You are watching book tv, television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see online at booktv. Org. Sam daley harris talks about how citizens can come together to exert political power next. This is about an hour and 15 minutes. We are delighted to introduce mr. Ketan. He also founded the microcredit Summer Campaign and most recently in 2012 he 2012 he founded the center for citizen empowerment and transformation. He has and a a great deal of recognition and respect for his work. No other organization has been as critical a partner in seeing to it that it is used as a power. And one of the certified great social entrepreneurs of the last decade. We are thrilled to have you here and congratulate you on the 20th Anniversary Edition of your book reclaiming our democracy. Equally delighted to have former congressman Mickey Edwards join us here today, Vice President of the Aspen Institute and serves as director of the Aspen Institute rodale public leadership, a republican member of congress from oklahoma from 1997 until 1992 serving as a member of the appropriations and budget committee. He committee. He taught for 11 years at harvard john f. Kennedy school of government as well as serving on faculty of the university of maryland law school. Very impressive. He also actively contributes to public discourse. He is also a frequent public speaker and regular guest on many leading radio and Public Television broadcast. So welcome to you both and to all of our audience members. We are looking forward to an interesting conversation about grassroots advocacy. I would remind you to please silence your cell phones. Thank you. Thank you. I am grateful to everyone who has come. Former congressman Mickey Edwards. I am i am going to start with basically three main messages. The first one is kind of obvious. Most people feel hopeless and cynical about making a difference. The second is a little less obvious. I i have seen people make a profound difference on issues that they care about. The last message is the telephone, the challenge, finding an organization that offers the deep structure of support that is empowering, inspiring, transformative or said another way most organizations when it comes to advocacy provide members with a kindergarten and first grade curriculum. Click here. Petition signed. Youre all done. Go back. Go back to sleep. That is the challenge. I will begin with five short stories. These are largely taken from that tour. I tell them not to discourage people but actually to embolden them. Last fall i spoke on 15 college campuses, and i told the the students that i founded results 34 years earlier after i asked 7,000 High School Students what the name of their member of congress was. I asked the College Students last fall 35 years later the same question. 10 . 10 percent could answer correctly, 90 percent could not tell me the name. In march i spoke at a Senior Citizen lecture series. 200 seniors every every two weeks. I went a month early. The moderator said a month from now we will here from ketan on reclaiming our democracy. And there were chuckles in the room. Yes, this is something we have to work on. The students are oblivious. And this one lonely sample, lets say the seniors were, what, cynical, Something Like that . Story number four. In march i spoke at harvard. Never heard a result. We spent 20 minutes. Why do you do it that way . At the end of 20 minutes she looks at me and says, yeah, but congress is really dysfunctional. I said, yes. And this year it appropriated 1. 65 billion dollars. Yes. Really dysfunctional, and this year it appropriated 700 million dollars. Congress is really dysfunctional, but if you roll up your sleeves, do your homework, and get in there you can make big things happen. Before the lecture i spoke to small groups of students sitting at tables. I walk over to the last table. Im in an honors futures class. What is the most important issue we could work on . I said to him, well, my friends and Climate Change tommy if we dont deal with that we are toast. My friends in campaignfinance reform say if we dont fix that nothing will change. Change. For me, i said, the most important issue is why so few of us see ourselves as changemakers. If we if we could fix that one there would be a barrage of people. So im going to tell my story briefly of my move from hopeless to activist, from hopeless to change maker, in the story goes like this a bachelors degree and a masters degree in music. I played percussion instruments in florida for 12 years. Then i started a Citizen Lobby Group on ending poverty. What motivated that change, and when i look back in my life their are two events that had a particularly profound effect on me. And in the orchestra at the ceremony, and just before it started a player came back and told me that a high school Fraternity Brother a year younger had died the day before in a tractortrailer accident in georgia. It was her nextdoor neighbor, so she knew before i did. I was 17. For me it was like, i had forever. But during that time, the funeral and the morning after i went with my friends younger brother to collect the report card. It began to dawn on me that i had 17 more minutes or months or years and the questions of purpose started coming up. No answers, but all of a sudden i got a knew batch of questions. Four years later in 1968 College Graduation date, the night before Robert Kennedy is assassinated. No answers, but the questions are getting clear. Nine years later i am invited to a presentation on ending world hunger. I i go to this thing thinking there are no solutions. It is inevitable. If there were solutions somebody would have done something by now. I go to this thing and realize early that there is no mystery to growing food or clean water or basic health, none of that is mysterious. I am not hopeless about the perceived lack of solution. I am hopeless am hopeless about human nature, people. We just never get around to doing the things that can be done, but there is one human nature i have some control over, my own. My question, why am i here, what am i here to here to do. And this is the end of the story. In 1978 dash 79i i spoke to High School Students in miami and los angeles. And before i went into the first classroom i i read statements from the Us National Academy of sciences calling for the political will to end hunger. I decided i decided to ask i still to five High School Students. Out of 7,200, fewer than 3 new. 3 percent new. 6,800, just over 97 percent did not no. And this Citizen Lobby Group started out of that, the call for the political will to end hunger on the one hand on the lack of basic information on who represented us in washington on the other. So in a moment i will discuss one the grassroots led victory with congress. That is what is ultimately important. I really want to give some attention to these questions. How did that happen . What are some of the secrets to the empowerment of ordinary citizens who can often be so discouraged, what discouraged, what kind of structure of support and ethos are required. Results began my being. The volunteers and about 60 cities generated 90 editorials. Where the editorial boards wrote these pieces, we would send three at a a time, for at a time to members of congress to people in the administration. At the end of the campaign the following handwritten note was written. I want to convey my heart felt thanks to the efforts of results on behalf of Vulnerable Children and mothers everywhere. I thank you in my mind for what you and your colleagues are accomplishing that thought i should do it at least once this year. So results continued for 30 years, 30 years, year in, year out, 1984 through today on his maternal and child health programs. And the bilateral programs alone have increased. Now now what i am about to show you people do not no. This slide in this line that follows. In 1984 unicef was estimating that 31,000 children around the world under five were dying every day through things like measles coupled with malnutrition. In the latest report came out a couple weeks ago. 41,000. 41,000 day has plummeted to 17,008. If you ask most people they will give you some variation of it is going to hell in a handbasket. Since 1990 the world has saved almost 100 million childrens lives including 21 million newborns. That is that is the part that people dont know and need to. And they have been at the center of the advocacy since 1984. So in 2013 former deputy executive director of unicef was quoted in the New York Times article as saying to a great extent it was because of the receptivity created by results that the us funding for Child Survival increased so dramatically, and that led many other countries to come on board. So what does it take to empower citizens like this . I will go over a a little more deeply little later, but one of the pieces of the structure of support is an organizing strategy that most advocacy efforts either dont understand or dont have the discipline to follow. Most ngo advocacy efforts failed to provide a single legislative focus, i dont mean a single mouse click focus, but a deeper engagement focus. Developing a legislative agenda that is inspiring and focused, keep staff and volunteers from sliding to issue to issue and allow them to drill down deep on one issue and develop deep relationships with members of congress and the media. But lets take a look at how this has been used more recently. In 2,007 results volunteer Marshall Saunders decided to address an issue involving Climate Change. He went home to san diego. Early on he said, i realize i i was giving people monday 8 percent of the problem. 2 what they could do about it. They could not change enough light bulbs or by enough previous is to make up for it. One morning i was reading mike paper and drinking my coffee and noticed an article saying that congress had appropriated fossil fuel subsidies. I i convinced 18 people to change there label that they this is never going to work. He asked me to coach them. I worked with them for several years. Lets look at a few of their achievements to get a sense of going way beyond the mouseclick, the steeper advocacy. In 2,010 volunteers generated 36 letters to the editor published. In the first eight months of this year volunteers have had 1,486 letters to the editor published. In 2,010 there were 105 meetings with members of congress, members of congress, canadian parliament, or their staff. The first eight months of this year they had 792 such meetings. If you want greatness, if you want greatness from volunteers you have to provide a great structure of support. One of the missing pieces is an empowering monthly conference calls. Here call. Here is how you can do that. Here is how you can do that in a disempowering way. The first the first part is our guest speaker. Most groups, im going to give you three components, all of which most groups leave out. The first group is a guest speaker. Most groups have there staff do it every month. But if they do, the other disempowering way to do it is to have the speaker talk for the entire 25 minutes. No interaction, no q a. The the empowering way to do it is insist that the speaker speak for ten minutes and at 15 more minutes for interaction. More empowering, more energizing. The next thing most groups would leave out, grassroots victories. First of all, they would not do it. Normally people just share the victory. For example, someone might say we met with our member of congress yesterday. It is a blast. But they leave out that it took 11 phone calls to get the meeting, they had to meet with the district director first and their knees were knocking before they went in if you leave that out people around the country are going, going, maybe we should give up on this and go to something else. We have only made two calls. Calls. I guess we have nine more to go. Its much more empowering. The last one. Practice in being more articulate. Most groups would leave this out. The disempowering way is to do a roleplay, a call to a congressional aide, and it is horrible, awful. All anyone can say is thank you for volunteering. Everyone knows he was a stinker. It is on not empowering to here a crummy roleplay. The empowering the empowering way is to have coaching insight. So what does all of this look like at the individual level . I will read an excerpt from one of the new chapters. The woman i am quoting here, when she wrote this she lived in richmond, virginia. The Richmond Times dispatch. When i started i was suffering from climate trauma. I would read the book and weep at home and at work. Then she joined citizens climate lobby. Eighteen months later she was co leading a workshop on getting relationships with members of congress and editorial writers. We are betting the farm on relationships. Most of us have never done that before. What in the world that is a relationship with member of Congress Look like . Some of us found models for those relationships in other parts of our lives. The model of the work relationship. My relationship model is different. I adore i adore romantic relationships, so i use romance as my model. Its like a blind date, only you have decided ahead of time that you we will marry this fellow, sweet, interesting. The business editor, environment writer, city editor, someone at this paper will find you interesting and compelling. It it is just a matter of being persistent. I see the relationship as an arranged marriage. The legislative director told us in january to an a half years ago. We have met nine times. We schedule 45 minute meetings. He keeps us for well over an hour. He does not want us to leave because a good arranged marriage starts out cold and slowly heats up over time. That is different from a love match that starts out hot and slowly cools down. I see the editorial writer as a painter. His palette is filled with letter to five letters to the editor. I am his model who talks like this. Certainly someone who is cynical and turned off by Political Action does not. I want him to fill his canvas with colors i like so i will have my group send three to five letters to the editor whenever the opportunity arises. The more colors the better chance of having him take one or two of my favorite. During our conference two years ago i met with congressional offices, many folks whose view of the world was different than mine. I had to let go of a lot of emotional baggage. I could no longer judge them i had to let go of my fear of Climate Change and my fear that they would not listen. I had to release fear and center in love. This is sacred and profound work. If i asked normal people to meet with tony congressional offices over three days they would see it as hard or dirty work. She sees it as sacred and profound. That is that is something that we all need to aspire to. Thank you very much. [applauding] thank you so much for some wonderful insight and experiences that you share. I want to invite congressman edwards to pose a few questions, and then we will open it up to the audience. I thought i thought we were supposed to go on and on and on. First of all, i love your book and the work you are doing. We are glad to have you here a couple of thoughts. The thought was that i really liked coming from a former member of the house that your emphasis on reaching out to members of congress because so many people who are in the advocacy world focus on the executive branch. It is an interesting branch. The president gets a helicopter and has easter egg parties, but most of the power and our government is in the congress, the legislative branch. The fact that you have put so much focus on getting people to meet with members of congress and work with them is great. The other thing i noticed is your reference to a couple of republican friends of mine. So many people in the advocacy world, if they are conservatives, only talk to republicans and if they are your girls only talk to democrats and lose a lot of the opportunities. People in Congress Wants to make change. They share the same basic value, even if they have differences over how to get there. There. I thought your approach which was not now, a liberal head of some department, it was great, well done. So the challenge, you ask students to the member of congress was, you was, you could have asked almost anyone, and they would know nothing. The amount the amount of literacy about government and how it works and how you can affect it is just mindboggling. So is there something else, you get these people, and you get them in power, but how do you create a bigger pool of people who not only are upset that understand the system, how to make change and why to make change. You can empower them, but if you walk into a classroom or any kind of group and no one there knows how the government works, they have not had civics courses, studied Critical Thinking about how do you do anything about that, create a bigger pool . It is a great question. Asking students to their who their member of congress is is a very low level question that is a constant challenge. We always try and piggyback. An article. Maybe there are a few more people. Thats a really big challenge. Thats thats why all of the groups i have been working with, they put a lot of emphasis on getting out on the road. They can talk to a larger group. When it comes to learning how Congress Works there is nothing like meeting with your member and knowing when it is authorizing and when it is appropriating. It is a systemic problem. Should some of the focus be on changing the Public Education system so that people dont arrive at that. Not knowing and helping to stir peoples ideas about what matters. For matters. For example, one of the things that i tend to favor, one of the things in the common core that is a little disturbing is that the advice to people who teach english is to focus on nonfiction. Thats great if you get a lot of data, but you need people with a heart, you need them to have a sense of responsibility, a sense of moral direction. Part of it is making systemic changes. Reporter at that time, as this goes back a couple decades there was of funding squabble between the u. S. And oilproducing countries, opec. So of the u. S. Was going to cut its contribution to this fund. In that particular campaign, volunteers generated 28 editorials supporting it but what was interesting for me in all of that is it was during that campaign in 1985 that the International Fund sent three videos of programs and one of the videos was a dutch documentary in bangladesh giving micro loans that this was 21 years before mohammad receive the nobel peace prize. For us a bigger deal during that time was the we made that connection. A couple years later we are lobbying on micro finance legislation and doing that kind of work. A person you worked with at harvard brilliant. Any of you have not read marshalls work worked with cesar chavez and a great organizer. What is the next big challenge . You did go around this room, 20 different dancers and each person would say dont mind the challenge but where do you see your focus needs to be and volunteers . I will answer a little differently than you might be expecting. In a sense the big challenge for me is convincing ngos that the volunteers are capable of more than mostly the mouse click and i go to in geo meetings and government organizational meetings with a list of five in geo attitudes that kills citizen empowerment and transformation. These are direct quotes from groups i met with, you cant ask volunteers to do very much because they will go away. Most of them, another one i was in the uk this year and put the second one up and a woman from this massive u. K. Ngos said that is us, that is us. We cant have our volunteers write letters to the editor or opeds because they will get it wrong and misrepresent the organization. If you give them a kindergarten and first grade curriculum and asked to write a letter they will get along. If you give them something richer than that they wont get it wrong and so the educational system in terms of physical education is broken, then kind of my next cut at it is the groups that people will meet when they get out of school. The children, the friends of the earth, the sierra clubs and institutions like that, where too often what is offered is kind of they see the hopelessness and cynicism and offer programs congruent with it. Most members are busy and hopeless that i will give them what dizzy and hopeless people will do which is not too much. There is movement that has been going on for a number of years, the Aspen Institute is working in this area to get more and more young people to give a year of their lives to public activities, public service. What do you think . I think get used to those people. That is great and when i was in high school many eons ago, things like that were not going on, that kind of thing is great. The challenge i have with it, you working to one of those great programs, and walk out of it after years of great volunteerism, equally embittered so for meet the challenges, the Service Learning and very much voiced from who am i as a citizen. A quote from apollo astronauts rusty schweickart, we are not passengers on space shippers, we are the crew. We are not residents on this planet, we are citizens. The difference is responsibility. Most people see themselves as passengers, not crew. What are the systems that shift that and allow that . On that same line one of the differences between the United States and countries that came before is the one thing that does make it exceptional is in america, a citizens and not subjects, what to do. We want to find out what they do. We dont want to do all the talking and have everybody else just listen. Your turn and theres a microphone. I think we will want to we will run a microphone so if you would like to ask a question of either gentleman we encourage you to ask either war and ask the microphone to come to you so everyone at home can give you your questions. Does anyone wants to start us off . Back here. Introduce yourself. Thanks very much. I dont need the mike, do i . First of all, thank you. I want to read one quick thing. Presentation a few days ago on this. One member of the audience said the most effective citizens i have seen. And the notes i have taken, i will write that. I was inspired by that. For both of you the question is the Advocacy Group that is fairly good resources, and to prioritize that. And invest resources and letters to the editor, oped, and dc meetings and the question of both of you and all sides of this equation. You can prioritize just a bit. Wherever i hear what you just said Something Like that, and the structure of support is he or she in, what will sustain to peter out. I would average you, and resources to the full fullblownl i certainly would urge facetoface and paul simons daughter is governor of illinois and is equally committed to these issues but the only thing i would add to what sam said is the seduction part of it, the story you wrote about if you have got all these different ways calling individually on a legislator is better and more direct than a letter to the editor. The poster you would get to appeal the decisionmaker, you want to do all of it but whether you start with talking to a legislator or move your way up to talking to a legislator, that will be the most important part of it. I direct the u. S. Poverty focus workshop results. I would courage you to check out Congressional Management Foundation because they did a survey of Congressional Staff which reinforces facetoface with a member of congress and the data says 96 or 97 of Congressional Staffs saying that that is the action that has the most influence. Giving folks the structure of support in supporting them, you have that facetoface meeting in a district you can tell from here are the folks, we are on capitol hill saying this is the most effective thing you can do. It is hard the first time you do it and the little scary and incredibly exciting. I want to go back a little bit because i serviced the year of service push because even more so in the u. S. Poverty focus we expect more on global service, a lot of folks who were doing service in their own community and abroad and doing Service Projects it strikes me House Service volunteerism is going up and is mandated from different schools and that sort of thing and yet this sense of disengagement from the political process everything going down and maybe it is on the rise now, and i urge that the as you engage in a push, be read crude, there are folks to come to us, volunteers im not allowed to do this while i am surfing or in service. The way these service structures, programs are structured, not only are they not empowering folks to learn about sitting in engagement but telling people they cant do it while they are learning but if you can talk generally about how do you flip the switch when folks are doing for instance service or caring about an issue it is still really hard to get them to take the next step in advocacy or something beyond that and partly because of cynicism. Any insights you have especially with the Service Focus you all are working on and how you can bridge that, people are taking that and engaging in broader political change. I am not part of that program, and i add to that, if you have a real push for people to young people to get out and get to the community, you will be looking for something to do, everyone saying what can i were gone and you give in to that and a great many universities have programs where they have their students going out and working in projects and volunteer activities and that is the place to find help because they are fishing of round, a have to report to my professor what i have done, go out and recruit actively. There is a big basis of people looking for something to do. I think you make a very good point about the kinds of ideas, other people are listening. Thank you. I am a witness. Identify yourself. I am an advocate for 35 years and get started. Since i had black hair. My question really is a quote that you might be able we all know such passionate people that care and yet that cynicism and apathy that surfaces when you talk to people about getting involved in the government level, sustained for politics more than a was 35 years ago. Info pull as you are talking about mammoth amounts of passionate people that want to make a difference or the cynicism is sustained. I ask you both. Let me try the quote, i may not live off. This is when he was not baseball commissioner yet. He said what concerns me most to date is the way we disconnected ideas from power in america and created for ourselves thoughtful citizens who disdained politics and what politicians do. That is the ballpark of the quote. It is endemic. I think you said it. There are people out there looking for something to do and we need some kind of better matchmaker because they are not easy for us to find and we are not easy for them to find and when i talk about the structures of support, i talk about results. Org or citizensclimatelobby. Org, fleeces people could find those groups on global domestic poverty, Climate Change, peace issues, they would feed them power and would nurture them. This quote is attributed to mark twain, the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why. In a real quiet moment everyone would agree that is giving up, leaving the camp sites cleaner than we found that but that desire is smothered by layers of hopelessness and discouragement and cynicism and when that could be released, the natural desire to give back is expressed. The office of politics, one of the things sam talks about, the need to inspire, not just to motivate but to inspire. Having a political system where people with different views have very vigorous debate and think seriously about alternative proposals and have a chance to influence people they selected to make a decision that they will like. Is the heart of democracy. Politics is what makes democracy and the more we go out and fight against the cynicism, this is how you are empowered to reach out to the people your community has been elected to make a change. A lot of people who feed the cynicism, they dont want to do the work, they want to snap their fingers and get the results, that is not the way it works in democracy. 312 million with a lot of different views. And find consensus or compromised, there are ways to do it and getting people to understand the political system makes this a real democracy. And it is the solution. Thank you very much. Three craig questions, investor and work with security exchange, looking at occupy wall street, dynamic, fabulous Media Coverage event. And the titans of wall street, it is not the cause of any problems and they do different tax rates. And energy is dissipated and changed. And the second thing is congressperson, if you were in office what would really move view, a thousand voters in the district signed a petition and deliver to you, would that make the staff more willing to face this group, to negotiate, getting the feeling of what was the tipping point. A couple of things. A couple days ago, trying to give a talk, it was a great opportunity. And basketball arena, it was great fun that i went to, as one of them, a group of students, how many of you when you were a member of congress came to your district and had one of the regular neighborhood meetings, how many of you showed up, one person held up. Person to person, when you are a state legislator or a member of congress, comes back and has a meeting, be there, how did i Start Talking about bipartisanship, had a town meeting in my district, a lot of people were there. And the political excuse about i was a republican or democrat would not let me do something and someone got in the room, one person said i am sick and tired of hearing republicans, democrats, everybody in the room cheered, you show up your elected officials will listen to you when you speak directly to them. And get to a briefing paper. And a commentary if i peduncle note in there from somebody who inspires, made this point, one of the things for me to consider, is powerful. More direct, dont be cynical toward your elected officials or be angry at them, reach out, make up personal what was wrong with occupy . It was totally unfocused. Occupy could not have done more to repudiate everything, they didnt do any of it. Was an outrage. Complained, winding, increase, and if you had a list of the way not to do it, that was it. Give them real stuff and the real goal and a real mission, that works. I am certain. One thing occupied it was clearly get one message across particularly about the 99 . In terms of getting it in our brains and that kind of thing. What wasnt there was the ongoing structure of support and a plan and what we going to do about that issue. Some politicians picked up on that idea and are running with it. Where is the support of it . I am the director of the Peace Alliance and that is our grassroots advocacy. You really talk to a lot of what i was going to raise. I want to underline something when we talk about cynicism and the difficulty people have with government and government advocacy idol be a little diagnostic. A lot of what turns people off is the sense of combativeness and hostility and difficulty getting a straight answer from a politician, shaping the truth against each other. Something that i cherish about our approach is reinforced, both of you talked about the emphasis on Relationship Building so people can get in there and make different relationships within politics by approaching members of congress not just with here is my point and this is what i need you to do but i want to know where you are coming from on this issue, coach our advocates and listening and might not convinced them in that meeting but we are building the foundation of connections and maybe over time changing things whether it is the Congress Member or an editor or potential ally or adversary, as taking responsibility for shifting relationships and culture which is what we see reflected from the heights of government and is hard for us to see. That is in our relationship in our homes and schools and families and it is frustrating when we see our elected leaders quibbling and wasting and fighting when we would like to see more functional approach. I dont really have a question. I want to read something related to that that speaks to the subtitle of the book, healing the break between people and government. I dont know which part of the story to tell but i spoke at the college of st. Benedict st. Johns university in minnesota and before the electorate there was a group of faculty and staff and students who had read the book and in the book group was a nun who for 37 years had been a librarian at the university and she had just retired and she was lit up about the book group and such. When we were ending, i still dont know what to do. My congresswoman is michele bachman. And it was her thing. I pull out this particular prayer and i am going to read it in a moment. I asked her to take this prayer and replace the congressmans name, this is a prayer a volunteer in houston had written about his congressman and this is a volunteer in atlanta who replaced with this congressman, pat swindall. It is about healing the break, about the issues you were raising and their congressman was one of the few who voted against lemonade sending aid to ethiopia in 1985 and they were very embarrassed by it all and didnt know how to work with such a persons 0 they would start this prayer ended goes like this. Thank you for pat swindall. We know he is a good man and wants to do right in the world. We know he struggles with the same problems we do, closing our hearts to those who dont agree with us. There are no thoughts or feelings that he has had the we havent had a and vice versa. We pray for all of us to learn compassion for people in our country and far away, rich and poor, and we will be less frightened of each other. We pray our focus is more to love and appreciate him and less to change and. Tell us to remember sharing love is the highest contribution we can make and will lead us to children being fed and the planet surviving. Forgive our righteousness and anger, open our hearts and minds to find the next expression of love for pat that he can receive. And they would read this at the meeting and go yes, right. But they kept reading it. Kind of came in and said we would go with their were chats in past sessions around the district, usually people have a bone to pick and nothing would happen but they approach with a smile and handshake and information that made it difference and two years later they went to ask to cosponsor legislation on micro finance and the leader of this group, the woman who would become his wife said once he says he will cosponsor the bill i will ask if he will write an oped, that would be pushing it. You go in, show him a video, he says i will cosponsor and before they can speak he says i do a column in the local paper. Do you think you can help me craft something to educate constituents . This is from bad over her head on the ethiopian famine vote to relationship. It started with the volunteers, when you going to get fixed . Lets do some healing here in ourselves and then we can better work with you, members of congress. I would add certitude kills. Going in to talk to somebody who has a different point of view than you or, having already worked out how you will read but everything they say is going to stop anything from happening. Developing the ability to form a real relationship by listening to where someone else is coming from, why they are where they are, what their concerns are and trying to find a way that the way you are trying to achieve will play into what their concerns are is very empowering and people on both the left and right fall into the trap of disparaging people who dont see things as brilliantly as they do. I think your approach is important to achieving breakthroughs. There are a lot of pat swindalls. Lot of people on the left who would support things a conservative that deficit Advocacy Group might want to feed it to where you can talk honestly with each other about what you want to see. Thank you so much for the presentation. I am from the United Nations foundation. The question is to both of you. It seems what you are a member of congress or have a Grassroots Campaign or in the relationship of voting will nation should, in the business of voting relationship so the question is once you provide that robust support, and that support where you get the transformation and inspiration, how do you get people to engage with you . How do you get people to engage in that support or take that step in building relationships . Is it getting out and having more town Hall Meetings . This general idea of how to get people to take that engagement . Oversimplified if you have 500 stakeholders in seattle i would find a host and a little in fighting team of folks and hopefully those five in a call with you would work hard to find 20 friends in a room and go out there and do a presentation, not a town hall meeting so much as a literal workshop on starting up a group, and what you would get to support and nurture by being the solution of restarting chapters by finding one of your posts and building and inviting a team and doing a presentation whereby 20 in the room six raise their hand and say we are in, let them be clear what they are in john, and not provide that kind of thing. Straight out of a campaign playbook. Had not elected republicans in 1928 and my district was 74 democrat and what i would do is if i came to your house, have any kind of positive response to my message the first thing i would say is invite your friends and neighbors over and so i can meet with a group in your living room and talk as a group and at the end of it have something specific whether it is a volunteer card or asking people to take a Bumper Sticker or whatever. So i totally agree, getting people together in one place and being able there is a collective action here that begins to happen because one person says yes, i am going to be part of that it puts pressure and the person next to them to also say yes, i can do that too so that is the best way to do it. The town meeting just what you do in a campaign. One other thing related to what are you going to provide some kind of thing, there was a slide that i took out that is in the book. A small circle on one side of the pages labeled your comfort zone and to the other side is a much larger circle labels where the magic happens. The question is are you an organization that helps people move out of their comfort zone and over to where the magic happens . That is where the break throughs are and that is where the growth is as an advocate, as a citizen etc. Josh joseph, i wanted to piggyback on this question here, something you said earlier. The idea of sort of broadening the audience, getting people more connected. Along this line, people i busy with facebook and a bunch of other things. They want to be engaged. Can you give more specific examples how you provide opportunities for folks to engage with activities they might care about but different levels, meaningful activities at different levels. I dont have a lot of time but i want to do something meaningful. What can i do here is opposed to writing an opera or trying to get someone else to publish one . How do you get folks to be in on it if they dont have a ton of time . I would urge the mouse clicking to continue but, paul loeb once said to me those emails petitions to congress are counted but they are also discounted. I would urge that to continue with the constant invitation for people to step through another level land to another level. You said people live busy and people are busy, like american idol. Do you know how much time it takes to watch that thing . There is this quote, i am forgetting his name, former president of johns hopkins, a glut of insignificance that engulfs us all, the temptation is understandable to stop thinking. Amidst the glut of in significance that he also saw the temptation is understandable to stop thinking. The problem isnt thinking persons cannot shoes but must let others choose for them. To fail to make one make ones own choices is to be terry the freedom that is our societys greatest gift to us all. We have to keep inviting people into another level and then providing them with something powerful so that it is not why did you invite me here . Theres nothing going on here. This is jumping, should be when they get invited to in terms of what is going on. Let me add to this, drawing and again on the Political Campaign idea. When you are raising money, you send out a letter to people and say what you spend 25 . That is great. What we would do is say we have a new television commercials, radio commercials starting caught 14. 73 will pay for one. What you are showing people, something very specific that they are doing. We would also when you have people coming in who would volunteer you never want somebody in the volunteer card to not call on them, you bring them in, eight person just in charge of being a social chairman among the volunteers in a particular time so that they all got to know each other and became a go to thing to be there with that group, very specific, these calls, what you are going to say and why you are going to see it, you go to the ten places to do this, the more specificity where people can actually see what they have accomplished and that the end of the day they can hear from you and people running this headquarters, you know what they accomplish a you appreciate what they accomplish and it creates a feeling of teamwork but you get a lot of people in organizations to sign up and say i am with you and that is it and you have got to take advantage of it immediately. Put to work with very specific things to do. We are going to end at 9 45 sharp. We will work towards wrapping up. If we take one more question we will give you a chance for a few final comments before we all adjourn. Thank you for the remarks. I am not help fellow with International Center and journalists. Speaking of insignificance, i wonder if you might address information gets to people now and how the clicking helps or hurts peoples ability to use innovation effectively. Generally if it is well informed, the clicking helps. It is kind of like dont stop doing masklike activism, just dont stop there is the point. It is useful that more and more people are engaged and leased to that level, how do we take it to the next level . The campaign analogy, one thing the internet is good at is reminding people there is an election in this, it is not as good at actually getting somebody to the polls and somebody to go knock on their door to make a phone call, on the phone and say we got a poll watcher and you havent been there yet or what ever, so the clicking part is good, that is great, good way to get information out, beginning of the process, not the total process. The final comment . Let me Say Something quickly, the final word. What sam has touched on is that what america is about is citizens taking charge of what their country is going to do and what our society is going to look like and he has shown, i think, a model for how you get people engaged but that model includes going beyond complaints about what is wrong and showing what can be done and having a model to sustain their activities, and what we have to do is all of us go out and get more people and courage, inspired about changeability and what can happen. Is not hopeless and members of Congress Even if the majority of whoever holds the majority dont happen to agree with you and share your point of view doesnt mean it is over and you wind still massed after the next election to do something. You can make progress from now. I thought your book was great and the work you have been doing is great and i am delighted to see that you have something to talk about. I am going to close with a little quick reading from the book. It is the reading about the first editorial i ever generated a long time ago. I was in l. A. I was a substitute teacher starting this grassroots lobby. We were working on candidate forums on World Food Day and i was meeting with a reporter from the l. A. Times and i was telling her that tv editorial writers, some of them were saying we would not do an editorial on this because under is not a state or local issue. Then she got nervous and asked me if i had called the times and i sit we called them but they wouldnt return our call and she said you called . Acid the Editorial Page Editor and she said dont call him. Call k. Mills. She is the only woman on the editorial board. This was 1982. So during a break at the junior high that i was teaching at. I go into a pay phone booth. Do you remember payphones . I put my diary and a builtin ledge and called her up and she said we dont do editorials on labor day. Lets take an issue and do one. So this is what i wanted to read. My first promised materials on anti hunker legislations that was being pushed and followup by phone. The fourth period bell rang the. I said goodbye and hurried back to my classroom. That telephone call and the editorial that followed altered my sense of myself and what was possible. Was normal for me to distribute 100 photocopies for an important article but when that editorial appeared i remembered thinking not only has the l 8 times written this editorial but they made 1 million copies of it and delivered it for as too. How marvelous. My early morningto the front yard, remember the front yard picking up the paper . To pick up the l. A. Times was marvin to democracy. I had the right job to make a difference, substitute teacher. I realize i had the right training to make a difference, music. I realized i had the right bank account to make a difference, nearly zero. I realize making a difference wasnt a function of any of these. It was a function of commitment and persistence and what i really urge people to do, look for the kinds of groups that give you that structure of support and empowerment on global and domestic policy, on Climate Change, climatelaw the. Org and on peace issues, peacealliance. Org and put yourself in some of these activisms that help you get moving. Thank you both for a fantastic country station. I want to mention we will reach out to you about our next event and in the meantime i would like to give a final round of applause to our wonderful speakers here. [applause] it was a great day, every one. Booktv is on twitter and facebook. We want to hear from you. Tweet us, twitter. Com booktv or post a comment on our face book page, facebook. Com booktv. Next on booktv military historian Patrick Odonnell recounts the origin of the Navy Seals First formed in 1942 and known as a maritime unit. This program from the United StatesNavy Memorial in washington d. C. Is just over half an hour. Patrick odonnell is a military historian who has written eight previous books, beyond valor, opera spies and saboteurs, the broader assignment, the did return, we were one, selected for the marine commandant professional reading list, give me tomorrow at his most recent is for first seals the untold story of the forging of americas most elite unit. His numerous awards include prestigious William Colby award. It provides historical confrontation for dreamworks, Award Winning miniseries band of brothers and documentaries produced by the bbc, History Channel and fox news. He is a combat historian in the battle of volusia beach in demand as an expert speaker on world war ii sabotage special operation counterinsurgency on e