got $750, which is a lot of money to a low-wealth family. you got a camcorder so you could record things, a bib for your baby and a certificate of participation. what the people were supposed to do was go home and spray pesticides on the baseboards of their house. use the camcorder to actually document the children, infants pretty much, and toddlers' experience and then report it back. i said, well this doesn't sound like a really good idea. i don't think you should participate. and let's see if we can find other people who would join with you to stop this study. so we put something out to the network. in 24 hours, with the help of peers, beyond pesticides, other organizations, we didn't do to

alone, for sure, we got 80,000 signatures saying we don't experiment on our children and pregnant women in america. this is america. [ applause ] as a result, not only was the study canceled, and by the way, those who got their $750,000 got to keep it. not only was the study canceled, by senator boxer led the fight on the hill short time after and actually won legislation that went through the house and the senate to stop experiment on children in this country. and i'm thinking like, yeah, right? why would we ever do that? why do we need law that says the pesticide industry cannot sit next to and join with the environmental protection agency and poison our children? why do we need a law? but we do. so where are we today?

today, we are in flint, michigan. where 100,000 people, 100,000 estimated, i think it's much more than that. 100,000 people were poisoned by their own government. 100,000 people drank lead contaminated water. 100,000 people, by our own government. gm, by the way, when the water was switched from the lake water, lake huron, to the flint river water, gm complained because it was corroding their parts for their automobile. and so the state of michigan changed the water for them. and the state of michigan paid

for the water to be changed to their plant so that their automobile parts would not be corroded while the children were being poisoned and the families. we received our first phone call in february of 2015. how did flint happen? well, we know the government part. we know the water part. it's been in every paper and media out there. but how did flint come to the surface? how did people learn about it? melissa mayes is a mom who's sick and her children are sick. when she turned on the tap and found the water was brown and ugly and tasted awful, she and her neighbors spent out of their own wallets money to do 65 samples in their neighborhood of the water. and then they sent those results, not only to chej, to

our center and our scientists, but sent them to mark edwards and said, tell me what this means. and mark did some other sampling. it was melissa mayes who got mark edwards to ring the sirens like we saw on that advertisement not too long ago for the legislation or the ballot initiative, to ring those bells to get the government to go in and check it. how did we know the children were being poisoned? melissa mayes and her neighbor, melissa mayes is not a college graduate like me, she's just a mom who really wants to fight hard to rebuild flint. so she went to the pediatrician and said check the lead levels of the children coming in here, there's something wrong. and mona did and she goes, oh my gosh, something's wrong. you know, when we talk about this, ralph says this often, all of these people who have ph.d.s and who has, you knows,

different sort of, i don't know, professional credentials all are in the news, all talking about this but really it's melissa mayes, it's the flint coalition who raised the flag who take out of their pocket every single day to do sampling. and our government, well, what they did is put filters on people's homes and they said, don't worry about it except their hot water heaters are full of lead and arsenic and lord knows what else is in there. this is 35 years after love canal and we're still poisoning people. how dare we as a country. and it's not just flint, michigan. in st. louis, missouri, two landfills, or one super fund site. there are two landfills. one is burning beneath the ground. it's an old garbage dump. they can't put it out for four to six years, it will burn out. the other one is radioactive waste from the manhattan project. the fire is moving toward the

radioactive waste. it's 500 feet from the radioactive waste site and the attorney general for the state of missouri said that when they meet, it will be a chernobyl-like event. who lives across the street from this chernobyl-like event? spanish village, a mobile park. because people are poor, because people are of color, they are often forgotten, ignored, or poisoned by our own government. the environmental protection agency has chosen to do nothing in that situation. it has been on the superfund list since 1990. under this particular administration, gina mccarthy, i know a lot of people love her because she did great work around climate change. and i give her that. but under gina mccarthy, the head of epa's administration, since she's taken office, you

might remember the freedom spill into the river in west virginia that poisoned hundreds of thousands of people with pesticides, chemicals. hundreds of thousands of people. in february. then you would think that epa would watch over what they were doing, right? in july, that same company dumped more into the elk river poisoning people all over again. gina mccarthy was in charge when the dam broke that released all that coal ash into north carolina river where people were drinking water from that river. people were fishing in that river. jina mccarthy was wasn't charged and responsible for the river in colorado that turned orange and people could not feed their livestock and they were on well

water. gina mccarthy's people were in part responsible for flint. what's going on now? there is a cozy relationship between the environmental protection agency and industry. and we need to break that cozy relationship. [ applause ] i'm tired -- 10,000 people, just name a fight from pig manure to pesticide, we've done them all. but we need more. we are winning these battles. we are winning in the field. we win more than we lose. and i will tell you flint will be taken care of because it is the local people who are going to ensure that flint is taken care of. [ applause ] but winning these battles doesn't help us win the war. and it is really all of us at this conference and conferences like this that we really need to

join together and say there's really one enemy, if you will, or opponent if you're opposed bad words like enemy. the opponent is big industry. it's corporate money in our politics. corporate money in our epa. corporate money in food and drug. corporate money in everything. i am an american and i am proud of being an american. and this government needs to treat me and my friends and neighbors and colleagues and everyone else like an american. and that means the freedoms that we should enjoy, the human rights that we deserve. we just went to the united nations, and we took the case of the st. louis people to the human rights. and we asked them to talk to the secretary general about suing the united states before a

chernobyl-like event occurs. if they can't do it, then i'm not sure where to go. but we need to use these out of the box ideas. you know, someone was saying we can't compromise, we can't play -- playing out of the box. they don't know what to do with us in epa now and in the white house because we went to the united nations. holy moly, what do you do with that? right? so thinking out of the box is how we're winning the battles in the field but we really need as a whole to think out of the box of how do you get corporate america out of politics, how to get corporate america out of the very agencies that were put together for the soul purpose of protecting the american people. thank you. [ applause ] >> imagine when we gets other

her shyness and reticence. powerhouse. up to the penultimate presentation here this afternoon. long thought as many environmentalists do that one of the great missing qualities in our public policy is we don't have a precautionary principle. anybody can put any kchemical ot there as long as it does no harm. rather we have the crew you principle in our country. they can produce anything they want and we have to somehow or other as the public just come up with solutions. so, you know, any chemical company can put any concoction they want basically out there. and i think this -- the results of that are obviously horrible. but it was expressed pretty well by bruce king who's a pretty good democratic governor over in new mexico a few years ago.

bruce had a little problem with his metaphors and literary references and his staff would come in with some bill that some company wanted him to support and i said, i don't know, boy, i'm afraid it's going to open up some big box of pandoras. and sure enough, the pandoras are loose on the land. but jay feldman has taken a totally different, very constructive and healthy approach to our pesticide problem, not just opposing the pesticides themselves, but also proposing and trying to impose across the country a regimen of organic production and certification. and he served on the committee that helped put together the organic standards at the u.s. department of agriculture. we were just talking backstage about that's one of the few laws that has actually worked in terms of using chemicals. the reason it worked is because

it's got principles and ethics built into it. the reason of that is because the people, themselves, created the organic standards. it didn't come from a lobbyist and didn't come from a member of congress. the people, themselves, put it forward. now we have to defend it again because the powers that be are trying to undo it. jay, for 35 or so years has been head of beyond pesticides working to eliminate poisons by extending organic production. jay feldman. [ applause ] >> thanks, jim, and thank you, ralph nader. i am so honored to be a part of this illustrious group of people and organizations. what i would like to do in my 20 minutes is take you on the journey that i've been on because it's been an extraordinary one. ralph has asked that we all tell our story, so i'll share that journey with you going back 40 years. we are -- we're now facing a

sustainabili sustainability, survivorability issue in this country when it comes to public health and the environment. i always like to take an upbeat approach to that question as we sit on the precipice of worsening environmental public health problems, we can see the solutions in sight. beyond pesticides was set up to take advantage, leverage those solutions and empower people to act. you know, a lot of us grew up with ddt. and these are the kinds of ads you could see in magazines at the time. ddt is good for me. and the advertisers were telling us that not only did it kill destructive pests, but it was a benefactor to all of humanity. that's in the small print on the slide. thankfully rachel carson came along in 1962 and wrote "silent spring." in "silent spring," she said

that we could not lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life. i personally had the opportunity to travel through florida, texas, and california, meet with farmworkers in labor camps. they looked me in the eye and said, we're not being protected, we're being poisoned every day we go out into the fields. the growers don't care, regulatory agencies don't care and something needs to be done about this. the program i was working on was actually -- this was before beyond pesticides. funded by epa than quickly defunded by epa. that gave me the motivation to begin working with folks to develop a farm worker protection standard. that previous slide was the report that we published to advance that worker protection standard which took ten years after the publication of the

report to become law. in the interim epa put out a publication telling farm workers what they needed to do to protect themselves and of course they had no power or ability to do that. then we formed beyond pesticides. with a diverse board of directors. at that time, we called it the national coalition of against the misuse of pesticides. we brought together all kinds of exciting people. this is our board president currently. routt reigart, pediatrician. representing the medical community. we brought together public health scientist, now deceased, many of you know andrea kidd-taylor. an ecologist like terry from kansas. paula with p.e.e.r. thank you, p.e.e.r. tremendous advocate and attorney. farm worker advocates like --

i'm sorry. chip osborne, a land manager, phenomenal horticulturalist. nelson carrasquillo, farm worker advocate. melinda hemmelgarn who runs a radio show, food sleuth, and wants to beat the system with vegetables. you all can stand up, please. incredible group of people. [ applause ] so our -- thank you. our goal is first and foremost to listen. we need to listen to people's experiences. that's what i first started doing when i visited farm workers in labor camps. we need to research science to establish scientific-base positions. we need to educate and create public awareness to engage broad public involvement. we need advocacy to ensure broad public awareness and public engagement on issues. we need policy advocacy and implementation.

we've heard today a lot about institutionalizing change. we need marketplace change to drive practical responses to identify problems. in collaboration with grassroots board that you just saw, it only took a desk and a phone that david brower from friends of the earth allowed me to sit at in his office in a crowded room, we began our work. >> good afternoon, ncamp, how may i help you? >> national federation of the misuse of pesticides is a grassroots organization in washington, d.c. >> that's a pretty crowded room. then we changed our name to beyond pesticides to better reflect the fact that continued reliance on toxic pesticides in our communities, our schools, our hospitals and food production system was unacceptable and unnecessary. we began and continued listening to victims. and this is where we heard the

stories of clordane, you might remember, a termite insecticide in the same family as ddt. and despite the fact it was supposed to attach itself to organic material and not invade people's homes, was, in fact, invading people's homes. we raised the story. we got media attention. >> if you're a homeowner or thinking of buying a home, our next story is for you and your family. >> and then got bigger name attention. >> the truth could be far more startling, not just for ali, but for the millions of americans who have come into contact with a group of powerful domestic pesticides that this doctor has found to have existed in mohammed ali's blood. at nearly 50 times the expected average levels of toxicity.

muhammad ali's story is only the most visible. millions of american homes have been treated with a termite anti-pesticide called chloradane. >> we're talking about liver and kidney problems. >> however, clordane, because of a federal court decision was removed from the shelves this past april 15th. >> yes. so we eliminated a pesticide. a great victory. a long story behind that. but again, media amplified our voice. we recognize that we were not just focusing on particular individual residues in our food, but there's -- there was a regulatory system out there that was not adequately protected. whether we're talking about food or whether we're talking about our homes. >> president bush today proposed legislation to make it easier to

remove pesticides thought harmful from the market. he referred to widespread public concern over stories about the cancer-causing chemical, alar, on apples and fungicide ebdc on fruits and vegetables. >> it is true that some of the public's perception is based on valid concerns about the government's slow and cumbersome process for removing pesticides from the market. and that's why we're here today to announce a major new initiative. >> environmentalists attacked the plan. criticism also came from another environmental group. the national coalition against misuse of pesticides. >> the president is more interested in calming public fears about pesticide than actually doing something substantive about it. in fact, the proposals, if implemented, for the most part would mean business as usual when in fact the public is calling for a dramatic change in

safety of food in the grocery stores. >> but we bring people together. we bring scientists, policymakers and activists together and we discuss issues that go beyond food safety. board member nelson. >> as consumers become aware in discerning about the meeting health impact of food in their diet, awareness of the impact on food workers and in particular farm workers becomes imperative. >> so it's not just about the residues in our food. it's about who produces our food. how it's harvested. who produces the chemicals used in our food production system. and it's about environmental justice. here we have the father -- some call the father of environmental justice, pat brian, from

louisiana talking about the connection back to the communities in cancer alley, louisiana. >> on these chemicals, if there's a risk of poisoning the environment, then we -- we were the risk takers. poor people, people of color. we're the risk takers. it was an acceptable risk. what i'm saying is that we who are conscious have to look at the phenomenon of racism. so we look at the pesticides as an example. it's okay to kill the bugs. it's going to increase the crop yield. so what? if we got to produce it in a community someplace.

so what if the workers at monsanto who get covered with stuff all the time carry it home on their clothes. wash with the rest of the family. clothing. everybody gets sick. cancer's all over the place. so what? that's an acceptable risk to increase the yield. for whom we will increase the yield? >> we had a 1958 law federal food drug and cosmetic act provision called the delanie clause which was repealed by congress. and we went from an unacceptable carcinogen to determining acceptable rates of exposure to carcinogens. this is lois gibbs with her child and my family that came out to join a rally before a hearing outside congress. thank you. my kids are here and my wife as

well. lois, i don't know if your son's here. but then we moved onto lawn care. >> when we come back, we'll be joined by a consumer advocate who says those gorgeous green lawns aren't worth the threat to public health. >> and the industry started pushing back, not that they weren't before. and we would see ads like this coming out. and this is like these manly gloves, right, and says because of activists, extremists, i informed politicians, consumers are questioning whether the products and resources such as water used to care for their lawns, landscapes and other green spaces are a waste or harm to our environment. our response? get a grip. the inadequacy of federal action results in increasing pressure on state and local governments. that's what's happening, has been happening. we have engaged at the local

level, both state and local and we've achieved 21 state the regulations that restrict pesticide use in schools. 2 1 states require posting signs and notification on landscapes. 14 states require prior notification to those on a registry. 19 states require restrictions on right-of-way use. and here's the important one. 122 local communities restrict pesticide use on public property, three on property including private property. [ applause ] so our campaign is for pesticide-free zones and that -- that was expressed very clearly recently in an ordinance passed in montgomery county. i want to recognize ling from montgomery county here with her two kids that passed an ordinance that a%s 1 million

people, the largest in the country, that takes away pesticide use on private and public lands. maryland is one of several states -- that preemption occurred as a result of the industry, chemical industry going state by state to preempt local jurisdictions after the supreme court upheld the right of local jurisdictions to restrict pesticides. now, of course, we're hearing about zika. we've dealt with public health crises before. >> pesticides are poison. that's why i think you should come to this big meeting to stop the poisoning at the riverside church. famous doctors and scientists will be there and so will ralph nader. >> yay. >> ralph nader is our leader and we're really pleased to have him here with us today. thank you. [ applause ]

>> thank you very much, jay. >> so then there are pollinators. you heard about the colony collapse disorder, the demise of bees, pollinator health. our job, our job is to bring issues like this into the forefront. it takes years. those stories didn't just appear on the front pages of our newspaper. it was years and years of education. 1/3 of all the food we eat is dependent on pollinators for its production. without bees, our survival is threatened. yet epa is eager to register the next new pesticide. so they did that. with the neonicatanoid pesticides which are chemicals. they invade the vascular system of the plant and express themselves through the nectar and pollen and indiscriminately

attack beneficial organisms, bees, birds, butterflies. we brought a truckload -- the bees aren't actually in the hives, but a beekeeper came to the epa to make that point. congressman at the time kucinich joined with us to point out that this was an unacceptable hazard. and then beekeepers speak. >> started looking at pollen samples, started seeing things that nobody ever knew was there. looking at pollen samples, finding as high as 27 different contaminants in a sample of pollen about the size of your little finger. >> so here's where the transition happens for us. yes, we won tremendous battles. we got wood preservers out of playground equipment. we got chloradine off the market. we removed dersband, got that off the market. we could go down the list of chemicals. as other speakers have said, what we were really interested

in is institutional change and didn't allow these chemicals on in the first place and questioned whether the hazards associated with these materials was valid. we found they were unnecessary and in fact not even beneficial. and yet the government was always looking for the cure and we're saying the cure is prevention, let's not use these in the first place, and we see the billions of dollars going into coming up with the cure for the disease that's created by the chemicals. that's when the organic shift began to happen for us in a big way. but we as an organization fought for organic from the very beginning. we introduced organic farming act. didn't pass. passed the agricultural productivity act which set up the low input sustainable ag program and organic foods production act which created the symbol you see in your grocery stores today. we did that. we did that with farmers and consumers and environmentalists. we created that law. it includes the values and principles that we believe in.

it is our law that enhances the biological systems, protects biodiversity and invests in our future and the sustainable of the planet. it looks at the whole system. it looks at the things pat bryant was concerned about and nelson is concerned about. what are the impacts of manufacturer use to disposal? we don't do that with pesticides. what are the impacts on human health? biological and chemical interactions that occur. we're not doing that with pesticides. and we've seen this tremendous growth. but beware because usda, even though it's in usda, we created an independent board, but that independent board is constantly being threatened. usda's captured by the industry. big food industry. so this growth is something that is very tenuous. we need to protect this growth. now we see others embracing -- >> jay feldman of the advocacy

group, beyond pesticides, has heard that before. >> when you call these types of conclusions junk science, then you're basically ignoring the body of scientific literature. you see incredible connections between brain cancer, leukemia, nonhodgkin's lymphoma with a lot of these chemicals used in turf management. >> we're absolutely going toward more environmentally and people-friendly products because it's the right thing to do. >> i used to go out and talk to these guys, these golf course superintendents. the first thing i'd say in my speech to them is i'm here today as a messenger and you have to promise me one thing, you will not kill the messenger. so we brought that message to them. we reached out. and most recently to local hardware stores and this is the response we're getting. >> because day knew we had the organic section and when they saw it, they just focused on what they were here for.

they picked out the varieties they wanted and left with them very happy. you're protecting the environment and you're protecting your family, children and grandchildren or your neighbors. nobody wants to have pesticides drifting into their front or rear yard and people are just loving it. they're feeding into it. i couldn't be happier. >> i promised we'd end on an upbeat note. these are the people that are driving, driving the change. we are reducing our impacts on children and the elderly, on farm workers, chemical workers, the safety of our food supply, the water supply is improving as a result of this transition to organic. these are all achievable. these are all achievable with organic if organic remains true to the principles and the underlying moral standards inherent in the statute. as ralph nader has taught us, it's the citizenry and advocacy organizations based in science

and law that must keep us on track. it is the experience of people and our ongoing advocacy, our collective advocacy that will move society in the direction it must go to sustain life. and individual and collective action will take us to the tipping point which is within our sight. within our sight. a sustainable and livable future. thank you very much. [ applause ] >> okay. just a few closing observations. you've seen now over 500 years of civic action experience in one day. and you can see, i think what i

meant earlier today by the features of a civic personality. and what it takes to persist and to be accurate and to be open and to be inviting and to have priorities in order. years ago, when i was a youngster, we'd have discussions at the kitchen table. and one time my parents talked about something i didn't know anything about. we were talking about economic opportunity for people have a decent job and livelihood. and they said, well, what about a civic opportunity. they were all pretty community minded. i had a lucky choice of parents. we said, what's a civic opportunity. they said one that works to make a democracy more able to function and to reflect people's rights. without civic opportunity, how much economic opportunity are

the masses of the people going to have? if you don't have civic opportunity to elevate the labor laws, the consumer laws, get fair elections, get public debate under way, work on town meetings, work at the state level, you're not going to have the structure of a functioning democracy that provides economic opportunity. i think you share my commendation of all these people and let's give them a good hand. [ applause ] this is a super bowl of citizen action all right. couple points here. you notice how many of these proposals, how many of these initiatives, how many of these reforms would be left/right

support back home. once you get down to where people live, work, and raise their families, the ideology isn't as much around. it is around on some of the issues like reproductive rights and school prayer and things like that. but on the basic issues of health, safety, economic well being, you think conservative families differ from liberal families? you think they don't want their kid to breathe clean air, drink clean water, have safe food and have economic security et cetera? divide and rule has been the strategy of the ruling classes for centuries. and they pick those areas where there are divisions. and they pit people against one another. and the media jumps in. but as i pointed out in my recent book "unstoppable: the emerging left/right alliance to

dismantle the corporate state," i came up with 24 major areas in our country where there is major left/right support in the popular opinion polls and some of it going operational now. it's going operational now on restoring the inflation gutted minimum wage. it's going operational on challenging the civil liberties suppression in the patriot act. it's now going operational for criminal justice reform and juvenile justice reform and state legislatures. that's what we have to focus on. because once you get a left/right alliance on any issue, it's unstoppable. it doesn't matter how many corporations lands on capitol hill. it doesn't matter how much money goes into politics. money's not as important as votes and rigged elections for incumbents. it's just a means to do that. but you cut them off at the money pass when you have a mobilized citizenry. and that comes to the point of

it's easier we think to make real change. because look at the budgets of these groups. look at the staff of these groups. and they don't amount to a major bowling league in some new york borough in terms of numbers. never mind bird watching, which i'm totally in awe of, if we only had congress watchers like we have bird watchers. it is easy. now just for a moment, just imagine in order to envision real possibilities. what if these groups and others like them had ten times the budget? ten times the rigorous advocates. what if they had 100 times the budget? 100 times the rigorous advocates? and it's still a drop in the bucket compared to what corporate executives get away with. and it's still a drop in the

bucket in terms of the charitable contributions of the american people which are over $300 billion a year. but there's a distinction between charity and justice isn't there? charity is supporting soup kitchens. important. certainly immediate relief for needy people. why should a country like ours have soup kitchens at all? justice develops livelihoods that prevent the need for soup kitchens. a society that has more justice is a society that needs less charity. that's what these groups are all about. structural change, institutional change. it's a lot easier than we think. less than 1% of the people mobilized in each congressional district, as i reiterate again and again based on history, based on how we achieved the

blessings we inherited. it was far less than 1% of the people. even at the peak of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, there weren't more than 1% of the people who spent 300 to 500 hours a year on that mission because they represented overwhelming public sentiment by crucial parts of our society and a final recognition by those in our society who were indifferent to these civil rights. this idea of polarization is a divide and rule myth restricted to a few areas of real disagreements between conservatives and liberals. but ignoring far greater differences. there's even a right/left coalition moving on the massive military bloated, wasteful military budget and empire.

you had ron paul and barney frank when they were in the house. you imagine people further apart? they had a caucus to deal with the bloated military budget. and when it comes to fundamental small business communities, recycling communities and credit unions and community banks and farmer markets, when it comes to local sustainable energy, when it comes to community health clinics with emphasis on prevention, you think there's a left/right divide on that? of course not. and the same is true in the educational area. but when we allow the few to rule the many, they will command the divide and rules tactics that distract attention from the broad areas of convergence. we live in a strange period of time. we live in the golden age of muckrakers and a golden age of documentary filmmakers.

but they are received by a very tiny audience which we hope to address tomorrow in the breaking through the media day. that should not be the case in a vigorous democracy. in our past, books made a difference. "the other america" by michael herrington on poverty. rachel carson's book "silent spring." upton sinclair's book "the jungle." ida tarbell and "standard oil" which helped lead to the breakup of the standard oil monopolies in early 20th century. we've got to come back to a principle varity and that is readers think and thinkers read. readers think and thinkers read. and those tables out there are

replete with books written by people you've seen on the stage here today. they're organized materials, magazines, publications. i particularly urge you to look at that lineup and see what you want to take back home to your friends, relatives, children, for expansive deliberation. and i hope people who are looking at this on the live stream especially will start saying to themselves, we can start a group. we can start a citizen group. we can join a group. we can support a group. we can have a monthly citizen group of the month contribution. i remember maggie kuhn, how many of you remember maggie kuhn? she retired from the methodist

church social work in her '60s and she started the great panthers. she wanted to assail the stereotype of older people. she called nursing homes cribs for older people. she got on the "johnny carson show" more than once. she made a difference. she had chapters all over the country that made a difference. one person. no money, no contracts. just a driven social conscience. lastly, will let me suggest the segue into day two, three and four has got a good foundation now. if we don't break through the commercial media, if we don't develop alternative media, democracy cannot thrive. jefferson -- [ applause ]

thomas jefferson was only half kidding when somebody asked him, what would you prefer, mr. jefferson? a government without a free press, or a free press without a government? he said, i prefer the latter. we do not have a free press for most of the hours on television and radio. we have a commercial investment using our property free, the public airwaves. tomorrow will be the most coordinated, informed, diverse critique of the mass commercial media ever brought together in one day. and one of them -- [ applause ] and one of the presenters will

be arguably the greatest promoter of the 1st amendment in the 20th century, phil donahue. nobody -- [ applause ] -- nobody demonstrated a belief in the 1st amendment like phil donahue. he brought on his show, again and again, people who despised him, who disagreed with him, who assailed him. that's the ultimate test of the belief in the 1st amendment. and he will discuss how he broke through one taboo that was the conventional taboo for most of the other media after another, and opened huge areas of american life and voice to expression. day three will be waging peace over waging war. we want to get rid of this idea that peace is something weak but war's something strong.

our wars have failed again and again, and you will see the documentation of that by some of the most extraordinary presenters, people who work for the state department, the cia, people who fought in wars that they wished they never were part of, criminal wars of aggression that are boomeranging against us all over the country. the traditional peace groups that had these vigils every sunday in the village green and people drove by them, sometimes tooting their horn, sometimes snickering. and day four will be breaking through the congress, the most underappreciated instrument of democracy by all too many people. if we recover the congress, and

we have the votes, and we have the people and we have the left/right alliance on so many major redirections, we turn around the federal government, we affect the state and local governments, we enrich and nourish what media covers, serious content, and we say to the next generation what we are going to pass on to you is something that we can hold our head in pride in so doing. and if we don't do that, if we don't fulfill our modest potential with time, talent and resources, what is posterity, what are our descendants going to think of us? we don't have to guess. the use of time is under our discretion. the use of discretionary income and savings for many people who are not poor is under our discretion. we turn the time and the

resources in our talent in direction of a functioning democracy that takes these solutions off the shelf and put the shelf and puts them on the ground and that liberates the political and civil civic energies of the people. and you'll see change faster than you can ever conceive it. let me end on this note. those of you who came today, we appreciate. those of you who are watching by live streaming, we appreciate. but i hope some of you will start passing out $2 bills. because the $2 bill has jefferson on one side and the other the room where the founders came to sign the declaration of in dependence on

july 4th, 1776. okay, there are all white males. some of them had slaves. but in signing that declaration against the most powerful army in the world, controlled by king george iii, they thought they were signing their death warrant. for them it was an act of supreme courage and part out of self-interest and part out of a broader vision. i think we can look back at that document called the declaration of in dependence, with all its warts, and say, we sure are glad these people showed up on july 4th, 1776. and it is about time more of us show up as well for democracy. thank you. [ applause ]

♪ [ music playing ] while congress is on break this week, we're going to show you some of the american history tv programs normally seen only on the weekends. tonight the 50th anniversary of the vietnam war through a retrospective put together by the lyndon johnson presidential library. american history tv prime time tonight at 8:00 eastern here on c-span 3. and at 8:00 eastern, supreme court chief justice ron roberts talks about finding consensus on the court. he also gives his opinion on having elite attorneys argue cases before the nation's highest court. here is a portion of what you

will see tonight on c-span. so is the appellate bar particularly before the supreme court becoming tooele -- too elite in your opinion. >> gave a talk about the supreme court historical society on just that subject 12 years ago. some of you may have missed it. but at that time it talked about that very trend. and you go back to 1980, i think, i don't remember the numbers, but putting aside the government lawyers in the solicitor general's office, i think there were two or three people who argued more than one case that term, maybe a couple more. now it is pretty much routine. the lawyers we see quite often in a single case, one has done ten arguments, one has done 30 arguments, that was unheard of back then. so it is a change. the bar is more specialized.

i think supreme court advocacy was not recognized as a specialty until fairly recently. you know, in many cases, it is quite a good thing. arguing before the supreme court is specialized. it is not like even arguing before the court of appeals. and it is good to have people there who know that. and who have done it before and understand what we're looking for when we ask a hundred questions in a half hour, as has happened. and understand that although the case involves a bankruptcy statute, it is probably not in the supreme court because of bankruptcy issues. it is there as part of how we view statutory interpretation. so it is good that those people know that and it is good that they are repeat players just as in any other court. they know that they are going to be up there again later. and so they are going to be a little more circumspect about how they analyze the record and explain the cases to you. now having said all of that, i

think -- i know i do and i think many of my colleagues also do, sort of miss the opportunity for something of a mr. smith comes to washington moment, where you have the sole practitioner with the battered briefcase coming up and you get a good sense of what his practice is like and his understanding of what the court is like. and they often do a very good job. but it is just so hard these days. you do have to spend months focused on the supreme court case. and it is hard for a sole practitioner to do that. and it is -- to that extent, i think it is disappointing. you lose a little bit of the color and the texture of an argument when it is in the -- the same people. but we benefit a great deal from having experts before us. >> chief justice john roberts spoke in west virginia and also talked about diversity on the court. see his full comments tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span.

c-span washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. on thursday, we're live in laredo, texas, on the u.s.-mexico border to talk about trade issues affecting the region and the country. san antonio express trade reporters discuss the flow and volume of trade across the border. also texas congressman joins us to talk about how trade benefits laredo and the country. then bob cash, state director for texas fair trade coalition and a nafta critic looks at how the trade deal moves jobs from southern texas to mexico and how that hurts mexicans as well. be sure to watch c-span washington journal live from laredo, texas, beginning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on thursday. join the discussion.

american history tv on c-span 3. saturday night at 10:00 eastern on real america. >> more than 110,000 cubans flee cuba. they come the 140 kilometers to key west, florida, in nearly 2,000 boats. why do they come? why are there so many? >> during the spring through fall of 1980, approximately 125,000 cuban refugees arrived in florida from the port of cuba. hear interviews from the new arrivals to america and find out why they left. sunday morning at 10:00 on road to the white house rewind, the 1992 democratic and republican conventions. bill clinton accepts his party's presidential nomination in new york city. >> in the name of the hard-working americans who make up our forgotten middle class, i proudly accept your nomination for president of the united

states. [ cheering and applause ] >> and president george h.w. bush accepts his party's nomination in houston. >> and i'm proud to receive and i'm honored to accept your nomination for president of the united states. [ cheering and applause ] >> at 4:45, historian barry lewis on the creation and evolution of new york city's greenwich village. >> when the l. opened on sixth avenue it gave us what we already understood. east of sixth avenue was washington square and west of sixth avenue was the lowest west side and nobody ever crossed that line. the people from western sixth might cross the line to work as a serve about in washington square, but the people in washington square never went on the other side of sixth avenue. >> and on the presidency. >> it is unanimously president and chief and unanimously

president of the united states, unanimously re-elected of the united states, unanimously appointed as the lieutenant general and commander-in-chief of all of the armies raised for the service in the united states. what a record. >> george washington scholar said that even though he was retired met with those at the capitol and was often called upon to draft policy. for the complete schedule go to c-span.org. madam secretary, we proudly give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the united states --

coming up on 3, american history tv and prime time feetures programming on the vietnam war. we have coverage from day three of the lyndon johnson vietnam war summit. a 50th anniversary retrospective on the conflict. next on american history tv, a panel of vietnam war veterans, including two prisoners of war and an army nurse discuss their grim reality of life, death and suffering in vietnam. the discussion was moderated by national endowment for the humanities chairman william add apps and part of a three-day