how silly. but i believed it. and so we went at love canal, we had 20,000 tons of chemicals. it leaked out of the dump. it was in our communities, for those who don't recall the struggle, because it was quite some time ago. and our children got sick. so we went to the agencies and they said they weren't going to do anything because we don't evacuate communities because of toxic waste. we don't do this. we have no laws. we have no regulations. we are going to do nothing. i thought, well that's not what i learned in school. that's not what my mama and daddy taught me. and so we -- i started knocking on doors and talking to people, and we created local power. and we began to challenge the government, the epa at the federal level, the state department of environmental conservation and department of health and the governor. everybody said, you can't talk to the governor. why not? he's my governor, right? the idea that society has these things that you can do and you can't do and it discourages people. i'm like, no, i'm irish. right? and as a result, we started making -- we started making headway and they were beginning to test and do all these things. but i still believed that they were just not too bright, right? and if we showed and proved that there was a problem and they got it intellectually that something would happen.

we proved 56% of our children, over half of our children were born with birth defects. over half our children had three ears, extra fingers, extra toes and mentally retarded. we thought that's enough evidence, the united states government, the place that we're so proud of, we pay taxes, we go to church, my husband's a union man, i teach sunday school. this has got to work. and it didn't. what they said the reason we had birth defects of that rate is we were a random clustering of genetically defected people. my point of telling you this part of the story is that when i realized that it isn't about science, it isn't about facts, although all those things are critical for making your case and making sure you're right, it's about political fight.

that was the moment that it dawned on me that we are not going to fight this just proving there's climate change because we proved it. it was proven years ago. decades ago. we're only going to win this if we get involved politically. and for that reason, i established the center for health, environment, and justice after i left love canal. i got evacuated along with 800 other families and i moved here and met ralph amongst others. my goal here was to help other communities across the country. and as i was introduced, we have assisted in the last 35 years over 11,000 communities. 11,000 communities. we have changed so much as a result of love canal, the super fund was created. the super fund is a piece of federal legislation. [applause] thank you.

the purpose of super fund is to go in and clean up these fights and stop the quarrelling. unfortunately, under ronald reagan, it sort of got misinterpreted and we haven't yet been able to right it. but we're still working on it, and there is money there. we also work with communities who are fitting incinerators and landfills where they were taking our garbage, our garbage, our resources, our solid waste and turning it into waste by burning it and burying it and destroying the air, groundwater, and the earth and wasting our resources. all across the country, literally, thousands of incinerators were shut down. our garbage was no longer burned. it was turned into a resource. thousands if not tens of thousands of landfills were stopped. they stopped putting it into the ground. it turned into a resource. and communities around these various struggles actually learned that it's not about science and it's not about numbers and it's not about being right.

it's about politics and they learned how to fight. they don't just fight around community-based environmental justice issues, but they continued to move onto work towards zero waste, for example, in other sort of organic farming, farmer markets, things like that that were really going to enhance and improve their community. so they didn't stop exactly where their fight was. but it wasn't just about waste. we hear a lot about waste. it's also about corporate influence and dominance in our environmental protection agency as well as other agencies. so in florida, we received a call at the center from a woman who said, i was just approached at this free clinic for my baby about a study they're going to do in florida and it's a study

on pesticides. i'm like, ok, tell me more. she went onto say that at this free clinic, they were recruiting. this is an framfrican-american community, not surprising. they were recruiting young women with children under the age of 3. they were going to do a study that was going to be conducted by the environmental protection agency and the pesticide industry. their plan? if you agree to participate, you 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 toddler's 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 best sides, other organizations, we got 80,000 signatures saying we don't experiment on our children and the pregnant women in america. this is america. [applause] as a result, not only was the study canceled, those who got their $750 got to keep it. yes. 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 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, she's 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. mona did. she goes, oh, my gosh, something's wrong. when we talk about this, all of these people who have ph.d.s and different sort of professional credentials are all taking 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 sampleing. our government, they put filters on people's homes. and said don't worry about it. except their hot water heaters are filled with 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. one is burning beneath the ground. it's an old garbage dump. they can't put it out. four to six years, it will burn out. the other one is radioactive waste from the manhattan project. the fire is moving towards the radioactive waste. 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. gee ma mccarthy 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. 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. 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 our 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. someone was saying we can't compromise. 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? 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 how to get corporate america out of politics, out of the very agencies that were put together for the sole purpose of protecting the american people. thank you. [applause] >> imagine when we gets other her shyness. power house. 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. rather we have the crew you principle in o 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 problem with his metaphors and literary references. he said, i don't know, boys, i'm afraid it's going to open up a 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 as 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 people themselves created the organic standards. it didn't come from a lobbyist or a member of congress. the people themselves put it forward and now we have to defend it again because the powers that be are trying to undo it. jay 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 sustainability/survivalbility 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." 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 farm workers 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 field. something needs to be done about this.

the program i was working on was actually -- this was before beyond pesticides. 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 long. they told 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. 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. he's in the audience.

representing the medical community. we brought together public health scientist, has now deceased, many of you 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. chip osborne, a land manager, phenomenal horticultureist. nelson, farm worker advocate. and melinda who roughen runs a radio show, food sleuth and wants to beat the system with vegetables. y'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 crowded room, we began our work.

>> good afternoon, ncamp may i help you. >> it's 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 it was unacceptable and unnecessary. we began and continued listening to victims. and this is where we heard the stories, you may remember, 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. 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 alleyi's blood. his story is only the most visible of thousands like it. millions of american homes have been treated with a termite anti-pesticide called chloradane. >> we're talking about liver and kidney problems. >> however, 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. re he referred to widespread public concern about apples and ebdc on fruit 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, talking about the connection back to the communities in cancer alley, louisiana. >> all these chemicals, if there's a risk of poisening 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 ok 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 carry it home with their clothes. wash with the rest of the family. 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. we went for 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. then we moved on to lawn care. when we come back we will be joined by a consumer advocate. and the industry started pushing back. we would see ads like this coming out.

what -- these manly gloves and said because of activists, extremists and misinformed politicians, consumers used to care for their lawns, landscape are away store harming the environment. our response was, get a grip. the inadequacy of federal action results in increasing pressure on state and local government. we have engaged at the local level both state and local, and we have achieved 21 state regulations that restrict pesticide use in schools, 21 states require posting signs of notification on landscape in 14 states require prior prior notification, 19 states require restrictions on right-of-way use. here's important one. 122 local communities restrict pesticide use on public property

, 3m property including private property. our campaign is for pesticide free zones. clearly --ked breast expressed clearly in an ordinance passed in montgomery county. an ordinance was passed that affects one million people, that takes away pesticide use on private and public land. that preemption occurred as a result of the industry going state-by-state to preempt local jurisdictions after the supreme court upheld the right of local jurisdictions to restrict us to science. now we are hearing about zika.

>> pesticides are poison. that's why i think you should come to this take meeting at the riverside church. .amous scientists will be there andalph nader is our leader we are pleased to have in their us today. thank you. [applause] >> then there are pollinators. heard about the demise of these pollinator. our job is to bring issues like

this into the forefront. it takes years. those stories did not just appear on the front pages of newspapers. it was years of education. the food we eat is dependent on pollinators for his production. without bees are survival is threatened. yet the epa is eager to register the next new pages -- pesticide. that, they invade the vascular system of the plants and express themselves third the nectar and pollen and indiscriminately attack beneficial organisms, bees, birds, butterflies. the beekeeper came to the epa to make that point. congressman at the time kucinich thatd with us to point out this was an unacceptable hazard.

then beekeepers speak. to pollen look samples, we saw things that we nobody knew was there. as a hundred much 27 different contaminants. here's where the transition happens for us. yes, we won tremendous battles. we got chlordane off the market. we removed thursday and and got band.off the market --durs we really wanted institutional change, and questioned whether the hazards associated with these materials was valid. we found they were unnecessary and not even beneficial. yet the government was always looking for the cure. the cure is prevention. let's not use these in the first place. we see billions of dollars going into coming up with a cure for the disease that is created by

the chemicals. that's when the organic shift began to happen for us in it like you we as an organization thought for the very beginning. we introduced at the organic farming act, did not pass. in the organic food production that. farmers andwith consumers and environmentalists. .e created that law it includes the values and principles that we believe in. it is our law that enhances the biological systems for diversity and investing in our future and the sustainability for the planet. it looks at the whole system. what are the impact to manufacture use and misuse to disposal. we don't do that with pesticide.

biological and chemical interactions that occur, we are not doing that with pesticides. we have seen tremendous growth. beware, because the usda, even usda, we havee created an independent board here that board is constantly being threatened. .sda captured are the industry so this growth is something that is very tenuous. we need to protect this growth. now we see others embracing it. >> the advocacy group beyond pesticides have heard that before. >> when you call these types of conclusions junk science, the new art ignoring the body of scientific literature. we have seen incredible connections between brain cancer, leukemia, a lot of these chemicals that are used in turf management. >> we are going towards more

environmentally and people friendly products. because it is the right thing to do. >> i used to go out and talk to these guys and the first thing i would say to them is i am here today as a messenger. me onee to promise thing, that you will not kill the messenger. we reached out and most recently two local hardware stores. they knew we had the organic section and when they saw it, they just focused on what they were here for and they picked out what they wanted and left very happy. we are protecting the environment. you are protecting our family, your children and grandchildren and neighbors. nobody wants to wrap us decides -- once you have pesticides. i couldn't be happier. >> i promised we would end on an up note. these are the people that are

driving the change. we are reducing our impact on children, on farm and chemical workers. the water supply is improving as a result of this transition to organic. these are all achievable with organic, if organic remains true to the principles and the underlying, moral standards that are inherent in the statute. as ralph nader taught us, it is 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 that will move society in the direction it must go to sustain life. actionual and collective will take us to the two big asnt, wishes within our site sustainable and livable future.

thank you very much. [applause] >> ok. few observations. you have seen now over 500 years of civic action experience. in one day. see, i think, what i meant earlier today by the civices of the personality. and what it takes to persist and to be accurate and to be open and inviting and to have priorities in order. years ago when i was in youngster, we had discussions at the kitchen table. one time my parents talked about something i didn't know anything

about. talking about economic opportunities for people who have it decent job and livelihood. , what about a civic opportunity? they were all pretty much community minded. we said what's a civic opportunity? they said, one that works to make a democracy more able to function. people's rights without civic opportunity, how are economic opportunity the masses of people going to have? if you don't have civic opportunity to elevate labor laws, consumer laws, get fair elections. get the public debate underway, work on town meetings, work at the state level. you will not have the structure of the functioning democracy that provides economic opportunity.

i think you share my commendation of all these people . let's give them a hand. [applause] this is a super bowl of citizen action. a couple of points. you notice how many of these proposals, how many of these initiatives and reforms would have left right support back home. once you get down to where people live or work and raise their families, the ideology isn't as much as around. it is around on some of the issues like reproductive rights and school prayer, and things like that. on the basic issues of health, safety, economic well-being link -- being, you think conservatives different from liberal?

divide and rule has been the strategy of the ruling classes for centuries. they pick those areas where there are divisions. and they pit people against one another. and then the media jumps in. as i pointed out in my recent book, unstoppable, the emerging left right alliance to dismantle the corporate state, i came up with at least 24 major areas in our country where there is left right support. in popular opinion polls, and some of them in operational. it's operational to restore the minimum wage. on challenging civil liberties, suppression in the patriarch. it is going operational for criminal justice reform and juvenile justice reform in state

legislatures. that's what we have to focus on. once you get a left right alliance on any issue, it is unstoppable. it doesn't matter how many corporations land on capitol hill. it doesn't matter how much money is involved. money is not imported. it is important as bows and rigged elections for incumbents. it is a means to do that. you cut them off at the money pass when you have a mobilized citizenry. of, itmes to the point is easier than we think to make real change. the budgets of these groups. look up a staff of these groups. majoron't amount to a bowling league in some new art borough -- new york borough. if we only had congress watchers

like we had birdwatchers. it is easy. just for a moment imagine an order to envision real possibilities, what if these groups and others like them had 10 times the budget? advocates.e rigorous what if they had 100 times the budget, 100 times the rigorous advocate, and it's it is still a drop in the bucket compared to what corporate executives get away with. it is still a drop in the bucket in terms of charitable from the american people, over $300 billion a year. there is a distinction between charity and justice, isn't there? charity is supporting soup kitchens. important. certainly immediate relief for people. but why should a country like

ours have two kitchens at all? justice develops livelihoods that prevent the need. -- the need for soup kitchens. a society that has more justice is a society that needs less security. that's what these groups are all about. , institutionalge change. it's a lot easier than we think. listen 1% of the people mobilize from each congressional district , based on history, based on how we achieve the blessings we inherited. even at the peak of the civil 1960's,ovement, in the there weren't more than 1% of the people who spent three-500 hours a year on that mission. represented overwhelming public sentiment

for crucial parts of our society , and a final recognition by those in our society who are indifferent to the 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 on the masses, wasteful military budget and empire. barney ron paul and frank when they were in the house. can you imagine people further apart? they had a caucus to deal with the bloated military budget. when it comes to fundamental, ,mall 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 an emphasis on prevention, you think there is a oft right divide on that? course not. and the same is true in educational areas. when we allow the fuel to rule -- the few to rule them many, they will bring tax six -- tactics. we live in a strange. of time, the golden age of muckrakers, and the 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. case in ad not be the rigorous democracy. in our past, books made a difference. , by michaelerica

harrington on property, rachel .arson's book silent spring the book the jungle, ida carvel and standard oil, which helped to lead to the breakup of the monopolies in the early 20th centuries. we have to come back to a principal. that is, readers think and thinkers read. readers think and thinkers read. those tables out there are books written by people you have seen on the stage here today. there are organize materials, magazines, publications. look atarly urge you to that lineup and see what you want to take back home to your friends and relatives and children, for expense of deliberation.

i hope people who are looking at this on the widescreen especially will start saying to themselves, we can start a group . we can start a citizen group. we can join a group and support a group. we can have a monthly citizen group of the month contribution. i remain -- i remember maggie kuehne. she retired from the methodist church social work in her 60's. then she started the gray panthers. stereotype of older people -- he called nursing homes cribs for older people. got on the johnny carson show more than once. she made a difference. she had chapters all over the country that have demonstrations

, one person no money, no contacts. just a driven social conscience. lastly, let we suggest the day 2, 3, and four has a good foundation now. if we don't break through the commercial media, if we don't develop alternative media, democracy cannot thrive. , thomas jefferson was only half kidding when somebody youd him, what would 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, the public airways. tomorrow will be the most coordinated, informed, diverse commercial the mass media ever brought together in one day. them, -- one of the presenters will be arguably the greatest promoter of the first amendment in the 20th century. phil donahue. demonstrated a believe in the first amendment like filled on you. 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 first amendment. and he will discuss how he broke their one tableau that was the conventional taboo or most of the other media after another. and opened huge areas of american life and voice. they three, we will be waging peace over waging war. we want to get rid of this idea that peace is something week, but war is something strong. andwars have failed again again, you will see the documentation of that by some of the most extraordinary presenters, people who worked for the state department, the warspeople who fought in that they wished they were never a part of. thatnal wars of aggression

are boomerang however the country. the traditional peas groups that have these vigils every sunday in the village green and people drove by them. horns,es tooting their sometimes snickering. day four, will be breaking , the moste congress underappreciated instrument of democracy. by all too many people. congress, andthe we have the votes, and we have the people, and way of the left right alliance has so many major re-directions, we turn around the federal government, we effect the state and local enrich and, we nourish what media covers, serious -- 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. , if we don'to that fulfill our mother's potential with time and talent, and resources, what is posterity? what will our descendents think of us? we don't have to guess. but 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 turned the time and resources and our talent in the direction of a functioning democracy. it takes these solutions off the shelf and put some on the ground and it liberates the political and civic energies of the people . you will see change faster than you can ever conceive of it.

let me end on this note. today, weou who came appreciate it. those of you who are watching a live streaming, we appreciate it. i hope some of you will start passing out to dollar bills. the two dollar bill has jefferson on one side, and the the room where the sign thecame to declaration of independence on july 4, 1776. ok, they are all white males and some had slaves. declaration,e against the most powerful army in the world, controlled by king george the third, they thought they were signing their death warrant. for them it was an act of supreme courage. and probably out of self-interest and part of of a

broader vision. i think we can look back at that document called the declaration of independence, with all of its warts, and say, we are sure glad that these people showed up on july 4, 1776. it's about time more of us show up as well for democracy. thank you. ♪ the libertarian party holds its national convention this weekend in orlando.

live coverage beginning saturday at 8:00 eastern when the libertarian party residential candidates face being -- each other in a debate. party chooses its presidential and vice presidential nominees. the libertarian party presidential nominee will appear on the ballot in all 50 states this november. we probably give 72 of our delegate votes to the next president of the united states, our delegatey give votes to the next president of the united states.

>> washington journal is next. we will look at today pus news and take your calls -- at today's news and take your calls. this afternoon, a debate begins on the energy and water spending for 2016. live coverage on c-span. hour, we will talk to congressman rick nolan about the 2016 campaign. the minnesota democrat will be a super delegate supporting bernie sanders. john mica joins us to talk airport security lines and tsa management. is megan beyer and

john lloyd young, who serves on the president committee -- president's committee. you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. ♪ host: good morning, welcome to the washington journal. we will begin with some morning headlines. the transportation security administration has replaced its top security official in the wake of growing lines at major u.s. airports. -- this isk times the second trial of the officers .nvolved in mr. gray's death on the criminal justice front, the supreme court move that georgia prosecutors violated the prosecution --