discusses his latest book "the generals." >> one of the first questions i am usually asked when i do a tv or radio show is why did you choose these three men from the second world war. the answer is they embodied, i characteristics and patriotism. announcer: author david patricia looks back at a turning point in world history in "1932." and then alyssa katz discusses her book, "the influence machine." thehere is a reason i chose chamber of commerce as a subject in my book. ups single organization sums how we got here to this place.

announcer: this holiday weekend, watch the tv on c-span 2. announcer: the university of massachusetts amherst hosted a panel looking at direct action as a means of nonviolent protest from the vietnam war era to the present. the panel of activists focus on the keystone pipeline, black lives matter, housing evictions, rising tuition costs, and nuclear power. it is one hour 10 minutes. >> i am going to introduce our moderator for tonight. i am pleased that professor dan clawson agreed to moderate. he is a longtime activist and union organizer, real inspiration for a great many of us on this campus. most recently he has been active in building the educators for a democratic union, the progressive caucus within the

massachusetts teachers association which is though largest union in the state and has been a tremendous organizing power. i will turn it over now to dan clawson. thank you. dan: here is how the evening will work. i will give you a brief overview of how the evening will work, a few minutes on the theory of direct action and questions to think about this evening and then i will turn it over to our panelists. each of the five panelists have been asked to speak for not more than 12 minutes and i will give them a time check near the end. the focus for tonight is on direct action, how it operates, what is involved in it, it's effects on the participants in the larger movement, what works, and what does not. the concerns raised within the movement and by those on the outside and similar questions.

panelists will focus or exclusively on personal stories specifics, this is what happened on this occasion, this is what we learned from it, this is why it worked or did not work. the focus tonight is not primarily on the issue that led to the direct action. for tonight we're more interested in war tax resistance than why the war was bad. we're more interested in the kinds of demonstrations that lack lives matter conducts then we are in how the police treat black people. i should add that although the title does not say so, i think everyone will talk about nonviolent direct action. and the other kinds of direct action as well. and after the panelists speak, we will open the floor to people in the audience and we very much

want audience participation. you do not have to pretend to be asking a question. you can just make a comment. people can have two minutes. we will collect several questions or comments and then go to the audience for responses and each panelist will again have not more than two minutes to respond to the set of three or four questions that they receive so that they may choose to focus on just one of them. let me pose to questions for us to think about tonight as we hear those specific stories and remarks. first why engage in direct action? why is direct action the way we should approach something? and i do not mean what move people to action but why choose

direct action and what the direction -- direct action hopes to accomplish. i will suggest a possible reasons to do so to take direct action. recognizing that there are others and every action is likely to include a mix of reasons. you can do it as an act of moral conscience. the war is awful, cannot participate, i refuse to be drafted, and to be somebody that is asked to go out and kill other people, i will not do it. that is what this is about, that is all there is to it. second you could do it as a way of bringing public attention to an issue. the media will not cover this but if we mount a large difference to ration, dozens of people are hundreds or arrested they will have no choice but to cover it and that will bring publicity tour issue and help raise awareness of it. and third, people do it as a way

to change conditions. i do not care whether the media covers it, no one is riding the bus is in montgomery until they are integrated and we will keep not writing the buses until we win. so that is a third in separate purpose. what form should direct action take? because we can do direct action in a variety of ways. it is partly determined by the goal of the action. if the goal of the direct action is to get media attention and in my experience these days that is most of the direct action is intended for that purpose. then the action is planned by organizers who notify the media in advance, often notify the police in advance, often negotiate the terms of the arrest and how the operation is going to operate.

as a general rule the more people arrested more media attention so the organizers want to get a lot of people arrested. that is what you are trying to do. how many people can we turn out that will get arrested? and if you are taking that approach, there may be some tendency to be more likely to recruit. people who have some level of privilege whether that is racial privilege or class privilege or they do not have a fixed employment situation that they will lose if they do not show up at work. because it is easier for them to pay the costs in those situations. none of this is inevitable. i want to emphasize for those of you getting worked about -- worked up about it already. that is a good thing. that is what we want the panel to do. if the aim of the disruption -- direct action is to disrupt the normal functioning of the society in ways that matter to the people with power in that society and to sustain it until the people with power have to give in, then you have a

somewhat different equation. and in that case the aim of the protest is to not get arrested so you can continue the disruption for as long as possible so that recently especially young people, quasi-anarchist groups, especially black lives matter have specialized in the demonstration were thousands congregate someplace. no one knows where they are going and what they are going to do. they disrupt the flow of traffic when the police block them, they flow into other directions. sometimes two or three different groups are flowing out in different places than they rejoin later. if it is done properly you hope that no one gets arrested. you had a successful action in some ways so those are two different ways of thinking about it. generally speaking most of the direct actions we will hear about will probably be open and public but that is not

inevitably the case. we were talking before the meeting began about the break-in at the fbi office in pennsylvania in 1971 where some people broke into the fbi office, backed up the truck, stall the files that were in the fbi office and went through them and released all the political files which was a lot of files. those people were never caught. they told their story to the media long after the event was over and the statute of limitations had expired but the aim there was not to do it as a public action, not to wait around to be caught. the aim was to do it without income but it was definitely a form of direct action. let me turn it over to our five terrific panelists and we will take them as it happens in the order that is on this sheet and that is also the order that we are sitting up here the table. so if you do not have a sheet we

will pass out copies. i will say the name of the person who is doing it because the sheet has more information that i could do without taking up a lot of time. our next speaker is randy keeler. randy: it is good to be with you for this very important discussion. i do not know exactly what direct action is. i do not know if there is a correct definition. if there is, i do not know it. i have rarely studied any theories of direct action. in my life i just have done what made sense to me in the face of certain circumstances. that made sense to me strategically and ethically. i think mostly defined, if

direct action may be loosely defined, i spent most of my adult life engaged in direct action. some of that is in the program you have, i will try not to repeat. many of us who when we first get involved in direct action of any kind, there is a moment and an issue that gets us involved. for me, the moment was 1966 by was 22 years old, and the issue was the u.s. war on vietnam. i went gradually but steadily from quiet, peaceful protest to out and out resistance and noncooperation in a very public way. turning in my draft card and finally getting arrested by the fbi in a brutal incident and spending 22 months in federal prison as a result.

subsequent years, i found that organizing was something that i like to do and i could do and seemed to helpful thing to do. it was not just an active participant in direct action but i spend more time organizing whether it was trying to stop 20 nuclear power plants from being built on the montague claims north of here or stopping the construction which we did not succeed in doing of the seabrook nuclear power plant in new hampshire in the late 1970's. a number of things like that. i also started early with my wife betsy corner to feel that war was so horrendous in our minds in so many ways whether it is creating poverty and abuse, not to mention the killing of the war itself and destruction

of land and the environment, so many ways that we not only -- i did not want to give my body to the war, did not want to give my tax money to the war. betsy and i have been more tax resisters ever since 1976 and as a result have had bank accounts seized and our wages levied and our home in 1991, i think, seized and sold out from under us. a number of you here were involved in that. we had hundreds of supporters which was an amazing thing. most of the 1980's and 1990's i spend is organizing -- in organizing two major national campaigns, one for nuclear disarmament and the other for the abolition of privately financed big-money election campaigns.

after a few years of respite, trying to recuperate from my exertions, i got involved in trying to stop the vermont yankee nuclear power plant which is north of here in vermont which has been stopped. [applause] >> other people here have been very much involved in that. and now i am one of many people, again, including a number of people here tonight who is involved in trying to think through what should be the role of direct action and stopping this huge pipeline project that wants to destroy major pieces of land through towns all throughout western massachusetts to carry a needed gas that

unneeded gas that should never have been fracked in the first place to impart foreign markets for the corporation to want to build the pipeline. that is a whole other issue and some people will talk about that in the discussion period. let me share a few observations, conclusions may be, alternative. about -- all tentative about any of these activities i have described. direct action is not the same as civil disobedience. civil this obedience is involved -- direct action can be a number of things, not just blocking or stopping things which is the primary activity and i have been involved in lots of those things, but it can also involve the creative arts in all sorts of ways, impromptu speaking out and hanging banners on buildings and sculptures and street theater and you name it. secondly, direct action so it is a key element in campaigns for social or political change, is

rarely, in my estimation, able to pull off fundamental change on its own. it is at best an element and often the key element as part of a wider, broader strategy that involves a kind of other things from neighborhood organizing and public education, use of the media and initiating discussions with elected officials. third, as dan said and vanessa clearly also said, there is a risk in direct action especially when it involves civil this obedience but the risk is undeniably a most always greater for people of color, for women, for working class, poor people, that it is for people like myself who are white, male, privileged people. that is the way it is and i think that needs to be always recognized.

i want to also say that acts of courage, of conscience, and passion are contagious. they are contagious. and when people step out with courage, conscience, compassion, passion, and in compassion take a risk. it inspires other people. it is contagious and that is key to building a movement. some number of people always end up doing that and it spreads and it inspires. next, i wanted to just mention some people have told many of us, certainly have told me why do you bother risking arrest or

taking time off from work or disrupting family life or any direct action or event when you know it just will not do any good, you know? you cannot fight city hall. who cares, it does not matter, so forth. i want to say that i have heard that many times. i want to say that for me, no active conscience, of courage, of passion can ever be said to be futile. simply because we do not know what ripples grow out from what we do, who hears, who listens area did -- listens. in my own life, i have a melodramatic story of that. i was giving a speech in 1969 at an international war sisters conference, just a talk. i was talking about the fact that i had been arrested by the fbi.

i was mostly on my way to federal prison for draft resistance. and unbeknownst to me, there was a guy in the audience, daniel ellsberg, who later revealed to the public this top-secret pentagon papers, which most historians say had a critical role in stopping the war. i did not know that somehow he would hear something i said, which was -- he has written about this -- what could any of us do, more than what we are already doing, to risk imprisonment? he said when he asked himself that question, the top-secret study in his safe, the rand corporation, had to be revealed to the public showing years and years of out and out lies about the war in vietnam to congress, to the public, and to the press. so he did that.

and he pays -- and he faced a possible 115 years in prison. so nothing is futile. another personal story and would give is that, when i was in thought we should organize aus strike to better prison conditions. we were told this place has not had a strike here for 40 years, forget it, especially not the mexicans and economist who made up half of the populations. i went on my personal strike because i was fed up with the conditions. weeks later, we had the first strike in 40 years. it -- the chicanos and the mexicans. you thought maybe this fail. roadou never know down the

what this ripples are that go out. there are other examples i could give. say -- over others is a key feature and should be a part of the direct action. we when when we have enough people not joining us, but at least supporting us to pressure and force decision-makers to change things. what wes have to think do well affect other people and will they run from us or will they join us. finally, i want to say open and active nonviolence is also absolutely key. of what usedraid violence, but most people are afraid of that. there is a reason if we want to win over others these filings. i also think that for me

personally, it is both an ethical and a spiritual question. read otheri want to people, even my so-called enemies, opponents. it coincides with my values and allows me to feel good about actions i do and to keep on doing it over the long haul. there isst thing is something called the law of ends and means. i regard it as a fundamental, is we getlaw, which not what we want, we get what we do. it is like chickens always come home jurist. if we use files, somehow, somewhere it will trigger counter violence, and that is the sad tragic story of our country and the world. so i think that is one reason why we need to think about how we do things, not just what we do and what impact it has on others.

thank you. thank you very much. ki. next speaker is pa i want to know what i see is direct action, and that is any number of things. it is sometimes sitting in, marching, sometimes walking, just standing. and i remember once talking with one of my sisters in black lives matter, one of our black sisters, and i said, what do you want from me? she said sometimes i want you to with me because your whiteness maker texas, or sometimes i want you to walk behind me. that is one of the keys, the person who seems to have at least privileged, suffering the

most, has to be the voice we finally us into. when i think about direct action, think about the different actions i participate in come and i realize one of the things that keeps me going is a sense of community i have. so what i have done tonight is i could talk to you not for 12 minutes -- i could talk to you for about 12 years -- about the power of community, but do not worry, i am not. we will do something better than that. i have brought along in my ragingsisters and grannies are here, and we are going to sing a song, because this is one of the things our community of raging grannies does, we sing. songe are passing out sheets for you to join us in singing this song, because we are not doing a concert. we are doing one song. we thought, what is the best song to do right now right here? the contestthat won

was the one about the pipeline that randy just talked about. so, diane, do you want to hit it? and, please join in. if you are not singing, remember, pete seeger said that is just another way of doing harmony. [laughter] o, give us a home where the gas lines cannot room pipelines are banned their children can stand free of harm no pipelines for us fussll make a great we will keep them --

we will shout comes first for us you are so many ways to make -- these days from the wind and the sun don't you see? let's stop hydrocracking and send them packing and let trees be where they should be no pipelines earth healthy and -- to keep our earth healthy at nd whole no fracking, no way mother at -- ♪

ms. wieland: so not only with wonderfulnice sum, a rendition by the western mass gaggle, but you in singing that have become part of the community. i know some of us are in the community that opposes the pipeline, but any way we can emphasize our connections is a good thing. so thanks for singing along, that was just a couple of my minutes. so i'm paying attention. when i wanted to do was really send a little -- spend a little time looking at how i came to this. in my own story is that i grew up in new orleans. i was born in 1943. and some of your grandparents were born about that. inas born in new orleans 1943 in the apartheid south.

it was an amazingly horrific time. and i did not know it because with the color of the skin, i was very privileged. but i had another dimension of my life, and that was with my parents, who were extraordinarily already quite advanced alcoholics. so where did i turn and where did i find support? and where i found support was in priests,h, in nuns and who were strong people, who were caring people, who provided of mycurrently seeds appreciation of community. and not only were they nurturing and caring, but they were also the people who were aware of the racial injustice that was happening.

and so it was through them that i learned about what was happening in the various dimensions of racism that you have already about and know about and was actually there when we took the signs down, because in those days, believe it or not, we were working for integration. and we have come some way from that. but it was a step. i talk to my other friends, particularly white southerners who have also only doabout how not the people of color suffer, but lie,d, because we bought a and it has taken many years to lies.oethose .hat is just the early seeds since then, what i have come to realize is that we are in this

a place of confluence, where all of our contexts matter. and it is so important, as i look at some of the students here and some of the not so students, and i realized that each of us is really located, is really embedded in where we came from in our own history, in our own stories. and in knowing those histories and knowing those stories we are informed really participate in in much we find ourselves. and this is quite an extraordinary time in which he we find ourselves. when randy and vanessa were talking about the press, once upon a time when we did activities, when we did action, i was remembering the part of the women's pentagon action, that that actually made the washington post. today, we have got people at

ferc, at the federal energy regulatory commission, right now, protesting, fasting, and i ensure you have read all about it, in even the daily "new picture gazette." we do not have a press that covers anything of substance. i will tell you a little story, something that happened last week. down in washington, and on last tuesday, the day after labor day, there was a man who was speaking at the american , oneprise institute, aei of our friends dubbed it the american empire incorporated, which sounds like a good aei name. anyway, dick cheney, whom some of you may remember, was giving the talk, and god knows what they were paying him, but he was giving a talk.

and one of the young people, a number of friends tried to get in, but only one person got in, , young intern with code pink who got on to the front row, and during mr. cheney's speech he stood up whith a banner that said arresting dick cheney, he is a war criminal. amazing.t is pretty there was a man who was upset about this and went over to her and started pulling the banner away from her. and she did not let it go. and finally, he actually fell over, trying to take it away from her. and she was day, nicely escorted out, no arrests or anything. she was sitting down with us, talking about it, and she got a call from the press, who wanted to know, what was her workout

exercise? [laughter] i me how irrelevantan, can you possibly eat, that that was their question, not why were you here, how did you get in, what did you really want to do? how do you plan to hold this man who has committed innumerable war crimes not be held accountable by anybody? but the 21-year-old young intern huh?,ess hergod, if we do not tell the story, they do not get out. i'm looking around at friends who have radio programs on our low-power community radio stations and know that that is where you are going to get your news, because you are not going to get it from -- forget fox -- but even abc and nbc, the big

networks, you're just not going to get it. these are the pieces of news that we have to keep alive so that students today will know that it is not simply a question of where did you -- where does your exercise regime, your regimen? that is one of the pieces. the other i want to bring up, the issue for me of what i could that i getalism, distracted by numbers and statistics, how big is a pipeline, how many feet, how many millimeters. i just not a mathematician. says this is ad really bad thing and i want you to learn about it and i want you to come and stand with me, i will do that. and i had the good fortune recently to be offered that kind a man whoion by

started the school of the americas watch film and we have it be at the same house one day, and he said, that tomorrow i am going to the south of dorian and the sea because they are doing terrible things to women there, they are imprisoning women who had miscarriages, charging them with aggravated homicide and sending them to jail for four years, will you come in protest with me? god, it is like with randy or any of my friends here, if you set this is a protest we are doing, even justice napolitano, will you come to this process with me, we've come to the statehouse, because i trust you and i know what you are doing, i will be there if i possibly can. says weck life matters are doing something, will you stand with us, i will be there. community, and to keep

moving them to keep shifting things. a lot of us are familiar with that martin luther king jr. the ark of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice. i want you to note the rest of that sentence. that is not the complete sentiments. arc it onlyral bends toward. justice when we put our weight on it. so stay awake, keep putting your arc, benefit toward justice, and then we will have the world that we know is possible. mr. clawson: one minor personal footnote for a turn them mike ier to karen, my brother and differed dramatically from politics, and a demonstration of

that will be the 6'5" inch guy who tried to pull it the banner away from code pink was in fact my brother. [laughter] speaker is: our next karen gladden, talking about -- a springfield group that fights for closers. i'm part of an organization that helps people in their housing struggle. in 2006, tragedy struck my family when my son was killed in an automobile accident. four months later, my mother passed away. i became distraught and spiraled into depression. i depression over these events consumed in the, and i w -- consumed me, and i was unable to return to work. i used all my disability and

borrow from my life insurance to stay current with michael mortgage. exhaustedfter i had all the income i have access to, i began to fall behind on my mortgage. bankediately contacted the to try to work out some type of arrangement to modify my loan to keep my home. they refuse to work with me in any capacity to save my home and told me my only option was to sell my home. after years of fighting for my home on my own, i found springfield -- i found that i was not alone, that there were hundreds of families in my city in some stage of foreclosure and that i had rights. during my interaction with the springfield group, i learned anything is, particularly how the banks targeted minorities

and women and low income and working-class people with their supreme and predatory lending policies, making housing for profit and not for people. becamee involved iv involved, the more i saw that were allowing this to happen. people were being evicted who could afford to pay airfare rent or have recovered from the economic crisis and could now afford to buy back their home at current bank value. i saw the banks having no children, in putting elderly, and ultimately families out on the streets, making more and more homes vacant in the instead of working with

families to let people stay in their friends. they were ruining our neighborhoods and community. in march this year it was announced at one of our 80's that one of our families had 48 hour-notice by eviction by a judge. the banks were living to put a .amily out into the street that family included a two-year-old child, her disabled grandparents, and her parents. through my education with springfield no one leaves, i y wouldat this famil not be eligible to go to a shelter and would be in the street. being evicted by a judge is not proof that you are homeless. you have to show that you are living in a car or on the streets. thisided i was not ok with and was going to do everything i possibly could to keep this family in their home. i attended eviction blockade

training facilitated by luke field no oneng leaves. roles this training, the that a person could play in a blockade were laid out on the table, including the practice of civil disobedience. even though i had never participated in civil to see obedience before, i believed enough in this movement that i was going to block the doors alfreda,omrades, emily, rose, and chris turner, one of the owners of the home and risk arrest. toour training, made sure discuss and inform us of how our experience with police and being arrested could differ one another, even though we were all going to be doing the same exact

act of civil disobedience blocking the doors. you could be treated differently because of the color of our , are gender, and other disparities. he also made it clear that some otherse held longer than based on the same reasons. i was not shot by this weormation as a black woman, are still facing the same disparities we had in the civil rights movement during the ins 1970's. wasg a woman of color, i educated completely on the risk i was taking by practicing civil disobedience. i did not care. the thought of seeing a little two-year old baby out living in the street overrode any fear or doubt that could possibly cloud my mind. the thought of another vacant

home and another family pushed out into the street and made homeless kept me from being scared or nervous. i was ready. the first eviction blockade in march was called off due to a technical error by the bank that was caught by the judge when the family filed a motion for a stay of execution. in april, the bank again served the family with a 72-hour notice of election. after thousands of phone calls on behalf of the family, the bank again called off the eviction. finally, in may, the family was another deskwith was again served with another 48-hour service of a conviction. after other calls, another alternative to the schedule eviction, the family was told there was no alternatives and that they were going to follow through with the scheduled election. the morning of the blockade i woke up and i was angry and

motivated to do what i felt was right to keep the family in their home. i knew that i had been properly trained and had been made aware of what could possibly just what i could possibly be phasing that day. i do not care that i was having higher risk because i was a black woman. i do not care about the conditions i would face in a jail cell once i was processed. i was consumed on making sure another family was not made greedys by inhumane and banks. we gathered at the home at 7:30 morning, as the eviction was given for 9:00 a.m. that morning. around 8:30 in the morning, the bank's attorney kept driving back and forth along the streets and taking pictures with his cell phone of the protesters gathered who were quietly talking amongst each other and enjoying some coffee as we

passed by the home we were rightly defending. at 8:50 a.m., the sheriff shows handed the family the notice, and left the premises. work reviewed the paper that the sheriff had circuit it was later announced that the bank's attorney has filed a foolish motion stating that are peaceful protest which has not begun when the motion was handed, had indicated the bank and they felt their safety was at risk. so they were unable to carry out the scheduled lockout of the family. the court motion was asking a judge to allow the bank to violate state eviction laws by allowing the bank to carry out an eviction of the family without any notice to the family at any date and time of their convenience.

the family was to appear at a court hearing scheduled at 2:00 p.m. that afternoon to respond to the allegations made. the family and some springfield no one leaves members and organizers left to defend against the full smokers. the team prepared to practice civil disobedience state by at the home encased the bank showed up to carry out the eviction. they we were successful in keeping another family in their home. housed another child with a roof over her head. he successfully kept an elderly disabled couple being pushed out into the street. we won the battle that day, but the war against the bank is ongoing, and we will continue until it is recognized that housing should not be for profit. housing is a human right.

mr. clawson: our last speaker is smith, also from springfield no one leaves. ms. rose: my name is rose. i have been a member of springfield no one leaves when freddie mac foreclose on my home. and i am still in my home. i am still fighting to keep my home, and i will continue to fight even when a judge tells me that i need to leave. [applause] i believe in this movement so much. 68,000 families from the state of massachusetts have lost their home.

68,000 families are not eligible for shelter is massachusetts has a law that states if you are a former homeowner and you are convicted by the bank, you're not eligible for shelter. so we have thousands of families that are out on the street, which we believe is not correct. in the city of springfield has over 1300 vacant homes. there is no reason for anybody in the states the homeless. there's plenty of vacant homes. there's plenty of different vacant buildings that we can occupy and take over. actionsof my direct that i have participated in them as i have been part of a national coalition with right to the city, which is made up of freddie macnd that h fighters, and we have been pushing hard to get policy change. 60% of the mortgages in this country are owned or backed by

fannie mae or freddie mac. theseen by the fhsa, federal housing finance agency, which is overseen by the federal government. iswe believe that there three demands that we want them to do. one is principal reduction. you have millions of families who are underwater on their mortgages and will never have equity in their home, or have retirement. so we believe the banks should reduce the principal to the current market value so that people are out of risk of losing their homes and falling into foreclosures. we also believe that you should be allowed to rent after foreclosure. why make another home vacant and make your neighbors' property values decreased by 7% if you can afford to stay in the house?

the banks have a practice of making sure that we continue to feel shame and another way of doing that is evicting the family from the home, forcibly. i have participated in civil this obedience in washington, d.c., where we shut down washington avenue in front of the fannie mae offices. and from there we moved and drove to virginia, to the freddie mac office, and protested out there. and from there we drove to maryland, to the then head of the fha and we held a protest and a pizza party in front of the -- home, calling for the marco, as he was not willing to push fannie and freddie to work with people. since all of our direct actions at fannie mae and freddie mac,

we have gotten significant policy changes. fannie mae and freddie mac used to have arm's-length deal that myself, i was not allowed to buy back my home. if you are going to come in by my home, you have designed in -- you would have to sign that you would not have any contact with me or my family and it would be the only way you would be able to sign and close on at home. of 2014, we have gotten that policy changed. now i am in the process of buying back my. -- my home. fhsa toalso gotten the fund a national trust for formal containingich is now millions of dollars to be able

to build and maintain a formal housing. so now are pushed is that they implement the use of it and not just let it sit in a bank account. actively lobbying in the statehouse for a no-fault eviction protection bill that protects former home lenders and makes the banks except rents, unless they are going to sell to a homeowner that is going to occupy the property. if they moved to sell it to an investor from a have to accept your rent and they can no-fault evict you, which means you can you for no cost. inre also i mediation passed law. when it is implemented, it has a 98% success rate that the bank and homer will work out a deal that the homeowner will be able to they in their homes. along with that, if the bank refuses to mediate with the

family, they will be charged a $300 fine for up to 105 days during the right to cure process, so it creates income to the city of springfield maintain these properties. it are our thanks to put down a so000 dollars security bond, that if that home becomes vacant, the upkeep of the property is taken off the city and the taxpayers. thanks sued us that the banks us sos -- the banks sued now we are in boston pushing for a bill called the act of clear musical authority, which will allow municipalities to be able to control and implement these types of ordinances to predict our cities and our neighborhoods.

-- protect our cities and our neighborhoods. a little bit about i am a mother of two young children, said in to day of -- checks, i have be very careful if i want to participationtive with children's education because if i do not have a clean -- i will not be able to chaperone field trips for my children. i go into my children's classes and i do talks on native american culture, as i am oneida the iroquoisof nation, and i think the language. so i am always in my kids' sc hools doing presentations of native american culture. arrest,i choose to risk it is the wrist that i would not be able to participate in my child's education that i always

have. is a risk that i believe in it as much as i believe in participating in my child's education. i believe that everybody has the right to housing in this country, and i believe it is a human right. it should not be for profit. mr. clawson: thank you very much. we have had some terrific presentations, and now it is time for audience comments and questions, and so on, and i think it is best if people simply line up at the mike and as questions or make comments. so do not be shot. be the first. shy be. not be be the first. give your name. >> my name is mary.

some terms have been used that i would like clarified, just in case -- [indiscernible] and i reallyry, enjoyed the presentations, and there are just a few terms i would like clarified, because i -- couldre everybody whoclarify what a -- is, fannie mae and freddie mac are? >> i know they are not your relatives. mr. clawson: we are going to have four questions or comments. so hold onto desktop. next. on to that thought. >> my direct action is limited to talking. but i do remember --

mr. clawson: state your name. >> my name is stan. i remember in the 1980's there was a movement at this college against apartheid in south africa. and it is hard to visualize now that there were 5000 people, as many as 5000, that attended these rallies from the student body. and they say in numbers there is strength, and if you want to a compass anything, and apartheid -- a complicated income and apartheid was a part of business in south after. it was not that one action, but there were actions all over the world. relating that to today, i think i do not what eleanor

roosevelt would say if she were here, that it would be a good idea to put an end to the high tuition that people are paying here in the college. when i look at how much people owe, i went to college and lived about four years on that debt, as much as that debts. that witwould be a good thing to get started, against high tuition and the exorbitant exploitation that the students here are going through. and one more thing is organizing the student athletes. , women, players, men they get concussions, everything else, injuries that last for life, and what do they get out of it? they lose their scholarship and they do not even play anymore. mr. clawson: thank you.

start with your name. of being the privilege the chair of the resistance studies initiative at umass, where we are studying resistance in different forms. i am an activist and a scholar. about in myask understanding, direct action has arefining quality that we trying to solve the problems ourselves. we are not going through legislators. having others solve the problem for us. that could be legal or it could be civil disobedience. so in that understanding for me at least, it is truly about people power. so my question is, if you would agree in such an understanding of it?

mr. clawson: and this will be the last one of this first round. >> good evening. my name is jim cutler, and i am a local anti-pipeline activist. my history also includes in antiwar, anti-nuclear, anti-nuclear arms, and what i have seen is that indeed, it is about numbers, it is about people. so my question tonight is, how does the panel c nonviolent direct action -- see nonviolent direct action as a way to pull in people of different legal persuasions? every one of you at that table are fighting against basically those in the high minority positions of power who are

taking resources, whether it is land, housing, lives from us, from the people. do you see nonviolent direct politicalting across boundaries, color boundaries, wealth boundaries, to bring us together more as people who are facing this onslaught across the us and putting us in the position of defensiveness and loss? thank you. mr. clawson: thank you. a we will give the panelists chance to respond. each panelist will take up to two minutes, and then we will start in reverse order. panelists can choose to pass, but if you want to speak up to two minutes.

?ose it is a complete has gone to that the police system and then report back to whatever agency. giantnnie and freddie are mortgage guarantors. banks back the loans so that people can get mortgage loans. they are the entities that are behind the scenes. most of the time people think that even your statement says u.s. bank, a lot of times the u.s. bank is just your servicer and it is fannie mae or freddie mac that owns the actual note

until you pay your mortgage off. mr. clawson: let me remind you of the questions. this will be brief. i will remind you and passed the mike down the table. the first one has already been answered. i will skip to the next three, which were about direct actions andnd high student tuitions for student athletes second is the defining quality of direct action that it is people trying to solve problems for themselves, and what do panelists think about that, disagree with that, agree with that, and the third is, in what way is direct action a way to pull people in, to cut across the boundaries in mobilizing actions?

ms. wieland: i think those were comments more than questions. i do not have any answers. i encourage the comments and encourage students and folks at the university and every institution of higher learning to organize and support them. that washe issue actionabout the direct -- it is a multifaceted thing. certainly andt is can be and we have seen particularly in europe and probably among the folks in mexico, where people have really taken over as part of their direct action, that i think here we have not evolved to that. we are still naming the

problems. and i think maybe there are places where people have taken over, and i certainly think that springfield no one leaves is one of the places that we could support people taking over there. how many hundreds of empty homes in springfield and how many people need homes? that is a perfect place to do it ourselves and not to wait for the mayor of springfield or the city council to do something. and i think that would be an excellent action to get involved in. thing, thatother the comments about building a movement, i do not know if we get everybody right away. if we think about the vietnam war and how long it took before it really became a mass movement. so we will just use that as one

example. but i think it is part of -- and i do not like to use the word education, because i think it has a perjurer of connotation -- pejorative connotation. but when people know what is happening to our commonwealth, to our rivers, to our land, to the place that we love, that if they are not awakened to it, we just need to keep talking about it and doing something, just bring it home. because i cannot imagine anybody getting anywhere near anywhere out here who has learned about what that pipeline will do, that would not be up in arms and wanted to do something to stop it. -- mr. kehler: i about whathought

would happen if there was a student tuition rising, which has happened in other countries. as the father of a daughter who is still paying off her college loan 10, 15 years after college, and she does not have as big a debt as others, i think it is just outrageous. i do not know if your comment i'd be a response to what i said, but i meant to say that nonviolent direct action can be key in any movement or campaign to its ultimate success. in most cases that i know of, it does not succeed without in part being embedded in part of a multi-pronged strategy that includes things other than direct action. that is what i meant. but i agree with you that the direct part of direct action means that instead of hoping somebody else or appealing to

some of the else to do it for us, we take some action ourselves. notfinally, to jim, i do know how you broadened the thing. we have struggled with that question in so many campaigns and movements. individualss we as -- what we do affects most to the people who are closest to us. if we do not know people who are other than us, who are different from us, we do not have connections with some kind of sympathy and affection and community, then we are operating in isolation, even if the issue seems to us to be that everybody should be aroused about. it is a question of personal contact and building community across lines. >> yes, about the student loans,

somebody said if somebody can pay them off, it would be great. in terms of direct action, i think that black lives matter has empowered several people of tapped into the meeting, which is significant and important. is also with that, movement, not a moment. so we need to talk about intersectionality. i do talk about trans women, people who are gender binary, which needs to be addressed. marginalizedjul people are not included in our movements. it is something that continues that we need to work on.

ms. smith: on the question that you asked about, people power, in springfield no one leaves, because it is a foreclosure issue, we have a sword and shield model that we use. we have our sword, which is our people power, our direct actions, our direct uprising, and the community coming together to defend the homes. and then we had our shield, --ch we believe every good means -- so along with our direct actions, we tried to develop laws and protect laws that protect homeowners, and we use direct action to follow through in building up those protections for the people. next, a forum on balancing government surveillance and civil liberties. poverty in fighting

milk income neighborhoods. on then peter wollaston cause of the financial crisis. announcer: on the next washington journal, and look at how campaign 2016 has different from past presidential campaigns in terms of media coverage and rhetoric. our guest is an editor in chief. then authors week on "washington journal" continues, with an author, craig shirley. live every morning at 7:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, and you can join with your comments on facebook and twitter. announcer: friday night, bill clinton at the dole institute of politics. president clinton: i do not care

if you are republican, democrat, independent, or whatever. we know the constitution mandates cover medleys -- mandate compromise. we know that everywhere in the world where people are practicing inclusive politics and inclusive economics to get inclusive societies, good things are happening. and everywhere in the world, someone believes they are in so much possession of the truth they have the right to kill innocent and anonymous people at random or spend their time fighting things that are not happening. this is not rocket science. defining for the human genome, that we are 99.9% the confirms the teachings of all the great faiths, the new testament, love your neighbor as yourself, that

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the dynamics. night,er: and saturday the criminal justice system. 'sd then portion of this year idea festival. >> we have got to banish the word he is helping at home. w is not actually taking the burden off you. you are still figuring out what needs to be done, and you are asking him to help. he is not the agent. he is the assistant. if we are going to get where we need to go, men have to be lead parents or fully equal coparents. announcer: for the full schedule, go to www.c-span.org. c-span takes you on the richter the white house and into the classroom. this you our student cam