kobe bryant chadwick boseman alex for back and of course supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg but despite the tragic losses of 2020 there there were also an equal number of victories in the face of a daunting adversity and today we will feature 2 interviews that highlight the bravery willpower and hope that at least to this political commentator has actually come to symbolize 2020 more than all of all the news we heard over and over again of tragedy and destruction. from the bravery of the george floyd in black lives matter protesters were standing up night after night week after week to the baton rubber bullets and chemical weapon attacks perpetrated by law enforcement the us government upon them to the will power of the nurses doctors and health care workers both here in the u.s. and around the world who have been on the front lines of this pandemic caring for and treating the millions upon millions who are suffering from this great disease

and let's not forget those independent minded journalists commentators and whistleblowers who through it all have not lost their hope as they continue to speak truth to power despite the brutal repercussions they have faced both personally and professionally for their efforts to hold our leaders and institutions accountable for their many heinous actions and misdeeds over the last year so as we enter the great big unknown that is 2021 let us never lose hope and take inspiration from all those fighting to keep was equal healthy and informed as we end this year watching the hawks. in a city. that are so let's see this is this joyce state . great city displays systemic deceptions

so which were so you'll. welcome everyone to watching the hawks tie rover and turkey and i'm obese across and today let's kick things off with a look at true bravery with this interview from back in early march with the cia whistleblower and american hero jeffrey sterling sterling if you remember help blow the whistle on not only the mysterious operation merlin which involved the united states is dangerous efforts to attack iran's nuclear. program but also he blew the whistle on the institutional racism found within the central intelligence agency we started out by asking him about operation maryland and what role did his whistleblowing play in exposing it as one of the cia's all time great blunders. that well when i came into office and it had been going for some time before my involvement i was assured of all these safeguards and that it was approved by the

highest levels of government. and background on the operation as had been said it was designed to slow down the iranian program to gain a nuclear weapon well during the process all of the safeguards that i was told about turned out to be false. and so i felt that it was going to be actually something that would inhance or speed up the iranian efforts to gain a nuclear weapon as opposed to hamper them so i made the appropriate reach out to individuals within the organization within the cia and i was basically told to shut up and i did eventually go to actually both the senate and house intelligence committees mr sterling in your book that i wanted spy has everything that tale of a career civil servant a minority rising through the ranks at a time where it was almost unbelievable that someone who looked like you could be

in the position that you were in establishing yourself and really taking control to also shedding light on something that you felt was your duty in a highly controversial and dangerous american foreign policy project can you tell us more about what inspired you to write this book you dealt with a lot in your book there are details of chapters of your life like being a child without a village and a man without a country how these things impacted you. well to me you're writing a book it was just about the journey that i've taken and for me there's always been that racial last. despite my trying to avoid at all or trying to combat it there's been racial aspects and racial hinderances throughout my life just because of the color of my skin so i was facing that growing up in a segregated town in missouri i faced it in social aspects of just growing up because i chose to do things that were not expected of me because i was black but i was determined to just be myself through everything and i stayed to

that mantra through growing up in a small town through college through law school and certainly in absolutely while i was with the cia so the book is about a journey and i think there are some things about it i think there's a lot of things about it that maybe americans don't know about their country and things that go on and particularly with regard to whistleblowers as i've said before whistleblowers are people and citizens just like everybody else and they love and have concern for their country and decide to stand up for their country and take a step that tremendous risk to disclose and uncover wrongdoing by our government officials you know you took huge risks and i think you're going were tragically really punished harshly harshly when anyone looking at your case at least a mild person would spiel like you know this is this is some place where you know the government and the powers that be really kind of sudden oh we want to punish

this man and i think it would not only for boring the whistle but i think also as you mentioned you were also with a few people to bring up some of the issues of race that were taken place at the agency itself what were some of those issues and what advice do you have for whistleblowers and future whistleblowers in stepping forward you know looking at your old life and giving them the best advice you can. for me i mean there there is certainly the aspect of the marlin operation mirlande point that i will blow against but there is also as you said. the racial issues that i was facing at the cia while i was there and trying to and thinking that i'm raising in the ranks and enhanced in my career i didn't realize it and that you know i did realize that i was not receiving the same treatment as other officers not the same opportunities the same tools to do my job i asked my supervisors why and they point blank told me you know the cia having no compunction and saying what it's on what's on its mind

told me that i kind of stood out as a big black guy speaking farsi. i mean that was a shock to me as an organization that i had established myself as a good a very good guest and case officer but as i tried to move up in my career they didn't notice the color of my skin and that's when i my response to that was when when did you notice i was black and why does it matter. i took the step to fight against that discrimination because i had had enough that was not me i wasn't going to stand by and be treated that way i mean i went to law school i know what laws are there in just even the history of this country equal treatment and i decided to fight knowing that there may be a risk but i felt i had the law in my side and of course my discrimination case was dismissed because as the court agreed with the prosecution that it posed a threat to the national security of the united states and i still find at just

amazing just to say that that an african-american standing up for civil rights in this country is a threat to our national security. but that's all within my character that i'm not going to stand by and see something especially happening to me or something that i'm involved in and say nothing what i can see wrongdoing going on that was the same for me with regard to operation merlin and with regard to any other a whistleblowers i think if you stay true to yourself you stay true to. the integrity that you have. there may be tremendous risk with regard to whistle blowing but or choosing to stand up but to me as if with going to trial i knew i wasn't going to plea to something i didn't do i wouldn't be able to face myself in the mirror and like who i saw staring back at me if i had pled to something i didn't do and it was the same for me through operation

merlin and the racial. discrimination that i was facing at the agency i couldn't stand by in the face of wrongdoing and do nothing i think if you stay true anyone who knows there is wrongdoing going on and is wavering on whether to make the choice to whistle blow i think stay true to yourself stay true to the integrity that got you to where you are and that lets you see that something is wrong there there may be risk that maybe i'm not the poster child for who will go as but. at the end of the day you have to be able to look yourself in the mirror and know you at least tried to do the right thing i would say i would say mr sterling i would say that you are definitely a post trial poster child for strength and in my opinion doing the right thing i want to thank you so much for what you did and also for writing this book definitely everyone check it out on want to spy the persecution of an american was simpler jeffrey sterling thank you so much for joining us today thank you for

having me on. boyle boy you can't you can't find someone more brave in the face of adversity than somewhat larger for sterling absolutely not i think that you know he literally risked it all he went through all the processes and procedures and he knew discrimination was happening the whole conversation about it you know being considered a threat to national security as all and dropping as it was we think this throughout history heck the civil rights movement was considered a threat to national security so i'm not necessarily surprised by that but i do think that. the lengths in which the government put this man through for tailing his troops for uncovering something that was an offense that he was part of his oath to do that's a problem it's not often you see news stories especially like this one you know. crisscross so many different flavors of what we're dealing with in american society based question in 2020 i mean here you have you know government malfeasance and wrongdoing which she blew the whistle on then combined with what we see in the streets of people asking for equality and civil rights and you're seeing that fight

take place now within the cia it's interesting when you see that kind of you know the intersection of so many different issues that face the country in one particular man's case it definitely does and it showcases that no matter how highly educated you are even if you're working at the upper echelons of government you're thiel not able to escape some of the darkest parts of america and truly truly breaks my heart to know what happened to that man but it up lifts me completely to see where he is today in that he's putting his life back together and he was still speaking out and writing books and keeping the truth alive and fighting for what he believes in a really great american hero in jeopardy sterling. already as we go to break remember that you can also start watching the hawks on the man through the brand new portable t.v. which is available on all platforms so you have no excuse not to download it at this point coming up we take an in-depth look at a look at law enforcement's response to be brave activists and citizens who took to the streets as part of the 2020 black lives matter movement you want to miss this

interview stay tuned for watching the. as americans we don't come with the we don't like seeing a whole world peace to be. judged. commentary classes. we can do better we should. everyone is contributing way but we also know that this crisis will not go on

forever the challenges create the response has been so many good people are helping us. it makes us feel very proud that we are in it together. an entire village in alaska has had to move if another country trying to wipe out an american town. we do everything in our power to protect. wanted one escaping climate change is the same threat right now alaska does seem some of the fastest coastal erosion in the world we lost about 35 feet. 35 feet of ground in just about 3 months while we were measuring. it is fast and that means the river is 35 closer than how this was years before

i think we're part of america or 1st from or. worse. every year with great pleasure to be answered questions from our viewers and this year is no different as usual your questions focus on future possible events my panel in a week to look at. changed american lives but pharmaceutical companies have a miraculous solution opioid based drugs talk to people who are chronic pain patients and believe that their prescription is working for them in the remedy be certain to. price that they pay closer dependence and addiction to opiates to long term use that really isn't scientifically justified and i'll study actually suggested that the long term effects might not just be absence of benefit but

actually that they might be causing the long term. you think shook the american consciousness. like the killing of an unarmed black man the police involved murder of yet another unarmed black man george floyd launched a worldwide protest movement black lives matter and calls for police reforms rang gladly throughout the us then a man was murdered by an officer with a knee on his neck while the world watched in horror thanks to a courageous teenager who recorded the incident on her cell phone but that wasn't all brianna taylor an e.m.t. emergency responder was murdered by police officers while sleeping in her own bed

and a mob arbitrary a young black man in georgia was shot and killed by big vigilantes one of them a former police officer his crime jogging while black. organizers took to the streets in protest and they wouldn't let up more than 2000 cities and towns in over 60 countries participated legal observers were deployed to protect the civil and human rights of protesters as videos of brutal beatings tear gas and other by a live x. took over social media legal observers were arrested and attacked while doing their jobs and here we brought you the story. park's legal observer with the national lawyers week was joined by perry read in activists listen to what they have to say about police interactions with protesters in the legal observers trying to protect them. we have been monitoring protests at state 168. for like black panthers in different groups it is our job to ensure that protesters

are using their free speech and not being in it and constitutionally police forces or in this case even the national guard and what happened to you in the soros thought of this or come about. i was with another legal observer who was also arrested and we were simply documenting people who had been arrested or people who may have been arrested we asked for their names and number they so we could see just support later. we knew where target is one of. the girls in green had no they took us away and the people we were monitoring were not even arrested they specifically targeted a student and then they arrested him only for poor people who were with him that night they arrested it's holdall more than 50 people in the grandest of the prison bus in the middle of the cold in 1000 pandemic yes but yes it's frightening to even think about in asia we know that there's been a lot of being during this protest the van that we haven't necessarily seen before

specifically the treatment of people like yourself police normally don't arrest or pester don with legal observers or medics during protest why do you believe that now who is now being broken and what have the gallery of the attack. i believe has been broken out the same day i was arrested there are some atlanta journal constitution reporters arrested so avidly these are the being broken specifically so that there is nobody to document the brutality of the radical east for specifically of the nation why. what's the reporters and on what's the legal observers on the cops are free to do as a please. and even seen what they do on camera we see them arrest reports of cameras so what are they doing when the cameras are not there we can be played in disability the irony of the murder what is happening to the street so i believe we are being targeted because they want to continue their actions retaliate with. her you've been a target for your civil rights activism by law enforcement for many years what do

you feel is motivating the rise in the violence of these attacks on protester citizens journalists legal observers and now it seems that as we learned earlier to be old white 75 year old man by law enforcement why is the violence rising amongst police. well here we are this point. where the fear of losing power is so reason why we've seen such early resistance to calls for justice now the idea that america's traditional principles and values are rooted in the. leadership and dumbbells with the entire court which say. we are getting exactly what we pay for. 2015 said we want someone who's going to run this country like

a business well we're in a business right now and they're not pretty at all know that it's most certainly isn't and with the arrest of the 4 officers involved and the taking down of computer at statues and monuments across the southern states there are many in the mainstream they're now expecting to see these protests and marches in but that's not exactly going to be the case is it perry what are your thoughts. my hopes are that because usually what happens and i've been watching the hawks previously would land ok. michael brown was killed when the commandant was killed and we go to easily still. sure police killing and those steps include the shock then we go to the outreach then the call then we have the go to charge which interchange in this case which average one of great number 6 we have the moment america is those who are not conservative we hope that we do not get

collective and. it's back to business as usual i want to do is we're not going back to business as you measure i want to bring you back into this is what do you feel going forward you know what what is the case can be going forward and where do you see these marches and these protests going next. for our hope that people continue to demand to defund the police and hope that we push tourist abolition of prisons i hope that the reformist policies that are starting to come out now do not get too much energy behind them and been seen celebrities repos talked about and told when many departments are in banjul calls. in a chokehold and the n.y.p.d. deny that he was initial hole even though we saw the video so i do hope that people continue in the streets to demand for d n a police intervention the abolishment of the police forces but i hope that the reformist policies from the neo liberals who are now on the streets i hope they

don't subdue the protests i hope people can see to buy into it substantial change and major what do you think is going to help to bring about that change in terms of we know that protests are great in that they do bring about a lot of attention to issues that otherwise people naturally ignore but protests typically don't last for months at a time how do we continue to keep the beat to the fire how do we continue to keep people engaged in these issues that matter so much to changing our society. was important here in atlanta we had. a great group called the people's response iran which is a coalition of different races many of them i've let live it and they are trying to promote political education they're trying to integrate the demands of the protests with the demands of the pandemic such as the restraint they want to bring people into organisations people hopefully across the nation there are organisations in

the streets of people who are trying to gain membership that way west of hotels do so still have organize frett it gets the best system in this country so hopefully i hope that once protests or where people join any organisation they're being politically educated so they know what is going on and how to spread the information to their communities and i just hope that we find a way to direct energy especially outside of simply voting there's other ways to change our community our voting how we need to learn how to hold politicians responsible once they are in office because down here in atlanta we have to fight and she's doing a media run right now and the problem is that she was lesser of 2 evils vote and we had to figure out how do we hold that kind of person accountable so we haven't given her demands for years. there was a mental in atlanta last year he was the organizer is they with us so his family

has been trying to balance to start an investigation and eventually get the qatar's but we hope that all of this injury is put into stuff like that put into organisations put into political education so that we continue the movement even if it is in the street it will be in some of us how it will be in the church it'll be . community meetings in city hall meetings where everybody can put this in a gene where we can push change and hope that we continue to do it and i hope that people grab all. couldn't agree to more age i want to say i want to thank you for the good work that you're doing out there on a land and put yourself on the. i'm on the front lines of this fight because i do believe it is at the end of the day a fight against oppressive government oppressive fascism and fascism and of course racism at the end of institutional racism thank you so much for coming on today and i also want to thank perry red for coming on thank you both for your fight out there and keep up the great work. for

a boy 2 very very passionate activists who carried the activists of the legal observer their fight in the streets for justice which we saw so much of this year we did and i think that you know this just underscores one that we were actually able to get them for the for that very important segment but just how important it was to have legal observers and people who were assigned to essentially protect the protesters and then we watched them going to tack as well so hearing that from her getting attacked and jailed and i think that that was an experience that needed to be told because unless you're on the ground many people don't really understand how intense things were and how much activists and protesters are putting on the line just to be able to say black lives matter a measure do you think that moving forward now that we're moving in the 2021 you know 2020 is going to be behind us now or 2020 more and do you think the those activists and those people out there fighting for racial justice and you know fighting against income inequality and all the all the ills that our country faces they're not going to go away they're not going to leave the streets just because

you know biden and harris want to lecture do you or do you think they aren't even donors enough i definitely don't think so one because we know more black people are dying or being you know heavily beaten by the cops every day that's not something that's indifferent just what is that a few weeks ago we saw what happened in chicago media got released of a police officer who had brutally attacked a woman a black woman i think that what we're going to see is more call outs to the by the administration specifically because he talked a lot on the campaign trail kaamelott talked a lot on the campaign trail about black lives matter and what they were going to do but people want to see that policy in action and i don't think the protests are going to let up on them at all. well it has been quite the year for watching the hawks i want to thank you for joining me for this year and in 2021 has been a pleasure to doesn't always been a pleasure having you're sitting here at the desk with me so thank you very much maisha and thank all of you out there for watching because this is our last show of 2020 and remember everybody in this world we are definitely not told that we are

loved enough so i tell you all i love you i am tired rove and and i will miss across keep on watching all those hawks out there another great day and night everybody. else seems wrong. why don't we all just don't all. get to see. just the answer. and it. equals betrayal. when so many find themselves worlds apart we choose to look for common ground.

americans love. this was a fundamental part of how our political leadership and our country at large understood the bargain you get a hope and then you know rebel right as the things you don't revolt if you have a stake in the system. and think about the longer deeper history housings men in the united states not just that question of the american dream but the bigger question of who the dream is for. the world is driven by dreamers shaped by the curse of those.

low dares thinks. we dare to ask. this is not like football. it's not a money spinner but it is expensive. and it's dangerous. and this is the speed. the brakes. stop. telling yourself that you know.

as much about getting rid of 2020 is celebrating the new year fireworks scaled down celebrations as the world becomes 2021 and of the hope of a brighter 12 months ahead. as people spent much of the 2020 battling the crowd of miners pandemic health care workers in nations around the world have emerged as unsung heroes. and we've seen people die and seen people come in and they call grave as we have to milling around what we want in 5. years what we have to do. and the campaigners urge the u.k. to read carefully when seeking a post of bragg's a trade deal with the us highlighting the health risks of american meat products.