Spoke out on behalf of the working class how it was being attacked it's. Truly a liberalism which corrupted the Labor Party in the same way that it did the Democratic Party in the United States. Follow the process what happened well on taller is important to both of us so we need to define what is right wing and what is populist you see some of the appeal of Certainly Trump certainly Nigel Farage the leader of the BRICs it Party in Britain is they're very not right wing nuts a patent standing up for the little man standing up for the worker against big business against the bankers and the establishment Trump played that card very well in the Rust Belt states in the United States Nigel Farage played it very cannily in similar places in the BRICs at referendum here in Britain so the support that they got are not they are by was not in fact right wing but left wing It was an anti capitalist critique it critique of the kind of finance capital model that has beggar out millions of people and whole areas of your country and mine and when this it populist I often wonder if they really mean popular I mean I am attacked as a left wing populist what what does that actually mean my politics have not changed perhaps this is a condemnation of me not a single inch from my teenage years I stand in exactly the same place it's everyone else that moved all around me and in so far as the kind of. Politics and approach and style that I'm employing are popular that's what drives the prevailing orthodoxy crazy Dr Johnson the green. Englishman of letters said that the grimace dictatorship of the mall was the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy I stand up against not from my political standpoint sort of spiral sort to an extent does Trump now we come to the on tall a-g. Of what you call the resistance. Give me but the push the hats and the achingly liberal resistance to Donald Trump leaves me entirely cold because I know that they would not be out there protesting was crimes of the Clinton crime family of the crew not Obama. And did commit it's the vogue on us the brashness the ugliness of trump that the or pose but Trump is just American imperialism without the lipstick Hillary Hillary would have had the lipstick but the crimes would have been the same arguably actually much worse and yet you know I think you would agree that a figure like Trump or Boris Johnson are con artists using the issues that you spent your political career actually fighting for something certainly Boris Johnson I don't think beyond the mop of blond hair and the rancid models I don't think there's that much to compare between Boris Johnson and I don't trump because Boris Johnson is unequivocally unequivocally a character of the one percent he was educated at Eton and Oxford. Has spent his whole life in the middle you of the altar a rich Tory toffs the posh I don't know of these words translate to the United States but I'm talking the upper class the real class don't trump on the other hand is to some extent. An outsider in that he was asked fabulously rich those 6 times bankrupt. Drops not as rich as he claims has some I did with those on the outside con artist definitely. But not the same kind of con artist as Boris Johnson I summarized my position that I know it's not yours. I was not happy that Donald Trump became the president of the United States but I was very happy that Hillary Clinton did not well I love the Clintons as deeply as you do. Who really like Tony Blair. Betrayed their own basis. And Obama as well was quite conscious of what he was doing unlike George w. Bush I do think that Trump is filling the people that he callings whereas Boris Johnson won't even really try to con them. He will not pretend to the British working class that he's in it for them not really but why I mean why are these you have figures yourself Jeremy Corben we have Bernie Sanders who's not Corban but he's kind of the best we can get. Given a system or in. What is the attraction of these figures like Johnson and Trump who just turbo charge the looting and pillage by the one percent and the consolidation of power by a global oligarchy can leave all the wind power by correctly identifying real material objective reality is amongst the mass of the people Trump said to the people in the so-called Rust Belt it's the Clintons and not done supranational as a man and the finance capital model that these people represent that have done this to you and that was a correct identification a correct analysis the fact. He'd ease of creature of the same swamp and far from draining it is filling it only comes later. The but the existence of these grievances is what the left or to have been doing now I've got to tell you the the British Labor movement not just in parliament behind me but in the broader movement even in the trade unions in the political parties of the left booked into new liberalism the fill your all of the Labor government of the 1970s the rise of Reagonomics stature Reaganomics soar not the stuffing out of the left that the began to follow the line of if you can't beat them join the high you just have to interrupt my favorite line from fatter who I love is my greatest creation was Tony Blair you labor was her greatest creation and at the left went along with the then the collapse of the salute Union. Caused a father or psionic loss of confidence so instead of constantly standing up for working class interests against corporate capitalism against globalised capitalism standing up for the people of your own country the. Liquidated their previous existence and the working people quite correctly I actually thought well you are no longer for me you're no longer part of me with me and that's a correct identification germy Corben has ruled back from that back into more familiar waters but insufficiently and insufficiently well and how part massively by the Blairite rump it's not really. It's our ramp because it's quite a lot of M.P.'s whose main purpose is to sabotage him I know these are not things that can compare across the Atlantic all that easily but that's what's happened here and if the working class are abandoned by the Social Democrats Well of course people to the right of them populist figures can move in and steal some of their former quotes and how. How do we build a political movement that effectively stymies the rise of these very frightening kind of all right energies and these political figures we're not doing a very good job of it in the United States not good here either 1st we have to correctly critique that which is wrong about the approach of the all right populists and that is to say not critique that which is right about what they're saying but to see it better and more convincingly to see to the workers in the Rust Belt in both our countries we stand for you and we're going to fight for you and everything that is in your interest we will support and everything that's against your interest mean well or poor whoever else is saying the same thing you can believe us because we are part of you we are your party we are the people that represent you on a day and deliberates us secondly to develop and I cannot graphy a vocabulary that can appeal to people I'm going to tell you if you're waving the flag of the e.u. You will leave the working class and the north and the south west in South Wales and so on you leave them absolutely called the people of this country identify with this country and so do you have to if you sneer at Piter tism. If you sneer at the people who actually works and all love their country well you know what John Lennon once said. If you see you want a revolution Well don't do it well we've been pictures of German Marlowe right well he was right about that German model leaves them cool on the streets of England you have to find an icon or graffiti a vocabulary that fits you know that the most impressive figure if of my political lifetime most viewers will not until I see it perhaps remember him George marshy was the leader of the Communist Party of France he talked of socialism in the colors of France he talked of France keeping its nuclear weapons but pointing them both ways he was a figure of the French working class and it's no accident that as an individual he was the most popular political figure in France like left or right. When we come back where I want to talk a little bit about the rise of. Xenophobia slammer phobia. Is this do you think one of the driving forces behind support from. Science or not yeah and then we'll come back and of those no doubt at all that if you fill the atmosphere with hatred of the Muslims as an other. Do a full there your foreign policy abroad well you're going to get blow back home if you tell everyone that one new Hitler after another from NASA through out of God Duffy sub down was a bust shot oh. Probably forgotten a few Hitlers on the Nile you free in between if you fill a people with the the atmosphere with that kind of mentality then how do you expect some people not to believe him outdo who owns the news it or the $711.00 on the Kong. It's inevitable we predicted it and it's come to pass and we'll talk about that when come back when we come back we'll continue our conversation with George Galloway. Welcome back to on contact we continue our conversation with George Galloway so before the break we were talking about and I think you correctly pointed out that this demonization of Muslims of the other by the empire you know the British being the junior partner in the Empire had an effect at home. And this has given rise to this xenophobia this a slum a phobia. The resurgence of kind of white nationalism. Is this an effective mechanism in the hands of figures like Trump and Boris Johnson to essentially divide the country and disempower. The last socialist such as yourself oh well look there is racism in Britain of course how could it be otherwise we well the senior partner in Empire for a very long time and you can't have an empire without notions of racial superiority How else can you justify occupying and ruling other people and their countries if not because well you're the father figure holding their hand until they're able to govern themselves so there is racism in Britain but if you think Britain is racist you've never lived in France so. There is racism but it is not as bad in Britain as it is elsewhere in the European Union Similarly there are reasons for real material reasons for racial antagonism on the part of the majority here for example the British government moved a group of Islamist fanatics to Manchester who were known as the Libyan Islamic fighting the clue was in the name and that Libyan Islamic fighting group were cosseted. By the British state for the day that they could be sent back to fight in Libya and so they were and one of their sons blew up a lot of our children in the Manchester Arena not all that long ago. And are a grand. Pop concert. It's legitimate to hate the people who did that it's not racist to hate the people who model people on this very bridge cut their throats drove cars and to them if that's not racist or hate that if you claim it is you're actually helping the racists so the existence of an element of Islamist fanatics as I'm on the edges of the Muslim community here in Britain or anywhere in the world. Should be attacked as ruthlessly by the left as it is for opportunistic reasons by the right this is a mistake that the left has made How was it people never confuse me with a liberal I'm not a liberal. I'm actually quite a liberal in many regards I'm a socialist not a liberal that's a different thing so never get caught seeming to support extremism amongst sections of the community be as ruthless as rigor if I was the mayor of London I'd be hunting down al Qaeda I'd be out there in a how business with the police in the mornings reading their houses whereas quite often the so-called left. Looks like they care more about the criminal than the victim care more about the human rights of the terrorists than the victim of the terror so we we have to be much smaller on and on are just things I spent 7 years in the Middle East and you know actually interviewed members of al Qaeda. All these other groups and these figures did not come out of religious offals they came out of petty crime sometimes more than petty crime drug addiction. And they could be awesome yeah they didn't come from a religious reminders the 1st time that one of these mass suicide mass murders has come from. Families that were actually religious and were not petty criminals so that's undoubtedly true but but that's not to say they don't exist exist they are a siren on the rocks seeking to lure young Muslims onto those rocks of extremism and and a cult of death. And we have to call that are we have to struggle against it it can only be solved by a military by police by legal action well that you look at it's a necessary but not sufficient you look at conditions I don't know Britain that well but you look at the band lose and outside of Paris were in the city they kept millon where these people live there's no jobs they live in appalling conditions the racism as you pointed out in France runs very deep to the point where they are even segregated for most French people they're not considered all they may have lived in France since they were 2 they're not considered to be French by the French they go back to Tunisia they're not considered to news there's a loss of identity a loss of work and these are the contributing factors which gets back to the reconfiguration of these economies by neo liberalism which cast aside not just immigrants but huge sections of the working class in the working poor is kind of human refuse exactly I've just been writing actually from my website about the series the b.b.c. Series The Looming Tower. We contributed to the rise of this fanaticism in 3 ways the one you just mentioned. And the 2nd is by endlessly supporting by all means corrupt dictators medieval kingdoms leaving the people of these Muslim countries been reffed of any of our path out of their misery and thirdly by directly assisting al-Qaeda and ISIS in Iraq Yeah in Syria funding letting lyric funding giving weapons to projects providing propaganda and other material for these very on the principle that my enemy's enemy is my friend so if an Islamist fanatics is blowing themselves up in the Caucasus or in Chechnya that's fine we'll help all right we'll talk about human rights but it is really all over the bridge here in London cutting people's throats will describe them in quite different terms as sort thrice We have assisted the development of this fanaticism I want to ask about Israel you've been a target of the Israel lobby as have I. And those of us who stand up for Palestinian rights are immediately attacked as and in some minds. And the press kind of unfailingly acts as an echo chamber for that amplifying those attacks. Does Israel have the kind of a walk on the political class here than it does in the United States we're Is this coming from in Britain Well it doesn't but it has a bigger lot than I imagined that it would and the last 4 years of Jeremy Corbin's leadership of live apart all he's been tarred with us Sure and the success with which they've done the the the skill with which they've done the shows me that they do have a bigger look than I thought that they did. Not know even Israel has a bigger you know even in Israel does the Zionist movement have a bigger lot but it does in the United States so nothing compares to that. But it does. And it's a trick. I know it's a trick because an Israeli cabinet minister should have met a lonely giving me dinner in her house in Tel Aviv literally told me that it was it's a trick she said we always do it and they do it obviously because it works if someone stands up for Palestinian rights the 1st the default position is to call them an anti semite the fact that someone like me with my politics on the basis of my politics so heavily Jewish from Marx through Trotsky through drunk Skee through. You know how of the Bolshevik party's central committee were Jewish it was going to the right wing and Jew deal Bolshevik conspiracy that's what was involved in the idea that I can be described as an anti see my as Peter sort did to Germany Corben who comes out of the same stable as me more or less so. I like to think it doesn't work but obviously to some extent it does my own wife who is a person of color and Indonesian woman was abused in the street the other day as the as the wife of going to see my head the wife of a racist it's absurd but effective but less effective I think than before when the principle that if you call everybody and I see might then eventually nobody is and I'm to see him or the boy who cried wolf is a parable of note for a reason well the poison is that you know the real any Semites the Christian right yet in ited States has become an ally political ally of Israel you know it's the equation of Addie Semitism with the state of Israel that's what's so dangerous and one of the group biggest racists in Middle East is named Bibi Netanyahu what is worse than him waiting in the way and there is Lieberman and others so let's talk about where we're going because we may be going in a very frightening direction if things don't go right. What are those forces out there that frighten you and what does the Left have to do our we have to wake up to make sure those forces we don't end up like Hungary with Viktor Orban Well I'll be I'll be honest with you I'm no as best a mystic as you I have faith in the people I always have and I can only really speak for my own people here we hate fascism we stood alone against fascism anyone who presents in the form of fascism will be rejected there's not a single fascist councillor in Britain there's no single fascist m.p. In Britain and then never will be. Fascists are counted in the hundreds nor in the millions like they are in many European countries that are in almost every parliament you know Europe or in many governments in Europe but they never will be . Here. So I'm not that pessimistic I believe that in the chaos of the British political scene at the moment it's perfectly possible that the Liberal Party could be the next government and maybe soon parliament is in complete chaos over the BRICs it issue I predicted that it would be right and it was one of the reasons why I supported Rex. But not of course the main reason but one of them out of that chaos may well come out of the Jeremy Clarkson led government under someone who's known quantity well for 40 years I can hardly believe I'd say goes one straight Ok we have to end there let's hope. Thinking that was George Galloway former British m.p. Thanks to. Her. For her. This is k.p. Of chaos and us noncommercial listener sponsored Pacifica Radio for all of southern parts of central California and on the web at k.p. Of k. Dot org And that was Chris Hedges. On contact with George Galloway as a guest originally did televised on r t Russia Today television channel and these programs are also or can be found on Youtube. If you want to get to the this exact program at the top of the list of dated programs and that information that link is on my website something's happening dot com click on program guide under Wednesday night under the Chris Hedges. Program description you'll find a link that will take you to a special Chris Hedges page with this program on top of a list of programs arranged 2 weeks back by date. And you're listening to something's happening on k.p. Of chaos Angelus it's time for the Ralph Nader radio hour so get ready to beat the drums. Why. It's the Ralph Nader radio hour now. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour My name is Steve Grove and along with my co-host David Feldman How are you today David good welcome back from your vacation thank you very much Dad He's back now everything's going to be Ok I want to go to calm down and we also have the man of the hour Ralph Nader Hello Ralph lawyer buddy great to have you here today Ralph and we have another great show today the theme is energy specifically we're going to be talking about the Green New Deal 1st up we'll be talking to someone who is one of the architects of the Green New Deal Her name is Reanna gun right she's the policy director at the think tank new consensus where the plan was developed and it's kind of a Manhattan Project aimed at transforming our energy system if you haven't heard so far yet the goals are essentially 0 emissions while creating high wage jobs in the renewable energy sector and Green New Deal legislation was introduced in Congress by Representative Alexandria Kazuo Cortez and Senator Ed Markey and it was quickly tagged socialism by the corporate right who began shouting how the green New Dealers wanted to take away their hamburgers and was also being high in the sky by corporate Democrats who worry about I'm sure alienating the fossil fuel industry and what many people don't know or may have forgotten is that Ralph was an essential driver not only the formation of the p.a. They always give Nixon credit for that he just cited because the public pressure but he's also behind specifically the Clean Air and Water acts so the stakes are even higher now is the climate crisis approaches a point of no return and we're going to delve into what the Green New Deal really means and how it can be achieved that's just the 1st half to show we continue on this theme with our 2nd guest David Freeman. David Freeman is actually our 1st ever outside guest on the Ralph Nader Radio Hour we have spoken to Mr Freeman who is an expert on all forms of energy generation having once run the Tennessee Valley Authority and on this program we talk to Mr Freeman mainly about nuclear power issues today we're going to get his insights into the renewable energy economy and how that fits in a green new deal and this is just me but it's interesting to note that the mist going right is 29 years old and David Freeman is 93 years old so the problem seems to be all the people in between those 2 ages they're the ones the real power in the ones that we need to convince and as always we will cut away for a minute in the middle to catch up with our corporate crime a quarter Russell Mo Khyber but without any further do let's take a deep dive into the Green New Deal David riata gun right is the policy director for a new consensus think tank based in Chicago a Rhodes Scholar Ms gun right has also worked as a policy analyst for a number of organizations including the Detroit health department and as a policy intern for 1st Lady Michelle Obama at new consensus She recently coauthored the research paper entitled The Green New Deal mobilizing for a just prosperous and sustainable economy it was published in January of this year Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour Rianna gun right thank you it's such a pleasure to be here welcome is the Rianna when this resolution on the Green New Deal was introduced by Representative Alexandria cost to court those and longtime legislator and progressive senator Mark you don't mind the 10 year mobilization plan with 5 key pillars and of course the critics of the Green New Deal didn't understand that everything is connected to everything else and you can't just deal with one pillar when your 4 pillars not address that can sweep the. Rug from under the 5th pillar so the description for our listeners of the Green New Deal and you can see how connected everything is it's achieving net 0 greenhouse gas emissions creating millions of good high wage jobs investing in u.s. Infrastructure in industry putting weather ization of buildings by the way talk about jobs securing clean air and water climate and community resilience that's local economies cooperatives healthy food access to nature and a sustainable environment for all while promoting justice and equity in vulnerable communities that's a description and you can see how it all fits together instead of one little regulation here and one little recycling there the big picture is now before the American people and what's amazing about it is that it in visions exactly the kind of efficiency and equity that our democratic society pretends to foster it in visions a reset of a wasteful and inefficient economy we'll get that later with an efficient and a healthy economy I mean that should be a no brainer right but we'll see in our conversation listeners why the vested interests prefer a wasteful economy as well as an economy that does damage because that produces a lot of profits. So how do you view the public reaction Rianna to the Green New Deal I actually think overall it's been really great the really interesting thing is to see how much more quickly I think folks that either sort of earnestly or derisively call everyday people grasp the greening feeling grasped how the issues are connected it seems like a lot of the strikes that we've gotten has tended to be from sort of more I don't know how to call them savage men types but sort of Honestly people whose job it is to think about these issues and the idea that we would be talking about these things in a way that intersectional in a way this interconnected and then trying to deal with climate not just from a silo place but as a sort of all encompassing issue that requires some movement on all these different fronts that's where we actually got the most grief and I was a bit surprised that to say by how much I think folks that I would think of often in very serious struggle to really understand what the foundation of the Green New Deal what we're trying to do well it's interesting you know but the reaction that I observe is that there's a huge lack of knowledge among many members of Congress is deliberate many of them Republicans of course and it recalls a statement that Ronald Reagan once made in Texas when he basically said America grew great by producing energy not by saving it and that makes a real point here that once you the molecule arguments of the on the side all waste and inefficiency industry around the world you get down to why are they resisting it so much because you know corporations This must be efficient right or right. Most of the damage in innocent people right they're supposed to be absorbing the rule of law well it's because when you waste a lot of energy in your car you're having to buy more gasoline when you know their defense department wastes all kinds of money was bloated contracts with Lockheed Martin Well that's a lot more profit for Lockheed Martin when you have fewer incidents of cancer and respiratory ailments less is spent on doctors drug companies and hospitals less sales less profit that's why I think it needs to be described as a historically necessary reset of the whole political economy and the and floor political because you've got a lot of work to do with members of Congress and so many questions ask you hearing on. What kind 1st of all when used put out a platform the way you did the next step is building a coalition and you've had a lot of environmental groups and I hope Leyburn to the rights and other groups on board Can you describe how that's developing world so the Green Deal was always intended to be backed by a big coalition and that's in part just because of the political realities of where we are right now as a country we have one party that holds most of the power and they and federal government that has been in transit in a climate they have denied that climate change is happening and so the idea I think we started from an idea that any effort to sort of build a policy that would appeal to them when the entire approach to climate is and the climate crisis is that it doesn't exist it isn't going to work because the scale of the problem is just too big and we don't want to spend energy there is so the only way that anything was going to get past or get movement was through a large coalition. And so the way I think that we formulated it was actually really thinking a lot about inside outside organizing and having different groups doing different things so sort of at the center of the green you do the bit of the triangle so you have sunrise doing a lot of the movement part of it really talking to communities really engaging with these climate move it being a part of the new climate movement interacting with some of the more like traditionally green groups right the traditionally environmental groups you have just as Democrats that is all focused on electoral work getting candidates to run on the Green New Deal to talk about the Green New Deal to get folks who are already elected to talk about the green deal whether it's because they're afraid of being primaried or whether it's because they just are really interested in the issue and then you have these census where I work that's working on the policy the how do we actually accomplish the sayings of it and our process is still also based on inside outside so and that of just building a traditional think tank where you have a ton of inside expertise and you just work internally we work a lot in consultation and cooperation with other groups because the believe that solutions to that and it is a matter of getting together those solutions making them the system and honestly since a started on this from a place of yes this is about climate but it is again like I said about resetting our economy because the way that we have structured our economy particularly since Reagan on have been really problematic and really hurt for Americans and particularly Americans of color which again is connected to racism and all of these other things so we've done a really good job of building and fortifying the structures that we had and again climate change is not just the result of burning fossil fuels the fact that we. Burn fossil fuels are a lot happening places that we can poison which relies on that having people that we think of as less worthy or less deserving than other people who we can essentially dump our pollution on right all of these things are connected and so with the climate crisis I think we saw an opportunity to stop right to the extent that's possible the climate crisis but also use it as a real time to think about how our restructuring our economy how restructuring our society and how do we want to structure it to have the outcomes that we say all the time that we want and will actually deserve because regardless that's a really interesting thing about climate crisis and having a transition away from fossil fuels which is that when you are transitioning your energy source you change everything it doesn't matter if you are just focused on the energy source everything changes because it is the foundation of your economic system so a lot I think if there is a genius in the green appeal I think a lot of the genius is recognizing in a way that folks have failed to recognize I think for very long time that addressing climate change road require economic transformation and taking that on fully and trying to think about and compare for a transition to the economy that that Americans deserve and that millions of Americans have continued to say year after year that they. Have to say what they get to you know the knock on the Green New Deal is oh who's going to pay for that's the most laughable criticism I've ever seen I can tell you 10 ways to pay for 1st of all. You increase the level of taxation of corporations who are registering record profits to the level $96.00 if you just goes to 19 sixties which is a process record. It would be hundreds of billions of dollars a year that's number one number 2 you get rid of the hundreds of billions of dollars here corporate welfare what I call corporate socialism handouts giveaways bailouts I mean it's one half of what Washington does every day it's called government guaranteed corporate capitalism that's the 2nd the 3rd way to do it is to show that people are ready are patronizing Green New Deal local businesses they're all over the place they're businesses that deal with recycling locally businesses deal with weather is a sion locally business has a deal with local energy production businesses that deal with community health clinics that focus on prevention and don't gouge their patients yes magazine by the way he's a great chronicler and I'm sure that magazine out of Seattle is a great supporter the Green New Deal So I think that's got to be much more forceful Lee conveyed to Congress and you know it it is about Congress isn't 1535 men and women who I've said again and again put their shoes on every day like all of us and a majority of them can make the Green New Deal move on a fast railroad track so let me put this question to you it's all about focus it's not just about local mobilization that goes into the ether it's local mobilization to go see your 2 senators and representatives to what extent you see street rallies I was just down at Capitol Hill and there was a big series of police cars escorting a big rally down there on climate disruption we shouldn't use the word climate change is far to the 9 climate crisis climate catastrophe and I said to a friend you know is only to 300 people or you're going to see half a 1000000 people this is a rallies that are going all over the world led by very. Young people like. Sweden but I think the 1st wake up call the Congress is surrounded with hundreds of thousands of people again and again people who then go into the Congress go into the corridors go into the offices of the senators and representatives and make it happen what do you think of the street demonstration level and how can it be increased I mean I think that there have been like you said so many powerful and gigantic honestly demonstrations about climate across the world and in the us I mean the climate strikes the school walkouts were just a couple months ago and I mean sunrise host in a row to t.n.t. Tour where I was in d.c. And there were over there had to be over $500.00 people there at an event at night on a Sunday and so the wrecked action as we've seen has worked and the reason that the genie catapulted to national attention was a sittin in Speaker Pelosi the office right there read then that the d.n.c. Is even talking about hosting a climate debate is yes because of public pressure but it's also because activists from Sunrise left on the steps of the d.n.c. Periphery night demanding a debate so direct action is powerful and I think that we need more of it right the reason we need more people going into offices we need more people writing for folks in the street always but I think part of what we're thinking about within the Green New Deal but also how you move some of the energy like you said again in Congress because I think one of the sad and really sort of troubling things particular with the ministration is that they school pretty new and increasingly I think ponder itself things particularly New Intellect mass action and just really. Early resistance or maybe a north public pressure I think Congress right Representative are more and clearly shown live but I think it's interesting that the pressure has largely moved the media conversation and have well some rest but it hasn't necessarily moved Congress and I think you don't just see it with a great deal you see it across the board where you have Medicare for all people well the Green New Deal call it taxing corporations and for wealthy really well but you don't see Congress moving on these things I think it also is getting back to that we are trying to always think about how to navigate what seems to be a growing gap between public sentiment and pressure and the actions of elected officials Yeah and you know the one here in a hat under green new deal the Democrats in the house they left the Green New Deal advocates defenseless and he was attacked mercilessly by the forces of darkness when he got a bad press so here's my suggestion you represent a younger generation Rianna and I've noticed that a lot of people in your age group don't know about the old environmental advocates who can provide incredibly powerful arguments from experience that they've had over the decades and we're having David Freeman right after we conclude our discussion with you to demonstrate my point but you know of course about Project drawdown by Paul Hawken where he has 100 ways to reduce greenhouse gases 100 ways and he ranks them for example right dealing with refrigeration was Number One of course planting trees is way up there too recent study on that but I find that all of these efforts just are sort of lone ranger efforts they need to aggregate the sum is always greater than its parts and much more powerful when it's brought to bear on cars. Congress one senator at a time one representative a time the most successful citizen lobbies is not that we necessary share their pursuits the n.r.a. And a Pac they don't do it demonstrations all you do is personel laser beam lobbyist on the members of Congress by name and their staff and who is their lawyers whose are doctors who today hobnob who they play golf with and that's what begins to change these users of our constitutional authority so we say abusers of our constitutional authority what kind of connections are being made with the older generation you're him or eleven's is the one who started the movement on soft energy I don't see his participation out of Colorado Paul Harkin David Freeman I'm sure Bill McKibben is connected with you but there are a lot of other people locally who been at this fight for years they need to be marshalled What do you think about that what's going on absolutely I think you're a completely right I mean I think we started making some of those connections so whether it's with a real evidence in the Rocky Mountain Institute or Bill McKibben at 3 to the right are having those conversations and we are talking I think that they definitely could be bigger and more robust and should be because even though this is largely in the moment right now sort of seen as and in lots of ways is a you led fight this is an intergenerational fight as well right the people who have power right now are not young people and so the people that need move are generally that young people when you're talking about who's in power but also e-mails the climate crisis affects us all and they're like you said are a lot of lessons to be learned from fight that we want to fight that were lost that were so easy to learn but I think we are trying to do. A much better job of that I will say that part of it is also that the Green New Deal and we have spent a lot of time in this sort of element of it especially that new consensus is that the Green New Deal also needs to and need it to attract constituencies that just consider themselves sort of traditional environmentalist and we have spent a lot of calm on that because again we need to be getting people to understand the connections between how the economy works now how the changes for the climate that we seeing and why it matters to them and so we have actually spent a lot of time talking to I think not the usual suspects whether that you know community and economic development group whether that groups that are called in immigration whether that business is folks who are at city and local government to might not have worked on environment before but are interested in thinking about how the Green New Deal can jumpstart their local economies so we spent a lot of time there and I would also I think that that has been really valuable and so I think we spent some time there and now we're trying to sort of branch out and start to make some more of these intergenerational connections particularly with traditional environment and what I like about the new consensus were you're working in the policy director talk of the Rianna gun rights is that the leadership is starting to come from minority groups from Lauren income people who of course absorb the biggest silent violence of pollution recall pollution right it's really silent violence is killing them the more yes the levels the worst pollution happens to be we're poor people live we're people of color live we're incinerators are in the dumps and everything and that's called the environmental justice movement I know your background Brianna's been in addressing issues of structural poverty and criminal justice which I call criminal in just. As and it's good that that kind of new energy and is what's needed because you know Exxon Mobile has often hired black people to become vice presidents as tokens and the corporate average industry has blocked referendum after referendum for recycling bottles or for putting a tax on soft drinks because if they marshal the local organization saying you're just trying to make poor people pay more for a refreshing drink and they vote against these things well you're going to turn net completely around and so this is a a whole new source of energy that is good just let me give example when court for a city that cannot afford a green new deal really here's how I answer it you know you better convert to conservation of energy to renewable energy and some of the big companies like Google and others are making a attempt to that obviously and I see you saying you don't have money Oh but you spent 7 trillion trillion dollars last year on stock buybacks which didn't convert anything to solar energy or efficiency it didn't produce any jobs it didn't do anything but increase your pay now you're going to be under a rule of law that says you're never going to waste their shareholder money and the consumer dollars that represent that 7 trillion you're going to reset your own corporation so you can obey the lifesaving health and safety standards of our society in our world it's over corporations no more stock buybacks by the way Brianna until 1982 the skier's Exchange Commission banned stock buybacks as being stock manipulation by insiders and that was what Reagan did and so we can bring it back so you can see how all of these arguments put into place you can't believe a powerful arguments of Amory love. Wins against nuclear power and fossil fuel and David Freeman So this whole effort can accelerate tremendously you know before we conclude I just 1st of all before we get question David and Steve how do people reach you oh so people can reach me on Twitter if they will sort of like real time . On my hand it was just art art you. But they can also reach a new consensus and. This is. Good and by the way all over the world solar energy when power is being in the heck out of new fossil fuel generation of electricity Yes it's cheaper absolutely safer it's more community based it's more healthy it's more conducive to small business you know the arguments or over womyn and luckily the corporations are sitting on massive hoards of cash that they don't know what the end was other than to buy back their stock so turn that one against them Steve David any comments this extraordinary group out of Chicago the new consensus Yeah it's amazing I've actually get 2 questions Brianna one is technical and one is more political 1st a technical one so aside from the political problems to be solved in the movement building you've got a section of the policy paper what was the thorniest issues you had to resolve in formulating the green new deal just technically or or maybe was a problem of how do we communicate this very complicated idea what was the most difficult problem for you to solve so I think it was probably 2 fold the 1st is there are sort of so many things that need to happen in the economic transformation so one of the sticky things of figuring out. What are the social elements that are most necessary for economic mobilization to be successful and I think that there's a lot of people think that the Green New Deal is just like a progressive wish list so they look at particular the 2nd half where you out where we outline in the resolution where we talk about a job here in t.n. Universal health care education training effort of the progress of.