independent media is the hope amy goodman through democracy now and and then many other rena's has taken positions and and brought the spotlight of the news media on to stories that other us in the news media scared to carry she is willing to be open for cause of justice and peace in the world and she is a breath of fresh air in our media landscape she's been willing to put the spotlight on east timor on the goings on of the oil companies and the nigerian government in the niger delta she's covered haiti in ways that the other news media have not she has brought us the tr and object to reporting when others seem to be skirting the issues and following their own agenda so it's great to have her here tonight so let me shut up and let me  i feel so bad that you are behind me and i can't preach directly to the choir they're not quite sure how to do this what an honor it is to be here and to be delivering the moon lecture i just learned that bob war two country interest subject or you know i originally come from pacifica radio which was also founded by world war two war resister named lou hill when he came out of the detention camps after world war two he said there has to be a media outlet that is not run by corporations that profit from war but run by journalists and artists and that's how pacifica radio was born  run by corporations is george gervin or the founder of the cultural environment movement the former dean at the annenberg school of communications university of pennsylvania said not run by corporations that have nothing to tell and everything to sell that are blown up it was an blown up by the ku klux klan just a few weeks after it began in the spring spring of one nine hundred seventy the klan strap dynamite to the base of the transmitter and blew it to smithereens and when k p s t got back on its feet they blew it up again i mean there was a soldier lining because it's not  pacifica had money to advertise that rhesus new radio station in houston it certainly blew it into the consciousness of the potential listening audience and i care remember if it was the grand dragon or the exultant cyclops i often confuse their titles but he said it was his proudest act and i think that's because he understood how dangerous pacifica is how dangerous independent media is dangerous because it allows people to speak for themselves and when you hear someone speaking from their own experience whether it's a palestinian child or an israeli grandmother and there are many remarkable palestinians and israelis who are working for peace in the middle east and have a lot to teach the communities here about what it means to fight for peace whether it's a palestinian child an israeli grandmother an uncle in afghanistan or an aunt in iraq when you hear someone speaking from their own experience it breaks down barriers the challenges stereotypes and caricature has that fuel the hate groups you know when you hear someone you think it sounds like my baby or my bum but it sounds like my aunt you don't have to agree with them how often do we agree with people in our families but you start to understand where you they're coming from and that's the beginning of a common ground of wanting to understand not tear apart that's the power of independent media which is why we have to support it all over the country and it is a great honor for us at democracy now in new york that were broadcast here oh ok v m are as well as k t v s and katie r d t and davis and that access sacramento broadcast channel seventeen and eighteen davis community television satellite television link condition how many of you watch or listen to democracy now well that is right and what do you listen to you know you watch online or you listen on line democracy now dot org when we have flyers you can pass out to friends and everything to let people know where we broadcast democracy now just past the thousand station mark it is truly amaz we now broadcast on pacifica radio stations n p r stations and college stations on p b s stations increasingly all over the country you can ask your p b s station to run us tomorrow i'll be doing a fundraiser at noon at headlines are available in spanish over three hundred radio stations throughout latin america and europe broadcasts and the united states the spanish headlines and the idea of democracy is to break the sound barrier is to bring out the voices of people at the grassroots who can tell their own stories and if they can't to tell those stories until they can tell their own what an honor it is to be here on the ease of martin luther king's birthday you know a few months ago president obama dedicated the national memorial to dr martin luther king he said of dr king if he were alive today i believe he would remind us that the unemployed worker can rightly challenge the excess of wall street without demonizing all who work there well the dedication occurred amidst the increasingly popular and increasingly global occupy wall street movement what obama left unsaid about king is that were he alive he would most likely be protesting obama administration po and that's exactly what dr cornel west was doing not far from where obama was dedicating the king memorial yes son of sacramento professor cornel west the preacher professor from princeton university grew up right here in sacramento was arrested while president obama was speaking on the steps of the u s supreme court not far away he said before being hauled off to jail we want to bear witness today that we know the relation between corporate greed and what goes on too often in the supreme court decisions we will not allow this day of martin luther king jr's memorial to go without somebody going to jail because martin king would be right here with us willing to throw down out of for fessor west was arrested along with eighteen others declaring solidarity with the occupy movement all around the world because we love poor people we love working people we want martin luther king jr to smile from the grave that we haven't forgot his movement over the same weekend as the dedication the u s military cia drone campaign under commander in chief obama launched what the independent nonprofit bureau of investigative journalism based in london called the three hundred thrown strike the two hundred forty eight since obama took office according to the bureau of the at least twenty three hundred people killed by drone strikes between three hundred eighty six and seven seventy five were civilians along with an include ing one hundred seventy five children imagine how obama's fellow nobel peace prize laureate dr king would respond to those gr he gave a speech that did not get very much coverage over the years that people ran the i have a dream speech and it was his beyond vietnam speech his speech about why he opposed the war in vietnam he spoke at riverside church in new york to a packed crowd he said i knew that i could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today my own government he said with those words with that speech king set the tone for his final fateful year despite death threats and his close advisors urging him not to go to memphis king went to march in solidarity with memphis sanitation workers and on april fourth one thousand nine hundred sixty eight he was shot and killed on the balcony of the road lorraine motel that day that he spoke out against the war in vietnam his closest advisors urged him don't do this you have achieved so much in this country you have fought for civil rights for human rights you've gotten the president to sign the voting rights act the civil rights act don't antagonize him that is not your war the vietnam war and dr king said no where there was violence he would to cry and i'll never forget going to memphis visiting the lorraine motel and speaking to people who were at that speech he gave the night before he was assassinated on april third one nine hundred sixty eight the mountaintop address a young man said his father who dragged him to the speech read he'd come down to swim to stand with sanitation workers to march with sanitation workers and his father said dr king's going to be speaking at the church said i just wanted to be out on the street with my friends my father drag me there and he said that night it was raining hard and the rain was slamming on the church and he said in the women you could hear their heels tapping on the floor dr king listened feeling well and dr ralph abernathy came and said he would just speak but they would have none of it every wanted to hear dr king so he called back to the motel and he said to martin you have to come you have to come now and he came and he gave that speech that would become so famous and about a year ago when i was in madison wisconsin  that uprising inspired by egypt and tunisia that would then go on to inspire occupy wall street standing in the freezing cold in madison wisconsin one hundred fifty thousand people there defending working people defending teachers and nurses and in that case the police and the firefighters standing with the teachers and the nurses and the students governor walker of wisconsin wanted to obliterate the collective rights of public workers stated explicitly wanted to wipe them out and he said that police and firefighters would be exempted from this but the police and firefighters said no if you're going after them you're going after us and so they slept in the capitol next to the teachers and the nurses and their families to protect them i was describing that scene recently to one of the police officers that occupy wall street in new york was very interesting i  t over to ask him how many people he thought were there on a particular day and he said and so often you can have these discussions when you just step aside the police officer said can you explain to me what they are saying and i explained what some of the people who crowded into zuccotti park liberty square liberty plaza were saying talking about we are the ninety nine percent often saying that to police officers you are the ninety nine percent and he said i thought that's what they were saying he said and i asked him where he was from he said he was native american and he was from new jersey and i told him what the police officers did in madison i told him that especially after the pepper spraying of the young women on the brooklyn bridge told him that after the horses had moved in and protesters and he nodded his head and of course i don't need to tell you about pepper spraying because the brave young student said davis i don't know if any of them are here right now but what happened on november eighteenth at davis u c davis  was so disturbing to the man who worked with the f b i and weaponize ing pepper spray and developing it as a weapon his name is com or on  lagemann and he came on democracy now the creator of pepper spray as we know it and he said it was those young people when he saw them sitting there with their heads down with this pepper spray being used as a weapon to hurt them he felt he had to speak out he said he had developed the training programs had developed the weapon itself with the f b i he had trained four thousand officers in how to deal with this and he said this was a violation of every level of law what they did at davis and when he saw those young people he said i saw my own children he said you know what pepper spray was pepper spray in the seventy's was just what you spray on dogs to get them away from you and then what they did is they weaponized it what the police what he and the f b i did and just made it much more powerful and you use it to defend yourself in a time of you know when you're facing serious violence he said not to for what happened at davis or with he saw happen on the brooklyn bridge these young women on the brooklyn bridge who are completely blindsided they didn't even know what was coming after them literally blindsided the officer there i think was given a ten day vacation a paid vacation but there are two stories here one is the remarkable movements that we have seen in this country and around the world and then there's the response to them the hope of course is the movements and standing there in wisconsin and madison hundred fifty thousand people the largest protests madison and wisconsin have ever seen in their history i was looking across at the state capitol and there was the big building there was a labor history museum and there was asked me and just to show how profound what people were fighting for and standing up for you know that the sanitation workers that dr king went to stand with t march with to protect to help unionize in memphis tennessee they were simply organizing the local chapter of apps me the american federation of state county municipal employees that's what dr king died for that's why these struggles are so important and what he was doing scores of years ago as what people are doing in the streets today the movements are what give us hope you think about how all of this began well you know it started with tunisia and the uprising there a young m who set himself on fire hamadou as easy because he felt he had no other option he was a university graduate ended up selling vegetables and fruit in the marketplace and the authorities confiscated his scale and he had been so harassed so frustrated that he lighted himself on fire and that ignited a generation in tunisia it expressed the frustration of an entire country and they rose out and within days they had thrown out their dictator but there was something even before that and it's something dan ellsberg likes to point out as well  talking about igniting a generation we're talking about are now using populations all over the world that's often what transparency with sunlight what information does but these releases of documents from the afghan war ally to the iraq war logs to the state department cables the largest trove of documents in the history of the united states ever released told the world so much about both themselves and about u s government and its relationship with their dictators in tunisia the documents told people they're not that they didn't know that their dictator was corrupt but let them know that the us knew it as well and yet was suring up these dictators for decades in each of these countries and that further infuriated the people and they rose up and that ignited egypt and we know all what happened then is continuing to happen there it is an unfinished revolution how many of you listen to or watch true from toca dusun tucker square are my colleague our senior producer of democracy now last year it was january we were actually covering the sundance film festival to the documentary track to bring out these remarkable films that people make spend years making and yet when you see sundance on television you see the glitterati there you see a whole other track it's a remarkable place incubating creative important films that often never see the light of day so that's why we like to go and bring them out will be there next week but we were there and then sharif started to get tax and started reading tweets and getting calls from his raced home flew from park city utah to new york to egypt in a day and landed in tucker you're square and didn't leave for eighteen days mubarak had brought the internet down the tree figured a way to get around it and he became one of the top tweeters in the world telling us the stories of what was happening just through those one hundred forty characters bringing out the voices of people at the grassroots and then when the internet when apple he had a joke about this fight the way he said that was mubarak's fatal error bringing down the internet he said he said come on very jepson he said if the internet were up we would all been home on facebook tweeting ourselves talking to each other but now since you brought it down we all ha to go outside and figure out what was going on so they gathered in tahrir square and then the thugs broke the satellites the t v satellite so the internet went out but the satellites went down and that's how the networks transmit their broadcasts we also do but we're also down and dirty in very scrappy democracy now you know we have built for the last fifteen years this network and often can't afford to broadcast or satellites you know when for example during  when saddam hussein was in iraq in germany scahill was there saddam and set up a fire wall so you couldn't send out information through the internet the networks would pay him millions of dollars to use the satellites democracy now didn't do that but germany would go into an internet cafe and we used a special program and they would send a video broadcast report through this program and through one hundred fifty e mails and it's like going through a porch screen and then we would put it back together in new york and we would broadcast this for you so we know how to send broadcast quality video through the internet it's not a skill that the networks have had to develop because they've had the money to use satellites but when the satellites went down you saw pictures of old anderson cooper on skype in his hotel room in the lower third at the bottom of the screen said reporting from an undisclosed location in the skype qualities started to look a little like democracy now but there we were there we were broadcasting to use twenty five minute perfect broadcast quality reports because back and put them together and send them to s through the night over the internet and we would get them the next day and the power of this it wasn't just the bird's eye view which was amazing of top gear but you would meet the people you where the great egyptian writer who wrote the map of love her nephew just released from prison just about a week ago who we just interviewed on democracy now one of the most famous bloggers mubarak went down we called her she was screaming she said she had just left tough we're just left two very pregnant women and she was deeply relieved she said because now they could have their babies and freedom you met the seventeen year old girl in the shadow of the state me which it's so controlled the images that have come out of egypt and even were transmitted people there she's doing this broad sheet giving it out in talk rear seventeen year old kids were making newspapers to let people know what people were saying from the square that is the power of independent media and that's what we tried to bring you in those days not just an impression or not just a commentator commenting but people themselves so they could be your mother they could be your father they could be your all of civil society was out and sharif in his eloquence and his knowledge of his own country being the one to convey this to you he continues to be there as this revolution that is taking place we don't exactly know where it will go but we know that there are a new orleans of egyptians who are fighting for democracy and their country and it's hard to believe given what they have gone through they won't achieve it but going from tunisia to egypt to yemen to syria one of these unfortunate connections is the level of support the u s has given these dictators over the years i mean you remember when the wiki leaks documents were released in the same countries the math of these uprisings hillary clinton the secretary of state went on an apology tour it was very embarrassing to her when these documents came out for example that showed that she was communicating with the president of yemen with sala they were trying to cover for the fact that the u s was attacked in yemen with drones and yemen was saying we'll say it's our military that's doing this and suddenly all of this was exposed and it was embarrassing dictators and destabilizing them truth often does that and it goes back to julian assign each who now wears a medal bracelet who's under house arrest and  britain it goes back to wiki leaks and it goes to bradley manning a young man twenty four years old who is facing a court martial as of today the investigating officer said he will be court marshal d that article thirty two hearing was held honest twenty fourth birthday a few weeks ago the young iraqi soldier who is being charged now with twenty two twenty three counts of releasing these documents to wiki leaks now let's just talk about what some of these documents and videos are like the one in two thousand and seven called collateral murder i want to go back a few months to february of two thousand and seven who put their hands up to the apache helicopter in surrender the apache helicopter the soldiers in the apache helicopter called back to base and said what do we do the these two guys down there who are trying to surrender and i actually think they talked to a lawyer on the base and they said you can surrender to a helicopter and they blew these guys away underneath that was february two thousand and seven these came out in the documents it was and videotape of this now i think if we had known this at the time there would have been an outcry in this country just like there's outcry now on the marine snipers the videotape of them u corpses but i do think there would have been a tremendous out crying people trying to surrender and this apache helicopter unit blowing them away not rogue not soldiers out of control calling back to base and being told that they should open fire and so if that had happened if there was an outcry daresay what happened six months later would not have happened the same apache helicopter unit and this we do have video of it's what wiki leaks labeled the collateral murder video it was july of two thousand and seven it was an area of iraq called new baghdad in baghdad and there were twelve men walking and they were guiding two reporters or two reuters employees one i'm not near nor elgin was twenty two up and coming videographer for reuters and his driver side who is beloved by all of the reuters crew because drivers are more than drivers they're fixers they know the community they take the reporters around especially western reporters who are coming in they know the area he was forty years old he had four children and they had their cameras with them and these men in the neighborhood were taking them around and this a patsy helicopter was hovering overhead at the same unit that it killed these men before and we have the video release the video that included the narration of the soldiers because it was the apache helicopter video it's the military video it's not a video that's edited by peace activists or anything like this this comes from the military and it is horrifying the joking the laughing of the epithets the callousness and the fact that they were not broke that they were asking permission every step of the way to open fire on these men below and they opened fire they killed almost all of them saeed on the ground critically wounded dragging himself away and they said we got to get this guy and a van pulled up to help him and men got out of the van to go to pick him up and they lit the van up killed and men from the truck and two children in the van were critically wounded they didn't die i interviewed a soldier a little while after we showed that video and he did not know he was connected to this unit but i interviewed him because he had come back to the united states and he was leading a march of iraq veterans against the war appealing to president obama to stop sending soldiers back to iraq and afghanistan who suffer from p t s d as at least a third of the soldiers do suffering from post traumatic stress disorder and they asked him if he could tell me about his own experience in iraq because he was clearly suffering and he said he had this horrible experience where an apache helicopter unit had opened fire on a group of men and his unit was on the ground and he had come up and they had just lit up this van and he had gone and taken the children who were critically wounded out of the van and he went back to base he said to one of his one of his commanding officers he needed help he could not get these images of the children out of his head and they told him to suck it up and he just disintegrated from there you know the ripple effect of violence will ripple through our communities for years i was just thinking today we had a conversation with randall robinson the founder of trans africa and michelle alexander who wrote a book you should all read called the new jim crow talks about the fact that in this country we have more african americans percentage wise imprisoned than at the heart than at the height of a party and south africa it's amazing that you know that in the cities of this country more than half of the young black men are either in prison or on parole more than half you put that together with a number of young men and women who've come home from iraq and afghanistan you know well over a million and at least a third of them suffering from post traumatic stress disorder we have generation of these did warriors a wounded generation this is the effect of war whether the wars at home or the wars abroad but this video collateral murder is what bradley manning is being charged with having released and so you have to decide do you think he should be given life in prison for this he either faces by the way he could face life in prison or he could face  they appealed to the military they knew this video existed they said any evidence of this we want to have for years they tried to get this end of the freedom of information act they couldn't until this was released now again bradley manning has not admitted but this is what he is charged with having released and if we had videotape from the beginning and why this is so important because when you see this it stops the next atrocity from happening what is an atrocity these days it's not the actual act it's when we have the videotape of the act unfortunately that people respond whether we're talking about the marine snipers urinating on the sold because one of the soldiers was killed they went into the homes of civilians all around and they rounded them up the women the children the grandfathers and the grandmothers and they executed them all in their bed clothes in their pajamas and we have the video that shows the blood stained rooms that is what effects people it is why it is so important we have an independent media we have a needy and that is there because when you bear witness it can change the world and so you have wiki leaks releasing the documents you have which fuels is not the only reason for the after rising the incredible bravery of the people on the ground who say we will not take it anymore and it lights like wildfire through the world through the middle east and then comes right back to us i mean in in madison wisconsin the pizzerias were sending pizza and you know that was ordered by egyptians and tahrir square to give to the madison protesters and occupy wall street oh my gosh all the pizzerias were getting orders from people all over the world they were coming in by the hundreds of pies they called them occupie the and the protestors and zuccotti park were nothing if not resourceful they used every aspect while they ate the pies and then they took the boxes and they made their sign on the on the back and the signs were so incredibly creative on the card board what were they among the signs oh you know there was this freak snowstorm a few months ago one of four times in history in new york that there was a snowstorm in october and so they had to take down all the signs and they just put up one hell snow we won't go and of course that freak  snowstorm having to do with global warming is also a critical part of the story all the different movements coming together and the signs that we saw and september in the beginning you know the first takeover zuccotti park the first occupy wall street encampment september seventeenth four days before the execution of troy anthony davis then you saw all of these signs aside from too much doubt you know the african american man from georgia who was executed but also these signs that were up all over that said i'll believe a corporation is a person when troy davis how many have you heard or watched our broadcast from jackson georgia we went down to atlanta  on the twenty first of september twentieth we went down we broadcast from atlanta then whine about forty minutes away to jackson church to george's death row hundred men and that person now ninety nine this one woman but she's not in that prison troy davis is a remarkable case of a man who'd been on death row for almost twenty years and by the time of his execution the pope had called for a stay of the execution president jimmy carter a south african bishop desmond tutu the two nobel laureates  bob barr the republican congress member from georgia five prison wardens including the former prison warden of that person sent a letter he wrote that the civilians who must carry out executions already even when they when they believe a prisoner is guilty go through a kind of post traumatic stress when they execute someone but for the level of doubt in this case it was inexcusable to end troy davis life this was his fourth death warrant he had come with an hour several times of dying when the war had been staged his execution had been stayed troy anthony davis it's the case of a african american man who in one thousand nine hundred nine was charged with killing a savannah police was a hero cop he was moonlighting as a security guard at burger king in savannah and a homeless man was being pistol whipped and mark macphail went to his aid and he was shot he was executed mark the police arrested try anthony davis the there were nine non police witnesses at his trial seven of them recanted their testimony saying they had been co d or somehow forced by police to say what they said then jurors came out one by one and said if they knew then what they knew now they never would have convicted troy davis one of the two non police witnesses who testified against troy davis was a man named red coals who most of the others said actually committed the killing of mark macphail he was the one who first pointed the finger went into the police station with a lawyer to say it was try anthony davis and the woman most recently a friend of his might have been a family member when i spoke out went on c n n and said he had just told her he had also been the killer of mark macphail and so try anthony davis went through these twenty years on death row september twenty first the fourth death warrant for him so we went to the grounds of the prison to cover what would happen that night not having any idea whether he would be granted a stay or not we got to the grounds the our broadcast began at six o'clock the execution was slated for seven the department of corrections gave me a press pack it was very thin it focused on what try anthony davis would be having for dinner that night we are nothing if we are not civilized they said he was offered a special meal he could have anything he wanted he refused that instead he would have the standard prison tray and it laid out what that was the press kit described the fare that he would be offered grilled cheese burgers oven brown potatoes baked beans coleslaw cookies and a great  beverage then there was another piece of paper in the press packet and it just had four lines on it with big typed words like you read at the top of when you go into the eye doctor bromide paralyzes the potassium chloride stops the heart the sedative the prisoner can decide whether he takes an hour before the execution the two things troy davis had any control over the last meal and the sedative he said no by seven pm the u s supreme court was reviewing davis plea for a stay the case was referred to supreme court justice clarence thomas who has from pinpoint georgia a community founded by freed slaves that's near savannah where davis and his family had lived the chorus for clemency was growing louder and louder people all over the world writing and we didn't know what would happen through that day the head of the n w a c p ben jealous was there the head of amnesty international larry cox was there hundred fifty people were on the grounds that was the limit that the prison authorities were allowed one thousand people were outside across the street from the prison students had marched from or house college dr king's college in atlanta from spelman college the tradition of the historically black colleges they were all holding candles it was seven o'clock it was eight o'clock it was nine o'clock we had gone for a press conference to a small church down the street the family had gathered there and the other item in the press packet told us the schedule troy schedule for the day his family could meet with him from nine to three but then they'd have to clear out three for a physical for troy davis to get a physical at the press conference the local georgia head of the and piece said physical routine why are you giving them him a physical so that they could make sure he's physically fit so that they could strap him down so that they could put the murder juice in his arm make no mistake they call it an execution we call it murder it wasn't so long ago i think it was in texas where a man attempted suicide right before his execution they raced him to the hospital made sure he was healthy enough to execute  at ten fifty three we got word the supreme court would not stay the execution that the execution of troy anthony davis had begun and eleven away it was announced that troy anthony davis was dead the witnesses to the execution then came out one by one to describe what they saw and one of the reporters described troy anthony davis last words you know you're laid out on he was laid out on a cross like  and his arms and his legs are strapped two lawyers for try anthony davis there and there were four reporters the reporter said that troy said i'd like to address the macphail family let you know despite the situation you're in i'm not the one who personally killed your son your father your brother i am innocent the incident that happened that night is not my fault i did not have a gun all i can ask is that you look deeper into this case so that you really can finally see the truth i ask my family and friends to continue to fight this fight and then he turned to his executioners and he said for those about to take my life god have mercy on your souls and make god bless your soul the state of georgia then to try anthony davis body to atlanta for an autopsy charging his family for the transportation i'm troika davis's death certificate the cause of death is listed simply as homicide as i stood on the grounds of the prison just after troy davis was executed the department of corrections threatened to pull the plug on our broadcast if we didn't and it right that we had been broadcasting for almost six hours i was reminded what gandhi reportedly answered when asked what he thought of western civilization he said it would be a good idea just this past december i was in durban south africa with the whole democracy now team you know we were there covering the climate change conference and that was truly remarkable i think also the number of young activists who were there from around the world like twenty thousand people durban you know was where gandhi really develop such a graph that was the community he was in in durban south africa before returning to india but the movements that we're seeing whether it's around the issue of climate change whether it's around the issue of economic inequality the whole occupy wall street movement from davis to new york from louisville to edmonton canada all over the world how it has caught on is truly remarkable you never know when it's actually going to be happy happy when it will actually happen these magic moments but if you're involved with social change you will help to make history when these moments com and it makes me think back to really how dr king first gained prominence rosa parks  i was just thinking about the story of rosa parks write this woman a story that is known throughout this country but it is actually told wrong rosa parks who led the montgomery bus boy rosa parks this  woman who helped to launch the modern day civil rights movement now when she died a few years ago her body was the first african american she was the first african american woman to lay in state in the rotunda and then her body was brought to a local washington d c church thousands came out to it oprah winfrey was inside tyson was inside we raced down from new york we interviewing people outside there were hundreds of people outside they had big loud speakers i interviewed this young woman she was a freshman and she said she had e mailed her professors that morning and she said i won't be in class today i'm going to get an education and the media of course told her story you know when rosa parks died they said i remember i can't remember i think it was c n n who said rosa parks was a tired seamstress she was no trouble maker but that's where they got it wrong rosa parks was a first class troublemaker she knew exactly you knew exactly what she was doing on that day december first one nine hundred fifty five she had trained to do this she wasn't simply tired she was the secretary of the rosa parks had been working to challenge the racist segregation laws for years she had trained at the highlander center dr king had been there together white in black working to most strategically figure out how most strategically to actually change things so she knew exactly what she was doing in fact she had sat down on the bus before and refused to get up when a white bus driver said you gotta get up for this white male passenger she had said no before and other young women had to and again you never know when that moment well come but if you were involved in laying the groundwork you will determine history and that's exactly what happened with rosa parks on that day four days later december fifth one nine hundred fifty five as she's going to court the montgomery improvement association holds its meeting to decide who will be the leader of the montgomery bus boycott and they elect as their leader a young minister who had just come into town dr martin luther king yes rosa parks helped to launch dr martin luther king and to show how brave she was just to go back a few months before in the summer of down to money mississippi to be with family to get of the city for the summer and older folks here must know his story but he was staying with his aunt and uncle and his cousins and then grew white mob came ripped him out of bed and he ended up in the bottom of the tallahatchie river they said he had wolf whistled at a white woman this fourteen year old boy and when his body was dredged up and he was sent back to chicago in a coffin on the train his mother mamie till did something incredibly brave she said she wanted his casket to be opened for the wake of the funeral she wanted the world to see the ravages of racism the brutality of bigotry thousands stream by and that's casket and saw i was speaking in detroit a while ago and i told the story and afterwards an older african american gentleman with white hair and beard came up to me and he said i was there my father brought me and i will never forget and it's had this distended mutilated head because he had been tortured and they streamed by his casket and saw and then jet magazine and other black publications took photographs of his head and they were actually published and they were seared into the history and consciousness of this country and the tills mother mamie till had something very important to teach the press of today show the pictures show the images could you imagine if for just one week we saw the images of war in this country if it was the top of every t v and radio newscast every single day if it was on everyone's home page on everyone's facebook wall of the subject of every tweet for one week we saw the images of war babies dead on the ground soldiers dead and dying women with their legs blown off by cluster bombs corpses who've been killed by drones for just one week americans are a compassionate people they would say no war is not the answer to conflict in the twenty first thanks at the last conventions democracy now covers the democratic and republican conventions and we went to denver to cover the democratic convention then flew to st paul for the republican convention and it was september first two thousand and eight that was the first day of the convention where it was senator mccain he had just chosen and sarah palin as his running mate  we had just come out of denver going to st paul and the afternoon they were going to begin their convention and that first morning of the republican convention was a massive protest ten thousand people march from st paul city hall to the excel center where the convention was and they were led by soldiers actually in full military regalia who are opposing war some who would serve some would knock on and soldiers who are not in uniform and then  thousands of people they protested the democratic convention as well and maybe some of you were there and we were covering the protests sharif was there and a call salazar mike burke oh my colleagues at democracy now so we covered the protest in the morning it was this beautiful blue sky day very peaceful march and then i ran off to the convention center because the convention was going to begin and i was interviewing delegates from the hottest state from alaska and a nd then i got a call on my cell phone that i should come quickly to seventh in jackson sharif and nicole had been arrested and bloody was just shocked what are you talking about i said i reilly of big noise films who does super work you should see all of his films fourth world war and south to taste and many others we raced down the streets of st paul got to seventh in jackson it was a big parking lot the riot police that surrounded the area i was going up to the riot police to ask where nicole and sharif were i was running along the police line i stopped and i said to a police officer can i speak to your commanding officer i'm amy goodman and my two colleagues are inside you can see all the credentials that they give us of the police give us that allow us to go in to interview presidents vice presidents delegates they have these credentials as well we want to have them released it wasn't seconds before they written me through the line twisted my arms backslap the handcuffs on and push me on to the ground i was saying don't arrest me and they arrested me they charged me with misdemeanor interfering with a peace officer if only there was a peace him we were standing there his arm was bleeding he had his credentials on we were demanding to be released we kept saying you can see we're journalists we demand to be release and the secret service came over and ripped the credentials from around our ne so then i was taken off into the police van demanding to see nicole she was in the police van her face was bloodied she was handcuffed she had her credentials on she told me quickly what had happened she said they got into the t v studio to digitise tape they saw commotion outside sharif and a call ran down with their camera in their microphone they wouldn't have been doing their job if they hadn't gone down and there they saw the riot police they saw protesters they were in this parking lot nicole was filming and the riot police were coming at her in formation and they're screaming at her on your face on your face first they were saying move move but she was against the park or she couldn't move she was shouting back where aware and they said on your face on your face she is filming and showing her press pass and she shouting back press pressure didn't plan to film her own violent arrest but that's exactly what happened before she knew what hit her they came at her from behind and in front of her and they took her down on her face her camera tumbled down in the first thing they did with the camera this pulled the battery out of it if you were wondering what they wanted to stop happening so she's on her face they've got their your boot in her back and they're dragging on her leg so they're bloody in her face sharif who is a very cool guy was saying to the police to the rioting police calm down they took him through i'm up against a wall kicked him twice in the chest bloodying his arm and took him down they faced felony proc felony charges for right sharif and nic and the response was unbelievable they got thousands and thousands of calls e mails tweets faxes within hours i was released and then an hour or two later in a call on trooper to show the power of grassroots response sharif was cell with the a p photographer sharif was released first so then i was brought to the convention to talk about what happened the networks wanted to remain i was in the n b c sky box and when that interview was over an n b c producer came over to me  said i don't get it why wasn't i arrested so i said oh are you covering the protests as well he said no so i said you know like nine like what he allen says ninety percent of life is just showing up i'm not being arrested in the sky box either i mean it's a very nice theory but you've got to get out there and this is very important you know it's our job to get to the convention floor to find out what people are saying what they're thinking what the arguments are inside to get into the corporate suites who is sponsoring these conventions you know the koch brothers sponsoring the public and governors association whose response sponsored the democratic senatorial committee how many rooms i got a door slammed on me because you go in they've got their appetizers in there or dirksen you're reaching for a strawberry and trying to find out who brought you these strawberries and then they kick you out but then you also you also have to get out on the streets where the uninvited guests are the thousands of people who also have something very important to say democracy is a messy thing and it's our job to capture it all and we shouldn't have to get a record when we try to put things on the record the next day the police chief had his news conference chief har and so i went to cover the news conference the officer the officer who opened the door to the news conference was my processing officer the night before so i said you not only have to let me into this news conference you have to let me out when it's done so chief harrington was very proud of the police operation and he talked about how successful it had been so i raised my hand i described what had happened to the three of us i described to my colleagues and bloodied and i said what have you instructed your police officers to do and how do you expect us to operate in this atmosphere he said we could embed with the mobile field force  bed with the police mobile field force the next day i saw a fox reporter with his old fox baseball cap on in the middle of mo by a police moving down the street as a unit together you know i think the whole embedding process you know what they mean by this like reporters embedded in the front lines of troops in iraq and afghanistan i'm not saying reporters aren't brave to do that but i think the embedding process has brought the media to an all time low what do you think you're going to get when your embedded with the troops on the front lines in iraq and afghanistan you're sleeping with them you're eating with them your life is in their hands if you're going to report from there you need reporters embedded in iraqi hospitals and afghan communities in the peace movement around the world to understand the full effects of war we need a media that is independent and they are saying that this flawed model but they are using to cover war is now what we are going to have to use to cover american cities this is simply not acceptable and so you few months ago we settled with a landmark case we not only won we not only settled with this minneapolis st paul police but what with the secret service who rarely get involved with these cases but we had them cold because when they came and they stripped us of our credentials i turned to the police officer who when i asked him to loosen my my handcuffs because i it stopped the circulation my hands and he tightened them when then the secret service pull i said you have no right to take our credentials and he said it's not us so i said you mean it's not messy just came into this and that's the secret service so they have divisions within themselves because he said that that's how we knew that it was the secret service and they are rarely held accountable was very important to take all of them on and they all had to settle with us and what we won from the st paul police was that they would incorporate into their training working with us in the center for constitutional rights in the a c l u to come up with the training around how to deal with reporters in these situations which we felt was absolutely critical as we move into the next republican and democratic conventions in tampa and charlotte and we held a news conference announcing our settlement at occupy wall street because it is not only it is not only the conventions of course but it can't march in the streets of the united states i think the way they're getting around this is simply by militarizing the police and it is very frightening and you don't have to take a chest from me or for any of you who have seen this we were just interviewing norm stamper i mean he is the model he was the former police chief of seattle during the battle of seattle it was quite amazing to be speaking with him he considers what he did there to be his worst mistake to have opened fire on peaceful protesters from teachers to teamsters to high school students the thousands of people in the streets of seattle the precursor to the occupy wall street movement in november of one nine hundred ninety nine and when the police were denying that they were firing rubber bullets at the protesters we were picking them up by the handful c n n dot com was repeating what the police were saying and in the media dot org was now getting more hits on its site than n dot com was we were holding taking pictures of not only of course the rubber bullets but then the pepper spray the tear gas all of the different chemical agents that were being used and norm stamper said he had made a terrible mistake and now he speaks out against this in fact we had him on to talk about how young people were being pepper sprayed all over this country and he we had him on with the head of the police foundation a spokesperson for the police foundation who coordinated a call among police chiefs around the country on how to deal with the occupying camp ment's and he turned and said to norm stamper norm i just want to say what an honor it is to be on with you because we see you as a model and norm stamper said the opposite i am a model of what you should not be doing he said because when we set this up you know the police have gotten since nine eleven something like thirty four billion dollars more in money to militarize they've got their own drones they are getting tanks they are getting it is frightening the level to which they have militarized and he said when you do that when you separate civilian police forces from civilians in this way when they're covered in black uniforms with riot gear or plastic shields plastic face protectors they are an occupying force and it is only going to lead to trouble and i think we have to be very serious as we see this and increasing unrest in this country be very serious about the response we are a civilian society that is run by civilians and we must together determine  how police operate in a civilian society i just want to and with two thoughts one is one of the books that my brother david and i have written is called static and the reason we called it that is because in this high tech digital age with high definition television and digital radio still all the media gives us is static that veil of distortion and lies and misrepresentations and half truths when what the we need the media to give us is the dictionary definition of static and that is criticism opposition unwanted interference we need a media that covers power not covers for power we need a media that is the fourth the state not for the state and we need a media that covers the movements that create static and make history last story i want to share with you is one that's very much on my mind now because we just passed the twentieth anniversary of the massacre at the santa cruz cemetery in east timor and i want to talk about the lesson it leaves us all with i may have even talked about it when i was last in sacramento i rarely give a speech where i don't but talking about movements of peaceful protesters and what they face but ultimately what they can accomplish i don't know if you know the story of timor but in a nutshell east timor was a catholic country occupied by portugal for hundreds of years and in december and then one nine hundred seventy four the portuguese pulled out and indonesia invaded the country in december on december seventh one nine hundred seventy five it's one of the great genocides of the twentieth century they president ford and secretary of state henry kissinger went to indonesia met with suharto the long reigning dictator gave the go ahead for the massacre and they flew out and the next day is so hard to invaded east timor by land by air and by sea they closed east timor to the outside world and they commence the slaughter and for the next quarter of a century they killed off a third of the population of east timor it was proportionately larger slaughter than pole pot in cambodia what he did to his own people we knew about cambodia because cambodia was an official enemy of pol pot was an official enemy of the united states and so the president spoke about him secretary of state spoke about him and you know he was to say the least very bad but indonesia was official friend and so it didn't matter the president ford republican carter democrat reagan republican bush clinton all through these presidents it was a bipartisan affair selling weapons to the indonesian military the fourth largest military in the world as they killed off the people of east timor and my colleague allan nairn and i got a chance to go to east timor in one nine hundred ninety and one nine hundred ninety one twenty years ago country and we went back in october of ninety ninety one because for the first time the un was going to send a human rights delegation to investigate the situation there after seventeen years of the killing and when we got there we went to the main catholic church in delhi the capital of east timor to mars about three hundred miles above australia and we went into the church the women were wailing and i didn't know if it was had gone into the churches because they heard this human rights delegation was going to come from the united nations and they didn't want to be arrested before they came so they were taking sanctuary in the only civilian institutions that were allowed to stand and they were the catholic churches there was no unions they couldn't be in any other place but in churches and so they would take refuge in the churches waiting for the stella geisha and the indonesian military surrounded the main flagship church called the mateo church in delhi and they shot into it and they killed this young man named sebastian boma so the next day the funeral was held for him and a thousand people came out for the funeral not that they all knew sebastian but they knew that the sanctity of their church had been violated and they marched through the streets of timor following the casket and it was the largest sign of civil disobedience the indonesian military ever seen because people put up their hands in the v sign and they shouted be the east timor the the independence and they got to the cemetery they were exhilarated but they were terrified and they went home and then we went around the country to see what would happen when the human rights delegation came and the people were terrorized the military had told everyone if you speak to the delegation we will kill your ninety one we just passed the anniversary two weeks after sebastian was buried there were going to hell the two week commemoration of his death the church mass was held at six in the morning and if hours and people turned out  the mass so they had to hold the communion and the mass outside because there were too many people for the priests inside the church and then when they left the church they retraced their steps to the cemetery and this time the kids and with their catholic school blouses pulled out banners that they made from bedsheets that said things like why the indonesian military shoot our church they peeled to president bush that was george h w bush at the time they peeled to the united nations to everyone they march with these banners through the streets of delhi through this geography of pain where every other building whether it was a police barracks or a military encampment or even a hotel in ten maries had been held had been tortured had been disappeared or two or had been killed and thousands joined in this procession girls with their catholic school uniforms boys with their shorts old women in their traditional he and so many others were buried when they got to the cemetery it was eight in the morning some were praying at this cemetery with too many young people buried there so many had been killed under indonesian  rule and then we saw from the direction the procession of come hundreds of indonesian soldiers marching with their u s m sixteen's at the ready position alan and i were in the middle of the crowd interviewing people saying why are you willing to risk your life and they would say from my mother from my father from my village it was wiped out we saw the soldiers coming up and we decided to move to the front of the crowd because although we knew the military committed many massacres in the past they'd never done it in front of western journalists we'd always hidden our equipment because any to murray's caught talking to a journalist would be disappeared could be tortured could be imprisoned but this time we wanted to make clear who we were so i took my tape recorder out and slung it over my shoulder and held up my microphone like a flag alan put the camera by his head and we walked to the front of the crowd the soldiers who were marching up ten to twelve abreast u s m sixteen's held in front of them and as they marched up the people got very quiet they couldn't go get away because there were walls on either side of the road for the cemetery people the very back could run away but that was and the soldiers marched out they they came around the corner and without any warning without any hesitation without any provocation they opened fire on the crowd gunning people down from right to left a group of them came at us one of them grabbed my microphone was swinging at my face to say this is what we don't want and they slammed me to the ground allen got a photograph of them opening fire and they and then he threw himself on top of me to protect me as i went down and they took their u s m sixteen's like baseball bats and they slam them against his skull until they fractured it so we were laying on the ground allen was covered in blood they were killing everyone around us and then they put the us i'm sixteen is to our head and firing squad fashion and they were shouting two things at us australia and politique politique because they were saying we were political to witness but that is our job as journalists to go to where the signs us they were shouting australia because they were demanding to know if we were from australia we knew how dangerous that was because seventeen years before when indonesia first invaded east timor there were five australian journalists covering the invasion they lined them up against a house in a place called valley bow and they executed them all there was one journalist left from australia named roger east who was reporting from the world from a radio station in delhi the day after the massacre december eighth one thousand nine hundred seventy five and they dragged him out of the radio station as he shouted them from australia they shot him into the harbor with so many thousands of to marie's the australian government hardly protested the killing of their journalist we believe because years later indonesian and australian governments would sign the timor gap treaty dividing up timor soil between australia and indonesia oil is the source of so much pain in the world so seventeen years later november twelfth one thousand nine hundred one as we lay on the ground allen covered in blood the guns to our heads and now stripped us of everything we had nothing left as they shouted australia i shouted back no america america i only had my passport so i threw it at them and i was born in washington d and they saw the passport and i would shout america they kick me in the stomach when i get my breath back i'd say america america and at some point they pulled the guns from our heads we believe because we were from the same country their weapons were from they would have to pay a price for killing us that they had never had to pay for killing the to murray's the soldiers then moved on a red cross jeep pulled up we were able to get into it the driver picked up a man who was in a sewer ditch behind us and the indonesian soldiers were beating him down and every time he put up his hands in the prayer sign they would take the butts of their rifles and smash his face the red cross driver picked him up put him in the jeep and as we drove toward the hospital dozens of to marie's held the jeep stopped it and jumped on top of us on top of the vehicle hanging off the spare tire at the back and we drove as a human mass to the hospital when we got to the hospital the doctors and nurses started to cry when they saw me and alan i believe because i mean we were not in worse shape than the ten maries alan skull was fractured he was a mess but the ten marines who were there who'd been dragged there by their friends or their sisters or their brothers were the lucky to marie's who'd been shot but were not yet dead and they were being operated on i think the doctors and nurses started to cry because of what we represent to the people of timor not just me and alan all of us as americans and not just to the people of timor but to people all over the world i think we represent two things the sword and the shield the sword because all too often the united states uses its own military against another country or gives weapons to a human rights abusing regime like indonesia the shield the sword is the government the shield is the people people all over the world see the american people as their shield and on that day on november twelfth one thousand nine hundred one they saw that shield bloodied and just deep in their despair we left the hospital we figured the indonesian military would soon raid it because it was where the survivors of the massacre where  we ended up at the bishop's house where hundreds of to maries were taking refuge that day had run from the massacre say the bishop help me clean up alan he was covered in blood i had a full head of black hair but under the his hair it was like a helmet of blood underneath we his shirt was covered in blood he gave him a new shirt i took his old shirt and i put it under a towel that the bishop gave me i wrapped it around my waist because we knew they would deny anything happened to us but how could they explain this how could they explain his head and we made our way to the airport at the airport there was one plane that was leaving when we got to the airport the military started to shout because you know we had just come in and the only thing we had i couldn't even show my passport because they had already taken allen's and they want to show anything that they would then ask for his and say we couldn't leave but we demanded to leave we said we had to get on that plane it was either an oversight or they had decided not to kill us and now they wanted us out of the country but we were able to get on that plane and as we flew to bali in bali we made a call to the west to say there's been a massacre in timor we knew we couldn't stop the killing in timor we had to get word to the outside world that was the only place that the pressure could come from that would stop the murder of the murderous indonesian military the indonesian military killed more than two hundred seventy two maries on that day and it wasn't one of the larger massacres in east timor when we got to the united states we held a news conference the national press club not only describe what had taken place but said us weapons had been used a nationwide movement grew up in the united states called the east timor action network and it was remarkable the number of people through those years after nine hundred ninety one call their congress members every call that came in on timor congress members tell us counted as one hundred for something else because it was an obscure issue and yet so many people were now calling in the pressure that was being brought to bear to stop arming human rights abusing regimes in one thousand nine hundred ninety nine the people of timor got to vote for their freedom and a u n sponsored referendum i tried to get in to cover the referendum in the indonesian military caught me when i tried to get through jakarta and they deported me and then i tried to get an bali and they caught me and they deported me but alan didn't get it and he made his way in and it was terrifying what took place the beginning of september one thousand nine hundred ninety nine exhilarating because the people got to vote for their freedom but terrifying because in a sadistic goodbye operation to the people of east timor indonesia burnt east timor to the ground  they killed a thousand more to marie's just during the votes but they voted for their freedom east timor was then handed over to the united main united nations for three years and i may twentieth two thousand and two the people of east timor voted for their that celebrated their independence and i did get to go and for that day i went through australia and and it was an amazing moment speech followed by the rebel leader of east timor long imprisoned by the indonesian as the founding president of an independent east timor stood up and he unfurled the flag of the democratic republic of east timor there was this fireworks display and you could see the light reflected in the tear stained face of the people of east timor this nation of survivors had prevailed they had resisted and they had won at an unbelievably high price and an unacceptably high price a third of their population had been wiped out but they won and they thanked people particularly from the most powerful western nations who heads told their country to stop the flow of weapons to the country that was occupying their ears and it was a lesson to all of us whether we are journalists or teachers pastors preachers doctors nurses students activists artists librarians whether we and who are not and why did you have an their need to be it would be