>> i'd written a piece about how he was using his position as head of a major, major defense -- he was head of defense policy board under nixon, under bush and cheney which was a very powerful group because he's such a powerfully, bright guy. this man who spent much of his career being anti-saudi and

pro-israel i wrote was in serious negotiations using his credentials as an insider and on this board, this defense policy board which is yet to get clearances to everything, etc., access to everything, to strike a deal for a huge billion dollar project to build a fence between yemen and saudi arabia with the saudis, and that's when he called me a terrorist. and i take that as a compliment. [laughter] he hasn't spoken to me since, although i must tell you he's actually very, very smart and quite engaging, and i miss him. that's the way it goes. so, yeah, it's a big issue. of course not for me since i've never done anything wrong in my life, but for everybody else it is. good-bye. [applause] >> this morning on c-span2 saratoga springs, utah, mayor mia love speaks at the rockies

conference. then a discussion on the impact of new media on modern day revolutions in iran, egypt and syria. and later from the annual i'veuation summit -- annual aviation summit, a look at the condition of u.s. airports. >> it's been three months since the school shooting in newtown, connecticut. today congressman elijiah cummings of maryland talks about efforts in congress to bring up gun legislation. live coverage at 10 a.m. eastern on c-span. and at 11, the nra's report on school security. >> we have to take back media. independent media is what will save us. the media are the most powerful institutions on earth, more powerful than any bomb, more powerful than any missile. it's an idea that explodes onto the scene. but it doesn't happen when it is

contained by that box, that tv screen that we all gaze at for so many hours a week. we need to be able to hear people speaking more -- for themselves outside the box. we can't afford the status quo anymore. from global warm worrying to global warming. >> author, and executive producer of democracy now, amy goodman "in depth," three hours live sunday at noon eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> next, saratoga springs, utah, major mia love at the annual leadership program at the rockies retreat, a colorado institute that provides economic training. love lost to jim matheson by 768

votes. her remarks are 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. well, thank you, everyone. what a great reception. i would like to -- i forgot my notes, so i'm going to try and go by memory here. i'd like to thank congressman and chairman bob schafer for inviting me here and, sherry, i just met her. what a wonderful, wonderful president you have. please give her a happened. [applause] and crystal -- [inaudible] did i get the last name right? she, actually, was the one that coordinated all of this, and i'd

like to thank her for all of her efforts. i'm not the easiest person to nail down on, you know, on events, but this was really important, and she was able to persevere and get me here, and so thank you for working so hard to get me here. i don't know where she is, but thank you so much. and thank you to the board of directors for really, it's really an honor for me to be here and talk to you today about something that is so incredibly important to me, and that is our country. my parents immigrated from haiti with $10 in their pockets. it's true. they had this hope and this idea of what this country was like. so when they came over, they were hoping that all of the stories about the american dream was truement my parents worked over and over again many, many jobs to try and make ends meet. when times got tough, today tightened their belts -- they tightened their belts, and they worked even harder. on the first day of college, i took my dad with me because he

tends to be the fun parent. [laughter] so i took him with me, and he was just really giddy and just so excited. i'm not sure if it was because it was the last child he was sending off to college, or if he really had this thought of, my goodness, this is the fist -- all my children, first generation college attendees and graduates. i don't know what really motivated the enthusiasm. it's probably a combination of everything, but he was incredibly excited and walked around as if he was going to school himself. and at one point he looked at me and said, mia, your mother and i have done everything we could to get you here today. we have never taken a handout. you will not be a burden to society. you will give back. they taught me growing up that i wasn't entitled to anything i didn't own, earn, work for or pay for myself. so growing up -- [applause]

so growing up, my life was centered around self-reliance and filled with all of the possibilities of living the american dream. you know, we have to remember what this country's based on and the america that i know what it's based off of. it's based and grounded in the determination found in patriots and pioneers. it's grounded in the beauty of our landscapes, the farmers who work them and the artists who paint them. it's in our interim neuros -- entrepreneurs, it's in our heroic military, it's in our olympic athletes, and, yes, it is in our children who look at the seemingly impossible, and they say i can do that. most of all, let's not forget that the america we know is grounded on freedom.

that's what's important. that's what makes up our country. and it's interesting because you don't hear that from our leaders very much. you don't hear the word freedom. you hear a lot of slogans like hope and change and, of course, that's a great message because you can just fill in the blanks, right? hope and change can mean anything. it's true. gosh, hope and change would work for me too. it's not necessarily the same message. but we hear a lot of things like we hear some fear tactics. the messaging that wins right now it's not what can you do for your country, but the one based on what government can do for you. we've completely shifted. and it's not a party shift, it's a completely police my shift and -- philosophy shift and a principle shift. but freedom is what this country is based on, and that's what we have to protect. because if we think about it, my parents left haiti to come to

this country for what? for freedom. to escape the bureaucracies. government was way too big, and people were way too small. there was one dictator after another. our entrepreneurs, through freedom, can have this crazy idea, invest their time and their money in something that just might work. free markets have taken more people out of poverty than any other economic system in the history of the world. [applause] and when a man or a woman puts on that uniform and they go to a foreign land and they sacrifice their lives, what are they doing it for? it's not hope and change, it's freedom. you want to foe -- to know why? because we all know in this room that there is no hope without

freedom. that's who we are. that's the america we know. [applause] so what's next? we have a president that's elected based on what he says, not necessarily what he does, because we would be, we wouldn't be in such a mess right now, right? so what do we do? do we just hang our hats and say, that's it, it's over? trust me, i've wanted to do that several times. but i tend -- i have children, so i can't, i don't have the luxury of doing that. so what do we do? i hope to leave you with a message today, mainly three things. and the first one is make the choice to get into the fight. and know why you're doing it. [applause] now, now making the choice, so many times, you know, you run, and you run on these slogans, and that's perfectly fine. i'm not telling you to get rid of slogans like limited

government, fiscal responsibility, because we all believe in those things. but understand really why you're getting into it. ask yourself if i can accomplish one thing while i'm in office, what would that be? if i have to spend every single political, every single ounce of political capital that i have, what would i do with that effort? as a mayor, i ran on a slogan building a beautiful city, fiscal discipline and communication. because i knew i could get as many people to come along with me as possible. but when i asked myself what i really wanted to do if i could do one thing in the city, it would be to make sure that our city was run financially stable. because i wanted to make sure that the city my children was growing up in and that i was building around my family was a city that was financially stable between the national debt and state debt, i didn't want to put on another burden on a local level. i believe that the best, most effective solutions are found at

the most local level. so i'll give you an example. saratoga springs was incorporated in '97. we had two state roads. really we didn't have anything to maintain. everything was agriculture. we had, you know, people had their own self-sufficient systems. so the city really didn't have anything to maintain. so our city started to grow and grow. we grew 1700% in less than ten years. we never set a residential tax because we were living off of building permits. [laughter] and you ask yourself, how is that sustainable? how does that work, right? so guess what happened in 2008? you can participate. it's okay. [laughter] 2008, housing market crashed, and we went from being able to build and work through our issues through building permits to having zero. went to no money coming into the

city. so we had to do something that was really difficult. we rolled up our sleeves, and we had to cut spending. and let me tell you, it is entering. as many people -- i live in, i believe, one of the reddest states here in the united states. and still you wouldn't believe how many people wanted to take my head off for getting rid of the baby contest. i mean, it was really -- [laughter] it was insane. so we rolled up our sleeve, and we got rid of as much spinedding as possible. -- spending as possible. and i was forced to ask myself three questions every time. is it affordable, is it sustainable, is it my job? when you ask yourself those questions, it's funny how little you're required to do. right? so we had to ask ourselves those questions. we had -- we went from a $3.5 million shortfall which doesn't seem like much, but when it's half your city's budget, it's a lot of money. went from a $3.5 million

shortfall to a $78,000 shortfall. we were able to make sure our utilities paid for utilities, everything else had to be sustainable. it had to be our job. right? so imagine if we were able to do that in washington. [laughter] it's not rocket science, is it? you live within your means. one-time revenues pay for one-time expenditures. so that's what my goal was. and guess what? we are financially stable. and we are doing well. and those people who wanted to take my head off because of the baby contest started running it themselves as volunteers. it works out great. [applause] so know why you're getting into the fight, and make the choice to get into it. because if you know why you're doing it, you can truly make a difference. two, messaging and the power of

personal touch. now, i know every single one of us have an iphone, pad, blackberry, you name it. that's an effective way of communicating, right? it is. i mean, gosh, you can't -- most people communicate through text message, facebook, twitter, we were just talking about twitter and tweets. [laughter] bob says the to tweet. but we communicate through all of these things. sometimes it can get us in trouble. i'll tell you a little story. i was actually sitting across the room from a friend of mine who happens to be a director for the utah department of transportation. and we were sitting in a really, let's face it, it was a boring, boring meeting, and i had to do whatever i could to get through this meeting. and so he's texting me back and forth, and apparently he was really bored also. and at one point he told me to do something, he was like, you know, just to kind of shake up the meeting, he's like, you

know, tell the joke, it would be funny. and i meant to text dare me, and i will. but i ended up texting date me, and i will. [laughter] and i didn't really realize that until he looked at me from across the room with this look on his face like, what? [laughter] and so i looked down, and i see what i've actually done, and i'm sitting there, no! i'm happily married, trust me. anyway, if you all look at your phones right now, you'll see the r is next to the t, so you'll know i wasn't trying to date shane marshall. but it was just one of those things that i thought, okay, i've got to be careful. that's the way we communicate these days. when it comes to really understanding who you are and reaching people, people are tired of being part of a form letter. they're tired of really when something really needs to be said, when you need to communicate with somebody, that's not the best way to do it. how many of you have actually

gotten a holiday message that said, um, thank you so much for everything you've done in our lives, love so and so, and you're trying to figure out if it's a group message or be it's actually for you. and you're looking for any little area that says, oh, that was actually sent to just me. how many of you have actually done that? i'm sure practically everyone, right? because i look for certain things that say dear mia or thank you for something that you did that i can recognize. but that's not what we do. there is a little girl that lived with her father in san diego, and her father used to take her to these games, the san diego padres games which wasn't really attended, i mean, wasn't heavily attended, but she loved baseball. her father took her to this game one day, and she was so animated and into baseball that most people that sat around this little girl watched her more than they watched the game. i mean, she started yelling at the players, yelling at the

people in the audience, and she was really into this game. well, while the game started going and, you know, people got a little bit rowdy and probably drinking a little bit too much beer, the father took his daughter and brought her into a south carolina that was empty -- into a section that was empty. and as soon as they sat down, there was a fly ball, and t it flew all the way over and landed in a section that she had just moved from. and this young man who was just so, you know, talking to this girl and really enjoyed talking to her caught the ball. and the jumbotron, everybody could see this thing on the jumbotron. and he walks down to where she is and gave her the ball. and on the jumbotron you can see this little girl just take her hands and blow him a kiss, and everybody was into this. i mean, everybody thought it was just the sweetest thing. so at the end of the game, he was able to take his daughter down to get her, the ball signed by one of the players, but instead she went up and had this

young man sign the ball and say thank you. this young girl has got three kids now. she's an adult, and on her mantle is this ball signed by a young man that she really didn't know, never really got to know and don't really know about his family or about his life, but he impacted her her life somehow. that's the power of personal touch. people want to know that you know their story, that you understand their story. and even be you can't fix it -- if you can't fix it, they want to know that you want to try and fix their problems. that's where i believe we fail. we talk about numbers. we talk about all of these things, and we're right. but most of the time just think about how our president got elected. not based on what he's actually done, but based on how he

communicates with people and how they feel. in other words, we have got to make people make the decision here before they make it here. the power of personal touch. next time you're talking to somebody, please remember their story and retell their story, because somebody else will see themselves in that story, and at least they know you've heard them and you validate them and understand them. last but not least, we have to instill confidence and unspire people. inspire people. we face some serious, daunting problems in our country. the pundits of doom and gloom will tell you that everything is lost, the economy is broken beyond repair, people are powerless to improve their communities. this nation, this great nation is a nation in decline, and our best days are behind us, not ahead of us.

that's what they'll tell you, that everything's over. and if you listen to the constant drum beats of the negative, you would all believe that, you know, maybe they're right. even the most positive among us sometimes will have a hard time waking up in the morning. how many of you felt really depressed november 7th? yeah, right? so what do we do? i am here to tell you that there is cause for confidence. confidence many some of our leader -- in some of our leaders that are out there in the battle trying. confidence that we can improve our communities, improve the places that we live in, fix the economy, improve this nation. for crying out loud, this is the united states of america, and we have never been a nation of fear. [applause] at the republican convention, i

mentioned -- and today -- i mentioned that our determination is found in every child who looks at the seemingly impossible and says, i can do that. how many of you have had grandchildren or children watch olympic athletes do the absolute impossible and say, i can do that? i know my son watched the trampoline event and then went outside trying to perform everything that they did and honestly believed that he could do it. but that's what's great. that's what we're made of. and if we remove that from the american people, which we are doing, then we will cease to strive for better, for more. we have to instill confidence. that's the confidence that you have to instill pack into the american people. -- back into the american people. confidence is not arrogant. true confidence comes from having respect for the challenge, because we have got a challenge. being ready for the task, having a solid plan and having the

determination to persevere, because it is difficult. we have to do that. there are many people that have told me after the campaign that this is not the end, it's just the end of the beginning. there's so much more to do. i want you to know that i have confidence that we can fix our nation's problems. we can simplify the tax code. we can have a budget. we can keep the promises we made to our seniors. we can keep the promises we've made to our children. we can do, we can work hard and make sure that we sacrifice a little so that our children will have the opportunities to do amazing things. every individual in this country should be able to walk confidently towards their goals, towards their dreams. i have confidence in the american people. and as individuals and as a

country, we are not cower in a corner. we will not drudge towards decline. we will not go gently into that good night. we will instead stand up and stand out as examples of everything that's good and right in this nation. [applause] we need to do that. [applause] seeing you here today is my, you are my source of confidence. every time i go out and talk to people who are willing to get into that fight, i have a little bit more renewed energy. so i'd like to thank you for that. remember, remember our story. of it's a good story. our story has been told through human struggle, standing up and striving for more, striving for better. i believe it's this type of confidence that ronald reagan had when he said it is always morning in america. we have to start our morning

today. remember, our story's been told through small steps and giant leaps from a woman on on a bus a man with a dream. from the bravery of the greatest generation to the entrepreneurs and innovators of today. you know what that took? choice to get into the fight, messaging, touching people personally. it took freedom to make those choices, and it inspired confidence in us. all of the people wolf done amazing -- people who have done amazing things inspired confidence, and that's the task that we have to accomplish. so if you will join me in this fight, i will not give up if you don't. if you will join me, we can add our voices to this cause. we can make sure that the america we know and love is the america that our children will possess for years to come. god bless you all.

thank you for being here. thank you for having me, and god bless this great country, the united states of america. [applause] thank you. >> mayor love has consented to take a few questions, and for those of you who have been here before, you can show everyone else how it's done. there are a couple of microphones right over there, line up behind them s we'll just alternate microphones. when you are recognized, state your name, tell us from you're from and fire away. i thought that was one right there. all right. we'll start over here, and then we'll go over there next. >> great. russ farmer from broomfield,

colorado, lpr class of 2011. what's next for mia politically? [laughter] >> russ, you know, i'm keeping my options open. you know, we have opened up an exploratory committee, and so we're going to see if we can get the bases going again. but like i said before, i will not give up if you don't give up. i cannot do this on my own. we need as many people behind us as possible. and we need to make sure that we're, we have this message of individual liberty and freedom, and we're able to make sure that, um, that we get out and we inspire people, inspire everyone. i was able to go to the university of chicago, by the way, the other day which was the lion's den -- [laughter] and what was interesting is i reminded these, i reminded the students there that tough things

come through service. and even though they're hard, they're in the end worth it. and one person asked me how could you be black, female, conservative in today's america? and i pretty much told them it's because i refuse to fit in this mold, in this form that society wants me to fit into. [applause] imagine if martin luther king decided to sit back and do exactly what society told him to do. if he decided that he was like, you know, they know where my place is. i don't know where my place is. are our battles so different today than they were then? are our battles so different when we were able to pass the 13th amendment back then? are they doesn't -- are they different than today? they're very, very similar

circumstances. so, so i will not give up. that's the answer to your question. i will not give up. we will continue to fight. we will continue to be out there in one way or another. >> [inaudible] >> okay. helen. >> one of your criteria when you were analyzing your budgets, etc., was asking the question is it our job to do this. and i would love to know what are some of the things that you looked at and said, no, those are the people's job, not government's job. and looking at the federal government, what you think are some of the things that should be questioned in the same way. >> okay. what was my job and what wasn't my job. i'll give you a great example. two years ago some residents came to me and said, mayor, we need a library. lehigh has a library, eagle mountain as a library, everybody has a library. as we know, libraries are all expenditures and no revenue, and

by the way, i have three children, so a library's very appealing to me. you have to ask yourself that question. is it affordable? is it sustainable? is it my job? is it what i was elected to do? is it the proper role? so i said here's what we're going to do. i will do everything i can to help you with a library, but if it's truly an essential service, then you can do it. so the residents said, all right, we're going to go out, and we're going to do everything we can. they collected books, they collected all books, by the way. what they didn't use they repaired and resold. they got the private area, the private businesses to come in and sponsor the library, the bank of america sponsored the chirp's library -- children's library. what we were building, we weren't just building a library, we were building a community. because people started getting together for the same cause.

on monday nights we would go to wingnuts, and everybody was there for the library. not only was wingnuts making money, but the library was also. today we have a full blown library, and it's not on the backs of the taxpayers. [applause] and what's interesting is i was there just the other day, my children volunteer to do for part of the literacy program, and there was a little boy that dropped some dumb on the carpet -- gum on the carpet, and can one of the mothers just got up and said, huh-uh, i'm going to have to fundraise to replace that carpet. you pick it up. [laughter] so it's really interesting that when we work hard and we own something and we really put our time and our effort, it's interesting how much people really, really take care of what they've worked hard for. [applause] oh, you did ask me one more, right? what can federal government do? it's funny, it's written right

there in the constitution. [laughter] i don't know what else to say. i mean, it's clear, you know, what's written in the constitution. so if they just followed that, we would be okay. [applause] where are we? >> hi, mayor. welcome to god's country. [laughter] antinyet smith, class of 2013. i'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the unique role of women in leadership. finish. >> ooh. well, you know, and that was ooh like not ooh, but ooh. [laughter] you know, i think that it's interesting. i believe what made me a better candidate is that i didn't need this job. my husband, who's sitting right here -- i've got to give him a and because he finances everything i do here. [applause]

i would not be able to do what i do if it weren't for that great man that we have over there who feels like through me he is doing his, he is sacrificing also and doing his servicement servicement -- service. but women, they have a lot to offer. i mean, gosh, i was pta mom for many, many years laminating apples to popsicle sticks realizing that, you know, you've got people in the department of education that makeover $100,000 while our teachers are making absolute pennies. we go to the doctor's office with our kids, we realize that every time we go grocery shopping that less is coming home, and the prices are going up. there's a lot to, there's a lot for women to be able to offer. i mean, i am, just to let you know, i am not one that always stands, that stands on this podium that says i'm woman, here me roar. i consider myself first and foremost a wife, a mother, a concerned citizen, an american,

and i think that what we need to do is make sure that we're not allowing anyone b to divide us as people. this whole war on women is absolutely ridiculous. [applause] but i need as many people to get vfed as possible, and that's including moms who want to make sure that their children, you know, have an opportunity of reaching their goals. so thank you. over here? >> okay. bill marshall from estes park, colorado. mayor love, on the subject of messaging with a personal touch, when we saw president obama attack the second amendment, he surrounded himself with children. why don't our congressional leaders take a page from that book, for example, and when they're discussing the budget and the budget deficit and the national debt, surround themselves with children and say you've just mortgaged the future in each of these tax paying children is going to inherit

$380,000 of debt. >> gosh, i have so much to say about that. [laughter] we are playing this game, and i realize inned this in our campaign as well. we're playing this game where we're playing by the rules. weaver the only ones maying by the rules. [applause] and in our heads we think, you know, that's kind of cheesy where we would, why would we use our children even though we're doing everything we can to protect our children. i have to tell you, i went to -- i woke up one morning, and all over the news plastered mia doesn't like autistic kids. he, my opponent got up, and he just kind of went to an autistic school and said she's going to eliminate funding for, you know, for these students. but that's what i mean by they will win at all costs. so we have to be smart. when it comes to personal messaging, yes, i mean, i do believe that we have to do what we can to reach people here. and maybe that does mean we have

of, we bring children into it. i mean, they have to have a voice, right? they're the only ones that don't vote, and they're the ones that are going to suffer the most. so we have to be able the to speak up for them. and so as long as we are not doing anything that i believe puts them at risk or exposing them in inappropriate ways, i think that we do need to make sure we paint a clearer picture of who we're affecting here. and if you don't care about yourself, for crying out loud, care about these kids, right? so i agree with you. but we have to make sure that whatever we do that our principles stay intact and that we're able to sleep at night. [applause] >> thank you for taking my question. i am from africa. i'm pleased to be one of the

participants of -- [inaudible] my question is this, the greatest lesson i have learned from this nation is one thing that this nation is built upon one big pillar, and that is in god we trust. [applause] what do you think about that, and where is that pillar now in this nation? some thank -- thank you. >> thank you. well, you're absolutely right. i believe the majority of the american people are god fearing. i know that i have a moral compass that is base withed on my faith and what i believe in. but we have to also make sure that, to me, i have to really

understand my principles. the other thing that makes this country great is that you can come here and worship who you want to worship and how you want to worship and make sure that we allow people to make decisions. now, the greatest confusion that people have that i believe has been clouded over is that we're not supposed to be free from consequences. we're not supposed to be free from failure. that means whether you choose to believe in a god or choose to make choices, whatever your choices are, you have to be able to reap the benefits or suffer the consequences. and so, you know, where i once make sure that i'm able to practice my faith, i want to make sure that other individuals can practice their faith. i am, i do believe in a god. i do believe that, you know, i have my faith, and i want to be able to make sure i preserve the opportunity to teach my children in my home what i want them to learn. and not have somebody else teach

my children whatever it is. so understand this, when you get the federal government to do one thing, they have the power to do the exact opposite also. and so that's why my principles always stay the same. individual choice and liberty reap benefits, suffer the consequences. [applause] >> jimmy, arab hoe county class of 2012. you talk a hot about children, and you're a mother, and also you said you've opinion involved in pta and, also, mayor of a community. i've just become the new president of a nonprofit called liberty day, we focus on educating kids about the u.s. constitution, getting right into the schools, getting the document into the schools, getting them involved in that process -- [applause] because the learning doesn't just start with lpr, it starts with kids. look at the the left and how they start with things like

global warming and gay rights at a young age. can you talk to us about the importance of reaching children on founding principles and on our nation's founding documents and what it means to be an american at a young age? >> okay. there were a lot of questions in there. [laughter] >> that's the question, that's the question. >> let me see if i can answer what i think you're asking me. government takeover of education, lands, health care, i peen, regulation, businesses is very real. and you say they're starting early. i want you to know, i live in a red state, and my children are coming home with articles -- there was one article. jason will remember this. one article that my child came home with, and it was talking about the president's jobs plan. and at the end it said, um, the jobs plan, the right plan for

today. and she had to write an article. but it pretty much -- it had an opinion. so what, this is why when i say limited government, and lang will appreciate this, when i say limited government, it doesn't mean that you eliminate everything. that's not what it means. it means that everything is applied at the appropriate levels, and education applied at the most local level is the most effective and the best solution that we can have. [applause] so when it comes to teaching our youth, we have got to make sure that federal government is not educating our children, that we are educating our children. [applause] that's how we're going to start. because if we allow them the to educate our children -- them to educate our children, what next? they're going to grow up with ideas and thoughts that aren't necessarily ours. >> thank you, mia, for coming.

my name is leslie white, i'm a graduate of lpr in 2002, and i currently work for americans for prosperity. one of the questions i have for you is in 2008, 56% of the women in america voted for the current guy, and in 2012, 55% of the current registered women in america voted for the current guy. what do you suggest to in regards the to how do we educate women in america that the policies of the left are really not helping us, but really hurting us? i'd love to hear it from your perspective. >> it's all messaging. it is all messaging. somehow we've become the noncompassionate, strict, i don't know what to say, war amongerring party somehow. -- warmongering party somehow. and the way they were able to do that was by messaging correctly. they made people vote with their

hearts before they voted with their heads, and we're trying to reach people's heads first. it doesn't work that way. we're losing. so what we have to do is we have to make sure that when we go out and we talk about -- let's talk about people's stories. i've heard so many stories about moms and about, you know, health care and about different things that actually fit our message. we have to start telling those stories. how many times -- who remembers joe the plumber? [laughter] joe the plumber has a name, has a face, has a voice. our numbers do not have a name, they don't have a face, they don't have a voice. so what we need to do is we need to start taking individual stories and start telling those stories. does that make sense? it's all about messaging. police departments -- [applause] if we're able to get people here, they'll make the decision there. >> thank you. you motivate all of us. >> thank you. >> hello, mia. thank you for coming out here.

my name is len, i'm a graduate of the class of 2010. and i got my funny last name in the soviet union, so your story really resonated with me. i really appreciate the immigrant experience. and i hope one day my daughter stands on a stage and is able to talk about how her parentses taught her the value of hard work and dedication. my question to you is this: as conservatives, we can't offer outcomes, we can only offer opportunities. and the flipside of opportunities is failure. and so our competition is offering outcomes. we promise you a safe, risk-free world. and we can't. all we can say is we can give you the possibility of your dreams, but we can't deliver them for you. how, how do we message that and make it appealing to the folks we need to make it appealing to? >> and there's the rub right there. i mean, one of the things that we need to do is get back to the

core beliefs. in other words, how can somebody be independent and free when they're completely dependent on a federal government? so when i start talking about certain things like this on the road, i talk about we are fighting the same ballots that we fought during the 13th amendment. instead of being enslaved by a plantation owner, now all americans are becoming enslaved by a federal government. what's happening is that be you cannot provide for yourself, if you're not able to make decisions for yourself, you will never be able to reach your potential or your opportunities. the policies that we create today take everyone and bring them to the lowest common denominators. and when free markets and freedom does the absolute opposite, it takes everyone from the lowest common denominator and brings them up. of so it's one of those things that i believe is very

difficult. but, again, i'm going to go back and talk about individual stories. the reason why my story resonates is because it's real, and people like you can see yourself in by story, right? when i talk about other people and their stories, someone out there can see themselves in that story. and so if you want your children -- i always go out and say if you want your chirp to have a better -- your children to have a better life than you've had, then you've got to be able to make mistakes. you've got to be able to fail. my father failed many times, but he got back up, and he got back up. and through that i, i was learning. so this is not about freedom from failure. it's about having the opportunity to reach your full potential. it's a difficult message, but we've got to get out and talk about individuals and their problems and how they can make their lives better. >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> last question.

>> hi, mia, i'm ted veil, lpr class of 2009. i'm a business person here in colorado. i had the privilege of spending almost a decade overseas starting businesses in many developing countries. i realize you have a unique background and perspective perhaps on the following: what is our role as a country in helping other countries, other people? we put a lot of money into developmental aid, etc. sometimes one wonders where our principles are in that. what's your perspective? >> well, that's really interesting. during the earthquake in haiti, i have a lot of family members that are still in haiti, and i'm glad that this is the last question, because i wanted to say something that fits with that. during that time i was getting, you know, messages through family members of the situation that was found there. i want you to know that i know more people in the state of utah that went to haiti to help in

haiti than i know people in haiti. here's the thing, we as americans have given more voluntarily than any other country. do i believe we have an opportunity to care for those who cannot care for themselves? yes. do i believe that we should if we have the resources to help our neighbors who are suffering, should we do that? yes. i do. but the day that we decide that we need federal government to force us to do that is the day that we've decided to decline as a society. it's a day that we've decided to be less american. [applause] that's not who we are. in my, um, in my city we dealt with a fire that burned 6,000 acres and then a flood right after that. we had 22 homes that were

absolutely devastated. i mean, if i could show you pictures, just water from the bottom up. now, everybody was asking us questions, are you going to call fema, what are you going to do? and i'm telling you if there was ever a day when i just wanted to throw my hands up and say $830 a month is not worth it -- [laughter] that would have been the day. i was gone for three days straight. my husband was in basements shoveling, and so was everybody else. i want you to know the next morning after the flood i got up, went over, and 5,000 people showed up shoveling mud out of basements. so when they ask me that question, is fema going to come and help? i said we're going to have this cleaned up before washington even realizes we're on the map. [applause]

through volunteer efforts, people, we were able to clean up those basements in three days. we were able through our own efforts to fundraise and help people repair their personal property. hard work, education, thrift, saving take us far beyond what any government program can ever promise. [applause] volunteer workment -- work. that's who we are. that's who we need to be. that's how we have to remind people how we're going to get back on our feet. so thank you so much. i really appreciate it, and um go out there, work hard. don't leave me out there alone. [laughter] >> thank you. [applause]

>> former treasury secretary hank paulson will be many washington today for a discussion hosted by george washington university and fortune magazine. you can watch his remarks on the significant economic, political and environmental changes in china at 4:30 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> secretary of state john kerry meets with the south korean foreign minister today. following their meetings, they'll speak with reporters at the state department. we'll have live coverage at 4:20 eastern here on c-span2. >> you're watching c-span2 with politics and public affairs, weekdays featuring live coverage of the u.s. senate. on weeknights watch key public policy events, and every weekend the latest nonfiction authors and books on booktv. you can see past programs and get our schedules at our web

site, and you can join in the conversation on social media sites. >> new york university hosted a discussion on the role of new media in political revolutions and compares violent to nonviolent struggles including the green revolution in iran and political uprisings in egypt and syria. this is an hour and 25 minutes. [inaudible conversations] >> all right. thank you, everyone, for coming. my name is leah leibowitz, i'm a visiting professor here at the media department of culture and communication, and it is my absolute thrill to introduce to you srdja popovic, i've been introducing srdja for a while now, and it seems as if every time i introduce him, there's

another laurel attached to his name be it ted talker, google speaker, we learned last week that a future davos attendee, so you can start feeling jealous right now. most influential person on this list or the other including wireed, foreign affairs, and other veritable publications. but let me tell you about the real reason we're here to listen toker srdja. we're here to listen to srdja because as the title of this talk suggests, srdja has done and saw perhaps more than anything else out there about how to harness the terrific power of nonviolent struggle and helping people organize movements that ended up in the ousting of mubarak, in the ousting of men ally, in the -- ben ali, in the ousting of all kinds of making the last couple years terrible, terrible years for bad guys.

so srdja will tell you a lot more about himself. he is the intellectual force and the muscle behind the serbian movement that ended up incredibly started as a host of bored college kids and ended up ousting slobodan milosevic. he's a consultant, a teacher and a guru to a host of nonviolent movements throughout the world. it is my honor to have him here and my honor to call him a friend. srdja popovych. [applause] >> thank you. you are too kind to me, but good afternoon and so happy and proud being here again at nyu. it started by, actually, the first time i was in this building, i was meeting people from occupy a few years ago. and the next thing was getting into lil's class and talking to his bright students. and then they moved me to

washington park and send me to another great professor of nyu which is down there on barclay street which is where i met another bunch of very clever nyu students, and this is my third and i hope it will not be by last time here. so, basically, we are going to touch a few issues today, the issue of nonviolent struggle and people power. second, how it relates to what is this specific school interested in which is the use of media which we've always tried to understand, and then a little bit of something which is interesting and getting very sexy, and i can even say overexaggerated lately which is the role of new media. and you always see this, you know, titles in the media, facebook revolution, twitter revolution, so where it is and where it goes. i will start by telling you, of course, my favorite anecdote. how many of you are familiar with monty python's flying circus? so imagine you meet a character back there in 2010 and the

person offers you a bat. and you say here is the crystal ball. if you look at the crystal ball, you will see the future, but there is one single condition coming with this. the future will be accurate, but you need to go to the c-span and tell the future to the world. so, of course, you take the bat, you look at the crystal balker next thing you know you're sitting in a studio with a lovely host, and this is what you say before the end of the 2011, mubarak of egypt and ben ali of tunisia would be down and prosecuted. sal lay of yemen would be out of power, assad would be seriously challenged, osama bin laden would be dead together with gadhafi. and number one on the hague criminal list will be hecht. so 2011 was really the worst year for bad guys ever. and before jumping into the year of big hangover which is 2012, we need to look at this as a

year where the people power or the nonviolent struggle really stepped out from the closet and become a kind of the mainstream knowledge. before that most of the people from academia were looking at it. you can see harvard professor, columbia professor looking how these protests worked. and then, of course, a bunch of activists were living this life, and they were looking at thing, and they knew a little about it. but for the first time the common people were entered as well as the mainstream media. well, what is this thing we call people power? as we speak, it shakes the world. it's everywhere. it used to be all around the united states. it's happening in venezuela. it started in stir ya as a non-- syria as a nonviolet uprising. it host in zimbabwe for probably 15 years now, china, morocco, jordan, it transforms burma dramatically as we speak. of wherever you look at the

globe, you have it. even in my old neighborhood, slovenia, bulgaria. under the pressure of the popular movement, the government resigned. the new coalitions are made. the system is changing. so one big thing is if this is so much around us, how much do we foe about it? which brings us to another question. so my first question is, when you look at your library, when you look at the library of this lovely building, you probably have a lot of the history books. so be you take a random -- if you take a random book from history, what percentage of this book is about the wars and violence? pretty big. how many movies you've seen about one single stupid vietnamese war? ten? fifteen? twenty? how many good movies about nonviolent struggle? how many good movies about martin luther king? one, maybe two? movies about gandhi, one with

ben kingsley. thanks to sean penn, one good movie about harvey milk, and that's about it. you look at the books and the movies will be this tiny little thing. so how come and how in the relates to the history. so i had the pleasure of dealing with this both in class, and normally start with a question to the audience, what do you think really counts in history? and people give you very nice answers. people say idea counts, religion counts, change counts. and to be more with two feet on the ground, i will say the consequences count. we all mow that the road to hell -- we all know that the road to hell is paved with good speptions, so we want to look at the consequences. if you want to look at the weight you can attach to the violent struggle and nonviolent struggle, you want to look at the short history of 20th century and start, okay, let's look at this violent struggle. a lot of movies, a lot of books.

case study number one, world war ii. world war i. okay, what was the world war i about? colonies. you had some countries which didn't have colonies, you had some cups which had colonies. you had the crazy serb -- you always need a crazy serb to start a war -- it was like that in 1914, it's very much like that, to kill the head of the throne of the hungarian empire. the war starts, the war ends four years later, millions of dead people, a lot of displaced people, epidemics. people are dying, mostly civilians. but war the real consequences? and when you look at the consequences of the world war i, you can see that the colonial power was a little bit redistricted, but the most important consequence of world war i is -- [laughter] worldworld war ii. now, when you look at world war ii, it was a completely

different species. while world war i was very tapping bl things like, you know, the ground, the resources, the colonies, the spices, the gold, world war ii more about ideological things. you have three big guys on the planet, you have a very right-wing nut, we call them fascism, national socialism and germany. you had a lot of these left-wing nuts, we call them communists in china and russia, and then you have the countries which you like to call liberal democracy i like to call liberal capitalism, and these three ideologies clashed. the world was not too big for three of hem, and what basically happened in world war ii is two guys kicked out the right-wing guy which, of course, brought us to the big consequence of world war ii and another big conflict of 20th century which, of course, cold war. now we don't have three guys, we

have two guys. the world is separated, berlin, the beautiful city in germany, is separated by the wall. we wage a little bit of proxy war was we have so much nukes that you can kill each other completely, you need to do this little proxy wars. vietnam, korea, afghanistan, good things for hollywood but not really important for the history. the problem number one, when we speak about this for telephone minutes, there is -- for ten minutes, there is not one single tangible consequence which counts. we can talk about the league of the nations which ruined the u.n. and maybe one or two more things, but when you look at the real consequences of these conflicts, they are little comparing to the consequences of nonviolent conflict. is these are the well known -- so these are the well known nonviolent struggle there. we'll start with the skinny little girl with glasses whom we know as mohandas gandhi. what was his struggle about?

indian independence. was he successful? he was successful. what were the consequences? india was independent. what were the long-term consequences? and of the british -- end of the british empire, but end of colonialism as we know it because once the biggest colonial superpower has lost its biggest and most important colony, which happened to the u.k. and india, then the whole domino effect leading to 2013 and in 2013 we have no real colonies. compare this to world world ward you will understand how this is related. then you have another guy, this guy over here. there's something with people power. his name was martin luther king. what was his struggle about?

racial equality, right of the people to eat, shop and pee in, basically, same places regardless of the color of their skip. was he successful? yes. he was successful in u.s. and then 30 years after that some other people were successful in the last fortress of the racial segregation in pretoria, south africa. but basically, this was one big movement for human rights. consequences? 2013 it is completely politically incorrect to judge people for color of skin anywhere in the world. and, by the way, what's the color of skin of the president of the united states? so when you look at the consequences of this guy's victory, they're tremendous. and then you have this third guy with biggest moustache, he's like from polish solidarity. what was his struggle about?

it basically started as labor union right. it ended up by kicking the communist government. but the results of his success were great, because once soviet union has lost the grip over its most important colonized territory, however we call the place with 1,000 russian troops, one million russian troops, then it started a little bit of the collapse of the soviet union. and then it continued into what we know as the fall of berlin wall, it was followed by the struggle in czechoslovakia and elsewhere. we are living in more or less united europe now. so when you look at the level of consequences, every single thing. it's like we want to travel to chile and see how the people there. back there in the '80s, south measuring or latin america was a bunch of dictatorships. now in 2013 it's mostly electoral democracy. when you look at these consequences, they're really, really, really dramatic.

so i will quote my favorite speech from martin luther king which says there is more power in socially organized masses on the march than there is in the guns in the hands of a few desperate men. our enemies would prefer to deal with a small armed group rather than with a huge unarmed mass of people. of this is nice, this is speech. what is the science saying? two young american scholars, maria and erica, examined 323 different campaigns from 1900 to 2008, and they find a fantastic result. when you judge the success of these campaigns, you can see that success of violent campaigns is 26%. it will be 35 if you add a foreign military intervention to it like the one in libya. and then comparing to the nonviolent campaigns, efficiency rate is 53%. it becomes even more dramatic when you look at the decades,

because back there in '40s, '50s and little bit of '60s you had a comparable result factor between violent and upon the violent campaigns. basically u you had a cold war here, and then you had the big brother cavalry ready to jump in once something is happening. you look at the last or latest results, last few decades can, nonviolent campaigns are far more successful than the violent campaigns. why are we sitting here, you're asking yourself? this brings us to the topic of today's lecture which is how this relates to the media. it's symbolized by one single photo i love from the very early stage of the serbian movement because we didn't have -- a real office, but we had one as a web site. and it was really, really brave. we are talking about probably 1% of the people had access to the

internet, and i had an e-mail address. and, you know, people were really confused with it. but what to you see in this picture? hmm? old media combined with new media. so you're looking at two very nice tactics which are related to the nonviolent struggle. one of them is graffiti. we love graffiti. it doesn't cost a lot. it can show the symbol of the movement every. everywhere. you can train people to do it fastly, get away with it. it creates an impression of a successful movement. it's also a position where you can recruit your people. so whatever these movements do, they communicate. and you've probably seen this thing 50 or 60 times in your life, but it's always nice to know and to remind how this machine of communication works for movements. first of all, they need to know who they talk to, if they are a little group of the people

dealing with a dog's shed in brooklyn, they'll have different types of movements. if they are people opposing assad in syria, they will attract another group. you need to go there and physically touch them, so your message differs, and your messenger differs as well. to when you're examining -- so weapon you're examining successful movements, they all know how to communicate clearly. first of all, what they need to know, they need to know their target audiences. and whether we are talking about the civil rights movements of '50s and '60s, or we talk about the contemporary movements for dealing with austerity measures anywhere in the world, they always have to talk to the four types of target audience. first of all, they need to talk to members and supporters. second, they need to talk to the wider audience. this is where they recruit people, because the nonviolent struggle operates the way you

need to gain numbers and win through numbers. then they talk to the potential ally. every single small group is your potential ally in a nonviolent struggle. you may have resources at the end of the day in the era of the new media, there is no such thing as a hoe conflict. so you also talk to international community. how do you talk this target audience depends on what you want. you can look at a variety of traditional media. you can look at the slogans, guesstures, caricatures, symbols, sky writing, earth writing, banners, posters, stickers, other advertising, recorded music. i had a fantastic meeting today with the organization called movement.org. they tried to gather together all the artists, basically musicians, who are banned in their countries and find the market for the groups like pussy riot to perform and sell outside.

so the music can be very powerful message. we can also talk about the flyers, pamphlets, books, newspapers, magazines, and back then in 2000 we taught this. this is an old screen which says he is finished with the date of elections. i thought this was the peak of the use of technology in nonviolent struggle. you buy a little card, on a kiosk, you put it in your laptop, you send as much messages as it is prepaid. it says, he is finished, date of elections, and then it says, you know, please forward. so it's also makes interactive because you forward this message to the people from your phonebook, and you can reach thousands of people, and then you can just throw this card in the garbage, and people, you know, governments can't find you. i was so proud of serbian movement. now it's abandoned concept even for advertising victoria's secret. but back then it was 2000, it was very progressive. and, of course, word of mouth.

in many, many different cases where you have a closed media, it is gossips and word of mouth is how people get to the truth. to be very politically incorrect because i'm a serb, i we used to say that there are three different very fast ways to spread information. it is television, telecommunication and tell a woman. [laughter] the last one is particularly efficient when it comes to the closed societies, because people do believe people they know rather than the state-controlled tv. and if you've ever lived in or a month in a country where media are controlled by the government and you have sorship, you will know that you would believe a taxi driver more than you would believe a state-controlled newspaper. so in this word of mouth is also very, very entering. very interesting. so whichever thing you look you need to know why are you using it. and whatever kind of media has its, you know, own advantages

and its own sales, some of them are cheap, some of them are more expensive, some of them are more efficient when you talk to the people directly. and this brings us to the new media. and, you know, when you look at this little basket with all of this little social networking tools, you want to understand how the new media change the scope of the nonviolent struggle. so first of all, i'm a biologist, and i'm as far from i.t. as you can ma'am. i don't even know how to put things in this machine. and i'm in constant fear that i will bring something of this machinery down. but when you look at the history of the media, you can really see that we are on the brink of the third media revolution. and a great scholar used to say we need to follow two streams on the media revolution, and when you look at how it influences people power movements, you can also see that it makes

tremendous impact. so look at the first media revolution stream. it starts with ambiguitien egger, the -- guttenberg, the printing machine. so what was the printing machine given to us? come on. you read books? newspapers? so it made information accessible to lot of the people. before guttenberg the books, basically, the religious books were like, you know, rewritten by the physical people, and they were really, really expensive because, you know, there was no access to them. once you get this printing machine, you could reach a lot of people in some time with relatively cheap product, the book or newspaper. that brings us to the second step in the media revolution line number one which is radio. what has radio enabled us to do very unlike printing machine?

hear people's voices which is important, but even more important? sorry, louder. oh. oh, yes, music. but when it comes to the spreading of the information, immediate. yes, that's the difference. because it takes some times to print, and it takes some times to distribute what you've printed. with radio you can listen as it happens. there is a traffic accident in brooklyn, immediately you can hear about it on the radio. and then it brings us to the step number three which adds a little picture to the radio, and this is television. so what has television enabled us is to connect mass interaction with the speed and with the picture. and the picture, of course, works more than 1,000 words.

so this streamline of the media revolution is something we live in. very unlike that, there is a young scottish guy whose name is heinrich bell, and he invented the second thing and the second line of the media revolution which is, of course, telephone. yes. what is different between these two lines of -- what telephone enables you, of course, first of all? to interact. so very unlike television, radio and newspapers, it is one-sided communication, telephone is interactive. so what is happening in the 21st century is that we are living in the third media revolution, because the first line of the media revolution enabled you to hit a lot of people in no time and to become even more lively with the pictures. the second one is here. but what new media are bringing

to the scope is that they solve this communication dilemma. it's massive, fast and interactive in the same way. when you look at the tv, how many people you can bring to the studios, five, six? when you look at the radio, how many people can put on a telephone line? three, four. it's already complicated, it's a mess. if you try to conference with more than five people, you understand what i'm telling you about. the new media can reach millions in seconds, but in the same time, people can interact. they can live common, they can discuss -- leave comments, they can discuss, you can reply to them. of course, people power space dramatically is that really changed the testny of the campaigns -- destiny of the campaigns from the point of massivety and from the point of interaction. now, i will walk you through the very short, unlikely history of the new media and their use in popular movements. and when you think about the

popular movements, you think about the masses on the march, you think about the countries which are tech technologically advanced, you can think about the young egyptians and tunisians. in fact, the first step in use of new media in the campaigns was done by the new york hipster. you know what the flash mobs are. flash mobs? let's gather together on a funny place and do something stupid, basically pillow wars, showball wars, tomato or wars. so in 2003 the different flash mob groups basically in america and then elsewhere in the western world, and they were used for bringing people to one place for basically having fun, doing something edgy, but basically having funment well, that dose all the way to 15th of may, 2006, when the group of young belarusians organized a flash mob. they will meet in the main

square in mining, capital of belarus, and eat ice cream. that was their idea of good fun. they came there, the plain-clothed police appear, they arrest the guys. this is where they understand this is not about eating ice cream or doing the pillow wars. it is about gatt oring of the people -- gatt oring of the people. because a lot of the autocrats limit the number of people on the street. you have more than five people in zimbabwe, it's a political rally. you need to apply for a permit from the government. so this brings us to the second very strange case of the use of the new media with. 2006 led by a buddhist monk who was inspired by movie about serbia, the thing we called suffering revolution -- saffron revolution started in burma. it was big, it was led by the

buddhist monk accompanied by students, and the hundreds of thousands marred in the street. -- marched in the street. there's a fantastic movie which shows how they build this movement, but also how the movement collapsed because they lost the momentum. one of the rules in nonviolent struggle is you need to know when and how to proclaim the victory. so like in tiananmen square, they stayed there for a little bit too long, and then the military really came down and smashed them. but what is really interesting that this vj burma movie and the images you've seen all over the world were made on a very primitive camera by common people who tend to become, first, people power citizens-journalists. they were done by little cell phones, they were done by little cameras. and, you know, nowadays when you look anywhere in the world, you see demonstrations, whats happening? somebody's taping. so this thing was pat innocented

in the low-tech, no internet penetration place called burma. this, of course, couldn't come without getting into the traditional campaign, so 2008 obama campaign used the new media in a new and a very, very creative way. this become a blue print for use of the new media throughout the globe in political campaign. so we can say that churchill and also hiterer won their election on radio, if they say kennedy won them on tv, it was obama who won it via alternative digital media. of this campaign was made by a funny little guy with this lovely smile. so david plouffe used the new media in a new and very uncharacteristic way. first, recruiting. over two million grassroots voters were recruited through this campaign. it was led by a great harvard professor, marshall, who i have

the pleasure to know. $700 million u.s. or dollar cans basically from small donations was used to fundraise, so fundraising is a second big function of the new media in this cam campaign. use of the social networks, late 2008 right before the elections obama was leading madonna seven million to 1.3 million likes on the facebook to compare it with a show biz thing. but even more important, this campaign was interactive in a very, very interesting way. it hit two very important aspects. first, you recruit people in the virtual world, and then you put them together in the real world. so if you're a group of campaigners from brooklyn and you know somebody in the campaign matches your age and your interest, they will put you together with the people, they will organize a garden party, they will give you bumper stickers, but it moves it from the virtual world to the real

world. second, you had this obama for america thing which was fantastic way for people to interact. so i was playing with it. i started a blog relates to the recognition of the cause. okay, this is the problem between america and serbia for which we were bombed. i said, okay, you know, i'm a serb from chicago. i lied, be i basically i'm a serb from chicago, and there's a huge serbian community in chicago, and they elected obama as a senator, first, because he's coming from jim, and they mostly vote democrat. and they say recognition of kosovo is a pig thing for us, because it creates a problem between two of our countries. so if you become president, how will you treat this issue? and then somebody in the campaign see that i've started a very interesting topic. so what happened next is that there was an answer from obama himself on this site. of course, written by an intern, but basically, somebody was watching this thing and say,

okay, this is a topic we need to address. so this was not only the tool to address the people, but it was also the tool to see what the people want and to deal with the real topics. so this is very unique use, and a lot of these campaigns now are based on this david plouffe model. 2009, that broadcasted on youtube. green revolution in iran started being organized and being broadcasted by social media. of after elections people gather in the street, they were using social networks to communicate. text messages, facebook, different type of -- gozar was very big network in iran. con scwepgs, one of the protesters got hit by a sniper by national revolutionary guard, and we could watch the direct broadcasting of her dying on the youtube. she became a huge world similar poll.

2009 revolution failed in iran because of lack of unity and some other things, but this is the very important use of the new media. needless to say, 2011 arab spring was very much into organizing by the social media, new media broadcasting via social media. so when you look at these things even in sudan, you know, very low-tech place, people are using social media. so when you look at these things, you can say the nonviolent struggle, the people power, the revolutions are very much changed so the rerevolutions are following this media revolution. and you can look at how this changed the battlefield. you can look at the three aspects of it. first, new media are making things faster and cheaper. you want to organize a rally in 1985, you needed to print leaflets, posters, ring doors,

make radio commercial and get arrested, by the way. so it was really complicated process which costs money, time, and there was a risk involved. you want to organize a protest now in washington park, you know, you make a facebook group, and people know. so it makes things a little bit faster and a little bit cheaper comparing to '80s and '90s. then second very important thing, it puts a huge price tag on the violation against -- violence against nonviolent protesters. the father of assad could come in and kill 21,000 people in a day 20 years ago because the country was under censorship, and no pictures will come out. now wherever in the last corner of the world you have a demonstration, you see what people are taping. so everybody is a reporter really changed the globe and really changed the face of the nonviolent struggle very unlike expansive media, television, radio, where you need a studio

and trained people, people on salaries, high technology. it's very easy to upload these images on the youtube, and the people will immediately know. third thing, new media help knowledge transfer. my organization which used to work with 46, people from 46 different countries around the globe teaches people how to wage nonviolent struggles via workshops and via online tools. 2004 we came out with little book which we called nonviolent revolution for dummies. there's something you can read and understand between here and brooklyn if you are on the subway. 2009 farsi version of this book was down loaded 17,000 times from iran only. can you imagine the level of risk distributing 17,000 copies of a forbid withen book in a society like -- forbidden book in a society like iran? it's huge.

so as we speak, hundreds of different manuals are traveling across the internet, and people are learning from each other how they can wage successful nonviolent struggle. revolution, yes. but please don't fall in love with new media too fast, and please don't be too fast in labeling the revolutions like facebook revolution and twitter revolution, because we have other common phenomenon. you've all heard of kony 2011. what was it? invisible children's campaign with a very compelling video, very efficient in, how do you call it, public awareness rising. very efficient if fundraising. but what happened to kony? unfortunately, he is still where he used to be in 2011, he sits there in the jungle with his little child army. so this makes a little

exclamation mark next to the thing we call collectivism. what is collectivismsome you go on facebook page, you collect likes, and you save the polar bears from our climate changing. unfortunately, you need to do something in the real world. you need to turn this huge energy consumer which bright lights over the space on, you need to turn the lights off when you're coming from your home, you need, you know, to buy yourself a different car. you need to change your life if you want to change the place in the real world. so very unlike the virtual world, the nonviolent struggle has been waged and is won or lost in the real world. so you have three million facebook likes, and you can still have this bad government running the country because this is where the struggle is happening. second, we learn how to use this struggle. the first thing in iran when

you're arrested, they will pull all of your passports out of you so they can use your facebook profile to lure others to the place where they will be arrested. very unlike physical contact where you know if you're talking to the real person, you're not sure who is behind the facebook -- maybe your friend is arrested, and there is a police person there bringing you all together for a collective pickup. and sent to jail. so before we get into this, we need to know that the real principles of success in nonviolent struggle are unity, planning and nonviolent discipline. that, yes, you need a successful communication machinery whether this is offline machinery like leaflets and stuff, or it's an online machinery. yes, you need to understand your target audience. you don't speak to the rural people by addressing them on the web site in english. yes, you need to use branding and all the lovely tricks of the

successful communications. yes, new media really changed the shape of the nonviolet struggle -- nonviolent struggle, specifically making them faster, cheaper, more efficient. yes, it put a huge price tag on the state sponsor of violence against demonstrators. but it is activists on the ground who ultimately win the war, not the cliques. so that was my little lecture for today. i'm open for your questions. pleasure. [applause] ..

so you look at the two different sides. we all know and we dedicated our lives to reaching activists that they learned how to survive so from the point of the media is also a huge revolution so when you look at how they bad guys were treating the media 30 years ago it was very easy for them because ed ones tv station you can control the whole country and still they try to control the state television. second of course they learned how to avoid being caught in this so if i you are using skype they are trying to find a way to surveillance his skype so you know they try to find an answer to this. when you look at the egyptian scene now you can see

pro-governmental pro-governmental and anti-governmental facebook pages and stuff like that so they try to use it in the real world. secondly, there is an organization in russia. is putin's response to the orange revolution in the ukraine these guys are trained and basically paid to go over to find the content which relates to whoever is a dissident in russia and post nasty comments under it. so there are a variety of ways those guys are learning how to deal with it and one specifically painful is using this to lure demonstrators and the protesters and to pull more data from them because what is really cool when it comes to facebook communication is also very dangerous because you don't know who is running it. that's the problem. you use the persons name but if it's overtaken you continue being open and pulling this

information. i had a lovely discussion today with the people from movement.org and we are making making -- so we were thinking about making an application which will help you to inform all of your friends if you are arrested and he inform all of the international human rights organizations and c, delete the phrase of who have you informed because this is the first place to look into your telephone. >> so i have really enjoyed your talk but i have a deep pessimism so i wanted to get your thoughts about that. i think it was or low who said about the gandhi revolution that it works because in those cases in which the adversary has a

line they are unwilling to cross in repressing and in situations like china, syria where there apparently is no line that the authorities won't cross. it seems less obvious to me that a non-violent revolution will succeed. and the second was one of the consequences i think of the second world war was a big contribution to the destruction of the colonial system. it wasn't just the non-violent action after the war but it was the war ward itself. anyway i would like to hear -- >> i will start with the second because it's easier. the same study looks at the study. it looks also at the consequences of change and looks at the consequence of the non-violent change and the

violent change. and it says a few words doing a non-violent struggle you are about 42% of ending up with democracy and if you are doing the struggle is 4%. once you -- once people learn that they can make politicians unaccountable most politicians learn is to kill in front of the cameras. the second reason is because these movements are winning when they become mainstream so it's very unlikely given the guerrilla wars even when they are winning by becoming -- one people once people are involved in this type of struggle they basically become the shareholders of the victory meaning that it's very difficult to -- we won in 2000 by -- the

election. certain politicians know there is a price tag with messing with peoples people's vote so this is never going to happen. we are having an electoral democracy and we hear a lot of, i mean we discussed this with a lot of people a lot of people. first of all i am neither an optimist or pessimist. we have about 42% and being up in democracy. but you know when you are gravely ill you will try a medicine which guarantees you 42% of being cured so it's not bad at the same time and then when you look at the consequences people normally say okay this will never work in syria because the regime is too oppressive. this will never work in north korea because the regime is too oppressive. this will never work in countries because people are not

educated and this will never work in country axe because you don't have a -- so social sciences are very much into condition. because i'm a biologist and have nothing to do with social crime i know this is my field of work and also my passion. when i look at these things i believe the skills you bring to the conflict are more important than the consequences and that you can always look at the very oppressive regime. killing a black man in south africa was not a tough thing to do. it's more than killing a dog so there was serial very oppressive places where people really struggle. and the reason for this is that they understood this oppression and then somehow they made this suppression backfire so for me it's more like a scale.

when you look at the skills i think there are very of present places to win a non-violent struggle if you use some kind of understanding of the situation. i remember talking in 2009 and they keep making the same mistake. they were coming to one single square of being beaten by a revolutionary guards and then they will get caught on the cameras and they will come to their homes and pull them out two weeks after. i think what you need in this particular situation is to make the protests participatory under the ethics of the harsh oppression which means you don't find so many people ready to risk being killed or arrested so what is this little thing people can do and still get away with it? we are discussing this and when soltani was killed they say yes it's a pretty common name.

there are 50 stupid ethnic songs singing about eternal love and they are all rubbish. so what if you caught a ring tone from the song which is relating to the woman killed in a protest and then i have it in my telephone and you have it in your telephone and she has it in her telephone so she gets a the message. we are sitting in a very little café and we can't talk about the revolution because we could get killed but then we hear her sound and we hear your sound and somebody calls her and her phone rings the same way so we know we are -- so there are several things we call low risk tap tics of this version. we don't like that situation. media logs there are big rallies and this is mostly what you see on cnn that what you don't see on cnn or the people in bahrain

coming to their roofs with their little horns so they come out on the rough and are broadcasted and they blow their little horns. everybody knows and then the police come into the building but before they get there these guys disappear so the police look stupid. these things we call low risk have pics of dispersion are particularly efficient in the high oppression level because the way the nonviolent movement operates is that you need to give people something to do but still get away with it. not so many people will go and get killed ford gained so it's a combination of tools. first to win against the oppression and second tactics to keep people involved and still get away with it. >> hi.

thank you for coming. >> i will break it. i'm in charge of breaking technical equipment. >> thank you again for coming. i still think -- the particular issue with the first tenant in terms of when you have all these disparate ideologies and people start their own focal revolutioy them in order to overthrow the regime how do you keep from sacrificing what is inherently so revolutionary about the fact that they are unassimilated and how you feel that the new media has changed that process either by making this assimilation worse and more manipulable by the authorities? >> so the holy trinity of

success in nonviolent struggles i would call it the unity planning and it starts with unity and as you said whether we are talking about the religious unity like in egypt you had all of this marvelous pictures of christians protecting -- while they were praying and then there was caustic wedding cheered by thousands of muslims. serbia had 19 opposition parties in the time of milosevic and the fact that they were constantly fighting themselves was probably the most important reason why it was surviving throughout the period. you need somehow to put all of this what we called the chieftains with no indians. a lot of them having a nominal part of no maam power but they had such big egos. so we need somehow to put this strange mix of the christians together with the people standing for and this is very complicated thing.

but there are several ways in how you achieve unity. first, you need to try to discover in a discussion and your remarks particularly interesting because now as we speak there is a protest in slovenia for example and these guys are using session -- social networking things networking things in there we call them occupy 2.0 because they know what they want. they know what they want. they are not against banks and liberal capitalism. they want government for six months. they want elections after that. or the opposition who they consider it equally corrupt that they came to the new media. they organized an on line voting like what are the three most important things?

we are talking about the very strong sample of the 2 million people in the country where a lot of people are using -- i wouldn't say we can use this anywhere in the world. there is one case where the new media's use for achieving unity around this level of plat warm. and by the way they were six tesla. the prime minister resigned a few weeks ago and the leader of the main opposition party resigned from the opposition party. they have a lovely woman for a temporary prime minister now as we speak. when you look at the unity it's really clear. it makes all the difference between the success and failure. what you really need to learn is how you achieve this and what is the simple common denominator of which we want? this is not just wanting mubarak to leave.

it's like what do you want, but i'm not sure that the people are losing their identity if they are running their unity campaign and i think when you are talking to the people with common sense the way we have done it in serbia is telling them we know you are all different but the only way to check whether this or that can support the people is to get rid of the people who are skewing the votes and go out for a free and fair election and then let people decide whether, whether we should all go sunday to church or we can legalize marriage. if you look from far right to far left. but the most common denominator was to create the conditions for a democracy and this is how you make this unity work. also we have done it the hard way because we have spent 10 years competing among ourselves

and every single time milosevic was look winning so we were learning by doing it. when you see eight presidential candidates running i will tell you who will win. >> hi. i saw when he spoke in 2009 anywhere talking to iranians and i'm curious in your book in the risk of downloading your book in a country with close to media. can you tell a personal story or a story about your organizations about the risks that you take in getting into these places? >> my organization is called center for nonviolent protection you can learn more on several different locations and www. canvas media.org. we are really small. five people, 12 office spaces in

belgrade and the way we operate is we wait for the groups to contact us. because of the book and because of the movie we get all the best actors. when people contact us from a place like sudan we know that they are the tough people in for some reason these crazy activists recognize us and we recognize them so we have each side. the way we do the thing is that depends on the country.

it's a three-phase process. to get rid of the bad guy we know about the politics. to avoid a coup d'état which is the logical consequence of the situation in the military sense and then you ended up with a military government like in burma for 25 years and then to build a democratic institution. the problem with building a democratic institution which brings people to celebrate is

not something you can achieve in 15 days. it's far more to deal with the bad guys and run run against the teargas them to slowly build this and that. but if you want democracy this is where you realize. you know the way we work is we give people the tools to deal with their own struggle. we never tell them what to do because you don't do that. the locals know the best. you give them the principles and within the principles to to give them the toolbox and this is where they find their own campaign. some people follow up and some people don't wallow up. like we met ejections in june of 2009 and they spent two lovely weeks in serbia. we went through this little game and there are get prepared. they gave themselves a name of the labor union movement.

in egypt they understood they need to call it a labor union if they want to be successful. so we were waiting for a year and then i was buying cigarettes on the serbian newsstand and i saw a big -- 's serbian woman with a big flag and the title was the -- shakes cairo. so you really understand that you have the best job on the planet because if you can contribute one little tiny% to the struggle for democracy then you are on a very good place but there are several situations where we haven't been in touch with these groups for weeks or months or years and then immediately they emerge like the generation in burma and some other places.

so there are plenty of funny anecdotes and it's like from their two training in sri lanka and that is one point coming out that they were running on the wrong side. they were following the streetlights. so we break away her little workshop. >> hi. sorry. i actually have two things. the first is not really a question that i agree with you. you mentioned the problem of? but i would like to add that i think it's also okay new media is good for dissemination and also the exposure like the pictures and video of the actual event happening but i think there is also a message for the new media ecosystem public.

if you want to organize something, let's gather together and do something creative and if you are one of the officials you can also see the message. so i wondered if you agreed with that? and second the new media has this limited -- if we talk about countries like china where the new media is more limited in terms of its power because obviously people now have more access to the internet but still like hipster web sites on the web are shut down. in in china you cannot visit them and we have our own versions like chinese versions of different web sites but still you can't really post information like if you are against those chinese parties. so i know otpor, the hope is if

we want to organize something in china given this it internet environment what would you see as a step that would lead to nonviolence in china? thank you. >> first of all, yes the internet. first of all the way we look at the nonviolent struggle, the people i know from canada and all these guys we talked do we look at is as a form of warfare and to use the same rules as you use in a war. the first rule is to know your enemy and know yourself and you will know the outcome of the battle which is the chinese quote. the second one is pick a battle you can win.

the government will filter every single thing against do you know the government and they will find a way to censor it. so what can you do? a you can use on line tools. you can go back all the way to south africa. do you know how they spread the message? no internet, state-controlled stations, no, no newspapers one or two state-controlled newspapers and no tv. they have the revolutionary songs and they have the couriers that from village to village and no landlines by the way not to mention cell phones. he cuts it really relates to the way these guys are communicating most of the south africans still are learning the majority of their history. not from books but from songs. so your grandmother is singing songs about the famous ancestors

so you accommodate to the way which is saudi, and in society. so appeasing the protest songs and you are sending the messages is completely off-line so one school of thinking is pick the battles. the common songs that you listen to on your iphone or ipad or whatever you have in your pocket and then it's like then you can listen to the stuff. so if you think this school of thought, don't think of the battlefield. and if you need the battlefield they can control and there are several ways for doing it. there was a famous case of south american dictatorship where people were -- by the generals and they were particularly harsh to the protesters so what would happen is people would wait for the moment for soccer.

you call football this ugly game and people in armorer? soccer, whatever. they would go to the football match and they would listen to the national anthem and of course because the people were not affiliated to the state they would just mumble their national anthem but there is a line in the international anthem that says we will face our oppressors and enemies and then the whole state would sing loud that one single line. and then you know this is the message of the generals who are running the country and they would mumble the rest of the national anthem. so if you can find a way to use words which would be difficult to censor that would be a cool thing to do. so there are two schools of thought. first avoid battlefields where they are stronger than you and

make songs and spread them to the different channels. and then the second thing if you go to the places they can't control you use the way that people know what to say but it's very difficult to censor. so these are the two different ways. and by the way i am always talking about tiananmen and one of the rules which they somehow have forgotten their that the way you win in a nonviolent struggle is you pick the battle you can win and then you proclaim the victory once you have it. if your victories have 50 people in the hall listening to you, once you have the victory proclaimed then get the hell out of there. find the things you are doing fine and call for the people to stay in the square forever

because very likely the government will be after you in a few days. winning this struggle is more like climbing the stairs. you have these little things, you achieve the victory and you get the hell out of there. there is a moment in china as we speak around media censorship and they kind of look like they are becoming a little bit successful. it's the 15th of april. i have forgotten which one. it started last year. it came to the newspapers recently because there was a newspaper from the southern chinese city which was, they didn't want to publish the censored article and then the people went out to the street. you have probably seen this on google and i'm ashamed that i don't know the date or the town but this is how you should do it you pick the battle you can win and you organize something that

looks like a victory so people can look at it and think that there can be something like a movement. at the end of the day nobody got arrested so this was a very good thing. you work below the line of the oppression. >> hi. i also have a call problem. i have been working with the nonsexy area with established democracy in chile. so my question, what i'm trying to learn is when you have people in not very oppressive countries but people asking for things, asking for change, so how do you think that you can bring that energy inside the government? i mean you have experience also as a politician.