Is the most Democratic Media is when a person writes a letter to an elected official like a mayor, governor cant be censored or destroyed command not to try to answer it or technology so that people know that its not going to some dark hole is a major issue i think and most people dont realize realize in a written letter to a politician has far more impact than an email. You certainly dont expect him to answer every letter. And we speak about that in the book. Guest a lot of people dont know the teams of volunteers go to the white house every morning and separate all these letters. No one expects the president to answer these letters. But he has a staff and departments and agencies throughout the executive branch and they should all be acknowledged and thats my complaint. We have letters for highprofile issues like the bailout people are writing a book of letters, yes. Now they will send a call like this which doesnt even answer the letter or they will write letters to supporters or contributors and president s do write personal letters to the governor mayor that supports the president or that gives some money so anybody that says that the president doesnt assign particular letters to particular people doesnt know what they are talking about. And they also heres where you can hear the letter from the white house. I want you to attend my Daughters High School graduation. They have to be polite so they write a letter expressing regret. Host or dear mr. President i want to give you money. A scout i have a variety of letters which they could send out to the secretary of Energy Secretary of energy, transportation, the head of the federal trade commission. But they do not even acknowledge my letters and so i wrote bush and obama a letter and i said what is your policy answering letters and they didnt answer that one either. So, by comparison i sent to critical letters to the paymaster in canada and that came before mullah college meant and theyve reverted to the prospective ministry. You at least know they answer the letters. So if it all goes to a dark hole and its not acknowledged and few people write letters and the Service Shows the letter writing is declining. In canada they have an affirmative policy to encourage people to write letters to the members of parliament or the Prime Minister because its free. No stamp is needed. In our country the politicians are free. They sent send letters to the provision. But we cant do it in reverse. Host you said most of the letters were not answered. A couple were. Guest i want to make it easy when hes running for the reelection i said heres what president carter did he went to a major Hotel Ballroom three blocks from the white house and we filled it with a thousand liters of citizen groups, labor environment, religious charities, community groups, you name it who have millions of members out there around the country that support these groups so its called the nonprofit sector. And i said youve gone to india and you always have to have a little spark in the letter. Youve gone to promote hardly davidson motorcycles airplanes and its three blocks. You can do that and you did walk across Lafayette Park and they criticize them every day. I thought that it was good for him because he brings visibility to them and they would get more contributions from people. And by the way a lot of jobs are involved in the sector so more contributions more service for people in need etc. So i sent a letter to Michelle Obama and she writes back and says thank you very much the president is busy. When you persist and try to get an answer you get a response thats more interesting. Host theres another letter there is another letter that you got from president bush where he actually invited you to contribute and what did you reply . Guest this is a letter to me by name. They can separate out. Guest is a response to a letter that you send or you happened to be on the list . Guest key was in the office in 2012 and hes asking me for money because the president ial library. I consider him a war criminal along with dick cheney. Ive picketed him and challenged him publicly. The computer is nonpartisan. So anyway, i said i tried him on his criminal invasion of iraq and how he didnt even have the decency to open up to the refugees who were not supportive of the mission but to feed their family they were chauffeurs country and leaders, they put their lives at risk. Some lost their lives because of that and we led 160,000 vietnam refugees were maybe 10,000 of the most iraqi refugees. Then at the end we said i think i want to make a contribution. So i sent them a book by this mainstream think tank and the title of the book is rogue nation. Host did you get a reply to that . Guest [inaudible] host a lot of the letters are funny in some ways you wrote about a trigger just named e. Coli. Can you speak about that . Guest there was a bacterial outbreak some people died and it was a bacteria they gave it the name equal i and then some numbers. So ive been trying to get them back to president clinton to redefine terrorism. If you are worried about the loss of an innocent civilian life you want to worry about viruses and bacteria are just the ones that come from africa or asia and we are dealing with a lot of mutations. You are a scientist this is a scary thing if we dont get ready in time it could be like the influenza epidemic after world war i and so im saying how am i going to get to these people, so i decide to write a letter and e. Coli is sitting in a petri dish and its life is very limited. They are going to come and get it because weve already analyzed there is no use. So ive got to do something to medium myself. They made the case for the president to raise the parity of the Research Focus concerned to prevent epidemics deadly epidemics all around the world and there is no one better india native states to confront that if we can get over the restriction. Host i was at a few of these events that you spoke about and the one that i was at the first one was politics and prose where the books launched. I was fascinated how that went. It was a great talk obviously but the question that you got was about why did you give the election to al gore in 2000. Have you ever been to an event where you spoken to that question wasnt asked . Guest it just brings in peoples heads. Host i thought your answers were so spot on and direct. The audience tends to be rather skeptical about the staunch democrats. But you cost applause. Please enumerate the answer because i think its important for people to hear. Guest we cannot have political bigotry across the thirdParty Candidates to exercise their constitutional rights. We all have the right to run for the election and if we have the right, big guy is third parties, we all have the right to get a vote from one another which means we are even sporty others of one another or none of us are spoilers. Why should the Party Candidate peter citizen . Thats the fundamental reply that the pragmatic reply you try to get through to these people is if you ask al gore why he lost he would say number one i won the election and the Electoral College integrated through two into and then he would say it was stolen from him in a variety of ways in florida the secretary of state jeb bush, the shenanigans for those of us remember all that. Then the Supreme Court. And also would have been president if he had 11 state in his home state of tennessee that he represented in the house and the senate and the headquarters. So when you see any one of which host 250,000 democrats voted republican in florida. 250,000. How much was that lost by . Guest a 37. Before that recount. Host 250,000 democrats switched parties basically to vote. Also arkansas. He was Vice President to clinton. Host im just amazed at how many times people continued that question. Guest part of it is an alibi. They go for the least and they so dislike the republicans that will accept anything on the offer and i tried to talk them if you do that you lose the bargaining power. They are pulling onto parties 24 7. So part of the progressive wing is becoming corporatized, militaristic wall street, i mean hillary clinton. How do you have any its not by saying we are going to go for the least. Im not good to put any pressure on you in april, may june july. They tell them exactly told them exactly what the corporate democrats want to hear which is blanket support no matter what the democrats will do. And that mindset both parties get worse. Host back to the book have you sent a copy . Guest they never got to the white house it has to be screened and all of the packages have to be screened. But now i think i have a contact in the white house and i may give it to her so she can give it to the president in the oval office. Host what would be a victory for you in this . A phone call from the president , and invite what would be a victory . Guest it would be first of all to acknowledge the letter. And by the way i send these letters around. You cant put all of of your eggs in the basket. You send it to the reporters at times, opponents, numbers of congress, you send it around to the University Professor that interested in the subject. Acknowledgment, thats a courteous, we have to do a courteous here. And i would like substantive responses. For example, we tried for six years to get an appointment with the secretary of energy who is pro nuclear and needs all of the time of the nuclear industry. And i had before the antinuclear groups that have been around for decades and have had been right and scientists etc. Have never been able to see them. I wrote to president obama and i said your secretary is not giving equal time here anywhere near no answer and they didnt even refer further response. So i would like for them to get a response if they come from the white house we should have more meaning for the cabinet secretaries and assistants secretaries to respond. Host you spoke with two president s, bush and obama. Why did you stick with those two, were they more egregious than the others . Guest yes. Its getting worse. Even senators and representatives. Im shocked they dont respond. Host is it because of emails . Guest they are very secure in their seats. They have letters and they dont want to be bothered. They have the letters that are sandpaper and the noncontroversial. But i would write to jimmy carter and once in a while he would respond with a special assistant would respond. I would say to the senator asking for the congressional hearing and it would be in the washington post. No matter how authoritative the letter is whats good against the Missile Defense saying that its a total boondoggle ballistic Missile Defense 9 million a year almost as much as the eta budget he writes a letter and its new. They dont report them that way they used to. I once wrote a letter to a public official and it was killing the workers in North Carolina south carolina. Page three washington post. So it is a dying media. Weve got to revive it and there is no one that can stop us because no one can stop us from writing letters and sending them around. No one can stop us from writing more powerful letters like putting this all different parties comes to the senator and the white house said this person and that. This is going to the reporter. I better write it. Host you have a podcast and people can go to it and find it. Do you put those letters in the podcast so that you have other ways to bring them out because obviously sending them to the white house you do not get a response or the attention but certainly theres a lot of people out there reading the alternative media and listening to the alternative radio. So aside from the alternative, lets talk a little bit about the use of the podcast. Because the ultimate goal is to get the information out. Its not just to get an answer obviously. Do you do a multitier approach to sending out this information . Guest i should do more of that. The program basically introduces people one very important subjects that are not in the news. So, that is the whole bulk of the program. I just interviewed Steve Silverstein and he hopes with others who are going to replace a president ial practice where you come in second like it happened four times in American History most recently in 2000 when al gore came in first, bush came in second but the Electoral College but that he would need Supreme Court held and who knows about that. It hundred 65 votes, that is they have the law passed from maryland to new york from illinois california. If they go to 270 that is the end. What do they say . In maryland or california they will throw the electoral votes completely to the winner of the National Popular vote. So they redefine what the college cannot do. So we had him on. But youre right i should herald some of the letters and summarize them. Host one way would be to put the letter out. You would do some sort of a grassroots activism so that people could actually writes another letters, focus on the issue, do whatever it takes. Because a lot of times from what i hear at least from people in congress and even the white house they do respond to the number of calls. So, when you have the same voices being heard voice is being heard over and over again there is a little bit of a take. Guest thats right. They may not respond that it has an impact if they are coming in with larger numbers. Host if people get on the phone and call the white house do you ever get a callback . Guest if i called a special assistant like Gene Sperling i would get a callback may be after the third call. You have to be quite persistent. Host when is the last time you are were invited in the white house . Guest . Hes a special assistant to handle our group so to speak we are invited several times but only to see him. You were named one of the most influential people in the century by Time Magazine and by the atlantic monthly. It is a better purpose dont you think, why do you think there is this resistance throughout. A guest one is the campaign that produced a lot. They challenged the mutating Democratic Party that is a shallow as it was in the 1960s. I think the second thing is if you dont get the mainstream Pass Coverage they dont think that they need to respond to you. So if the New York Times decides they are not going to cover certain citizen groups, then why should we bother responding. Its too bad because these letters often point out things going on in their own government when i was in the chamber of commerce. The often went over the hurdle and you can get press. When we speak to friends if the idea of the legacy. We must be thinking about what will the average american. What would you like people to know you as . Guest more than that we would like to have a big celebration for the 50th anniversary. Introduced leaders whose names are not on the evening news. Its likely started the solution first and over 25 of them now are student funded. They run the referendums and File Lawsuits and they are multiplying themselves. Its interesting because this does come out of the conversation that we had. They called together the platform at the time. Guest in the 19 90s he has a box full of them. Host it had a picture of the statute of Liberty Building up. I have copies of data from originally we started talking about it. They just know if people just knew how much power they have and they are up against what is it that they can do. So they face the average american citizen strengthened over time or has it weakened over time do you feel you are up against the tide that is hard to get your views across . Guest there is a progress fracture. Now they know who rules them and who is he grading them under insuring them. Step number two is to avoid the demoralization. That is the problem cant people have given up on themselves, you cant fight the big boys text messaging. Thats the biggest problem. It means theyve given up on themselves even though the constitution constitution starts and ends with we the people. You have the demoralization. They are engaged throughout the country. The reader actions in the reforms that are supported by the majority of the people. So, if people go around saying i have to get one out of 100 people in my town or in my Congressional District or in my state legislative district to put in two or 300 hours a year on an issue they believe in it people put more than that in the game for doubling the lead and for watching. Theyve demonstrated in front of mcdonalds, burger king, walmart saying there are 30 million workers in 1968 adjusted for inflation. And you want more consumer demand if you want a prosperous economy. Less than the a population 100,000 people scattered around the country. Maybe theres a few groups like ours contacting politicians and writing and putting out reports. But does that not encourage but thats not encourage people . Thats what made obama Pay Attention and cities and towns say we are not waiting for the federal government which is still stuck at seven. They are raising it. So 15 an hour over three years. So, less than 1 . Wall street was up 1 of the ruling class. We need to talk about the other 1 . The majority support what Abraham Lincoln said its political. With public sentiment you can do anything. And theres so much majority support for the whole areas of improvement through the country and minimumwage restoration. Its huge support into supporting against the empire. They were red blue that is the divide and the ruling tactic. There are differences. Its called unstoppable in the alliance to dismantle the appropriate state. Host and how often we are put into the red and blue situation. And again, basically going out of politics and things that really dont necessarily affect our lives in a very direct way but yet we continue to be very divided and like you mentioned, we have so much more interest. Guest it is left and right they have handouts and giveaways but they allowed the focus and that fal