oh i'm going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture and present protests that have occupied wall street washington d.c. and dozens of other cities all across the country have dominated the headlines this week and i will revisit the insights of two people who have been covering these events closely and make sure that the voices of the thousands of people taking to the streets to demand change all across the united states are heard by all of you at home to be on the founder of democracy now award winning journalist any good.

conversations of. board winning journalist syndicated columnist new york times best selling author and you goodman amy is the host an executive producer of democracy now a national daily independent news program airing on over nine hundred radio stations in north america she's been in the forefront of developing truly independent grassroots pulled. it brings to light the alternative voices often excluded by the mainstream media she's won numerous awards for both her reporting and her efforts to create and maintain independent media in the united states including the park center for independent media as is the award the american women in radio and television creasy award the george polk award and the robert f. kennedy prize for international reporting as well as journalism awards and united from the associated press you had a person or national corporation for public broadcasting amy goodman is the author

of for a new york times bestsellers her latest book breaking the sound barrier explores the role and power of independent journalism in the struggle for a better world i'm delighted to welcome any good to our studios in new york city for this edition of conversations with great minds amy welcome. and it's great to be with the town thank you in the in the wake of the whole occupy wall street movement you just announced a final settlement in your federal lawsuit in your case along with your producers sharifa nicole against the city of minneapolis and the police there and i'd like to show our viewers as a set up here just a short clip of that very violent arrest. right

there. was this. sort of. i still remember when you came into the r. and c. radio row after that event and you were pretty pretty shaken up physically can you can you tell our listeners what happened and why. that's right tom in fact a your show is one of the first shows interviews that we did that was actually succumb or first two thousand and eight it was labor day the first day of the republican convention we just come from denver from the democratic convention flown into the twin cities in the morning there was a massive peace march from the st paul city hall to the excel center where the convention would be later that day ten thousand people marched led by soldiers and full military regalia some it served some were resisting and of course thousands of

civilians saying no to war and that was two years ago then i went into the convention to interview delegates from the hottest state from alaska remember sarah palin who was running for vice president then her name was just becoming a national entity and i wanted to find out what you know just what people were thinking and sharifa nicole my producers could do send nicole salazar went back to the t.v. studios to digitize tape as i was interviewing people on the convention floor i got a call from our senior producer saying come quickly to seventh in jackson and st paul because nicole injury couldn't rest and they've been bloodied and you should get here quickly i raced off the convention floor my credentials around my neck with our cameraman that i was working with that day the great filmmaker rick reilly of big noise films we raced down the streets of st paul got to this big parking lot

the riot police had surrounded the area fully contained and i went up to them i was just sort of running along the line to find an officer that i could ask. to get a commanding officer and that's just what i did that was the second of the images you saw i ran up to the officer and i said please i'd like to speak to your commanding officer you can see i just came from the convention floor i'm a credentialed journalist i need to get my reporters out now they too are credentialed it was and seconds before he returned he threw that line twisted my arms back slapped the head. pushed me up against the wall and on to the ground i was still desperately looking for free from the cold i heard they've been hurt i saw sharif across the parking lot arms behind his back clearly handcuffed i demanded to be brought to him finally the officers did so there we were standing i couldn't find anywhere with my eyes at least we were standing handcuffed both of us had our credentials dangling from around our necks to mending to be really saying you know to anyone who would listen we're credentialed journalists whereupon the

secret service came over and ripped the credentials from around our necks and i was then brought into the police wagon after i was charged by the way with misdemeanor interfering with a peace officer if only there was a peace officer in the vicinity and the police van that's where i found her face was bloody treece arm was bloody when i saw him her face was bloody shit her credentials on her hands were handcuffed and she quickly describe what had happened she said when i went off to the convention they got into the t.v. studio they heard a commotion outside and they just were doing their job in practice they hadn't gone downstairs they would not have been doing their job is journalist you don't stay in the cozy studios when something is happening outside she grabbed the camera sharif drag grabbed the microphone they went outside and there with the riot police those are the first images you saw they were coming at her quickly she's in a parking lot trapped by the parked car she's filming she has her press credential up at the same time they're shouting as they're running at her on your face on your

face she shouting back press press and she's filming at the same time they take her down from the front and behind and they slam are on the ground on her face near boot and her back they're dragging on her leg which means they're dragging her face on the ground and the first thing they do as her camera tumbles to the ground is pull the battery out of the camera if you will wondering what it was they wanted to stop happening the documentation of what was taking place sharif was there. senior producer sure if we can use and he went up to the riot police i should say riot police any told him to calm down they threw him up against the wall kicked him twice in the chest and they took him down bloodying his arm they face felony riot charges brought off to the police garage where they directed the protest cages for the protesters and color taken to jail will the you tube video of our arrest went viral immediately the first two days of convention it was the most watched you

tube video of the convention thousands if not tens of thousands of e-mail calls tweets everything came into the twin city authorities to say release us and alternately after hours we were released it shows the power of a grassroots response in a sharif was jailed with an a.p. photographer sharif got out before the photographer did and i think that shows what it means when people respond when there's independent media going to where the silence is you know capturing what's happening on film so i'm taken off to the convention networks wanted to talk to me on the n.b.c. sky box and i do an interview the cameras turned off at the end and an n.b.c. producer came up and said hey i don't get it why wasn't i arrested and i said oh are you outside covering the protests as well and he said no i said you know you have to get out there as woody allen says ninety percent of life is just showing up and i'm not getting arrested in the sky box either. and that's really it you know

it is our job to be on the convention floor to cover what is happening there to interview the delegates to get into those corporate suites who sponsoring what are supposed to be the celebrations of democracy both of the republican and democratic conventions but also to go outside with the thousands of people are who are the uninvited guests they have something important to say as well and you know do. or c is a messy thing and we shouldn't have to get a record when we try to put things on the record it's our job to capture all the voices for a very well set and you know legally been vindicated in this case and many apples. we brought suit immediately and well we brought suit within the first year because we have a lot of work to do is journalist doing democracy now every day but now it is three years later we went back to minneapolis st paul this past week after

a lot of the depositions were taken to go sheet in with the police as well as the secret service because they were involved they ripped our security these are the security credentials that are given to us by the very authorities that we're arresting so there was no question about who we were and we got a landmark settlement between the federal authorities the secret service and the police they all have to pay it but in addition and what's really important is the same poll the police have agreed to training they are officers and will be involved in that training as well as the center for constitutional rights was which was involved with our lawsuit along with the a.c.l.u. will be involved there's an a.c.l.u. chapter there the reporters committee for. the reporters committee for freedom of the press it is absolutely critical as we move into these next conventions that will take place in town and in charlotte. and in covering these protests that are

happening that's why we held the press conference announcing our landmark settlement right in the midst of occupy wall street downtown from where i am right now it is a message to police departments around the country that they will have to pay if they abuse journalists if they are engaged in unlawful arrests at all and i'm in a marvelous and important message to be when we are. tremendously break here used to democracy now the war and peace report back in ninety six you've been doing this kind of reporting for that you were his director of you before that. what. motivated you into that work who is any good now do you think yourself both as a professional and as an agent of change in this critical moment in history. well you know i've always seen journalism as a way to hold those in power accountable and when i was

a kid when i was and cheering your high and high school i was involved with a high school newspaper that it was holding the principal accountable and then it was just moving to a larger stage but there we have a sacred responsibility as journalists there's a reason why our profession journalism is the only one explicitly protected by the u.s. constitution because we're supposed to be in the check in balance on power and that is absolutely critical right now and as we come from wall street you know covering what is taking place there this remarkable uprising that is expanding from new york to washington d.c. to boston to boston to san francisco to seattle and beyond i mean hundreds of cities around the world now are involved in these kind of uprisings it is absolutely critical that we hold the authorities accountable and madison wisconsin the police and firefighters joined with the protesters even though they weren't targeted they felt that the nurses and teachers are targeted that they felt they

were targeted as well even if the governor at the time was saying you're exempted and they would sleep with the protesters in the capital we're protecting them here in new york there are many good cops but there are also a very big problem two weeks ago the lord one of the largest mass arrests in u.s. history took place in new york at a peaceful protest as people were marching over the brooklyn bridge the other day when tens of thousands of union members rallied in new york at foley square and then march to do. joined the occupy wall street encampment and then some people went off to wall street to engage in civil disobedience they were beaten they were pepper sprayed a few weeks before were young and then directly pepper sprayed in the face completely blindsiding them no no warning no reason this is an acceptable and it must be challenge and when the police tell us to turn off our cameras that's exactly when we're supposed to be turning them on police misbehavior

flourishes in the dark we need sunlight and transparency that's why it's important that reporters be there what conversations with great minds were any good in just a moment. drives the world the fear mongering news by politicians who makes decisions else completely break through get through to people made who can you trust no. easy to do with the global currency where we had a state controlled capital city school. when nobody dares to ask me do r t question more. fun. to.

talk about drivers asians with great minds that i'm joined by award winning journalist and author amy goodman amy let me package a couple of questions here and toss it to you. as a as a as a set up i'm sure you have some very strong thoughts and i would love to get your observations on this the occupy wall street movement you're referencing a few times earlier where is it going number one number two the mainstream media is attacking the movement for being leaderless and fractured i remember. you know a part of i was in the s.d.s. in the sixty's won't this movement organically move on its own despite the press trying to figure it out and also i'm curious about your thoughts on the heavy

strain of ma ways of that's actually running to at least one of those smaller groups those trying to co-opt the occupy movements along with people like the democratic party trying to occupy it but i had a several people call in to my radio show over the last couple days and say almost always using identical phraseology that the machine must be brought down totally and that every aspect of american institutions from our government to our business our cultural institutions are illegitimate and must be brought down with no alternative suggestion i'm curious that there's a whole spectrum of stuff for you to refine your thoughts on this well you know i think when you look at the corporate media as approach to this when you have people like erin burnett who just started her heralded show on c.n.n. and called out friend by going down to wall street and doing a segment called seriously. the response is well look at how this is catching on i remember september seventeenth our team was out there in

force but where was the corporate media if there were two thousand people occupying wall street who were tea party members should have as many reporters probably more if there if this was different and yeah you got it this was different and it has just gradually gained momentum and captured the imagination of not only the american people but people all over so that you have. and in the last few days this massive union rally the e.c.u. has endorsed the occupy wall street movement i think the union leaders the establishment labor movement is scratching its head at first it was is this for real and then they realized it was you know the labor movement has been organizing for years last year i think they had a demonstration washington one hundred thousand hardly got coverage but they saw

that there was a real sentiment that especially young people were tapping that they believed in as well that's what they were organizing around and they joined with them it was remarkable to see the head of the cia you eleven ninety nine in d.c. thirty seven to see the health the nurses talking about the system being sick to see that or ins and others so that you had tens of thousands i mean twenty thirty thousand people and then they march to wall street and it's to hear people speak for themselves that's what the media should be doing their firm conclusions you know if they had one message the media would rip that apart if they are decentralized and i mean i think the some of the posters capture what it is people are saying one of them is it's not a recession it's a robbery there was another poster and some of these are written on the backs of pizza boxes this is interesting just like in madison wisconsin much of the largest

protests and it's history right when the governor walker it was passing this anti labor law and people occupy the capitol like one hundred fifty thousand people marching in the freezing cold and the same way there people all over the world are sending in orders to the local pizza parlors so that the occupiers will be fed they call them occupies and then they take the boxes and they use the back and they make posters their extreme lee created one of them said something like. i'll believe corporations are people when texas executes one. of the posters said i lost my job and found an occupation but people are serious here and they come from all walks of life and i mean the power of democracy now was just playing people's voices people describing why they were there you had a thousand student thousands of students marching from new york university in

columbia city university of new york kids coming from high school and then you had the doctors coming from montefiore in the bronx running a south bronx clinic doctors against poverty i said well why are you dealing with this issue and they said when people are poor they can't afford medicine when people are poor they don't get good health care and the system ends up having to pay i mean you had teachers on mass marching you had steelworkers and talking for example to a group of students holding a large banner from union theological seminary and one young man said this is where jesus would be. the eloquence of the people there you had the rappers talking about well the theme has become we are the ninety nine percent and that touches a chord with so many people around the country so it has become a place where people can come and talk to you and joe stiglitz the nobel prize winning economist they are doing a teachin. peter of peter paul and mary you have michael moore came

down klein addressed people yesterday author of the shock doctrine the rise of disaster capitalism it is a place where people gather to learn to share to talk and i think part of its power is there is not one message but it is about the threads that connect all these different movements it's about people recognizing they or the majority we are the. ninety nine percent they say you know i've always said we are not a fringe minority not even a silent majority but the silenced maturity silence by the corporate media which is why we have to take it back so there's just a just to quickly get back to this it seems that there are there's this enormous power it's like the nation is pregnant in this moment with the revolution and the violence wants change and in fact if we were in two thousand

a lot of people we didn't get the change but we go we had we thought we could but in any case and there are people on. both extremes. trying to co-opt is probably too strong a language but i'm not sure how else to say it to say you know this is my parade whether it's you know politicians or spokespeople. i've heard from people who are very upset that some of the people you talk about big names and quotes showed up on the other hand people who are very honored. and i'm greatly and that is not the general i mean that is not the general theme big famous people coming out it is the power of this movement is that it is so many different kinds of people that they you know you never can predict when a chord is going to be struck and this is what's happened you know tom one of the things i've been doing is going down there and asking people did you vote for

president obama and two thousand and eight and how you feel today you know on that day when president obama was elected there's no question it was an historic moment i mean if nothing else than a country with a legacy of slavery to have elected the first african-american president and all that he represented i mean the major difference in hellary clinton was that he was opposed to the iraq war the antiwar movement elected ten african-americans elected and so many people who voted before decided to come. out in vote but when a person that you want is elected in a situation like this this massive change from president bush people were hoping for all that means is that a doer is open the cracking of people thought they were hitting their heads against a brick wall for so long now that war was a door the door was open a crack they saw a big backlash against obama they didn't want to join in that in criticizing and that was the problem and so the demands were coming from the other side

a very reactionary side the door being opened a crack doesn't necessarily open a can either be kept open or slammed shut and that's i'm not up to that one person in the white house no matter powerful how powerful a it's it's up to all of those people that elected him and others that thought well whoever is our president we're going to fight for what we want when he's sitting in the oval office and those who are used to having the ear of the most powerful person on earth whisper in his ear and he can point out the window and say if i do that they will storm the best deal and there's no one out there he won't be able to say that whether he greece with people protesting or not is a very awkward position right now the very people who are elected him are protesting what he has done surrounded himself by wall street the very street that people are so furious about now that so few have been protected at the expense of so many and that touches people across the political spectrum but it is not up

to that one person it is up to everyone to decide where they want this country to go and then the so-called leaders will follow we're seeing it every day very now yeah well it's you know the constitution doesn't say leaders as representatives so you know if the parade is out there and a politician jumps in front of the flag that really is the way it should happen i guess or jumps behind it will deploy whatever i'm curious you've gone brew. to regional reporting from places in the world an embedded straight to be issue what are some of the stories that you've covered that you think most clearly prefers personify the real issues that the human race faces. well here in this country town i don't have to go too far back we'll just go to last week to september twenty first. democracy now went to the death row prison and jackson jury gets death row for georgia where

a hundred men are on death row were on death row now they're ninety nine and we went to broadcast from the prison grounds where the next man was being slated for execution is a mystery anthony davis and it was a horrific night we began our broadcast at six o'clock he was slated to die at seven this is a man who the pope has called for a stay of his execution jimmy carter the president archbishop desmond tutu who just turned eighty in south africa. bob barr the former republican congress member from georgia william sessions the republican f.b.i. director former f.b.i. director the former warden of that particular person the death row person of georgia allen all hold for a stay of his execution he's gotten three death puir death warrants before that were state this was the fourth there were so much doubt around this forty two year old african-americans case that the world was watching and it goes to the larger

issue of course of the death penalty so we were there to show i mean if executions are going to be done by the state it is important that we all watch that we are eyewitness to an execution it's very rare in the world we're alone in the industrialized world and instituting the death penalty this was a case nine hundred eighty nine a white police officer who was moonlighting as a security guard had gone to help a homeless man who was being pistol whipped and the officer named mark macphail was shot dead. troy davis was convicted of the murder there was no direct evidence no d.n.a. evidence no gun found seven of the nine police witnesses recanted or changed their testimony jurors came forward said if they knew then what they knew now they would never have convicted him the one of the two people who could not change their testimony sylvester red coals has been fingered by so many as the probable shooter he's the one who pointed the finger originally to troy troy professed his innocence

to the end but just let me describe if i have a moment what it was like where that hundred fifty people on the grounds of the prison are waiting vigil outside a thousand people students marched from spelman morehouse college in atlanta to this prison forty miles from there the prison guards gave us the department of corrections the then press packet that said what he would be eating that night very specific grilled cheese burger oven roasted potatoes a great beverage and cole slaw of course he rejected that and then it would be followed by the lethal cocktail of potassium chloride that would stop this heart of pentobarbital that would. and that's the thais isn't and another drug that would paralyze him and he ultimately was executed at eleven o eight that night this is absolutely critical an example of where the need needs to be the state of georgia executed troy anthony davis on september twenty

first we were there then went back to the funeral will continue to follow the story because the death penalty in this country must be put in the context of what the world has decided to do and that is not to institute the death penalty unless we want to join iran and china we have to be there we have to go to where the silence is we need an independent media in this country that raises the critical issues as people make decisions about this day. whether war continues the longest war in u.s. history the war in afghanistan today ten years old ten years ago today. the united states afghanistan we have to decide issues of war and peace life and death and we need a media that is there to provide a forum for people to speak for themselves anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society and you are providing some of the very best but the.