it's a party out the protesters organizers and human rights are prisoners are demanding his release. ever be revisited will take you to the protests it's completely understandable that they would look for. new approaches and we want to cooperate with them. i don't think that legalization of drugs is going to be there. and as the debate over the drug war rages on of the you whilst there might be more to it than meets the eye tell you about the four industries raking in the dough like fighting against job. i have a sense of assurance of the direction i think that god is speaking into my heart that i should go forget the separation of church and state these days it seems like

if you want to make an impact on the political arena of riling up a religious base is the way to go but not everyone wants it that way we will have an atheist and a conservative go head to head over the role of religion in politics. it's tuesday april twenty fourth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching our t.v. . well protesters gathered in front of the u.s. department of justice today demanding justice for lumia abou jamal the african-american radio journalist was convicted of killing a philadelphia police officer back in one thousand eight hundred two he was recently moved off death row and is now serving a life sentence of regional supporters are fighting to get him released from prison they believe his case was flawed and he's

a victim of racial profiling they're hoping to catch the attention of attorney general eric holder to make their case as to why a boo jamal should be set free it's officially called the our all to occupy the justice department and it's happening today jamal's fifty eighth birthday party correspondent abbie marr and was at the protest and spoke to the supporters. let me give to jamal's an american writer and journalist who spent the last twenty nine years of his life in prison on death row earlier this year sentence was reduced to like in prison without the possibility of parole in one thousand nine hundred one the media was charged with first degree murder for allegedly killing a police officer but many have disputed the evidence that put him behind bars protesters have been used in the is case to call attention to the inherent corruption and racial inequality in the u.s. prison system this whole idea that if you're black you're somehow more dangerous than a white person and you're somehow dangerous even when all logic would indicate that you're an arm you know you can ice tea and skittles and wearing

a hoodie and somehow you're you're a threat to a man who weighs sixty pounds more than you who has a gun and i just think that the other way around it just wouldn't happen the other way around the american dream is supposed to be for everyone who is in this country and right now what we're doing is thing that is only for the one percent who can afford to make sure that that's their dream we're here to me is fifty eighth birthday in washington d.c. at the occupy the justice rally where hundreds have gathered in solidarity with the occupy movement to call attention to his case the unfairness of the u.s. justice system and an end to nasa incarceration in the u.s. when we talk about justice we need to we need to keep it in the context of social justice as well not just this particular individual case some came to protest more generally what they called the prison industrial complex that profits off incarceration on the whole that unquestioned imprisonment is much more than it was say thirty years ago and it has piling crime rates have fallen and in prison memories have skyrocketed it just doesn't make sense unless you look at it in the context of for profit incarceration although the reduced sentence for me it was

seen as a hopeful step for some others claim that it was simply a political strategy that's their way of trying to turn it back on the issue to be political with issues and into it to solve who's the be the races police order in this country and if you could make everything comparable to know justice requires that it is should be. it's business as simple as that we've been polite. but this is just more vocal made a mistake of saying we're the ones we were and we don't mean we're going to do was necessary to get justice for their generation if you create a better opportunities and suggestions for our generation our children. are to washington and. help live states in the northeast today holding primaries and as the race to be the next g.o.p. nominee drags on this year candidates have scrambled to appeal to the conservative base and for much of that base religion as

a driving force and who they see fit to be the next commander in chief and we saw how much of religious rhetoric came out of rick santorum and we saw how quickly he rose to as a top contender focusing on social issues but as you'll see there's another segment of america sick of religious talk from our politicians and it's growing it's fueling a growing movement and it's a campaign that was supposed to be centered around jobs and the economy i was so you can have the guidance of providence and making critical decisions i don't believe in an america where the separation of church and state is absolute a religious rhetoric running rampant with social issues at the forefront rick santorum no longer in the race grows as a top contender appealing to the religious right and setting the tone for the campaign where people who were gay and lived a gay lifestyle and aren't anymore contraception and although i don't think it works i think it's harmful to women i think it's harmful to our society some have

gone as far as saying god told them to run for president i have a sense of assurance about the direction i think that god is speaking and in my heart that i should go when i finally realized that it was saying that this is what i needed to do i was like moses you got the role in me or. well you sure now you're not supposed to doubt god perhaps they misinterpreted an assett or were just catering to their base but a recent poll shows many americans are fed up with religious talk from politicians anything that gives you a political edge religious or otherwise will be inclined in politics the religious right it's unfortunate that they want to impose their views upon others thirty eight percent say there's too much religious talk thirty percent say there's too little and twenty five percent say the amount of religious rhetoric is just right we're arguing over who goes to church and what church and how often when we have

forty five million americans without health insurance. but there is a growing movement in america an advocate in the separation of church and state. that the reason rally over ten thousand nonbelievers gathered on the mall and what they called the largest secular of them and world history were good people were good without religion we don't need to. be in the sky looking over us to make sure they're right we have other reasons to be good and we are a force to be reckoned with but to see more people will reason and science. face fairy tales oh no you already historically taboo these nonbelievers say the time has come to come out of the closet like justin griffith is trying to get religion out of the military to ground zero of this cultural revolution where we're all coming out in massive numbers there's this climate of fear and shame most

atheists don't even have atheist on their records and they're told that they're not even it's not even an option a lot of the secular movement is growing it's clear that religion is front and center for a large number of voters and remains a powerful force in u.s. politics today the separation between church and state a line that many are fighting increasingly blurry and washington this wall. r.t. . to talk more about the separation of church and state and if that line is getting hazier i'm joined now by daniel ferrazzi he is the director grassroots political consulting l.l.c. and a.j. johnson development director for omarion american atheists welcome to the both of you danielle i'm going to start with you too much around too much religious talk in politics today i don't believe so we've had an integral amount of religion in politics since our founding fathers who are a mix of agnostic judeo christian natural common law put that all together and then

you fast forward up to a brief historical context for the last few decades on both sides of the moral majority on the right in the eighty's to even transcending from a war time and some scandal environment clinton use it embrace religion even more than w. in the southern strategy of what do you stand that you came through this current decade where we face issues like partial birth abortion defense of marriage act. catholics and what they're dealing with with the health care bill and there are a lot of religious issues whether right or wrong good or integral part of the american political process right now a.j. what do you think about that how much it would you say religion dictates today the political discussion i mean as he just mentioned contraception gay marriage a lot of these social issues and a lot of airtime dedicated to these subjects is there too much religious talk from our politicians do you think i definitely think there's far too much religions talk

and not enough talk on the real issues. that we have so many near tears the many without jobs and the second people's religion is not talking about real issues and what are the real issues would you say are being over locked with more time being spent on these social issues. well i think the real issues are going to comedy right now as far as i'm concerned getting americans we're going home and jobs are. working and some say that religion is being politicized because i'm especially now we have the g.o.p. the race to be the next nominee and that they are catering to a lot of america that do see religion as important and daniella is it possible that religion is being politicized and that candidates are using it as

a tool to win votes both sides e.i.o. do it as i've said i mean the g.o.p. has more of a catholic base and you know a lot of southern religious baptists and other conservatives but the left is doing it as well i mean you see the swing through from congressional to president obama reverend sharpton all going through african-american churches in south carolina embracing their religion and speaking of it through various speeches in various contexts of talking through different issues especially even now with the health care bill and catholics of different segments of society so i mean you could really . say this is a bipartisan issue politicizing religion in american politics and another huge issue of course being the israeli issue when the support for israel and held it transcends into the jewish christian and carefully community so both sides are doing it and they're going to do it throughout the soissons cycle a.j.

do you agree that it is a bipartisan issue what do you think about that i do think that both sides do have this problem but i think that the right side of the aisle thirty utilizes their religiosity to who are. opposing gay marriage and who. even if it's not really contingent with their theology kind of use it as a tool in a way that i don't think. it does use it at all. and maybe bring out certain demographics versus using it as a as a ploy to get certain people to think certain ways about issues and they do you just say that most of this does come from the religious right a lot of it we did hear from rick santorum a couple of examples there in the story that we aired a moment ago but rick santorum is out of the race now right now a lot of people are focusing on mitt romney and he apparently is not immune to this here is a discussion. regarding his his place in religion today it was on c.n.n.

let's take a listen. the question that needs to be asked of governor romney do you agree with the teaching of your church if you do but the homosexual acts are offensive to god why have you made the face of your campaign someone who engages in conduct your own church saying this is offensive to go cry if you don't agree with your church then how can the average joe nickell base to support you but we're talking about the separation of church and state here. so clearly. he's bringing into the debate here the fact that one of his advisors. is gay and for some reason this is not seen as appropriate there is this religious laying in this scenario what do you think about that idea i think it was just pretty bogus interview right there just because you or a part of one religious sect or doctrine or creed or or another doesn't mean that you agree with every single part of the religious principle that's offered whether

you're baptists catholic or been made to look at catholics on birth control the overwhelming majority of catholics believe in the use of contraceptives and other you know apparatuses and don't go with the original teaching of the church so just because you're a part of one religion doesn't mean that you have to lump in every single thing as your personal value so i just don't find that to be a credible argument all right am going to let you respond to that sure i agree just because you're thirteen through to religion doesn't mean that you should agree when necessarily agree with all of their position however i would love to see politicians come out especially mitt romney and the woman church and say what he doesn't agree with and what really he would do to you know act out against this church if you comfortable talking about which we do here well if that's the case with mitt romney then we'd love to see barack obama speak about reverend wright and

the church he was in and all of the very very extreme positions that. we're taking in a spouse right from the pulpit and have serious or it was a question as it is were not answered back in two thousand and eight cycle so i agree i think they both should be if they're both going to espouse it and it tested those religions and churches the report of their letter both get on record and talk about if they want to be the leader of the free country they need it's about where they stand on these things now at the center of this argument is this whole separation of church and state and do you think that we in fact have that today oh separation of church and state is a great misnomer as well it was a letter from thomas jefferson to a group of religious activists basically espousing how we were not to have one established religion like the english did at the time for this country and we were supposed to constitutional principles the pretty exercise establishment of religion allows any religion as long as that those incite violence and other things like

that to be a part of american culture so you know that is the heart and soul of the argument there and it is being manipulated to a core of the constitution and in the declaration as many americans think it's just for a good while there is daniel a growing movement that's growing secular movement that wants religion out of politics and that poll that i mentioned earlier in that story shows that for the first time since two thousand and one more americans think there is too much religion and religious talk in politics and compared to those that think there is too little a.j. what do you think about this poll i'm sure just a bit of clear. comes jefferson weiner with somebody in the back and he was actually trying to tell them that he was trying to keep church and. who government in the church but i would. think that there's too much religious and you know that

it takes time away from the real issues and i would assume a.j. that you would. an atheist what would that matter to you of course. it would not matter to me one where. it would be more aligned with my vision certainly there's no secular reason to be near insure my woman healthcare so i imagine he would probably have many similar positions off the bat but it would not be relevant to me . and what about you is irrelevant to you would you vote for an atheist for me personally i'd be a problem because i don't espouse the same personal belief system so that being a side but i want to go back to earlier points right about the polling i've seen it go both ways it kind of feeds back into a point of all the way to take you away to a different what's a real issue and not about point about the economy and basically there are that's why mitch daniels on the right side of you know probably had it best the governor in vienna talking about a true structure on social issues and dealing with the fiscal tsunami as he called

it that we have presently to take care of and i think that's why even the poll you went to. is how it stands too much religion too much of this in that poll tax i think people really want progress solutions and things to be done in the economy in this country as the central core issue and that's why we're seeing the sentiment of voters like that right now and i think i think you are correct and that way people that i talked to over that reasonably said that they were sick of hearing these kinds of issues like contraception and. buried when we have this economic crisis on our hands that you are hearing a lot of this rhetoric coming from the g.o.p. candidates but he said earlier that you wouldn't go for an atheist well i guess that you think that you know in order to be a good person to have morals that you need to be religious and atheism is a belief system just like any other religion it's a belief in no good just like there's a belief in the good from more religious the individual so it's not

a discriminatory thing it's just not a personal thing i agree with ray i let you have the last word there well i would just use the mystery religion. in general and it's actually not religion. but we've amended so it's the lack thereof. well there was thank you both for coming on the show we're out of time an interesting debate there that was daniel for oggi he is the director of a grass roots political political consulting l.l.c. and a.g. johnson the development director for american atheists. well the war on drugs seen as a failure a south american countries blame u.s. drug policies for fueling cartel violence but for some industries the war on drugs is a profitable business as the battle to crack down on minor drug offenses rages on some companies are cashing in and getting rich and if it's these companies that pump enormous amounts of money and to lobbying congress so that drug policies continue

to work and their favor so who's benefiting contractors the government spent over six billion on private contractors between two thousand and five and two thousand now i am. not all the drug testing industry is another one that's cashing in the alcohol industry private prisons and drug rehabs are all reeling in the dough overthe the war on drugs so who is really benefiting from the war on drugs and will the us change its failed policies to discuss this earlier i was joined like riggs is an associate editor reason magazine and i asked him where the billions of dollars allocated to the war on drugs actually go take a listen. i have to stop it's going to enforcement effort so you know police budgets mean a spoil state police budgets federal police budgets the d.a. for instance has ten thousand employees in offices in over sixty countries and then as it sort of trickles down as you see the web spread i mean it goes everywhere

goes to rehabilitation facilities which are increasingly becoming an alternative to incarceration and that's not they're not an alternative because by chance or by luck they're an alternative to incarceration because they diction treatment facilities are saying make us not sort of to incarceration the drug testing industry again because you know you're not allowed to have marijuana in your system at all and they can interfere with. you know like workers' compensation benefits in some ways and i was injured on the job and they've had marijuana in their system so these companies spring out to develop technology to test for drugs and then you can look at the obviously the alcohol industry the private prison industry it goes out the there's more there trial lawyers enjoy this sort of the benefits of this tobacco companies do in the military and defense contractors so it's really everybody is getting in on it and i would i would go so far as to say that we spend you know tens of billions directly and maybe tens of billions more even indirectly on fighting the drug war that we are spending billions on and i'll be even if we are profiting from that but is that money well spent are we seeing any of the drug

use curve with i mean you know it's not and i'm my i think what we're seeing what the trend is going to be is as we shift to a public health approach you're going to see less incarceration in prisons but you're not going to see last damage done to people's reputations their work life their families i mean being forced to go to a rehab facility those are expensive they they can sometimes have a waiting line are not always the most effective thing i'm not sure that that's going to be great for people's freedom having to get drug tested regularly as as part of your probation or is proud of your punishment i'm not sure that that's great for america's freedom i think what we're just going to see is a sort of softer form of for terminal as i'm in the war on drugs maybe maybe less no knock raids but no less interference in people's lives and what they do in the privacy of their own home. meanwhile the war on drugs isn't stopping people from doing drugs now who had his bad and said what it seems to be doing is packing our jails with more people even minor drug violations and of course who was benefiting

from this as you mentioned the prison deprive a president can you talk a little bit about how they are benefiting from having people locked up yeah i mean so they're what they're promising shareholders is what their offer is as states continue back in prison join united states incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. the prisons in ice is just not built to handle this capacity that every state in the country has prisons that are way over capacity so what groups like the geo group or florida corrections corps of america what they're offered to do is they build these prisons really cheaply to howe's overflow inmates and for the most part they're low level offenders or nonviolent offenders which means that they're drug users and c.c.a. said in the annual report in two thousand and ten to shareholders they said there are some things that are beyond our control such as what states how states decide to him of the drug war you know if they were to decriminalize or legalize or decide that they don't let a punishment that's going to hurt our bottom line and so on one hand in the report they say these things are sort of beyond our control but on the other hand they have spent a significant amount of money lobbying for harsh laws for three strikes laws for

mandatory minimums and you know they're they're doing it because there's an incentive to me to lobby for those kinds of laws president obama recently returned from the summit of the me of the americas in colombia and the president of colombia and other south american countries urged him to change drug policy one thing that they even recommend it was illegal they said for him drug of president obama wasn't exactly on board here's what you have to say on the subject. i don't know why and debate around issues like decriminalization i personally don't agree that that's a solution to the problem but i think that given the pressures that a lot of governments are under here under resourced overwhelmed by violence it's completely understandable that they would look for. new approaches and we want to cooperate with them i don't think that legalization of drugs is going to be the

answer so we have facing this pressure now from the president of the south american country because they're saying it's feeling drug violence in their area and they're pushing for reform because simply i mean as we've seen the war on drugs isn't working and president obama he's paying legalization isn't the solution but you didn't hear him from any other alternative now to other possible solutions so if not legalization what are some of the possible alternatives well looking back at the two thousand and twelve drug policy control report that the white house released last week their idea of solutions is basically drug courts and pushing people into rehab instead of incarcerating them i don't think this changes i mean that's that is the strategy the white house strategies what they what they decided to do that's they're calling innovative it's not really innovative is for users the white house still does not have a solution to black market violence which we're seeing in social american south america you know i mean some countries are even refusing to participate in our drug

war program because they're so terrified of this and and their answer cations and that colombia is very slow i mean colombia is touted as a model because of the colombia plan in the one nine hundred ninety s. the way the united states went after cartel leaders down there is that this is colombia is the model going forward colombia no longer wants to fight the drug war they're not interested in this anymore felipe calderon is slowly mexico's president slowly been walking back in support and the obama administration might might not last i've got legalization but they have literally nothing else to talk about they have no. the proposals and this whole idea that the drug war in central south america is underfunded is a complete myth i mean when we allotted one point four billion dollars to mexico for the marathon a shift to help them fight the drug war and that money has led to increased violence fifty thousand deaths since two thousand and six as well as human rights abuses by mexico police and how difficult would it be like to make changes to the of the a policy that aims of the failing when there are so many business making so much

money. yeah i mean this is i think this is a big question i'm not sure the drug policy reform advocates have moved this far in the debate yet but what we're going to be looking at is how do we answer the question of what kind of jobs program is the drug war and essentially that's what it is now it's not a public safety campaign it doesn't any public safety that taking a drug dealer off the street is completely eliminated by the fact that you're encouraging this competition to move in with violence so it's what do you do with the ten thousand agents that work for the da what do you do with over one point two million on freshman officers in the united states who either are you know some of them are assigned to the drug war but many many more get their funding from asset forfeiture when they conduct a drug raid and they confiscate houses cars money so the question becomes like if we decide to end the war on drugs which i think is it's inevitable it's not working and you know for the first time in american history have a majority of people who want to legalize marijuana for instance so the question becomes what do you do with all these people and how do you reallocate those resources to where they're being you know productive and less harmful towards

americans and i don't have an answer that question but i think that's where the debate is moving and we are seeing that you have more pressure on him to do something and it's been a dat decade for our war on drugs have been dragging on how long can a drag on before some real changes are made and i you know that's that's a great question there we have sixty states a lot of them i want to now plus the district of columbia colorado and washington both have legalization efforts on their ballots in november so i don't think this is going to come from the top down i think what we're going to see more of is reducing. more states we go our eyes were decriminalize and then we're not going to see any bad effects from that you know we're not going to see an increase in our actions are not going to see an increase in violence are going to see an increase and you know youth truancy or bad grade anything like that and i think once those pieces start to become shelves and for instance we already have which was a great example of what the criminal division can do i think wants just that is you know the slow march of history will will eventually change policy for us. thank you

very much mike for coming on the show that was mike riggs associate editor of reason magazine but he alone shows coming up in just a half an hour and let's check in with the low now to see what's on today's. learn what. hey listen we've got a jam packed show for you tonight first of all we're going to talk about this new executive order coming from president obama from the caucus he there will give you an update on bradley manning there are more pretrial hearings going on this week and we're going to speak to david serota about how the religious right gets a little hypocritical when it comes to how they look at their economic policies right that's coming up next on the a lot of show in just a half hour but that is going to do it now for the news for more of the stories we covered you can head on over it's a you tube dot com slash artsy america you can also check out our website that's artsy dot com slash usa and you can also follow me on twitter outlets all will be right back here at seven.