were like where those people go? they are all over the place. i just saw five people i met from wall street at standing rock pipeline blockade in north dakota where i was earlier this week so that also manage to push the administration to at least ask for a temporary halt on construction, part of construction, they are still constructing parts of it but meanwhile the protesters, they are still going, still locking down the equipment and it's a temporary halt, it's not a win completely. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> thank you all of you for coming here tonight and it really truly is a privilege for me to introduce medea to all of you. she's the reason that i'm on all of these committees, on all of these, and the reason that i am a part of the peace movement in grove mill because in 2012, when she

came to us about her drone warfare book, i joined the movement. i joined the group out on the street and i no longer was that person who occasionally went to the bay area and i no longer was an armchair activist so thank you medea. a little bit about her. she has been involved for 40 years, this small woman who has a voice of equal rights, social justice for the entire world. is that better? no? that's the one, i apologize. i will not start again. so maybe it has received the martin luther king junior peace prize from the fellowship of reconciliation,

the marjorie kellogg national peacemaker award, the thomas merton center peace award, the peace foundation memorial award in recognition for her creative leadership on the front lines of the antiwar movement and the peace award for promoting enduring peace. she's the cofounder of the woman's lives peace group code pink, it's why we all wear our pink in honor of her. that group began to fight against the war in iraq. it is still fighting. with code pink she has found creative ways to continue to protest and bring awareness in a nonviolent way of our government has become more and more violent. she has been all over the world but with code pink, she's brought awareness to the drone issues so she's been in pakistan and yemen to fight for those innocent people, children, women who

have been killed by our drones. that's how she brought awareness to me first and several of us here in fresno. she has also spent time in afghanistan, libya, syria, iraq. when she interrupted president obama's speech while she was being carried out, he said that voice, we all need to hear. he may oppose what she was saying but that voice we get to hear tonight. with israel and palestine, she's taken numerous delegations to gaza as part of the freedom from flotilla. she's been arrested and deported in her attempts to go there . she has been in bahrain, tear

gas, arrested and deported as well. he was part of the tarry or skip square uprising in egypt . go to code pink. see what she's all about. on behalf of the islamic cultural center, peace fresno, fresno women's international for peace and women's freedom, the human rights coalition of the central valley, palestine freedom project and the fresno center for nonviolence and the democrats of america, i didn't forget you, i present to you and one medea benjamin. [applause] >> so wonderful to be here

and see such a beautiful crowd tonight. just because we might have a certain gentleman called donald trumpin the white house, it actually means we've got to do more organizing than ever before so i want to make sure i pass around that sign-up sheet right there for code pink and for any viewers , we'd say that go to code pink.org. this is the time to make sure that people who haven't been involved get involved and that i also want to say that it is a great honor to be speaking in this islamic cultural center tonight. i think the in mama, i think read and it's especially important to be here when we talk about saudi arabia. you know, i'm of jewish background and have done a lot of work on the injustices of the israeli government towards the palestinians and many people in my family would only say to me, why are you always picking on israel? why is it always arab

countries that are so repressed and indeed, i've been working on a lot of issues in very repressive arab countries but there's a big one, the elephant in the room, saudi arabia. that i just kind of turned away from and i realize that it was not wanting to get involved in a shia, sunni split that i didn't understand and more importantly not wanting to feed into the islam of phobia that has been so terrible in our country and our projections around the world. we wouldn't be able to kill people with our drones in muslim countries thousands of miles away were it not for the racism within our country and especially during donald trump's campaign and now who knows what's going to happen in the white house . we have to be very careful about how we look at issues related to islam and that's why i'm so glad that ray's us started us out looking at

some of the pictures of saudi arabia and putting it in the context that my muslim friends have told me to do which is please don't talk about the saudi ideology when it comes to islam as a version of islam, talk about it as a perversion of islam because it has nothing to do with the kind of islam that is practiced by the vast, vast majority of people around the world which is a rousing, compassionate form of islam. so for that reason, i've been encouraged by people in the muslim community to speak out , to write this book and i realized in doing so also that many of the people who are part of the peace movement know so little about saudi arabia and so the book i wrote is really kind of a basic primer, a one on one, what you need to know about saudi arabia and it's important to step back for a minute and look at the foundation of this regime

which goes back to the 1700s where there was a figure who i consider a cultlike figure, mohammed was mobbed to have his fundamentalist intolerant version of the koran and it said that if you don't interpret it the way that i do, then you are an infidel and it's okay to go out and kill infidels. this turned out to be very convenient for the saudi family that wanted to go around conquering mecca and medina and the holy lands and use this ideology as a justification for doing that. we can't go back in history but when the kingdom was declared a nation in 1932, i would say that this nation would not have lastedfor a long time . that it would have been overthrown by some people, it would have been overthrown by people from the outside had it not been for the discovery of oil.

and there we have to look at the role of the united states and the westerners towards keeping this regime intact. in fact, there's a very famous meeting between franklin delano roosevelt in 1945 in world war ii and the king of saudi arabia and basically fdr said, not in these exact words, you the king can go about doing what you want inside your own country, we are not going to get involved until you have to rule internally but we're going to make sure you don't getoverthrown . and as long as you allow, keep allowing western oil companies to come in here and make a lot of money and to export cheap saudi oil, we're going to guarantee your security so when you think of saudi arabia, think of a family, a saudi family and how that kingdom has been passed down from founder tucson tucson and now there's

the lastremaining son that can basically get out of bed, they're going to have to figure out a succession after that but were it not for the us , this kingdom would not exist. this one family, the saudi family would not be today among the family of nations because it is not a modern nation in the sense of how we are supposed to govern these days and it was important i think to look at those lives to get a sense of what this kingdom is like . this is a kingdom where there are no such things as free speech, free assembly. freedom of association. we hear a lot about iran and there's plenty of things to criticize about iran but the us government and the congressional hearings that i go to quite often, they are always talking about iran

spreading terrorism and he ran not being a democratic country and around not having free and fair elections and i always have to say well, what are you talking about? there aren't even elections in saudi arabia on the national level, much less free and fair elections. there is no elections for a president, no elections for assembly or a congress and why don't we hear our leaders talking about that? we saw in the slide some of the atrocities of the saudi regime. for example, the use of the death penalty. the useof executions by beheading . even this term crucifixion when which when i first heard it i said what are they talking about? i realize it's a gruesome saudi cutting off of the head and then twisting the victim for several days in a public square as a warning to the rest of the population. you wonder where isis gets

some of its gruesome practices from, much of that comes from saudi arabia itself. you see that people like rife sun valley who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1000 lashes was sentenced because he was writing blogs about wanting to question the role of religion in the government, question why can't we be a more open society and for that he was originally given the death penalty. there are many nonviolent reasons for which one could be executed in saudi arabia and that includes insulting the kingdom, spreading atheism, being a homosexual . they even have onecategory about being a sorcerer . so there are many reasons that one could be given the deathpenalty or long prison sentences . we also understand that there are large segments of the population in saudi arabia

that are discriminated against, for example women. when you think of saudi women, you probably think that women can't drive which is true, in fact it's the only country in the world where women are not allowed to drive. many people when they think of saudi arabia are thinking of the force covering of women in public but what's most important to understand about women in saudi arabia is the guardianship system that says from the time a young girl was born till the time the woman dies, they have to have a male who is the legal guardian who decides whether the women can make the key decisions in her life like who to marry, when to marry, what to study, what kind of job to get, if she can get a passport or travel and if that woman has an enlightened guardian, she can have quite a good life in saudi arabia but if that woman has a backward,

repressive guardian, or life can be held and that is why there are thousands of women who recently threw took a very courageous stand of signing the petition same and wanted to see a listingof all the guardianship systems . there are other entire sectors of the population that are discriminated against and we saw that in some of the slides as well. you might think as i nacvely thought at one time that if there is a country like saudi arabia that's based on a theocracy, they might have respect for people's religions but that is not the case. it is only if you have respect for the wahhabi sunni version of religion that that is respected. but if you are for example a sufi that wants to practice in islam in a different kind of way, you will be discriminated against . certainly if you are of the

minority shiite population that lives mostly in the eastern part of the country where the oil is, you would think they would be the richest. the ones who would benefit the most from this regime but no, that is not the case. they are discriminated against and very harshly when they do things like trying to rise up as theyhave periodically tried to do . there are also many non-muslims who live in saudi arabia. in fact, there are millions of non-muslims who live in saudi arabia and that is because there is such a large foreign labor force so of the , there are about 2 million christians in saudi arabia. they are not allowed to have a public place of worship. it is illegal in saudi arabia to build a church. it's illegal to build any non-muslim place of worship. and you would think that that

would be something of concern to many of the christians in the united states. many of whom are actually elected congresspeople in our government. it turns out our government has passed a law back in 1998 called the international freedom of religion and it says that every year we are going to study those countries that are not tolerant of peoples right or the exercise of their freedom of religion and were going to put them in a category called countries of concern and we will sanction those countries . every year the study is done and every year north korea, country of concern, sanctions. every year burma, country of concern, sanction every year saudi arabia, country of concern, no sanctions. why? i discovered in writing the book that in 2000 for the state department place a waiver on saudi arabia and

it's an indefinite waiver. it doesn't even have to be renewed every year. it's getting saudi arabia a free pass against our own laws. so i mentioned that there is a large migrant labor force. it is actually a huge migrant labor force, of the 30 million people that live in saudi arabia, 10 million are foreigners. now, some of them, most of them are coming from very poor countries india, bangladesh, the philippines and they are coming to make money to send back home to their families. first of all, you can't just say i'm going to go to saudi arabia and see what kind of job i'm going to get rid you have to have a sponsor so you get to saudi arabia already having paid a recruitment fee that you have to pay. you have a sponsor who basically owns you. just like in the guardianship system, you might get lucky and get a good sponsor 32 well, gives you what they said they would pay you but

you might very well a really nasty sponsor who works you seven days a week, 12 hours a day, doesn't pay you what they said they would pay you, abuses you, even sexual abuse if you are a domestic worker and what if you say this is not what i bargained for, i want to go back home? you can't do that because you need a visa and the only one who can issue you that visa is your employer. so this is like a modern day form of slavery, in fact slavery was not abolished in saudi arabia until 1962. so here you have a country that oppresses entire segments of the population, even has something called the religious police that enforced a lot of this. it's not only something that is done internally, saudi

arabia is spreading its ideology around the world. this is quite the relatively new phenomenonthat happened after the 1979 revolution in iran when he ran , eight shia country said we are the guardians of islam. we have the true version and the saudi's said wait a minute. ours is and we will spread it around and started using a lot of the petrodollars to build thousands of mosques and schools all over the world. i remember being in palestine , being in the west bank and sitting in a cafc and a man from palestine saying to me you see that mosque over there? you see that mosque over there, saudi built it. we have so many other needs, why do they keep building more and more mosques? and they've been doing that in so many places around the world and you see as president obama even said he

lived at one time in egypt, the largest muslim country where there is a very tolerant, loving version of islam that's practiced, he said he saw when the saudi's came in where they had their influence , this creeping extremism that came with the influence of saudi arabia. we were told by our government that they were quote, working with the saudi's to try to stop the extremist elements but that unfortunately the government just couldn't control its own clerics, its own people and to a certain extent, that is true but what we've seen from wikileaks cables that have been released recently, our government knew it wasn't just ran the saudi's that were export supporting extremist groups, it was the government of saudi arabia. it's supporting groups like al qaeda, al qaeda branches insyria , in a rack , in libya and even supporting isis as

we see from a 2014 cable that was recently released. we have cables that show hillary clinton saying what are we going to do about the saudi's? they keep funding these extremist groups . well, she actually had the power to do something about it as secretary of state. unfortunately, what she did was ask for funding for her foundation, the clinton foundation. the us government has at some point you have to say sit back and say how could it be that our government has been spending trillions of our tax dollars, the lives of our soldiers, destroying the lives of many people in so many muslim countries, all in the name of fighting extremism while at the same time we are this major ally

of the country that is most responsible for spreading extremism around the world? you have to really start looking at this mind-boggling fact . when i said one of the reasons is oil and it certainly even though the us gets a lot less of its oil these days from saudi arabia, about 12 percent, oil is still a key factor. the saudi's have use a lot of petrodollars to invest in the us economy, giving them leverage for example, investing in hundreds of billions of dollars in treasury bonds, buying up a lot of us companies including oil refineries in texas, real estate, they talkabout bailing donald trump out twice . they have invested in companies like uber, $3.5 invested on uber, a seat on the uber board which is ironic given that half the

population in saudi arabia can't drive. they have given money lavishly to think tanks on the left, on the right, in between. liberal ones like the atlantic council, brookings institute, they give to think tanks because you could not have such a think tank in saudi arabia. they also give money to a lot of us universities, the entire wings of some universities with thanks to this printer that prints and in fact i was recently at the yale law school where they had gotten $10 million from a saudi and we visited them and said you think it's quite ironic that the yale law school is funded by saudi's when there is no rule of law in saudi arabia? the saudi's also have employed now about 10 different pr and law firms to represent them in washington dc. these firms have to be

registered with the us government as foreign agents and they are full of former congresspeople, they are full of former people high up in the us military, one of these groups is called the podesta group which you might have heard of, started originally by tony and john podesta. john podesta left to run hillary clinton's campaign. tony podesta stayed behind and became a paid for an agent of the saudi government, getting $140,000 every month to represent the saudi government. in addition to all of this and perhaps what has become the biggest factor in the relationship between the us and saudi arabia is saudi arabia has become by far the largest state sponsor of us

weapons. the amount of weapons sales to saudi arabia is mind-boggling. we have never sold such vast sums of weapons to any country before and just under the obama administration, we have sold 115 billion dollars worth of weapons to saudi arabia. just let that sink in a little bit. it's sometimes hard when you talk about these big numbers but that is a massive amount of weapons . saudi arabia right now is cropping up the us military industrial complex and what are they doing with those weapons? repressing their own people, going into neighboring countries like during the arab spring, they did not want to see democratic movements prevail in the neighborhood, went into bahrain where there was a beautiful non-violent uprising among the population, using us tanks, came in and crushed that uprising.

i mentioned the weapons can be found with al qaeda groups in syria and iraq but also the weapons are now being used to devastate an already very poor country in the middle east and that is yemen and that is something our media does not cover enough. this is something the american people barely even understand, that now it's going on 20 months since the saudi's got involved in an internal conflict in yemen because they worried that one side, the booties close to iran would give around a foothold and they went in there and like george bush when he went into iraq thought it would be quick and dirty, it hasn't been. it's been very dirty, and has not been quick. it's been 20 months now and i said that yemen was already a very poor country. you look at what the united

nations is now saying, is a catastrophic situation not only with thousands and thousands ofinnocent people being killed , mostly by the bombing but also because of the destruction of the infrastructure, millions of children severely malnourished right now, facing famine in yemen. there is an outbreak of cholera because the water system has been detroit and so many medical facilities have been destroyed. there was a studyb said a third of the target have been civilian targets so the marketplace, schools, residential neighborhoods, factories, wedding parties, funerals and this is all not only with us weapons, it's with us logistical support. it's with us refueling of the planes in the air. it's with us open targeting. it's with us diplomatic cover and that's why many yemenis are now saying this is a us war and the american people

have blood on their hands and we have to understand that this is not only criminal for the people of iraq but it is also something that's going to blow back in affect our national security for a long time to come. i said there's been $115 billion worth of weapons sales, there have been 42 different deals during the obama administration. congress has the legal ability to stop the weapons sales if it wanted to. every one of those sales, congress did nothing. it was only because of the devastation in yemen that some of our congresspeople have started to speak up and i want to applaud those who have done that like chris murphy, the senator from connecticut. like rand paul, the republican from kentucky and they said finally, enough is enough and they forced the

boat inside the congress and the senate, the first time we've had such a vote in the senate. you would think that 100 senators would say of course we don't want to sell weapons to this oppressive regime. unfortunately it wasn't 100, it was 27 of them. it was the beginning but barbara boxer voted the right way, dianne feinstein voted the wrong way. i have flyers over there, i would hope the one thing you might do is make a call to senator feinstein's office and tell her no weapons sales to saudi arabia. so i mentioned that saudi arabia is propping up the military-industrial complex. we are in a muslim place of worship right now that prides itself on being interfaith and that is so important these days and one person of faith whose name i want to bring into the room is hope francis. and i want to do that because pope francis came to speak before congress and among the things he said, some

wonderful things he said was he talked about weapons and he said why are we selling weapons to people who use them in such an abusive way? the answer he said is money. it's money that is drenched in blood, he said area and we are complicit if we don't speak out. we are complicit if we don't stand up to the arms industry. he said this in front of congress and a bunch of congress members got up and started clapping which i found quite ironic area because the weapons industry is very clever and they make weapons in every single congressional district and then they give money to those congresspeople for their rear reelection campaigns and those congresspeople say we couldn't possibly stop weapons sales to these

countries or stop the production of weapons systems, sometimes even ones the pentagon doesn't want because these represent jobs in my community. well, this is complicity. this is corruption. this is something that we as a public who wants to see our government represent our values, we have to stand up not only to the arms industry but to the people in congress , the people who are in the white house, the people who are complicit with us selling weapons to such repressive regimes as saudi arabia so that is one major take away i want you to take with you from this talk, the other thing is to recognize that they are as we saw in the slide really courageous saudi's who are trying to change their own government. some of them have already been executed, some are rotting away in saudi prisons

but many of them are looking for other means to challenge the saudi regime. and the saudi's i've been talking to say we are really afraid with the government not giving the ability to make changes inside saudi arabia, we are going to see the violent people who want to overthrow the regime take over and things could be a lot worse than they are now because there is no civil society to fill the void. who would take over? armed groups. groups like al qaeda, groups like isis and that's why we see we need reforms desperately so people start seeing that some changes possible. i mentioned women had signed petitions calling for a listing of the guardianship system. there are people in the shia community who only want to be treated like equal citizens. we know that there are professors and academics who are trying to meet with some

of the more forward thinking princes and say love, we are living in an absolute monarchy but there are other kinds of monarchies in other parts of the world, even in great britain they have a monarchy and people love their kings and queens and they have aceremonial function . we need to have a constitutional monarchy. let's move toward that as an opening for reform. these are the people that our government should be supporting but unfortunately, whether it has been a republican or democrat in office, they have been supporting the regime instead of supporting the real democrat. so i say as we look forward, we have a lot of things to do with a new administration and i hope in the discussion section we can get into that. but let's recognize that the power of the military-industrial complex and the power of big oil have

kept us in this relationship with the saudi regime and this is something that we have to find a way to unite among people of different faiths, to unite among people of different ethnic cities, to unite among people left or right because this is not a left or right issue. in fact, sometimes it is easier to talk to conservative republicans about this than it is to some liberal democrats. so let's think of this as one issue that we can work towards uniting people to say that it is way more important that we support democracy around the world, that we get ourselves off the fossil fuel treadmill so we might have a future in this beautiful planet we live on than it is to be supporting these

monarchs that have been holding on to power for so many decades. so i hope as we try to strengthen our own democratic process with these to be so corrupt and seemed to be so tainted during this last election. , we also tried to change the foreign policy that has made us more of an arms dealer around the world than a peacemaker. so let's say power to the people at home and abroad, that's what we need, that's where were going, let's do it. thank you. [applause] >> alright everybody, now we

have a sign-up of the mike, that was awesome, wasn't it? [applause] all right, if you have a question in a nice, peaceful manner, if we could form a line over here. make your questions to the point, vocalized, no speeches and then we can have some time for question and answer. maybe we will send out 15 minutes or so doing that and we will start the line for book signings over here, if you've already bought your book. if you haven't, we got about 11 more copies and that's it and you can get it later on but it won't be side. if you have any questions, make your way up here. and i'm sorry, were going to keep the microphone stationary because it is being filled so we need to make it stationary.

>> my question has to do with the recent passing of a law in which americans consume saudi arabia. can you explain your outlook on that? >> this is all law called jaffa, it's a law that denied 11 family members have been fighting for for the last 15 years. they want to know how high up the chain was the complicity of the saudi government in the 9/11 attacks. we know 16 of the 19 hijackers were saudi's but we don't know who else was involved in it. so the law that was passed was quite amazing. it happened on the 15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. it happened during an election. and unfortunately, president obama after it was passed vetoed the law. he said that this would give a bad precedent to other countries who can use these

but basically they said they might want to sue us for war crimes that we commit in their countries. but amazingly, congress overrode that veto. so now there is a lot of pressure from the saudi government on congresspeople, these lobbyists that i talked about are not only going to people at the national level, they are going to the local level to governors, state assemblies to say that we might pull out our money and this would be bad for the us economy. you should have a redo of that. we don't know what's going to happen when congress comes back. we hope they will hold firm and that these lawsuits can go ahead because this might be the only way that not only the 9/11 families but we the american public can get hold of cans of thousands of documents that our government has from fbi investigations

that can tell us a lot more information that we should have the right to know. >> thank you again for the presentation. i was interested in the destruction of the holy sites, the presentation that was provided. i think it's ironic that the idea that the saudi culture wants to expand its version of islam and build new mosques through the world but at the same time destroying its own oversight in saudi arabia. do you have any rationale behind that? it just seems contradictory. >> when you come up and explain that. >>. [inaudible] >> thank you very much. peace be with you. it's part of the wahab ideology is to destroy any

significant building or heritage that reflects other ideologies, faiths so example . some museums, graveyards that are built into a shrine and peoplewould go out and respected if they did something , against their faith and this is worshiping iraq or a place in a state of god so this is their mentality and ladies and gentlemen, stop breaking into our cars outside. some cars have been broken into. they haven't taken anything, it must be somekind of a hate crime so maybe we can take a five-minute pause. please check your cars and come back, lots of cars have

been broken into . [inaudible conversation] all right. we are waiting for you. we will take two more questions and then we will continue. >>. [inaudible conversation] all right. again, i would like to repeat what happened, while we are talking to medea benjamin talking about the situation and so saudi arabia and the relationship with the united states, unfortunately a few cars were broken into and a few items were also stolen. i think at this time it's a few cars including medea's car so this makes me wonder who knows her car and anyway, let's call for this about 20 minutes and then we expect

them to show up any minute. yes. [inaudible] the police. all right. so we will take two more questions and i do apologize for what happened . we really appreciate your time here, we will take two more questions and thank you very much, all right. >> i want to say something before we go to the questions. this is not new. this has been happening to islamic centers, to mosques for along time now. but this is what we are going to face more often now because the donald trump campaign and now the presidency has given a green light to hate and i want to

say just how sorry i feel to you and to the wonderful people of this islamic cultural center that constantly are opening up the center to dialogue, to discussions about love and compassion and how we work together, how we appreciate the human family and the beautiful bouquet that we are and to be targeted is such a violation of all the values that we want to stand for asa nation . i feel violated, everything in my car wastaken . and i feel more violated for people who run this center who have to now face this on perhaps an even more regular basis and i hope that it's part of the discussion we

have after theformal part , we talk about how we form rings of solidarity, how we protect our mosques, how we protect our brothers and sisters, how we protect the muslim community, how we protect the latino community, the immigrant community, the gay community, how we protect all the people who will unfortunately be even more victimized than they have been so this is not a pretty immediate future that we face. on the other hand, i do want to say that i've never seen such an outpouring of objection as we've seen since the election happened. and this is coming particularly from your people who say this is not the future that i want. so whether donald trump is going to get out there and say hate speech is bad, attacking mosques is wrong,

attacking immigrants is wrong , we need to be out there saying it loud and clear and not just saying it, we have to form ways of thinking and making sure it happens. i remember after 9/11 i lived in san francisco, one of the most progressive parts of this country. >> this country. there. there was an attack on our neighborhood grocer because he was a muslim. you know what we did? we slept in his grocery store night after night after night. we slept there. we said we will not let this happen in our community. we started printing up no heat zones and we put them all over the place. were going to have to go back to that again. that's what we have to do. let this be a warning, let this be a signal, let this be not a call to feel oh, but just the opposite.

but this invigorate us to recognize what is happening in this country, what's happening to our brothers and sisters who are most victimized by the hatred that's been going on for way too long and let's make a pledge tonight that we will stand up for everyone who is being unfairly victimized, we will stand up against hate and misogyny and islam a phobia and anti- immigrant sentiments and we will do more than we have done before. :

>> this. >> the thought flashes across my mind that we all say that we have to work together and here is an opportunity to focus on where the terrorism is really coming from so we can help to differentiate between the muslims in what is considered to be somehow

ridiculously belated and therefore i am wondering working without representatives to force them to focus tromps energy to oppose saudi arabia and its positions were and how can we move into double legislative process agitation and all quicks 72 get outside of the white house and how do we do that quick. >> there is something said donald trump has said on the campaign that is positive to have done better relationship with russia is extremely important because we do not want to go to war with russia. and to have him say that the attack on iraq was a horrible mistake and the bush should ministrations knew there were new weapons of mass destruction and lied to the american people is important to hear donald

trump has said the saudis are mostly e.u. responsible for extremism so holds him to that so i agree we have to see if there are ways to work with both sides with another vote in congress to get both the senators from the great state of california if we can push a lever is in doubt whitehouse to see we're the source of terrorism is coming from but also recognize that donald trump has said many terrible things that torture is okay and it is okay to kill the families of suspected terrorist. he talked about with the expansion of the military

and then need bomb after saying israel and palestine will be neutral he said no that he would make jerusalem the capital and move the u.s. embassy there the settlements should keep ongoing he has set a lot of contradictory things and we don't know what we are working with their food we are working with reno the weapon in manufacturing sector was soaring after donald trump won. >> jim walton. i heard you on the of radio today thank you for your

concern. but my question relates to what i heard on the radio today and you touched on it tonight but today on the radio to receive 2 million votes more than another person because of the system at one time, many women voted at the time? so why that decision like me and others if you could pursue a different climate where those who are like me or women bore -- or to do that electoral college to let the new takeover maybe we would that have the situation retracing today?

>> certainly our democracy is not one that i would wish on other countries. there is no reason to have an electoral college should be abolished. no reason for the parties to have superdelegates. that should be abolished no reason to have voters suppression long lines even ryle live inside of washington d.c. the lines were so long i had to come back three times to vote. elections should be a holiday. there should be a system not winner-take-all representative where you get the 5% of the votes and you get 5% of the seat. from third parties have access to the debates they should not be organized and run by the parties

themselves. and get money out of politics you cannot have a democracy with the corruption. there are so many things we need to change about the system to hold our heads up high to say that we recognize that model of democracy i thought things would really changed and now as happened again but we cannot wait for a low listenership of the democratic party they seem to go away - - along with this it has to come with the grass-roots now there is the petition for millions of people to sign-on and i hope we bring that energy to washington d.c. to the democratic party and the republican party to force some of these fundamental

changes in our system. >>. >> [inaudible] >> thanks for coming. years ago as a student at the university of california coming to speak there was repeated bomb threats that day. that told me the veracity of what he was about to tell us .

but i just want to tell my fellow people that this is the first time i am blessed to come to the islamic center here. the importance that this event had showed me it is a unique place. i already knew medea by reputation and in particular want to comment to the white middle-class people that are here not to choose assimilation for what is coming but now when we see something like this to huddled next to this organization more. as we have attacks on undocumented -- [applause] >> i just want you to expand

on what you said at one point it is easier to talk to conservatives and progressives about these matters with that line of reasoning that you used the. >> we have been going up to some of the very religious christians in congress with my friends and women to go off whenever we point them out and she says are you a good christian? [laughter] he will say of course, . then she says why are you selling weapons to the only country in a world where it is illegal to build a church ? that leaves them dumbfounded

. then she says might die, to your office to talk to you more about this? can i set up the meeting? we have been doing that ended this important to do and we don't know how well the works because we have not had a vote again but this is an issue where we show the hypocrisy to put people on the spot to make it personal. that is one example of this approach we have been using. >> many people have compared the situation of apartheid in south africa.

[inaudible] >> many of the palestinians at work with the use that comparison and i appreciate using that kind of language because i think that is something that makes people up to the gravity of the situation. and actually want to learn more about it. and the fact the conservative jewish groups in this country are so opposed it is indicative that this gets to people. it is quite marvelous that the black lives matter platform uses the word apartheid and murder and genocide and that makes many people of the more conservative jewish community extremely angry

causing a rift between some of them and the black lives matter folks but they say this is how we see it we have seen that with our own eyes. we come back to speak our truth so we have to use the words reflect the gravity of the situation to make people reflect on why we using those words. in closing, a great thing to to the cultural center and the people who opened the space for us. this is a night to that is very profound and very sad. i will not leave here without talking to you about what we can do to show our extreme sorrow for what happened tonight. not as individuals who lost but as the community that

has been violated and what we can do to work with the with the future and i am happy to keep coming back and sleep of the four right here if me be. [laughter] because i love you and want to share that love. [applause] >> i would just like to lattimore's sentence -- add one more sentence with awareness of this situation changed and the people of

south africa got their freedom. this is what we need to do with the work that medea is leading to focus on the fact that tourism is created and supported in saudi arabia unfortunately because of their alliance and their power base continue to target muslims and americans and europeans everywhere. we need to work to change the situation to what the world know in a few years with freedom and democracy in saudi arabia so think q medea to bring this issue about one united states you have our support and again i

apologize for a happened but for me this is more important. i with like to inform you they would like to pay for the damage. [applause] out to cover generosity and kindness she is not accepting a payment. thank you very much. down the equipment because it is

not going to win completely. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. ..ok. the authority is washington post reporter wesley lowery and again, "the washington post" author of this book "they can't kill us all", ferguson baltimore and a new era in america's racial justice movement. mr. lowery, where did did you get the title for this book? >> the title comes from a sign from a vigil after antonio martin. after the grand jury decision become two years ago now to not charge the officer in ferguson. one of the reasons we stuck with it, we thought it captured