well this isn't your average birthday party the birthday honoree isn't even there that's because he spent over half his life behind bars so will this infamous app prisoners case ever be revisited 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 the legalization of drugs is going to be the next. president obama is cracking down on the legal drug trade dealing out harsh punishments to anyone who takes part in this lifestyle but there's another side of the story we'll tell you about before industries making cash in the u.s. drug war. i have a sense of assurance of the direction i think that god is speaking and in my heart

that i should go speeding around the heart of healing a religious debates that no political discussion is complete without some talk of religion from the contraception debate to sexual preference says whatever happened to the separation between church and state. it's tuesday april twenty fourth eight pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching artsy. protesters gathered in front of the u.s. department of justice today demanding justice for jamal the african-american radio journalist was convicted telling a philadelphia police officer back in one thousand nine hundred. bring a life sentence of protests supporters are fighting to get him released from prison they believe his case was flawed and he's a victim of racial profiling and they're open to catch the attention of it or to

make their case as to why of butanol should be set free it's officially called occupy the justice department and it's happening today and i believe journals fifty eighth birthday are to correspond abby martin was out the protests and spoke to his 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 to me it 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 to me is case to call attention to the inherent corruption and racial inequality in the u.s. prison system just 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 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 this thing 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 and it ends in 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 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 would be political would be to get into it to salvage the be the races police order in this country and to be can make everything comparable the most justice requires that it is should be. is business is simple is there we've been polite. but this just. made a mistake to see. we don't mean we're going to do was. just a screw with their generation to create a better sense of justice for our generation our children. are watching. but to talk more about this case that has captured the world's attention i'm joined now by dr joanna fernandes filmmaker who professor who is also a filmmaker and activist she's a professor of college as well as hip hop artists and activist and one he's part of the band that crowds welcome to both of you so i know that you were both out there

today voicing your support for them all how did the protests go today. it was a phenomenal success the energy was high we were able to sing happy birthday to me and he successfully called in and heard a slow employer so it was incredibly powerful and i know that you today were hoping to get the attention of attorney general eric holder. any luck with that or or how far did you get with that our objective was to deliver a letter to eric holder's office requesting that he meet with a delegation of about five prominent individuals to discuss the case of lumia which is all but also the crisis of mass incarceration and the members of the delegation include danny glover julian bond who's a former director of the police and p. reverend steven phelps who's the reverend and minister of riverside church the

famous riverside church where martin luther king keep his anti-war speech in one hundred sixty seven and others and we're hopeful that this meeting will happen in the near future ok and. he spent a lot of his time on death row which is five months ago he was taken off and now he's serving a life sentence ultimately what would you like to accomplish how far would you like to. and what scenario would you say justice is served or what we are we're calling for the immediate release of mumia abu jamal the supreme court stated. his death sentence was obtained unconstitutionally that means that for thirty years he was on death row in isolation in a condition of torture unconstitutionally and the question is what is just compensation for that mistake our call is immediate release and now throughout the years mumia abu jamal has captured the world's attention and he's come to symbolize

a lot of things that are flawed in our justice system. direct this question. really what what has he come to symbolize he has come to some of the. hope that one day we can have real justice he also some of the so many political prisoners who languish inside. dungeons concentration camps that the united states calls prison. so freedom for me i believe and more was also mean freedom for freedom fighting people freedom loving people and this case this protest comes at a time a very critical time in america. after the outrage over the trayvon martin case. critics say racial profiling was behind that talk about maybe the significance of the timing of this but this was a propitious moment to be before the department of justice you've probably heard

that there has been a significant increase in hate piece crimes since twenty twelve the southern poverty law center argued its march and they analyzed the situation in their their position is that a combination of things are leading to an increase in hate crimes in the united states the crisis in unemployment alongside of the scapegoating of immigrants african-americans latinos muslims and this combination of anxiety on the part of so many americans alongside of the scapegoating that we see happening on the part of some politicians is. is leading to the horror of trayvon martin. and part of what we're saying is true is that trayvon martin is not in isolation right it's too often in the united states the rule and this push to incarcerate is feeding the criminalization of plot people of immigrants of muslims in america which make them

vulnerable in the street vulnerable to the actions of citizens who feel that they can take the law into their own hands and essentially what we see happening in america is that law friend to be black is to be a problem or to be a crime is the crime black is a crime in america. and that's directly tied to this crisis of mass incarceration the united states represents five percent of the world's population but we have an incarcerate twenty five percent of the world school. prisoners in a nation that's especially concerned with the issue of freedom right so it's quite a contradiction now amid all this media of we can all he was arrested back in one thousand nine hundred eighty two and we're seeing these renewed cases trayvon being one of them being being back making headlines and back on the forefront. does this

show that we've gone made any progress on this issue in the past decade since his arrest back in the one nine hundred eighty s. well movie a was released from death row recently in part or in large part because of the massive movement. has been vibrant for the last thirty years. should have been executed in the one nine hundred ninety s. but an international movement saved his life in one thousand nine hundred five so if we've moved forward it's because of these people's movements that that have called attention to the violations in his case. i think that we need to take it further i think that now we need to link the case that to me and which i'm all to the fact that one in three african-american males is in prison parole or probation in this country and and even more startling statistic is that one in ten prisoners

in the world has an african-american male and so we definitely see those problems within institutionalized problems i understand that there were a number of arrests today can you tell me about that yes there were twenty eight arrests twenty seven of them came as a result of a civil disobedience action protesters essentially decided to make a stand and to symbolically stand their ground in front of the white house lawn and so the first arrests and that happened in another protester was arrested because allegedly he failed to follow or orders police orders now r t we had an exclusive interview with him not too long ago. and we asked him for his message to his supporters here's what he had to say. organize organize organize i

love you all and i thank you for fighting for me so let's work together. and one your reaction to hear his message there it's perfectly placed organize organize organize the call for movement now it's time for unity we'll call to action and i think that's what with with exhibited today so alone with that i'd also like to raise the name of some of the people who have been an epidemic problem go along with trayvon and say the name of the sip and win to win and i like to say i will not leave graham in the world so that people can know that this is all the part of justice also for me. ok and it looks like organize organize is what you guys were out doing today thank you both very much for joining us here in our studio that was artist and activist and one and dr joyner fernanda. professor abreu college filmmaker and activist well the war on drugs seen

as a failure of south american countries blamed u.s. drug policies for fuel 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 retched and it's these companies that enormous amounts of money and so lobby in congress so that drug policy has continued to work in their favor so we've benefited contractors the government spent over six billion on private contractors between two thousand and five and two thousand and five but that's not all drug rehabilitation programs along with private prisons the alcohol industry and the drug testing industry are all reeling in the dough over the war on drugs. so who is really benefiting from this war and go the u.s. change its failed policy is to discuss this earlier i was joined by mike reg's he's

an associate editor at reason magazine i asked him if he sees a curbing and drug use in the u.s. as a result of this war here's what he have to say. 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 americans for you know i think what we're just going to see is a sort of softer form of paternity ism and the war on drugs maybe maybe less no knock raids but no less interference in people's lives in 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 just 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 industry 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 they're offering is the states continue to crack their prison join the united states incarcerates more people than any other country in the world. in prisons in 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 geo group of florida corrections corps of america what they're offered to do is they build these prisons really cheaply to how'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 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 him or the drug war you know if they were to decriminalize or legalize or decide that they want later punishments that's going to hurt our bottom line and so on the 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 now 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 policies 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 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 that the south american country because they're saying it's killing drug rylan 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 the president obama he's saying legalization is not the solution or you didn't hear him proposing any other alternative now to other possible solutions 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 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 this 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 and 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 and 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 a 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 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 would be allotted one point four billion dollars to mexico for the marathon mission of helping 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 mike to make changes to these policies policies that seem to be failing when there are 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 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 in this is really 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 this in two thousand agents that work for the d.a. what do you do with over one point two million on foresman 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 we 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 in the summer for towards americans and i don't have to answer that question but i think that's where the debate is moving but my grades associate editor of reason magazine. look like states of the northeast today holding primaries when i was the race of you 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 the driving force and who the they see fit to be the next commander in chief the one with religious rhetoric came out of rick santorum and we saw how he quickly rose as a talk. 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 fueling a growing movement it's a campaign that was supposed to be centered around jobs and the economy i was seeking the guidance of problems and making critical decisions i don't believe in an america where the separation of church and state is absolute but religious

rhetoric running rampant with social issues at the forefront rick santorum no longer in the race and rose as a top contender appealing to the religious right and setting the tone for the campaign there are 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 it is 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 god say that this is what i needed to do i was like moses you got to roll me in the lord. are you sure that you're not supposed to doubt god perhaps they misinterpreted the macit or were just catering to their base their 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 in foreign 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 actually kidding the separation of church and state. that's not the reason rally over ten thousand nonbelievers gathered on the mall in what they called the largest secular event in world history were good people were good without religion we don't need to. be in the sky looking over us to make sure there are we have other reasons to be good and we are a force to be reckoned with but to see more people rely on real reason than taught

science. faces fairy tales although 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 were at the 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 while the secular movement is growing it's clear that religion is front and center for a large number of voters amaranth a powerful force in u.s. politics today the separation between church and state a line that many are fighting increasingly blurry and wash in from this wall artsy . well as religion remains an important issue for many voters today something they're bound to 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 demon in roman lives inside of her but she's not alone and including say and music lady gaga i'm kanye west have invoked the devil in their lyrics and this is nothing new there are generations there has been fear over a chart topping musicians being used as a tool of the devil. the beatles are extraordinary aren't any i think of it because they're going to go to twenty five and actually the music is rock and roll now we've never in my seven years at n.b.c. ever i would but i still wouldn't ever had a rock n roll never before in the history of this country and so many corrupting influences descended upon children at one time that most children don't understand what you're doing. so is this a marketing ploy or a sign of something much darker and our society where this hour larry is both music journalist alan cross that he has i have to say. this is something that naysayers

and people who have objected to his for a song about since the one nine hundred fifty s. actually can go back even further to the rhythm and blues scene of early america recently america and the story of robert johnson a you mississippi blues man who apparently sold the souls of the people at a crossroads somewhere in mississippi and in exchange for that you got these this amazing talents this museum believed to play its hearts and their risk he died a very strange death he may have been caused who's probably killed but yet this is some of this bitter over a very long time it's just interesting to see it come back again and you guys. had exactly where we you just said we have seen that this is happening i generate hence and now with this invoking of saying is a casino is controversial but we also saw it in the beatles i mean al there they have accused of being on the wrong side spiritually so i think there's any different today. no absolutely not it's

a fact that fearsome day i'd like them to be much less than what they were in the early eighty's really really it was b. c. it's say ten experience the late seventies and early eighty's where people were talking about the technique of back nasty this is where artists allegedly pushed backwards messages on their records that subliminally drew young people over to the dark side and i'm going to just read you something this is for me for you bill that was. eighty three minutes and this they were so concerned about this back masking this bill if it was passed was all about what it loosely should perform the bill was introduced her. back nasty that coach can manipulate our behavior without her knowledge or consent and turn us into disciples of the anti christ that was a bill introduced to the california legislature again eighty three it's really

a task but you can see that some people were pretty freaked out so if they did these fears have been around around for a long time but marilyn manson does look a little bit more of the monic than al that's oh yeah i mean and as with marilyn manson that is extremely calculated he is he has said from the very beginning to look as. equal as he possibly could i mean. he had an uncle he christ superstar so he's not hiding it but he you know he's still a lot smarter than a lot of people your growth or he is his persona the things that he says are all sort of. commentaries on various aspects of american society the arch and critics say that people like head and other other pop stars like we mentioned earlier are hop artists and that they're setting

a dangerous example for today's youth because pop stars they idolize these stars that are talking about say n is this illegitimate fair but here we go blade me satan and yes the after hours are about to turn a whole bunch of young kids into wheels of unions no it lists. i mean every once in a while you get somebody who has a little fanatical about things and maybe yours that territory for the most part i mean plus if you really want to get free go go ahead do your site up and sing or as an upside down crosses it if you want to get really freaked out to go listen some of the region blackmail these are big fans actually advocating murder and burning down of churches and they have burned down churches even look at some of some old black sabbath stuff i mean even the name black sabbath conjures up ideas of the devil but listen if you can't tell the difference between a rock and pop and actual you will. well and i think there's

probably more at stake your life than just listening to the records. those music journalist alan cross well does it for an album or on the stories we covered you can head over to youtube dot com slash r t america or check out our website that addresses are to slash usa there you will find a bunch of stories we didn't have time to get to on air today our web seem wrote an interesting article about a battle going on between animal rights activists and u.s. lawmakers two states have made it legal to conduct undercover investigations and that has animal rights advocates up in arms because they say they use these undercover operations to expose cruelty to animals corporate corruption dangerous working conditions environmental violations and food safety concerns at factory farms it's a dirty food and definitely worth every.