How are you doing sir . I represent part of des moines. Welcome to the state fair. We do receptions every night. We have a lot of legislators around. We are very proud of our relationship with the legislature. School no longer starts during the fair which is a big deal for us. Its at about 30 years to get it done. When you are in the state house, they give you money and still send you parking passes. That is a good thing. Mr. Kasich you are rebuilding all of this. We raised 13 million in 20 years. Have the congress in ohio. We just had to build a giant building for them. Very impressive year. Here. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Did you have a great day . Mr. Kasich a great day. Every day in iowa is great. You. Have a question for fromommate in college is New Philadelphia, ohio. Mr. Kasich i have been there like five times. Would you mind taking a picture with me . Mr. Kasich do you know where New Philadelphia is . Is that where he is from . My roommate is from t here. Lets take one more. Mr. Kasich ok. I appreciate that. Good luck. Hi. Mr. Kasich you, sir. One dont stand next to me. I look short enough. Got it. Take care of him. Mr. Kasich see you. Thank you. Ready . [indiscernible] Ohio Governor john kasich will be back on the campaign trail tomorrow. You will be in salem New Hampshire salem, New Hampshire. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie also campaigning in New Hampshire. He holds a town hall at new boston at 7 00 eastern live on cspan. Community activists and civil gathered forsts the left forum, that is next. Scott walker unveils his Health Care Plan later. Later remarks from senator marco rubio at the iowa state fair. On q andnday night a gravehunter kurt dion documents his adventures of visiting the gravesites of every president and vice president. The one gravesite that had a lot of trouble getting to is the rockefeller. Yes. How did you do it . We were able to get through what my father describes, an act of god. My father walked down the perimeter and found a gigantic tree had crushed the fence. He went in and saw Nelson Rockefellers grave. He decided he would have to get me there fairly quickly after that. Kurt dion, sunday night on cspans q and a. A conference calling itself the left forum gathers each year in new york city. Topics at the 20 feet 2015 includes civil rights and the criminal justice system. We will hear from a hiphop artist, a princeton professor and a founder of the Group Supporting the presidency of Bernie Sanders. This is two hours. Good evening. Good evening everyone. Spanish translation is available if you would like to listen to it in spanish, you can pick up equipment at the back table. [spanish translation] good evening, and welcome. Leftevening and welcome to forum 2015. Im rob robinson. And i am maria. [applause] rob we want to thank you all for attending. This conference was i success. A success. The board of directors would like to thank the administration from John Jay College for their hospitality. [applause] year here,r second based on the early returns, attendees seem to enjoy it. Said the conference was a success, here are the numbers. We had over 400 panels. 1300 speakers. 70 exhibitors, and close to 5000 attendees. [applause] a conference of this size does not happen without a committed staff, committed volunteers, and committed interns. I will name some names. I want to start with volunteer coordination. I want to start out with video coordination. With registration, Public Relations and media with a host of folks. Program guide steve matthews. Program coordinator marcus. Marcus comes from berlin to Service Serve us. Primary and Link Logistics coordinator. The media liaison. Outreach and administration, exhibition, event operations. Editorial and Graphic Design matt kennedy. Lori bogart. Av and technology, nancy castro. Art and social media, darrell king. Administrations and operations coordinator, ashley abbott. A big hand for her. We have looked worked together for several years. [laughter] [applause] coordinator,erence steph adler. [applause] finally, we would like to acknowledge some of the 150 volunteers that made the conference operations and left ar him a Reality Forum reality. [applause] maria we have committed to an increased chance for cost. We are proud to announce Free Childcare this year. [applause] rob we made the commitment last year, we lived up to it. Maria and free entry to Interested High School students so they could join in. Exciting and in challenging times, where new possibilities of resistance and new forms of repression are hard at work, willing to do what they always attempt to do, and now they are more sophisticated. More than ever before, capitalism and the crisis of income inequality are being pressed. With the capital system failing, the cry for social justice is growing louder. This is a critical time for the left to organize. Was created, and exist to create a dialogue on important matters affecting our world. With so much happening all over the world we decided to make the issues, the hot topics, the stars. Had a discussion on antiausterity policy. On saturday we heard from speakers who explored social transformation in relation to the black my lack lives lives matter. And finally, we have this evenings plenary. We are moving away from the traditional format and instead we will feature discussion, each with two speakers and a moderator. Them share a wealth of culture, and intellectual knowledge. This evening we will discuss a National Left presence, a National Left politics, national and interNational Left organizing. Enduring National Organization structure and power. Rob i would like to offer an apology, stanley lives close to where a crane fell in new york city, it is stuck in his apartment in midtown manhattan. He cannot be here. Tom hayden suffered a stroke. Our apologies and all of the best wishes. Maria i will begin with an introduction of the host. Is the leadlin organizer for the fight for souls for the city which includes Community Rights campaigns, and she coleads a staff organizing team for a space building program. Training students and organizing, Campaign Development and political theories, she also leads a taking action front in south delay los angeles. Afterganized it in 2009 graduating from the National School of strategic organizers. She first got involved as a High School Student in the script college academy, a program for first generation and low income students. She was active in the Community Rights program in college. Our second host Immortal Technique. He is known as a writer, and activist. , he is one oferu the highest selling independent artist, putting together a globally themed music with street hiphop. Not only an artist, but also human rights activist having traveled to haiti and afghanistan to provide relief for nonprofits. He has also participated in teaching workshops for adult prisons and juvenile facilities. Albums,r gold studio and 250,000 records sold, he has the Hiphop Community highly anticipating his next album. He recently completed his national tour. Turn it over to ashley and Immortal Technique. [applause] Immortal Technique good evening. I said before that i wanted to see everyone bring a child, or a grandchild with them. I just want to say to the people that came with someone young and they want to educate reveal the depth of the corruption that we live in. I want to say that i appreciate that. If you have not done at this time, dont worry, there will be next year him forum because the problems will not be resolved then. When they tell people who criticize the america the states of america that we hate america because we want a better place, inc. About how illogical that is. If you have ever had children or a small child in your care, imagine that it steals from a store. To break youring childs arm or kick them down a flight of stairs because they stole something. You are going to take them aside and say i love you, i care about you, and i think you are a better human being in the actions you are taking now. That is the way we are looking at america, we do not hate america, if we hate it, we would let it be corrupt, and the feeling republic that it is becoming. , that is why we choose to put ourselves on the front line and say, this is what may change must change. Even if people do not look like me, do not worship the same god, and they have different customs, if those people are facing in justice, i will face it with them as if i was one of them. That is what i am here to do. I hope that is what you are going to do as well. [applause] technique i want to introduce ashley from the Labor Community strategy center. [applause] ashley good afternoon. I name is Ashley Franklin and am an organizer with the Labor Community strategies enter based in los angeles, california. I spent the last seven years of my life organizing young people and high school in high schools against the mass incarcerations of the black and latino community, specifically fighting against the militarized police state. Tonight we talked about how many workshops we were able to see. , we are going to get deep and talk about building. We are going to delve into questions of what is the National Left presence politics, organizing . We are going to analyze what is our power, and our organizing present. We are going to talk about strategies and actions so we have a slew of amazing people that will talk to about their expenses on the ground experiences on the ground. I want to mention some of their names, of course you will see and hear more from them today. Let me go down the list, we have adams. Ms m we have reverend from the fellowship. Is ave miss brown who cohost of the morning show on wba i. Taylor ve missed missed taylor who is about to release a book. Windsor who charles is part of organizing 2. 0. E also have glenn ford know, stanley is not here, oh he is . He is here in spirit. Who willwe have seen be the people that we get to hear from and listen to. I want to break down how that will happen. We have dynamic political theorist, activists, and people who have been building movement. Three going to break into pairs or ability there will be a moderator. As you have read in their bios, we do not have to do so much work. Thank you for being amazing and putting out amazing political theory and ideas that will make this go fast and easy. The idea and the focus of this panel is to talk about what have been some of our hopes and dreams, challenges that we faced while trying to build the left. And particularly, how to build a left. Could you all welcome me in joining our first panelist, it tech, reverend, and adams. [applause] Immortal Technique order to the stage, its just hiphop. Reverend and m adams, i appreciate you being with us here. I appreciate the audience through this incredible, difficult, nasty weather. I wanted to asked question asking a question, feel free to jump in. What do you see on the grounds that indicates the emerging and radical transformative politics that we were talking about come what havels been your personal experiences . I think the couple of things indicate a movement being built. People are answering the calls, i have a couple things, we have the same group of people organizing before. We have people both Building Political platforms and people pushing out amazing things. We also have an entire group of who are energized and prepared and who want to be part of the organization. I think we see an expansion. Ofnot fully an expansion base building, the possibility. We have always said we need more people, i think that call is being answered. Not only do we have more people, we have more people willing to do more work. It suddenly makes the Movement Building mechanism possible. I also think we see a whole generation of thinkers putting out their own theory on the world. Proposing radical solutions to ress a radical politics politics. Happening allgs over the country where we are at a good time for social movements. I see that a lot of times, peoples initial reaction, they automatically assume it will be only elderly people. We need that, we need guidance and direction from the elders, but i have seen, within the course of this reemergence of the movement. The Movement Never went away. Technique there are so many young people, what would you attribute that to . Is it just because it is in a Young Persons face . Is it a growing pain . From your experience in working closely with his children in ferguson, or wherever you may find them being the victims of systemic brutality and the taking away of civil rights, what has been the catalyst of moving the youth . I think a couple of things. Aack people have always had tenuous agreement with america. We always know you will impress oppress us. Ss baby,lack person told you white folks are dangerous. We are told we have to be twice as good and smart just to get the opportunity to be told no. Wb to boys had a degree from had a degreeois from harvard and could not teach their there. It is not better, it is different. This is part of the struggle. Part of that tenuous agreement is that you will not disrespect us. As we look at the slave rebellions, they have been after children who have died at the hands of masters. That is what we thought ferguson saw at ferguson. Leadershipeen black with access to material things subjecting themselves in which individual attention replaces community progress. [applause] for a Younger Generation of folk in which have emerged under a electedesident, black officials, black ceos, black police chief, essentially their life has gotten worse. They broke that agreement, theolks was like young folks had not read any of the papers we had passed out. They said that. We are not going home. At one level, you cannot get the level of youth resistance without the objective material conditions as they black person in charge of the american empire. They look at it and say, oh, the emperor has no clothes. Unique isso what is that this moment i said it earlier the day that a system r, blackcisgende messiah leading us to the Promised Land is over. Embodiedhave witches in young folk organizing, the new leadership will be clear queer, woman led, lots of single transnational, you have black lives matter chapters in london, paris. It will be antiimperialist. Without the critique of capitalism. What we are seeing is the embodiment among young people a generation of leadership that are incarnate. It is embodied. Of a radically queer anticapitalist discourse, and is doing so with limited resources. You remember, one of the things we talked about when we romanticize the civil Rights Movement, everyone over 40 said they marched with dr. King. [applause] [laughter] you meet everyone in this room and they said they were in selma on the bridge am a it would have collapsed. [laughter] part of the mythology people are coming up against is nostalgia is a form of morning because the present is unbearable and the future is unforeseeable. A lot of young people are struggling against with limited fiscal resources is a mythology in which everyone participated in the movement of the 60s, which hampers their possibilities because it is untrue. There was plenty of fighting. Plenty of folks who dont like it, some of yall still not talking to each other because of something in 1963. Part of the challenge that we , is ferguson, madison, baltimore baltimore, are actually indictments of the left. Because the left as a place of premium on poor black people not placed a premium on poor black people. [applause] power, idont have wish i could issue a statement that you could not pass up papers, you cannot asked ask anyone to come to your meeting until you have broke bread at a black funeral because people lack people trust you enough that they want you standing there when they put their parents in the ground. Lives, papersover over people has disempowered and hindered the possibility of building an effective left in america because we have embodied a level of racism and respect ability in our movement that cannot handle kids with tattoos, sagging pants, saying the police. Until we resolve that contradiction, i do not think we can build a significant left, i do not think young people will respect it. [applause] technique the reverend brought up race, gender, class struggles you see the interception alley interception of these things being a driving force to get the movement together. That is one of those questions, how do you see that answer that . How does it matter. One, thisf things is not just my belief, there is evidence and bodies of belief, we are dealing with all of this. If we are thinking about my life specifically, i am dealing with sexuality, race what we have no is the leadership of people who are talked about as being intersectional lives. We are not settling. We will not be bought off. If theynot be convinced give us houses we want everything. We want freedom, our freedom includes all of that. [applause] going to trial. We want everything. That is what we are excited about now. Leaving until we get everything. Not only freedom, but that includes something queer centered, woman led, one that accounts for folks who have been incarcerated or are stuck in the system. Homeless, the whole host of other things. That is the movement. , is about all black people all id