All the way in the back. Okay, all right. Be seated. We have a few stragglers coming in. That is all right. I am icao, my job is to welcome you to left for him 2016. Thank you all for coming. I am sure this will be a wonderful for him. I attended my first forum in 2010. I saw doctor cornell west go below the podium when he was so animated. I knew it was something i wanted to be part of in that moment. When i started my doctorate i joined up with the forum. We were talking about occupy wall street, in 2016, talking about a democratic socialist gaining millions of votes throughout the country. Times are definitely changing. One thing that has definitely changed, not for the better, the prices in new york city ravage the working and middle classes and the left for him as well. When i was an intern we were upset when people asked what my compensation was, i said an infinite supply of pretzels, was letters, that unfortunately is still the condition we are in today so all of you are getting different envelopes. That is us asking you to open your hearts and minds to contribute to the forum. Fundraising is difficult. You need to be innovative. I am going to rip off a Successful Grassroots Campaign that goes like this. The left for him does not accept contributions from millionaires and billionaires. We have no super pac, we are relying upon millions, when i say millions i mean dozens, of Campaign Contributions just like you. Those contributions go to wonderful things. I am a good source for left forum gossip because it is a growing influence of the forum. We have been approached by leaders across the nation asking if they can have forums in their cities, we are talking about extending the left forum outside just new york to the conference in other east coast cities. There is even the conversation of bringing left forum all the way to californias golden zone. We consider these great successes that we can only do the pendant on the contribution of all those folks. I want to kick this off with a little fun, that will start with a revolutionary poet from los angeles, california with a speech from the New York Times and k p f r retail. Rebellion, revolution. Dirty harry, john wayne, blackface, moynahan, gone with the wind, breaking bad, washington redskins, confederate flag, the canon, the scholar, the ivy league history, a burning village. Victors keep their victims on the state of virginia attraction and expansion and winning the west. And slaves sweat, and failures, migrations for mexico, to davey crockett, the industrial complex, the war on drugs and the war on bloodied christmas, madness, east oakland, west baltimore, plymouth rock, jamestown, rio grande. Here is the nation. Police, escort, skinhead. Public streets. The very same police told us to meet cannon fire on black boys in hoodies and mexican machine guns. Half the nation in homeland defense. They think, they think a white womans purse has more value than a black boys life. Here is a nation, one person, genocide, pipeline, underfunded schools, nothing but a system stripped of innocence, guilt by birth certificate students, children, suspect before students. Here is the nation, not a democracy. This is an open air prison. Anything and everything, a mathematical assessment, calculated way to keep your hands moving, mind functioning, genocide built on slavery, the constitution, jefferson davis, mission accomplished, manifest destiny, institution like immigration, bicentennial, living in the Popular Center and coyote trails, brick by brick, inch by inch, in the nation, a chain to keep you in place, power over fear, National Defense, against it, who says that, who did that, he is the very squad, and turner, with the rosenbergs, hampton, killed in much the same fashion here with the bloodsoaked fields in the night of eddie lopez, and mike brown or trayvon martin, the nation is not a democracy, not a republic. This is the state of the union killing our children, war. [applause] that is the deal, everyone. Matt sedillo. [applause] thank you, matt. The left forum would not be able to be here today if not for these folks at john jay. If youre going to bring up gerald markowitz, distinguished professor of history at criminal justice, you would see this doctrine in the university of wisconsin, since 1970. He has written extensively about how corporations have undermined the environment and the health of workers in their communities. [applause] great pleasure for me on behalf of students, faculty, and John Jay College of criminal justice, and of course you know we are part of the great City University of new york. And who is here from the City University, alumni, students, faculty, way to go. And all of you know, we are on the midst of a war against higher education. This is a war we are engaged in, we are fighting back again, we are winning some of the battles but the war goes on. We have to the size that when the state does not fund higher education, it is not an economic decision, it is a political decision reflecting on our things. Students are predominantly people of color. Children of immigrants, and we are in the midst of the tremendous fight against that. Part of that fight back had been successful. And congress, the union was successful in using tuition increase, a great victory. The faculty in staff have been working without a contract. Working without a raise for 6 years. The union had a vote of its membership. Whether we should authorize a strike to be called by the union leadership. Those who voted voted for strike authorization. [applause] we need your help, we need your solidarity, we need you to join us in this defense of higher education. Thank you very much. She was the founder of flanders, books include blue grit, through democrats take back politics from the politicians. Of a warm welcome to Laura Flanders. Thank you. Lets hear it for all the organizers and participants of left forum 2016. That is you. [applause] we are here to take on one particular part of the conversation at left forum, capitalism and militarism at humanitys parol. When we have a former Nobel Peace Prize winner, barack obama, awarding a distinguished Public Service award to henry kissinger, our humanity is more than at parol. There is other news to discuss as well. We have the first muslim mayor elected in london. We have 2. 4 Million People contributing to the Bernie Sanders campaign. A man who has not warned the use of drones. We have donald trump proving in case anyone wanted White Supremacy, white male patriarchal supremacy is alive and well and deadly and we have an election on our hands as we try to build a movement that will move beyond this electoral more asked. I dont need to tell you capitalism is characterized by massive and increasing any quality. Inequality. 62 people on the same wealth as half of the world, 3. 6 billion people and only tween 9 of them are women. Wealth and power accumulates at one pole while misery and degradation, bluster and explode at the other. We exploited native lands and enslaved people. Now it seems to be more an empire than keeping capitalism on life support. We see it in the us in the rise of racism and fear the way local Police Forces are armed with surplus military weapons, using public funds to secure mercenaries corporate Security Forces and enlist workingclass people to fight each other. Voted on here and internationally by divide and conquer surveillance techniques and inflammatory rhetoric with White Supremacy area. On my show, the Laura Flanders show which you can see on podcasts at Laura Flanders. Com people reflect where we have come to. Most recently considering the legacy of peace activists who recalled our movements have become increasingly separated. Racial justice or economic justice, war and peace from wages and migration. From the times when black power activist Sophie Carmichael called bill garrett in the most dangerous white man alive. We have come a long way. How are we to understand the connection, that is the challenge of this evening is to understand the connection between extreme policeing and mass incarceration and extreme pilfering and profiteering and resource extraction. We will talk about where the threats are in this system, what Peace Movement or Justice Movements are developing and tackling empires, what leverage in and beyond the militaryindustrial complex have to disrupt the onslaught of militarization and where is this leverage being used . On my show every week we look not just at what is going wrong but what is going right. We call it a place where people who say it cant be done and go back to the people who are doing it. We will hear from three people, i know they are not perfect when it comes to talking about what we are up against but also when it comes to the opportunity and how and where people are grabbing them. We will get substantive, meaty presentations from our speakers and have conversation among ourselves. And engage in one on one conversation. Our first speaker is going to be chris hedges, journalist and author most recently of wages of rebellion, the moral imperative of revolt. War is a force, in columbia, the university of toronto through Rutgers University at a correctional facility in new jersey and about to launch a new Television Show on russia today, chris hedges. I will introduce everybody. I just wanted them to applaud. Medea benjamin is cofounder of women led patriots and the Human Rights Organization global exchange, author of eight books including drone warfare, killing by Remote Control and her articles appearing regular outlets like the Washington Post, her forthcoming book on saudi arabia, Medea Benjamin. [applause] finally, my colleague who hosts a weekly program, tariq ali was born and raised in london as an opponent of the vietnam war. He is director of Publishing House and the new left review where he is and editor, author of too many books to mention, fiction, nonfiction, essays, the most recent, extreme center of warning. Lets start with chris. [applause] thank you. I was handed a broad sheet that pulled a quote, half of a quote. Since i want to talk about the nature of power, a left oral campaign, i will finish the quote. I did indeed say it was my job to take power but it didnt end there. It is our job to make the powerful frightened the trust but that is what movements do. They keep our in check and as any good and i just will tell you, power is always a problem no matter who holds it. This is a realization carl hopper made where he wrote that it is not the job to get good people to rule, that is the wrong question, how do we get those in power are frightened of us. And pushed forward into power those who will listen, the power of movements to keep the powerful in check, all power becomes despotic and julia in the treason of the intellectual where all of us who create a society based on justice, a society that takes care of the vulnerable and weak among us given a choice between choosing between two sets of ideals, privilege and power or justice and truth. The more we make concessions to those who serve privilege and power the more we diminish the capacity for justice and truth. We finished a session on rosa luxembourg who of all revolutionary theorists probably understood this the best. It is important that we rebuild these movements that have been destroyed consciously in the name of anticommunism especially at this crisis moment when in the american political and Economic System we are teetering on the brink of a frightening form of protofascism. One of the mistakes Bernie Sanders made, the we called him out on before he announced his campaign was the decision to run within the embrace of the Democratic Party. We are now watching Bernie Sanders supporters, arguably sanders himself, confront the fact that this has been a rigged system. When you have a system lets not forget the cost of running the primaries is paid for by the taxpayer and yet the primary rules are determined by the Democratic Party so that they can manipulate a system to steal the vote from sanders, lockout independents. That is why in the last cycle sanders only won rhode island. That was the only state in which independents were allowed to vote. You have a system of superdelegates, money from super pacs. It is very clear without all these mechanisms sanders would win the nomination and yet through this long process we have been given palpable evidence that democracy within the United States is a facade and we are about to enter in a left oral process with two president ial candidates who have the highest negativity rating for the United States, donald trump being one and Hillary Clinton being the other. Those of us who care about recovering Agency Within our country, overthrowing the corporate coup detat that has taken place and for Homeland Security who might be here tonight let me repeat that, overthrow. We are going to have to step outside that system and build movements that resist. We are going to have to free ourselves from the insidious mantra of the least worst because it doesnt work. Every election cycle, the mantra of the least worst and it gets worse and our two party it has a different rhetoric, centers of power. The major structural issues that are complete continuity between george w. Bush and barack obama with the caveat that Barack Obamas assault on Civil Liberties has been worse and i speak as a plaintiff in a lawsuit i brought against the president over section 1021 of the National Defense authorization act. This is a provision that overturns the 1878 act that prohibits the military from carrying out domestic much to the chagrin of the Obama Administration, we won in the Southern District court of new york and judge catherine before us, in a very lucid opinion explaining her ruling, 112 pages, said that what this act does is empower the government to criminalize an entire category of people and detain them without due process and brought up the plight of the 110,000 japaneseamericans detained in world war ii because this section authorizes the us military on the streets of our cities to carry out extraordinary rendition against us citizens, deny them due process when the state deems them a terrorist and hold them indefinitely in black sites including our offshore penal colonies. The two year Legal Process the Obama Administration immediately appealed, not immediately appealed, the day of the rules, they went into the judges chambers and demand that she lift her temporary injunction in the name of National Security and when federal attorneys came in they came with attorneys from the nsa. She refused on friday afternoon. At 9 00 a. M. In the Second Circuit or the Appellate Court of new york demanding the same thing, the Second Circuit agreed. We wondered why. Why were they so aggressive . The only thing we could surmise was because they were already using the law. There were already dual National Pakistani us nationals being held in these sites and if they could get out and get this legal manifestation the government would be held in contempt of court. What was the response of the Second Circuit of this panel of judges that reviewed the case . They wouldnt rule for months. During that time lawyers went to nancy pelosi and said because this provision is renewed every year all you have to do is insert into the provision that us citizens are exempt. Of course they did not because it was written for us citizens. What does the Second Circuit do . It doesnt rule on the merits of the case because it is unconstitutional the way evisceration of privacy is unconstitutional and another example of how the court became wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state revoked Constitutional Rights by judicial review. What they did was wait for Supreme Court ruling on clapper versus amnesty international. I was a plaintiff in that ruling. Challenging governments wholesale surveillance for the revelations. Federal attorneys got up in the Supreme Court and said we did not have a right to bring the plaintiff that is the case. The idea the government was watching us with speculation and they added if the government was watching us they would tell us. The Supreme Court threw it out. The Second Circuit said chris hedges dont have standing, therefore doesnt have standing in chris hedges versus obama. The petition was turned down. This was all under obama. Obamas espionage act destroyed whistleblowers who once sought out independent journalists to expose corruption, malfeasance and crime against government and we must honor two of ou