well this isn't your average birthday party the birthday honoree isn't there that's because he's spent over half his life behind bars so will this infamous american prisoners case ever be revisited it will take you to the protests it's completely understandable that we would look for. new approaches and we want to cooperate with them. i don't think that legalization of drugs is going to. well president obama is cracking down on the illegal drug trade dealing out harsh punishments to anyone who takes part in this lifestyle but there is another side to the story well tell you about before industries making cash and the u.s. drug war. have a sense of assurance about the direction i think that god is speaking and in my

heart that i should go speaking from the heart of peeling to a religious base it seems that no political discussion is complete without some talk of religion from the contraceptions abates a sexual preference is whatever happens at the separation between church and state . it's tuesday april twenty fourth seven 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 millennia of who jim are the african-american radio journalist was convicted of killing a philadelphia police officer back in one thousand nine hundred eighty two he was recently moved on death row and is now serving a life sentence and regional supporters are fighting to get him released from prison they believe his case that was flawed and he's

a victim of racial profiling hoping to catch the attention of attorney general eric holder to make their case as to why it should be set free it's officially called the occupy it's officially called occupy the justice department and it's happening today on a blue jamal's per day or as a correspondent abbie martini abby martin without a protest and spoke to his supporters. let me end to jim hall is an american writer and journalist who spent the last twenty nine years of his life in prison on death row earlier this year is sentence was reduced to life 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. has an system to the 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 on 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 they and it 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 of gathered in solidarity with the occupy movement to call attention to his case the unfairness of the u.s. justice system and to mass 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 filing 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 there we're trying to turn it back on the nation would be political we can get into it to solve the the races police order in this country and if we can make everything comparable that no justice requires that it should be . is it is as simple as that. but this trick will bubble be to the stage to say really the ones we're waiting for we're not cool we don't mean . just with their generation to create a better opportunity to justice for our generation our children. are going to know. 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 it's these companies that pump enormous amounts of money and the lobbying congress on a drug policies continue to work in their favor so who's benefiting contractors the government spent over six billion on private contractors between two thousand and five and two thousand and nine but that's not all drug rehabilitation programs along with private prisons the alcohol industry and the drug testing industry are reeling in the dough over the war on drugs so who is really benefiting from the war on drugs and will the u.s. change its failed policies to discuss this earlier i was joined by mike regs he's an associate editor at reason magazine i asked him if he sees a curb and drug use and the u.s. as a result of this war here's what he had. 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 less damage done to people's reputations their work life their families i mean being forced to go to rehab facility those are expensive they can sometimes have a waiting line they're 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 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 criminal ism and 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 homes meanwhile the war on drugs isn't stopping people from doing drugs. instead what it seems to be doing is packing our jails with more people even minor drug violations of course who is benefiting from this as you mentioned the prison the private prison and the second 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 they're offering is as states continue to pack their prison join the united states incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. in prisons and ice is just not built to handle this capacity every state in the country has prisons that are way over capacity so what groups like the g.a.o. group of florida and corrections corps of america what they're offered to do is they build these prisons really cheaply to housing overflow inmates and for the most part they're low level offenders or nonviolent offenders which means that they are drug users and c.c.a. said in their 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 handle the drug war you know if they were to decriminalize or legalize or decide that they want a punishment and 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 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 are urged him to change drug policies and one thing that they even recommended was the legalization of certain drugs so president obama wasn't exactly on board here's what he had to say on the subject. i don't mind a debate around issues like criminalization 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 faith in this pressure now from the president of the south american countries because they're saying it's feeling drug violence in their area

and they're a question for reform because simply i mean as we've seen the war on drugs isn't working and the president obama he's saying legalization is not the solution or you didn't hear him from any other alternative other possible solution so if not legal they said what are some of the possible alternatives well looking back at the two thousand and twelve drug policy control report at 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 strategy is 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 america in 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 their answer cations it's that colombia is very slim and 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 will 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 now watch 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 under funded is a complete myth we allotted one point four billion dollars to mexico for the marathon issue 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 these policies policies that seem to be failing when there are so so many businesses making so much money off of it 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 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 honestly 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 d.a. what do you do with over one point two million on force officers in the united states and we there 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 his resources to where they're being you know productive in the summer for towards americans and i don't have an answer that question but i think that's where the debate is moving and that was mike regs associate editor of reason magazine. black

paper in the northeast today holding primaries that as the rate for the of 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 is a driving force and who they see fit to be the next commander in chief we saw how much religious rhetoric came out of rick santorum and we saw how he quickly rose is a topic. sandor focusing on social issues to talk more about the separation of church and state and about line is getting hazier i was joined earlier by doing operatic he's the director of grassroots political consulting l.l.c. and eighty johnson the rector development director of american atheists. i don't believe so we've had in integral amount of religion in politics since our founding fathers who are a mix of agnostic judeo christian natural law common law and put that all together and then you fast forward to a brief historical context to the west few decades on both sides of the moral

majority on the right in the eighty's to even transcending from a war time in some scandal environment clinton use it embrace religion even more than w. in the southern strategy of what he used and then you came through this current kick 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 better an 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 you just mentioned contraception gay marriage a lot of these social issues and a lot of airtime that ikeda to be subjects is there too much religious talk from our politicians but do you think i definitely think there's far too much religious target talk on the real issues. mentioned by your segment we have so many near hope

here so many without jobs every second people's religion is not talking about real issues and that what are the real issues which you say are being overlooked with more time being spent on these social issues. well i mean there are real issues around economy right now. i'm concerned you nearer. home. good 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. that they are catering to a lot of america that you see religion as important ad daniella is it possible that religion is being politicized and the candidates are using it as a tool to win votes both sides do it as i've said i mean the g.o.p.

has more of a catholic base in you know a lot of southern religious baptists and other conservatives but the left is doing it as well i mean you see this 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 and the support for israel and held it transcends it to the jewish christian and catholic community so both sides are doing it and they're going to do it throughout this option cycle a.j. do you agree that it is a bipartisan issue what do you think about that i do think i. do have this problem

but i think that the right side of the aisle thirty utilize their religiosity to issues like gay marriage and. even if it's not really can be ology kind of use it as a tool in a way that i don't think that. it does use that at all to connect and to maybe bring out certain demographics using it as a as a ploy to get certain people to think certain ways about issues and how do you decide 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 just a moment ago but rick santorum is out of the race now and now a lot of people are focusing on mitt romney and he apparently is not only into 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 that homosexual acts are offensive to god why have you made the face of your campaign someone who engages in conduct your own church say this is offensive to god brian you don't agree with your church then how can you expect the average only base to support you but we're talking about the separation of church and state here. so clearly. he's bringing in said that if they hear the fact that one of his advisors. is gay and for some reason this is not seen as appropriate there is this religious link 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 betis catholic mormon i mean 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 is your personal value so i just don't find that to be a credible argument all right a.j. i'm 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 with do you necessarily agree with all their positions however i would love to see politicians come out especially mitt romney and woman church and say what he doesn't agree with and what he would do to you know act out against 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 sparrow's right from the pulpit and have serious was the question and that 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 the letter both get on record and talk about if they want to be the leader of the free country they need to talk 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 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 establish religion like the english did at the time for this country and we were supposed to constitutional principles that pretty exercise establishment of religion allows any religion as long as that those in 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 been manipulated to a core of the constitution and in the declaration as many americans think it's just a fraud but 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 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 to the miner was. and he was actually trying to tell them that he was trying to keep true. to who you know the church but i would agree with paul i do think that there's too much religion and you know it takes time away from the real issues and i would assume a.j.

that you would. an atheist would that matter to. me it would not matter to me one way or the other. aligned with my. myriad your and my woman health here so i imagine it would probably have many. but it would not be relevant to me. and what about you is it relevant to you would you vote for any for me personally to 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 point about the polling i've seen it go both ways it kind of feeds back into a point of the way to take you way to 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 the probably had it best the governor of indiana 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 indicated is how it stands too much religion too much of this in that poll tax i think people really want progress lucian's and things to be done on the economy in this country as the central core issue and that's why we're seeing the sentiment of voters right now and i think i think you are correct and that way people that i talked to over that reason rally said that they were sick of hearing these kinds of issues like contraception. you know gay verite 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 you said earlier that you would have over an atheist why is that do you think that you know in order to be a good person to have morals that you need to be religious 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 god from more religious individuals so it's not a discriminatory thing it's just not

a personal thing i agree with. you have the last word there well i would just use them is through religion as all hell and you know it is actually not religion. but we've amended i think the lack thereof. well that was thank you both for coming on the show we're out of time an interesting debate there that was daniel ferrante he is the director of a grass roots political political consulting l.l.c. and a.g. johnson the delta development director for american atheists as well as religion remains an important issue for many voters today something their balance of find appalling say in making an appearance in america's pop culture and some experts say music artists are turning to say tannic images to gain publicity pop star nicki minaj reportedly said that a diva named roman lives inside of her but she's not alone including satan in music lady gaga and kanye west have invoked their the devil and their earlier x. and this is nothing new for generations there has been fear over

a chart topping musicians being used as a tool of the devil take a look at some examples the beatles are extraordinary and. i think it's because they get it in forty five and actually the music is rock and roll now we've never in my seven years in d.c. ever wrote write your did you ever had a record never before in the history of this country that so many corrupting influences descended upon children at one time that most children don't understand what your doing. so is this just a marketing ploy or a sign of something much darker than our society i mean alison is a journalist alan cross. they say sex sells but the same and sell to you oh satan has been a very good salesman for as long as rock'n'roll has been a rod i mean this is something the naysayers and people who have objected to me for open talking about since the one nine hundred fifty s. actually can go back even further to the rhythm blues scene of early america early

for recently america and the story of robert johnson the mississippi blues man who were terribly sold the souls of the devil at a crossroads somewhere mr sidney exchange that he got this this amazing terrorists may seem to me to play its heart and of course he died a very strange death maybe question three who's probably killed but yet this is some of this material for very long time it's just interesting to see it come back again and you guys. exactly what we you just said it we have seen that this is happening i generate hens and now this enveloping of satan and is it has been as controversial but we also see and the beatles and elvis they have accused of being on the wrong side spiritually so are the pairs any different today. no absolutely not it's a pack of fierce and they i have items to be much less than what they were really early eighty's now if you hear it was

a big secret say ten experience the late seventies and early eighty's where people were talking about the technique of back next year this is where artists allegedly pushed backwards messages on their records best subliminally drew young people who were to the dark side and i'm going to read you something here this is from for you bill that was the from nineteen eighty three when they did this they were so concerned about this back last. this bill. if it was passed was all about. it loosely should be a call for new bills introduced for big fat nasty to quote can manipulate our behavior without her knowledge or consent internists into disciples of the anti christ that was a bill introduced to the california legislature by t. eighty three it's a different task but you can see that some people were pretty freaked out so we see that these fears have been our around for a long time but marilyn manson does look

a little bit more demonic than elvis oh yeah i mean. what's with marilyn manson that is extremely cooperative he is he has set out from the very beginning to look as. well as he possibly could i mean. he had a don't call it decrease your risk for heart so he's not hiding it but he you know he's a lot smarter than a lot of people your credit for he does his persona the things that he says are all sort of. commentaries on various aspects of american society the world at large all right and critics say that people like ham and other other pop stars that we mentioned earlier are have our death that they are setting a dangerous example for today's youth because pop stars they idolize these stars that are talking about say n is this a legitimate fear bug here we go believe me satan and yes the pop star parties are

about to turn a whole bunch of young kids into yells of bugs me and snowy lists. i mean every once in a while you get somebody that's in the fanatics or both in sydney. yours that that territory both of them also part i mean plus if you really want to go to be a psycho singer as an upside down crosses it if you want to get really freaked out go listen to some of the region blackmail these are big fans actually. advocate early of churches and they have their churches but even look at some of the some old black sabbath stuff from even the ne black sabbath conjures up i've years of devil but listen if you can't tell the difference between a rock and pop and actual you will. love it and i think there's probably more at stake your life than just listening for work ok ok alan i think

that this could all be a sign possibly maybe a conservative maybe socially conservative. maybe that that demographic blowing things a little bit out of proportion yes and in this sort of thing happens. all the sickly i mean we saw it in the fifty's and saw it in the systems side of the seventies and sort of the eighty's i'm sure we saw it in the ninety's remember it much has been a while since we've actually had people talking about the role of say new pop or rock these and so yeah i think in america. there is a. certain amount of very right wing very hardcore very mary alice or sorry to cut you off we are running out of time that people can always assume the gospel music for a country if they don't want to listen to some of these other other more controversial and genres.