose work has been featured in Rolling Stone, The Atlantic and The Guardian, among others, as well as in her best-selling books "Shock Doctrine" and "No Logo," has been reporting on today's key activist causes: Occupy Wall Street and the Keystone Pipeline.

Klein sat down for an interview with Thom Hartmann to explain her participation in the social justice and environmental movements.

Klein said that she was moved to join Occupy Wall Street when she saw a photo of a young woman holding a sign at the protest that read, "I care about you." This, she said, was a radical act because of its subversion of the American cultural norm.

"I found it very moving. There was another sign that was part of the same photo essay that I was looking at of somebody else holding up a sign that said 'compassion is a radical act'," Klein said. "I'm increasingly convinced that all of the change that we want...none of this is going to happen unless we really shift the underlying values of our culture. The idea that these young people would be holding up signs that say 'I care about you' on Wall Street is such a radical act. If you think about what this culture teaches us to do — it really is to not care about each other, to harden our hearts to each other."

In addition to her work at Occupy Wall Street, Klein was also arrested during a protest in front of the White House, opposing the Keystone Pipeline from Canada to the U.S.

"I'm very immersed in this, and very aware of the clock ticking and how little time we have to get this right," Klein said of her social and environmental causes.

Watch the interview in two parts, embedded below via YouTube.

Part 1:

Part 2: