Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20240622

Upper segregate their city. The history was the history of history was unconstitutional. Amy david simon is back, the Acclaimed Television writer and producer joins us today to talk about his new hbo series show me a hero. As well as norlins 10 years after Hurricane Katrina. He created a series treme after the storm. We will discuss his groundbreaking series the wire, his portrayal of what he describes as rock, unencumbered capitalism in his city of baltimore. And we will hear what happened when simon recently met president obama at the white house. Quite at the front end, to tell you im a huge fan of the wire and i think it is one of the greatest not Just Television shows, but pieces of art in the last couple of decades. I am a huge fan. Amy , today david simon for the hour. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. In news from the campaign trail, republican president ial candidate donald trump has sparked outrage over his decision to remove univision news anchor jorge ramos, one of the nations most influential latino journalists, from a press conference after ramos attempted to ask a question about the trumps plan to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants. [inaudible] next . Who is excuse me, sit down. You were not called. Said down. Sit down. Go ahead. I have a right to ask a question. Know, you dont. You have not been called. Go back to univision. Amy jorge ramos was later allowed back in the News Conference and the two sparred , for nearly 5 minutes over trumps immigration plans. Finally, trump ended the questioning by reminding ramos that he was suing univision for defamation and warning theyre very concerned about it, by the way. Im very good at this. Meanwhile, former ku klux klan leader david duke has offered praise for trumps candidacy and his immigration plan, saying he is the best of the lot. Republican president ial candidate jeb bush has also cast criticized Donald Trumps immigration plan, saying the proposal to build a wall across the entire border between the u. S. And mexico is impossible. The problem with the trump plan is that it is not a conservative plan and it is not practical. It will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. It is not going to happen, either. It is just not possible to do it. The terrain makes it impossible. It is a great soundbite, but it is not defensible interns of a practical policy. Amy bushs comments come one day after he visited the u. S. Mexico border and gave a speech in english and spanish calling for a more moderate immigration plan. Yet his comments there also sparked controversy after he attempted to clarify his use of the word anchor babies by saying that he was referring to asians children. Asian people. I was talking about the specific case of fraud being committed where theres organized efforts and frankly, it is more related to asian people, coming into our country, having children and that organized effort, taking advantage of a noble concept which is birthright citizenship. Amy in more news from texas, a court has stayed the execution of bernardo tercero, who was convicted of fatally shooting a man during an Armed Robbery in 1997, because a witness in his trial says she gave a false testimony. Tercero says his gun accidentally discharged during a struggle inside a houston dry cleaners, killing High School Teacher robert berger. Tercero had been scheduled to be executed today. He would have been the 11th person executed in the state of texas this year. In guatemala the Supreme Court , has approved a request by the Attorney Generals Office to impeach president otto perez molina. The president has faced widespread calls for his resignation amid a growing corruption scandal, which has led to arrests of top officials, including the former vice president. The guatemalan Supreme Court on approved the impeachment request tuesday and passed it along to congress for approval. In afghanistan a series of , explosions at a gas terminal in the western city of herat have killed 10 children and one adult who were living in a nearby camp for displaced people. Authorities say it is not clear whether the explosions were accidental or the result of an attack. Meanwhile, in helmand province, two nato soldiers were killed when men in Afghan Military uniforms opened fire at an army base. Air force Officials Say the United States will soon deploy f22 fighter jets to europe, a move that military analysts see as a signal to russia amid growing tensions between the two countries. The f22 fighter jet is considered the most sophisticated plane in the world. The announcement comes after the pentagon said in june it was set to store heavy weaponry, including tanks, in Eastern Europe for the First Time Since the end of the cold war. The pentagon says the u. S. And turkey have finalized details of a plan to include turkey in the u. S. Led coalition battling the selfproclaimed islamic state. Turkey entered the fight against isil last month, opening up an airbase in the United States and beginning airstrikes against alleged militants in syria. Turkey has also stepped up attacks against the dissident group the kurdish workers party, known as the pkk, inside both turkey and in northern iraq, where the pkk has been fighting against isil for more than a year. Pentagon press secretary peter cook announced the plan for turkey to join the coalition aerial campaign against isil on tuesday. The fact that turkey is now going to be flying alongside with other Coalition Aircraft is a significant step forward, one weve been waiting for. We have been trying to work out these ledges to details. Adjustable details. Amy at the university of illinois at urbanachampaign, 41 department heads, chairs, and directors have signed on to an open letter demanding the reinstatement of professor steven salaita, whose job offer was withdrawn last year after he posted tweets harshly critical of the israeli assault on gaza. The letter demands acting the former chancellor, phyllis wise resigned two weeks , ago after she was implicated in a scandal that involved hiding emails detailing salaitas ouster. The California Academy of sciences has announced the institution will divest from fossil fuels following a campaign demanding the nations top five museums cut all ties with the industry. The call to action was launched friday by 350. Org and the Natural History museum, a new mobile museum that champions climate action. Meanwhile, in washington, at least 20 people were arrested in front of secretary of state john kerrys home during an action to protest the expansion of a tar sands pipeline owned by Canadian Energy company enbridge. Protesters accused the state department and enbridge of negotiating a backroom deal to permit an expansion of the Alberta Clipper pipeline, which carries tar sands from alberta, canada to a terminal in superior, wisconsin. One of the worlds most influential scientists, james hansen, has said that developing the tar sands would be game over for the climate. Usa today is reporting that the pentagons ban on transgender troops could end as early as next may, according to a document the newspaper has obtained. It is expected that the repeal of the ban could affect as many as 12,000 transgender troops. The black lives Matter Movement held protests in at least 14 cities tuesday to draw attention to what organizers are calling the National Crisis of violence against transgender women. At least 17 transgender women have been murdered this year. The majority are transwomen of color. Tuesday night, crowds gathered for rallies in washington, d. C. , san francisco, los angeles, portland, brooklyn, atlanta, nashville, and other cities chanting, say her name, and reciting the names of transwomen killed this year. And in texas, the Prairie View City Council has approved a measure to rename one of the citys central thoroughfares the sandra bland parkway in honor of the 28yearold African American woman who was found dead in a Waller County jail cell following her arrest last month. Sandra bland was arrested on july 10 by texas state trooper brian encinia, who alleged that bland failed to signal a lane change. Police dash cam video of her arrest shows encinia forcibly removing bland from her car and threatening to light her up and she can later be heard accusing police of slamming her head into the ground. Authorities have said bland committed suicide in jail, a claim her family has disputed. On tuesday, hundreds of people marched from Sandra Blands alma mater prairie view a m university to city hall. Hours later, the City Council Approved the plan to rename the street where bland was pulled over sandra bland parkway. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Today we spend the hour with david simon, the man behind the wire, what some have described as the best Television Series ever broadcast. Nearly a decade ago in slate, Jacob Weisberg wrote no other program has ever done anything remotely like what this one does, namely to portray the social, political, and Economic Life of an American City with the scope, observational precision, and moral vision of great literature. President obama met with simon earlier this year and described himself as a big fan. At the front end, ive got to take, im a huge fan of the wire. I think this one of the greatest not Just Television shows, but pieces of art in the last couple of decades. I was a huge fan of it. Amy president obama speaking during a meeting in march with david simon. In the wire, david simon captured the city of baltimore from the angles of streetlevel drug dealers, Beat Police Officers journalists covering , corrupt politicians. David simon created the show show how raw, unencumbered capitalism devalues human beings. He created the show after leaving the Baltimore Sun. The wire helped launch a new National Discussion about the failings of the criminal Justice System and the socalled war on drugs. In 2011, then attorney general eric holder urged simon to do another season of the wire. Simon responded that he was prepared to do so if the Justice Department would reconsider and address its continuing prosecution of our misguided, destructive and dehumanizing drug prohibition. Well, after the wire ended, david simon went go on to create treme, looking at new orleans after Hurricane Katrina. In 2010, simon was awarded a macarthur genius award. In a statement summarizing his work the macarthur foundation, said with the nuance and scope of novels, simons recent series have explored the constraints that poverty, corruption and broken social systems place on the lives of a compelling cast of characters, each vividly realized with complicated motives, frailties, and strengths. David simons latest project is titled, show me a hero. It is a sixpart miniseries now airing on hbo. It looks at what happened in yonkers, new york in the 1980s when the city was faced with a federal court order to build a small number of lowincome Housing Units in the white neighborhoods of his town. Dont tell anybody, but i always wanted to be the mayor. I use to talk about it all the time growing up. The kids used to call me the mayor. It wasnt a compliment. The city intentionally segregated its housing for 40 years. The whole damn City Government is white. Once to take lowincome housing and put it in east yonkers. Trying to shove down our throats. I live here and im nothing like what they describe. What are you going to do . Its that guy from yonkers asking if you can get any help from the state of new york. These people. You wanted to live somewhere better, but everything has a cost. Recognize youru failure as a leader. People were angry at you . Its all Property Values and life and liberty. Underneath it all, its fear. I played into that fear, to. Quite a year for you, mr. Mayor. Justice is not about popularity. No, its not, but politics is. Highlights from the new miniseries, show me a hero. It is great to have you with us. And us the story of yonkers desegregation. Well, it was one of the first places where a new generation of Public Housing policy was undertaken, which is to say there were a lot of mistakes that happened in the 1950s and 1960s, 1940s even come in terms of construction of Public Housing. Condensing everything in the highrise projects or mass sort of messing cars running your poor mass incarcerating your poor. Robert taylor in chicago or my city and baltimore it proved incredibly destructive and destabilizing to those neighborhoods. And it creates a most permanent ghettos. And so the new revolutionist began in yonkers, which is to say a few units here, if you units there, do not to stabilize the neighborhood. Truly try to integrate your poor into the rest of society. It actually was quite revolutionary that was successful. Unfortunately, everybody who heard 200 units had to be built in white areas because of a court settlement, imagined the past and not the future. It aroused incredible white anger in the late 1980s and early 1990s, incredible of people. You could not convince anyone to risk even the slightest of their Property Values or of the status quo in order to try to achieve the results. So yonkers blew up. In winning the victory that they did, the cost, the political cost was so exhausting that it wasnt replicated elsewhere around the country. Amy lets go to another clip from show me a hero. It shows one of the heated meetings in yonkers over Public Housing. Dont you dare dont you dare as indicated by last vote, repeal the Affordable Housing of the judges order to the Supreme Court you coward. [boos] [cheers] no. No. No. Abstain. Amy and there you have one of those moments. Lets go back, david simon. Talk about what forced the desegregation . It was a court ruling by a federal court that was upheld ultimately by the Supreme Court. Amy a lawsuit brought by the naacp . A yes, the original suit was 1979 out of the Carter Administration and in the naacp joined it as a friend of the court. It wasnt settled completely until 2007, thats how long the litigation took for. Took. What was proven beyond any doubt, it was upheld by eventwo reagan appointees, but it was proven that yonkers, like most amerco cities, used the federal housing money to purposefully and willfully segregate the lowincome housing. These differ racial segregation. The case was proven by going back even to the minutes of the Housing Authority for decades, youd hear people saying bluntly, well, dont put it anywhere else but here, we dont want blacks moving into that neighborhood or the standard, keep it so they built every single unit in one square mile. Amy they used federal money to further segregate the city. Anyone who has read the Promised Land or notably, recently, Tanehisi Coates reparations piece in the atlantic, the case is definitive that just definitive that the country as a whole has used social engineering to create this hyper summer gated world. We have done this as a matter of policy, of plan, purpose for the last 40, 50 years of to this point. Here comes the naacp and the Justice Department that basically says, look, you took the money and you did this contrary to brown v board of education, this is plessis burqas placebo versus ferguson. This is depriving people of their institutional rights. The remedy was desegregate your Public Housing stock. They asked to build 200 units in a city of 200,000 on the white side of the Sawmill River parkway. Amy and it was going to be a different places. That is the part that alluded the opponents, which were there were people who have learned something about Public Housing and the mistakes of Public Housing and this very active hyper segregating all of your poor and one small area. It was the beginning of scattered site housing and Defensible Space theory and a lot of things that actually work in terms of integrating the poor with the rest of society. Inigo what is the difference between segregation and hyper segregation . Degree. I would say certainly, when you singleing to place every person of color in a context where there are not interacting with the rest of society, if you were to go to look at the highrise projects, which are still there in west yonkers, they are actually built in his incredible goalie in the middle of west yonkers with a high retaining wall so that theres a 20 foot retaining wall around it. You look at it and you realize the poor are being made amy it is like a walled in community. It is like in a gulley and theres a 20 foot wall that surrounds it. It is so segregated from the rest of yonkers that the intent is absolutely clear, which is, lets make no mistake, this is where we took the money for the housing by the way, lets be honest, the reason the city started taking the federal money is these projects originally, the ones before that, the low rises in every city, they are for white people. They were for people struggling to hold Families Together at the end of the depression and some of the early projects go back to the 1930s. Particular, after world war ii, they were for returning veterans. They were heralded as a viable and advantageous federal policy. It was only when a gravitated to people of color, when they became the next immigrant wave either from the south or other countries, that it became problematic clinically. Amy i want to go to another clip from show me a hero does look a representative speaks with mary dorman, a main character in show me a hero played by an older east yonkers resident. As a began to explain, iran a group called the Housing Education relocation enterprise. We have been commissioned by the yonkers Housing Authority to help these tenants move into their new homes. And to do so in the best possible way for the tenants and for the existing neighborhood residents. We intend to make sure what is going to happen, happens the best possible way for everyone. May i ask, mrs. Dorman, how do you feel about the housing presently . Honestly . But of course. Honestly, i dont believe in it. You dont believe in the purpose of the housing, you dont believe the housing is coming to your neighborhood . I dont believe in the idea i know the housing is coming. It is. Pardon me. You are exactly right, it is going to happen. And what is left for all of us to decide is exactly what it will be, or more importantly, perhaps, what it will not be. Amy this woman, mary dorman, is ever interesting figure, one of the leading activist against desegregation who begins to change, david simon. She had an incredible journey. I got to meet her before she passed. We started research on this project back in about 2002, 2003. Amy based on a book. We worked on the scripts. We felt the need to get the voices as well as the prostory. Bill, particularly, dug into this story. Of course, he met mary. Telling a fascinating story about reading to marry her book which was finished with the manuscript. Herself froms of which was one of the most vocal speakers, denies those things. We had to go back and show her the hearings and protests. Mary at that point and not recognize herself, did not record highs the earlier version of herself. She was astonished. It really was a heros journey for her. Catherine keener plays her so beautifully. Amy you show the wrath of this section, the segment of the White Community against desegregation. People think it is hyperbolic that we exaggerated it. All you have to do there are documentaries, film footage of the councils. Were going verbatim. Amy what about the black community and where they stood on this . Theres a point early on where i think he was the leader of the naacp, sort of throwing up his hands and saying, this is even is this even worth it anymore, 200 houses . There was a level of exhaustion. At the time we come into the story, were at 1987. There had been a remedy ordered in 1985. The case has dragged on for six years. There have been repeated attempts to settle the case out of court that had failed because Yonkers City Council cannot even approve one unit of Public Housing anywhere. Even more than nine theres one settlement that called for only 100 units, but the council vetoed that. Youre talking about a level of exhaustion on the part of black activists that by 1987, the attorney, uncle susman, he told us he clearly felt as if the fact this was incredible president , legal president they had established in the cities that did this, where the remedy had to be an attempt to ofegregate, even on the part the advocates, there was a level of exhaustion because of the resistance. And there is to this day. Yonkers, if you go to the town houses they built, they are not a source of additional crime. They did not bring down the neighborhoods. The Property Values remained pretty constant. In fact, they are increasing now availability,nkers a sort of renaissance downtown. That is the victory on the ground. The emotional cost of it, i mean, the same dynamic in dallas right now, going on right now. And the federal government doesnt have hud does not have the stomach to fight it through. Theyre basically pulling up stakes and giving up on the case. Amy the judge force this through by basically saying, we will bankrupt yonkers if you dont follow through. Yonkers was in contempt. At a certain point, there have been a decision coming to been killed, the appealed was upheld. Yonkers still was in obeying the federal court order. Federal judge has remarkable power of the wants to use it to enforce an order and yonkers he was going to fine the city to the point of bankruptcy and yonkers still could not approve housing. Amy youre not seeing the backbone of obamas hud, the Obama Administration in dallas . Not in dallas. I think theyre using these last years effectively. I think the opening up of the data from local groups to pursue these cases on their own i think is a very effective thing they have done. But i think in dallas, i would have to say youre seeing a lack of backbone. If you think these problems that we did something that is 25 years old and it is an anachronism, two towns up the hudson, the same rhetoric and demagoguery from the same guys running for office claiming they can someway turn back this decision. Theyre finding it in terry town now instead of yonkers. Ran on annkers, he antidesegregation platform and simply because of the judge saying whos going to bankrupt the city it was an amoral awakening, though it came to be one, it seems. T weo spent a lot of time talking to his widowo. He came to see in the beginning what it was, it was a political opportunity to run to the right of the existing mayor who is ready to comply. Nick was arguing they should still exhaust every possible even though everyone knew there was no grounds for appeal. I was a couple of weeks before his nine duration after he won, the call comes from the lawyers and they say, we lost the appeal, is got to do it. Nick had to turn round to the voters and say, i know what i ran on, but we lost the case and now we have to build the units. That was not well received. Amy what captured your imagination . I mean, you dig in, you throw yourself completely into these projects. In a moment, were going to talk about new orleans and treme and then the wire. I thought this piece theres been a lot of writing about the immigrant pathology of race and it is an overlay on all of our urban problems, our failure to deal with it. I mean, it remains in the 21st century as the most fundamental question of, even if we dont get this right, it is problematic were going to get the city right. If we dont do the city right, i dont see how the society becomes anything but second rate because we are in urban people. If you have read anything about andconstruct of segregation what it is done in terms of creating these two separate americas, andrew hackers book or the Promised Land there was just so much reporting that basically says, this is the great stumbling block of american society. It is what we have wasted in a credible amount of treasure, time, and lives because we cant get this right. Amy where talking to david simon for the hour, the former Baltimore Sun journalist. The Baltimore Sun figures currently in remarkable series spent a lotnd also of time in new orleans. Were going to talk about treme next. It is the 10th anniversary of katrina. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We are spending the hour with david simon, the Acclaimed Television writer, producer. Ten years ago this week, Hurricane Katrina struck the gulf coast. Killing more than 1800 people. Looks after the storm. Here is actor john goodman, playing the character creighton bernette, being interviewed by a British Television reporter after the storm. The flooding of new orleans was an inmate catastrophe, a federal [blee] of epic for for since epic proportions. The levees were not blown, not in 1965 and not three months ago. The flood Protection System built by the army corps of engineers, a. K. A. The federal government, failed and we have been saying for the last 40 years since betsy that it was going to fail again unless something was done stop and guess what . It was not. Searcy, daddy, youre going to stroke out. Alone. Levees werent the floodgates failed, the canal walls failed, the pumps failed all of which were supposed to be built to withstand a much greater storm. Are you suggesting criminal liability. Absolutely. Federal, state, local government, the contractors who used substandard materials and the politicians that they have in their pockets. Amy that is a clip from treme and it was john goodman playing creighton bernette. Your thoughts on where new orleans is today and what youre doing with treme . From new orleans would probably be better equipped to give you an assessment of the city in detail. Wasid treme because i sort of surprised after the wire there were a lot of people who watched it and came to the sort of, i thought, myopic conclusion that we were arguing against the city were against Good Governance in a city or the idea where the city is the american future. There was a lot of, well, baltimore is moved up, messed up, why dont they move . And i live in baltimore. Moved to where . This is our future and we either solve this or we dont. I was a little astonished at some of the neoliberal juvenilia that greeted that storytelling. I wanted to make an argument for the city. So heres this place that have been one of americas culturally iconic places, a source of great cultural power in american life. In fact, in terms of the world. 80 destroyed. And now had to come back. Spent a lotr, and i of time down there, we decided to tend to what actually happened after the storm in what seem to be bringing new orleans back in what seemed to be working and not working. We tried to take careful notes and try to follow the actual narrative of what the arguments were in with the struggles were in new orleans. We tried to make a show around that. It really was an argument for the city. It was saying, look at what is possible. In the city is a compact of multicultural experience because that aspect of america or vanity has given the world may be the greatest gifts we have the offer. Jazz music. African American Music comes from about 10 square blocks in new orleans. If we were wiped off the face of the earth right now, and there was nothing left of us but what is on jukeboxes everywhere from johannesburg to timbuktu or, you know, kuala lumpur them everywhere you go, there is an American Music on the juke were in the bar or in the bar, that is new orleans. That is legacy of new orleans. It is one of our great gifts. It can only happen in a place that is decidedly american, that has the crosscurrents of european, african, caribbean culture. It can only happen here. It is probably the most patriotic piece i will ever do. Amy like the wire, your dylan with normans from every different angle. After Hurricane Katrina, five Police Officers were accused of shooting and killing two unarmed people and wounding four others on the danziger bridge. The officers were convicted in 2011 but the convictions were later vacated. Earlier this month, a federal Appeals Court ruled the officers are entitled to a new trial. You address the danziger bridge in treme. Indirectly. Amy this features Police Officer terry colson. Are you hear about my kinder . The rumor mill has him lying about danziger. Aint he . Hunt, this danziger mess is right up our [blee[] i was right there when issued to kill looters came down. You can sleep on it, you can do it. That is what they told us. I know they put that out there, even if they wont admit it now. It was a bad shoot, but while i . But why lie . All that to do is say they follow the order. Anything after that, might be bad police work, but it aint illegal. The storm is a mess, you know. And i dont doubt some bad [bleep] happened. But was it that intent . You cant look back. We need to deal with the here and now. Amy a clip from treme. You said loosely based on danziger bridge incident. I think we referenced danziger and i look because the prosecution was ongoing, but actually, for most the way we dealt with that was to do we did a fictional shooting that was basically comprised of details from five or six Different Police shootings, either in the immediate aftermath of katrina there ublicalot of great propl reporting on the deaths in algiers. The Police Department was under great stress during the storm, was involved in any number of civil rights violations. Amy in out years, we were there and there was a dead body laying in the street, which we filmed. We tried to get every level of authority to come over we were right there and they were passing us on the street. Data shooting of somebody in algiers they would not investigate their own shooting. Publica reporting was astonishing. Youre dealing with a Police Department with a long strip civil rights violations. I covered up Police Department in baltimore for about 15 years that has a long history of problems. The in opd as i encountered it, there was not a professional egos in the years running up to katrina, they had a phenomenal problem with civil rights issues, phenomenal problem with criminal prosecution. And katrina hit a very vulnerable Police Agency that i think in some respects cracked during the storm. Stillhe prepared prepared to bend of the storm. Traumatic. E afterwards, there was a real reluctance on the part of not just the state and local people to investigate i think the Louisiana State police did a good investigation of some of the stuff in algiers. Government did not really get involved in looking at the civil rights stuff until the change of administration. They were kind of hamstrung until the Obama Administration came in and all of a sudden, jim in, who had been chasing suddenly got interested and her Democratic Administration and started looking at some of these shootings. It was quite belated. Amy were going to go to break. When we come back, talk about the wire and her meeting with president obama at the white house and more will step even get into the president ial politics because one of the candidates is from your city, from baltimore. Uhoh. Amy this is democracy now david simon,g with longtime reporter at the Baltimore Sun. Stay with us. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. Our guest for the hour is the Acclaimed Television writer, producer, journalist david simon. You like that song . I love it. Amy youre doing a new project . He was a fan of the American Musical of all things, and he came to myself and my wife laura and a writer i work with and he was interested in seeing if their music to be adapted for an American Musical or should say for a musical. We went to work on it. The draft we currently have sufficient merit at the public up as athey have picked project to work on and try to develop. Wireets talk about the about the city of baltimore, your city, which has been has been the wire described as the best show on television, the best Television Series ever broadcast. Usa today called it astounding. It was known for creatively explaining some of the most conflicts prince pulls of capitalism and industry. This is a conversation between three streetlevel drug dealers about who is really profiting from mcdonalds chicken mcnuggets. Good with the hot sauce, too. Most definitely. Want some nuggets . Not really. Man, whoever made these, off the hook. Getting their fingers all greasy. He said, make some real money. Why . Do they get a percentage . Why not . Please, the man who invented them things, just some sad ass down at the basement of mcdonalds. Making money for the role players. Int right. Re you think Ronald Mcdonald is going to say, hey, mr. Know it, you the bomb. We are selling chicken faster take the bone out. So im going to write my clownyass and on a check for you. Still working for minimum wage. Please. Still have the idea though. A clip from the wire. That is pretty much microeconomics. Capitalism as it actually exists. Amy talk about what youre chirico itthe wire is a huge cult following. If i had to put it in a paragraph, it is a city in which a writ game is demonstrated and power outs itself in many routes itself away from our characters. It is a critique of modern capitalism, of our unencumbered capitalism or are only modestly income capitalism as the case may be. It is also a more practical sort of it is an argument against the drug war and the over policing of the poor. I thought if you get a coalition of thing, maybe if you get an argument started about the drug war because having covered it for most of my time as a reporter, is probably the Biggest Issue i covered. Theres nothing about it that was functional. Addressing in terms of illegal the bad drugs do, i had very little effect on and instead became a war on the poor. I did not believe that a first. I came to a sort of innocently as a young reporter, but by the time i finished covering it and written and in the work i had done, i was against its policy. It was a critique of the drug war, specifically. But overlaying that was an argument we have created almost by wilbys two separate americas and economic roles only apply to one, dont work in the other and we know that and were comfortable with it. Talk about two different americas. You say your country, america, is a horror show. You have been quoted as saying that. In terms of my country is a lot of different things. I am an american. I wish to a firm as an american. But economically, politically, socially, the fact that we are these two separate americas traveling to stick the different halves i live in baltimore. I live in a city that i love. I live 20 blocks away from the world of the wire and, i mean, just on a level of violence, my chance of being murdered in baltimore, being white, is the same as if i was living in omaha, nebraska right now. It doesnt matter that i live in baltimore. I live in downtown baltimore. It does not matter. If i was a black male between think,s of 16 and 45, i said would be the second leading cause of death. The outcomes in these different places that are so predicated on the economic privations and on black power and the fact that the entire Industrial Base which used to support my city has moved elsewhere and is not part of our economy in the more and what remains behind anymore and what remains behind, it serves some of us, and it doesnt even reach no remote connection to the lives of others. We are building these two separate societies in a credible proximally incredible hot committee to each other. Amy i want to go to her meeting with president obama at the white house after he praised her work on the wire saying it was show. Vorite Television President obama discuss the fallout from the u. S. Crackdown on nonviolent drug offenses. The consequence of that was this massive trend towards incarceration, even of nonviolent drug offenders. And i saw this during the period you were reporting and then starting to write for television. I saw this from the perspective of the state legislature, this explosion of incarcerations, disproportionately africanamerican and latino. And the challenge, which you depict in your show, is folks go state,eat expense to the many times trained to become more hardened criminals while in prison, compound and are basically just come out and are basically unemployable and end ooping back in, permanently part of america. To look at it, when i came in as a police reporter, the federal prison population was about 34 violent offenders. When i left as a police reporter, 13 years later, about 7 . These were less violent people getting longer sentences of course, there was the elimination of parole and good time. All you had was good time. People were staying in. You are right, they come back out completely tarred. They cant vote, that lost track of families, families of been destroyed, communities upended. If it was this to akoni and and it worked, the maybe we could have a discussion is that what were doing is working. It is terrible and were losing a lot of humanity, but hey, it is working. It doesnt work. Amy david simon at the white house with president obama. How did that meeting, about . It was a shock to me. I had agreed on was reluctantly to participate in a bipartisan illar on reducing i guess prison population, about 50 that have been sponsored not only by some democratic factions, but by newt gingrich, by the Koch Industries people. It had a chance in the next 18 months of getting some traction on capitol hill. Simply because every side realizes for Different Reasons that this level of incarceration is insane, that we cant sustain it. The conservatives are looking at a because of the cost. This month prison this much prison construction. We have led astray by the prisons and the Prison Industrial Complex in the drug some conservatives are getting off the train now. And theyre willing to give the Obama Administration victory because it is a lameduck it wont extend to the next they wont amy do you think obama is doing things he wasnt willing to do but of course does because of legislation . I dont the chemist with the drug war in the last term and i dont think he would do it until after the midterms and i think now youre saying this is a loss leader terms of political capital. Nobody wants to be portrayed as being soft on crime. So i think now is the time to do it. Now is the window. They asked me to do this. Once i agreed, all of a sudden, the president was going to send some remarks or videotaped remarks to this event i was going to. Instead, i was invited to the white house to have this 15 minute discussion with him. I wore a tie. Amy i noticed. I were a suit for the first time the next time i might be being buried the next time you see me in a suit. I did everything i could because, listen, i was happy to be a microphone stand for this, which if i have an opinion about anything after all of these years of reporting and storytelling, the drug war has to end. Amy i want to go back to the ise, the main theme which the relationship between the police and especially looking at freddie gray today, between the police and the guys, the kids on the corner. Get your hands on the wall. We aint done nothing. Stash, you your crew mean . Are a truant. Today is saturday. Try wednesday. Officer [bleep] we need to block every lane here. Shut it down, this is a police operation. Im not telling you again. Tony, calm down. If you could move your car for just a little bit. Im trying to get [indiscernible] amy we are the police. The officer throws one of the young men into the back of a police van, pretty chilling scene given what has transpired in baltimore and with the death of freddie gray. But this was a regular practice during the years of zerotolerance policing between 1999 and 2007 in baltimore when Martin Omalley, the president ial candidate, was mayor. In 2005 alone, the Police Department made more than 100,000 arrests in a city of just 640,000 people. How did zerotolerance affect the city, and what did it do for omalleys career . And what are your views of Martin Omalley running for president . The drug war as a whole, we find a war, you need an enemy. That is what the drug war did, there always fundamental problems of policing in the innercity between Baltimore Department and communities, but there was at least some basic code of logic as to who went in the back of a police van. The drug war slowly eroded that come even before marty became mayor. And then martis first year as mayor, i was impressed his first year we had a very good Police Commissioner who was very good at locking up the right people. Unlocking the right people up, taking out the right trash, that is what a good Police Department does. Joe leavy has a book that came out last your, makes a very powerful argument that in some ways, the innercity is both under policed and over policed. Over policed on all of the stuff that is much like that that is basically harassment and sort of a beleaguered community that is being sort of affront it on all sides over small stuff that is related to sort of clearing corners and the drug war. And when it comes to, you know, again, black lives matter and the most phenomenal sense in terms of the rate of violent, those crimes dont get solved. They dont get attended to. Clearance rates for murder in places like compton or was baltimore are extraordinarily low. They are in the 30s. Where is the rest of america does in the 60s or 70s. So they dont get the policing they need, they get the policing they dont need. Marty came in the first year and was very admirable. Then nor slept for reasons that are complicated noris left for reasons that are complicated. Was almost as if you can i get the reductions in the murder rate he promised as a candidate in the next three or four years were, lets just throw everybody in the back of a vein. If you think im exaggerating, read the aclu suit the city settled because it did not matter who you were. He did not matter if you are sitting on your own stupid or schoolteacher or summit coming home from work. If you look at a cop the wrong way in baltimore and those three central years when marty was trying to become governor, you went in the back of a police van and taken down to the city jail, held overnight. The were trying to clear corners because they lost the framework for Actual Police work. They did not know how to solve crimes anymore, but they did know how to fill wagons. You go downtown to the city jail and they would ask you to sign a form that would say, i wont sue. They would say, we will let you go now if you sign the form. If you dont, we will keep you longer. Amy and your sense of him running for president . He is done some things i admire, gay rights, ending the death penalty. The notion he reduced crime by doing that is just a lie. Amy david simon, thank you for spending this time, journalist, television writer, best known for creating the wire and treme and his latest project, show me a hero. That does it for our broadcast. [captioning made possible by democracy now ] you know, one of those things that really cant be expressed in words . Well, here on global spirit, we try to talk about what cant really be talked about, so listen closely to what the rabbi, the monk, and the sufi have to say, and decide for yourself. Just settle back and join our trusted guide and host, phil cousineau, for a mostly mystical episode of global spirit, the first internal travel series. [mystical music]