Democracy Now! Monday, September 7, 2026

0:00From New York, this is democracy now. And let me also thank all of you for coming out to celebrate 30 years of democracy now. Without democracy now, I do not know where we would be today. Today is special broadcast. We air highlights from democracy now's 30th anniversary celebration featuring Angela Davis, Patty Smith, Massab Abutoha, Michael Steint, Hurray for the Rift Wrap, Juan Gonzales, Nermeen Chere, and a surprise appearance by the boss, Bruce Springsteen. Fast winner, the federal troops brought death and terror into the streets of Minneapolis.

1:01They picked the wrong city. All that and more coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. In late March, over 2,000 people packed into the historic Riverside Church in New York to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Democracy Now. Today in this special, we bring you highlights from the evening. Let's go back to that night. It is our absolute honor to welcome you all here to Democracy Now's 30th anniversary. It is hard to contemplate a celebration at this time. Amidst the U.S. Israeli war on Iran and other armed conflicts rising authoritarianism, power, hungry, billionaires, and the worsening climate catastrophe.

2:06But gatherings like this are essential. To remind us that the gathering storm, despite the forces of oppression that threaten us all on the planet, there is a force more powerful. And that is all of you gathered here tonight at Riverside Church, but in all over this country and around the world of people joining together, organizing for peace and justice. It was in this very sanctuary here in Riverside Church that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his famous speech, Fion Vietnam, a time to break silence. On April 4, 1967, a year to the day before he was assassinated in Memphis, King called

3:11out in that speech the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government, he said. Dr. King warned when machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people. The giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. How prescient he was. And you know at the time King was attacked viciously and publicly for opposing the war. Life magazine accused him in an editorial of betraying the cause for which he has worked for so long, adding his speech was a demagogic slander that sounded like a script from Radio Hanhoye. King though was unturged and his commitment to peace despite enormous pressure to back

4:14off should be a lesson for us all today. Yes, tonight is a celebration, not only of 30 years of democracy now, but of the resilience of people and movements we strive to cover in this country and around the world. This is such an honor to be here with you and to be with my colleagues, Juan Gonzales and Rumiensche and the whole family. It's turned to an excerpt of the speech of democracy now's Juan Gonzales. It has truly been a privilege and an honor to work with all these colleagues and to be welcomed into the homes of you, our audience for so many years. My modest contribution as a part-time host and secretary treasurer of the board of Pacific people all these years was to shed light not so much on the who, what, where and when

5:19of the news, but on the why and how. The historical context and broader framework of social forces underlying those events. All of our achievements, however, have always been bittersweet for me. For even as the show has thrived and even as platforms for news and information, including progressive and independent ones have proliferated, the American public's consciousness has plummeted when it comes to the malevolent, destructive and barbaric role of US imperialism, whether in its neoliberal or its fascist management form. In our contemporary world, morality, decency, the quest for peaceful resolution of conflict, empathy for the weak and the powerful, are branded as weaknesses, while bomb-ass, cruelty, patriarchy, the frenzy for obscene profits, hate, torture, outright fraud and lies are celebrated

6:19as signs of strength and power. Sadly, reporting the truth is important. But it is not sufficient to make a better world possible, especially when capitalism with artificial intelligence and internet bots has mastered to previously unimaginable levels the mass production of this information and alternative realities. Indian only organizing resistance of working class and oppressed peoples of the world strengthened by yes, by revolutionary analysis can bring about a better world. I want to introduce now and more appropriate to perform after Juan Gonzales, then hooray for the riff-riff, with the Bronx born Alinda Segala, the band's new album has just come out. It's called Live Forever.

7:20This song, Palante, was featured in the short New York Times documentary Takeover about the young lords who took over Lincoln Hospital in 1970. Palante means onwards or as Juan says, right on. I just want to go to work, get back home, be something. I just want to fall in line, to my time, be something. I just want to prove my worth on the planet Earth, be something.

8:24I just want to fall in love and now ruin it and feel something. Well lately, I don't understand what I am. Treat it as a fool, not quite a woman or a man. Well I don't know, I guess I don't understand the plan. I'm kind of nice and hypnotized, be something. Sterilized, dehumanized, I'll be something. They tell you take your pain, but stay out the way. Go be something. They tell you do your best, forget the rest, be something.

9:25Well lately, it's been mighty hard to see. Just searching for my lost humanity. I look for you, my friends, but do you look for me? Well lately, I'm not too afraid today. I want to leave it all behind. I think about it some times. And lately all my time's been moving slow. I don't know where I'm going to go. Just give me time, and I'll know.

10:26Oh, in a day, now, oh, in a day. Now I will come along. Oh, in a day, now, oh, in a day. Now I will come along. Oh, I will come along. This is Harei for the Riff Ruff. We'll be back.

11:29I think about it. And you'll have a hard, we say, but I'm there. And you'll love you, right? But I'm there. And you'll try and choose a fight, but I'm there. And I'll go along. To the earth under our feet, but I'm there. So resistance in the street, but I'm there. To the children of the world, but I'm there. To the poles of Palestine, but I'm there. To the dream that I can never die, but I'm there.

12:32So long again, before you say, but I'm there. So long again, before you say, but I'm there. Harei for the Riff Ruff, that democracy now is 30th anniversary celebration. This is democracy now, democracynow.org. I'm Amy Goodman. We turn now to the Pulitzer Prize winning Palestinian writer and poet Masab Abutoha. He was led Gaza with his family in December 2023, after he was detained by Israeli forces for two days. He was close friends with the Palestinian poet Rafat Al-Aliyad, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2023. This is Masab Abutoha speaking at Riverside Church.

13:33Thank you so much. Thank you, Amy, and one. These are very hard to broken moments. There's no language that can describe my feelings listening to my dear friend Rafat. He's somewhere else better than this ugly world that we are trying all of us to survive. It was October 12, 2023, when I had my interview with Amy, I was still in our house in Gaza. This house has been a heap of rubble since October 30, 2023. Just two days after the interview I did with Amy on October 12, Israel killed 30 members of my extended family, including my great uncle Khadr Abutoha, his wife, his children, the wife of his children. The grand children, the youngest was four years old.

14:33That same Khadr was the only one in my family who was interested in doing the family tree. I ended up doing his family tree after he was killed. That's something that I kept doing, unfortunately, to document the genocide that Israel perpetrated not only against Palestinians, but the Palestinian families. Israel has erased thousands of hundreds of families in Gaza, including some of my relatives, some of whom remain under rubble even now. Under the rubble. She slept on her bed, never woke up again. Her bed has become her grave, attuned beneath the ceiling of her room, the ceiling, a synotaph, no name, no year of birth, no year of death, no epitaph, only blood and a smashed picture of Raymond ruin next to her.

15:35In Jabalya camp, a mother collects her daughters of flesh in a piggy bank hoping to buy her a plot on a river in a faraway land. A group of mute people were talking sign when a bomb fell, they fell silent. It rained again last night, the new plant looked for an umbrella in the garage. The bombing got intense, and our house looked for a shelter in the neighborhood. I leave the door to my room open, so the words in my books, the titles, and names of authors and publishers could flee when they hear the bombs. I became homeless once, the streets, the rubble of my city covered the streets. They could not find a stretcher to carry your body. They put you on a wooden door, they found under the rubble, your nibbles, a moving wall.

16:35The scars on our children's faces will look for you. Our children's amputated legs will run after you. He left the house to buy some bread for his kids, news of his death made at home but not the bread. No bread. Death sits to eat whoever remains of the kids. No need for a table, no need for bread. A father wakes up at night, sees the random colors on the walls drawn by his four-year-old daughter. The colors are about four feet high next year, they would be five. But the painter has died in an air strike. There are no colors anymore. There are no walls. I changed the order of my books and the shelves. Two days later, the war broke out. Beware of changing the order of your books. What are you thinking? What are you thinking? What are you? You? Is there still you? You there?

17:37Where should people go? Should they build a big ladder and go up? At the heaven has been blocked by the drones and ifs and the smoke of death. My son asks me whether when we return to Gaza, I could get him a puppy. I say I promise if we can find any. I ask my son if he wishes to become a pilot when he grows up. He says he wants to wish to draw bombs on people and houses. When we die, our souls leave our bodies, take with them everything they love in our bedrooms, the perfume bottles, the makeup, the necklaces, and the pens. In Gaza, our bodies and rooms get crushed. Nothing remains for the soul. Even our souls remain stuck under the rubble for weeks, now for years. For Gaza, for Rifat al-Arair, for all our loved ones, those who were killed, those who were surviving in the streets and tents.

18:47For my three sisters who are in Gaza right now. For my beloved ones who remain under the rubble, while we are speaking for a free Palestine. And the sun is shining, and the sun is shining. And the sun is shining, and the sun is shining. I feel the light shining. For my two sisters who are in Gaza, for Rifat al-Arair, for the soul. For my two sisters who are in Gaza, for Rifat al-Arair, for all our loved ones,

19:53those who were living in the streets and tents. For my two sisters who are in Gaza, for Rifat al-Arair, for all our loved ones, those who were living in the streets and tents. Thank you. That was the Palestinian writer and poet Moussaab Abu Toha, who just recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his essays in the New Yorker magazine. This is Democracy Now, co-host Nermine Sheikh, speaking at Democracy Now's 30th Anniversary Celebration.

20:54We are living irrefutably, if perhaps in some instances, not irreversibly, in a time of multiplying and accelerating crises. To name only the most obvious and the most proximate, the slow and now rapid transformation of this country into a more brutal, more unforgiving, and more exclusionary, polity, and society, the scale of which, as we witness it, is literally unfathomable. The cruelty of the current administration is everywhere in evidence. It would take the remainder of this evening, and indeed well beyond it, to rehearse the litany of horrors to which were daily confronted. What then is our orientation, our vision, as this administration continues unleashing its violence both within and without the borders of this country?

21:57What possibilities exist as we report on what appears an imminent threat of world war, and crucially of those suffering in its midst, of course in Iran, but also elsewhere? Or when we speak of the calamitous and ongoing lethal effects on the world's very poorest of the staggering cuts in USAID? Or as we tell the stories of those brutalized while protesting ICE, or the stories of the tens of millions enduring merciless wars from Palestine to Ukraine, to the DRC and Sudan, the latter African countries to our collective shame, almost totally absent from the public sphere? The only gesture, of course, the only gesture possible, of course, is resistance. A resistance whose source and agency must find expression in the media.

23:01It is my honor to bring up on the stage Michael Steip, the singer, songwriter, artist, and activist, and aridest. Grammy award-winning musician and producer, founding member of the National, and a close collaborator with Taylor Swift there singing no time for love like now. Thank you, Amy. This evening feels like a clarion call. A voice of courage, of optimism, and resilience, and community in the face and the midst of system collapse. We are honored to be here and to be a part of this community. Thank you.

24:08No time for breezy, no time for arguments, there's no time for love like now. There's no time in the bar, no time in the end between, no time for love like now. Where did this all begin to change? The lockdown memories can't sustain, the squids are nearing hanging free from. I turned away from the glorious light we died. I turned my head and cried. Whatever waiting means in this new place, I am waiting for you.

25:11There's no time for dancing, no time for undecided, no time for love like now. There's no time for honey, no time for songs and thresholds whisper a sweet prayer sign. Where did this all begin to change? The lockdown memories can't sustain, the squids are nearing hanging free from. I turned away from the glorious light we died. I turned my head and cried. Whatever waiting means in this new place, I am waiting for you.

26:16Your voice is echoing love, love, love, love, love, I hear it far, far away. And I am waiting for you. Yes, I am waiting for you. Whatever waiting means in this new place, I am waiting for you. Yes, I am waiting for you. Thank you.

27:23Right now, to say the least, we have a very, very special guest, Angela Davis. Angela, it is such an honor to be with you tonight. Congratulations, Amy and Irmene and Juan, on the occasion of the 30th, can you believe it? The 30th anniversary of democracy now, without democracy now, I do not know where we would be today. I can remember when we felt unseen and un-acknowledged, when we had no legitimate place or space in the established media.

28:26Before I say anything else, I just really want to say thank you on behalf of all of the progressive and radical movements in this country and the world. We are where you grew up, starred in Birmingham, Alabama, and what it meant to grow up in Dynamite Hill, and then take us on a short trajectory of your remarkable life. Really? Well, you know, that was over 80 years ago.

29:27Okay, Amy, I was born in 1944 in Birmingham, Alabama, at a time when the government of the city and of the state were literally in the hands of the Ku Klux Klan. I often point out that some of my earliest memories are of hearing the sound of Dynamite because when my family moved into that area, black people were allowed to live on one side of the street, center street, which was the dividing line, but not on the other side. And one of the stories I never tire of telling is that as kids, we knew that a Ku Klux Klanman, Klansman lived right across the street from us.

30:36And we knew that we were not allowed to cross that street, black people were not allowed to cross that street unless they worked for white people in the neighborhood. And so, you know, sometimes instead of playing, hiding, go seek, or, you know, all of the other children's games that we used to play, we used to dare each other to run across the street. And if you were, you know, really courageous, you would not only run across the street, you would run up the steps of the Klansman's house and ring the doorbell and try to make it back across the street before they came to answer. So, I mean, I say that because I know the theme of this evening is resistance.

31:39And, you know, and as I look at, as I see Palestinian children throwing rocks at the Israeli military, I realize that, you know, in some communities, resistance is the only possibility of living a life of significance. And what is so exciting about this moment is that we have struggled so long for Palestine solidarity. To be a part of the largest social justice agenda in this country, and for so long, it appeared as if Zionism was so powerful that we would never achieve that goal.

32:51And so people who worked around issues of Palestine solidarity had to do it in a kind of marginalized fashion, not in connection with what we considered to be the main issues of social justice. But I can say now that I am really thankful that I've managed to live as long as I have. Because I also see myself as a witness for all of those who struggle for Palestine and Palestine in connection with feminism, Palestine in connection with the struggle against racism, Palestine in relation to our anti-war movements. And I'd like to ask you about those grand forms of resistance.

33:53We were politically formed during the same period of time, and you first became to national fame or national international notoriety as a member of the Black Panther Party. And I'm wondering if you could share, especially for the young people here, what drew you to revolutionary struggle to the Panther Party? And what kinds of lessons, good and bad, have you drawn from that experience that might help other folks who are organizing resistance and seeking to build a better world today? I think I've always been connected with some kind of collective. And I suppose I would say that is because it became clear that despite the individualism that is promoted and especially in relation to and by capitalism,

35:00that nothing that we do as individuals is ever going to really make a major difference. We always have to be connected with community. And so when the Black Panther Party was organizing in Los Angeles for the very first time, I was as a matter of fact a teaching at UCLA. And I asked, well, how can I be of assistance? What can I do? So I began to work with the political education program that John Huggins, Erica Huggins husband at the time, was working on. So John and I worked on political education for the Black Panther Party until he was killed at UCLA.

36:08And it's a long and very complicated story. But the fact is that I think I've always felt more comfortable in environments where I could resist, where I could say no. And not be by myself saying no. Being with others who recognize that we need a different kind of world, a world without racism, a world without heterokatriarchy, a world without economic exploitation, a world without colonialism, a world without genocide. And the only way to do that is together. I have the enormous pleasure to introduce our next guest. A special guest is coming later. This is also an extremely special guest who I can name at this moment, Patty Smith.

37:23Singer, songwriter, poet, author, widely known as the grandmother of punk. And we want to welcome Patty Smith, her daughter Jesse Smith and Tony Shanahan to the stage. On March 16, 2003, Rachel Corey, a young non-violence activist, was protesting the Israeli demolition of homes in the Gaza Strip. Bulldozers had already destroyed surrounding houses in Rafa where she was based. They targeted the family home of Professor Nasrullah, where she was staying. Corey, wearing an orange vest, bullhorn in hand, called for them to cease. She stood on a raised mound in the path of an Israeli bulldozer, but it kept going.

38:27Her fellow activists cried out and the Nasrullah children watched in horror as she was crushed to death. The loss of Corey, a bright, altruistic force, just two years older than my own son, haunted me. At the same time, on the first day of spring, it was obvious that all the marches, please in protest of millions of people worldwide, were not going to halt the Bush administration's plan to attack Baghdad. That was 23 years ago when Tony Shanahan and I wrote the song. We wrote it to comfort the family of Rachel Corey and to send a small, a small message of hope to the Palestinian people.

39:27Thank you. Yesterday I saw you standing there with your hands against the pain. Looking out the window at the ring and I wanted to tell you all your tears were not in vain.

40:47But I guess we both knew we'd never be the same. But I must rehide all these feelings inside. Lions and lions shall abide. Maybe one day will be strong enough to build it back again. Build the peace of all kingdom by again.

41:49Build it back again. This is Patty Smith. We'll be back in a minute. We'll be back in a minute. Maybe one day will be strong enough to build it back again.

43:05Maybe one day will be strong enough to build it back again. Build the peace of all kingdom by again. I was dreaming of an aspect bright and fair and my sleep in.

44:05It was broken but my dream it lingered near in the form of shining valleys with pure air. I was crying and my senses newly opened because I'll weekend to the cry that the people have the power to redeem the work of fools upon the meat the grace of shower. It's to create the people rule.

45:10This is Patty Smith performing a democracy now's 30th anniversary. We go back now to the Riverside Church celebration. I saw someone in the audience and I realized this is how we give thanks. Let's bring on the boss Bruce Springsteen.

46:24The people of Minneapolis was an inspiration for the entire country. The people of Minneapolis were an inspiration for the entire country. The people of Minneapolis were an inspiration for the entire country. The people of Minneapolis were an inspiration for the entire country.

47:36The people of Minneapolis were an inspiration for the entire country. The people of Minneapolis were an inspiration for the entire country. Well by the dawn's early light, Sizzle stood for justice, their voices ringing through the night, and their word bloody footprints were mercy should have stood. Too dead left to die on snow-filled streets, I'll explain her name. But I'm the evidence I hear your voice singing through the bloody mist.

48:41We'll take our stand, follow this land, and the stranger in our midst. Hear it at home, they're killed and wronged, and the winter of 21 is says. Remember the name of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis. Trump's federal folks beat him on his face and his chest. Then we heard the gunshots, Alex pretty late in the snow dead. The claim was self-defensor, just don't believe your eyes.

49:41It's our blood and bones and these whistles and phones against never-end homes. All Minneapolis, I hear your voice crying through the bloody mist. Remember the name of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis. Now they say they're here to uphold the law, but they trample on our rights. If your skin is black, oh brown, my friend, you'll be questioned, ported on sight.

50:49In it our chance of ice out now, our city's hard and so buses. Through broken glass and bloody tears on the streets of Minneapolis. Oh, Minneapolis, I hear your voice singing through the bloody mist. Hear it at home, they're killed and wronged, and the winter of 21 is says. We'll take our stand for this wind and the stranger and our miss. We'll remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis.

51:52Remember the names of those who died on the streets of Minneapolis. Well, we can end tonight without a joint recognition of the appeal someone made when Patty was singing. People have the power with all the musicians on the stage, including Bruce.

52:52Folks, thank you so much for coming out and celebrating. We hope you all join in. Let's do it. I was dreaming in my dream and we're living aspects right there. In my sleeping it was broken, but my dream did like a near. In the farmer's shining valleys, oh where the pure air rarefied. And my senses are newly opened because I'm waking into the cry that the people have the power to redeem the work of fools.

54:02Upon the meek, the grace of shower, it's decreed that people rule all. People have the power, believe it. People have the power, make it safer. People have the power, people have the power. In spiritual aspects, became suspects and been below as it's a year. And the armies ceased to fencing because the people had their ear and the shepherds and the soldiers where they lay.

55:02They need the stars, exchange visions, then arms, to waste in the dust, in the form of the shining valleys, with pure air where a fight. And my senses are newly opened, I'm waking into the cry. People have the power, believe it. People have the power, make it safer. People have the power, people have the power. And my senses are newly opened, I'm waking into the cry.

56:02People have the power, believe it. People have the power, believe it. Where they were deserts, I saw fountains and light green, the waters rise and we stroll there together. We known to laugh or criticize, well, never have a land, a land together. A dream about, well, I was hoping, my hoping to recall what I found. I was dreaming, hit my dreaming, God knows of your view as I surrender into my sleep and I commit my dream to you.

57:08People have the power, people have the power to fall, people have the power to march. People have the power to love, power to dream, to rule, to wrestle the world from fools. And to create the people rule, when it's to create the people rule. Listen, I believe everything we dream can come to pass through our union. We return the world around we can turn to the earth's revolution. People have the power, the people have the power to people have the power to people have the power.

58:18Don't forget it, use your voice. Patismiths iconic song, people have the power, performed by Pati herself, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Steif, Aaron Desner and Alinda Sagarra together at Democracy Now's 30th Anniversary at Riverside Church to see the full event go to democracynow.org. And that does it for today's show, special thanks to Julie Crosby, Juryna Nudora and Mike Burke. I'm Amy Goodman, thanks so much for joining us.