His were rebellious times where the echoes hung in the air. Common people who fought privatization and enclosure of land and found themselves executed and incarcerated en masse because they demanded a natural born right to the comments. Paine apprenticed, a professor took off as womens lives, not just our waists, were being shrunk from robust vital things, equal participants in life to child readers, in closed domestic objects. At least women of a certain class. In 1757, paine went to see the king of prussia as sailors and pirates protested impressment, forced labor, Forest Service in the military. Paine stood up against impressment and the rights of men. Avoid ship as a story and has taught us, he wouldve served with people from all over the world including africans, irish and blacks from the caribbean. He would have participated or at least witnessed their grumbling and perhaps their rebellions on board ships. He certainly was aware of their rebellions against the british throughout the 1700s, and which caribbean blacks, africans, irish and given some of the colonized americans, too, but certainly the hetero, homo, multigendered a mob, the rowdies, carried with them the word of the slave revolt into the streets of what were to become the United States, including new yorks own streets. Those slave revolts, jamaica, 1767 come up her muta 1761, 62, 6378, grenada, st. Vincent, tobago, st. Croix, st. Thomas, saint kits, throughout the 1760s and the 70s, there were rebellions. And they moved to the south. Alexandria, virginia, in 1757. New jersey 1772, st. Andrews parish south carolina, and in a joint african and irish effort in boston 1774. Thomas paine arrived in america that year and immediately wrote against slavery. We have in our powers to begin the world over again, he wrote in common sense. 20 years later in agrarian justice, he acknowledged that even after independence the world was in need of serious remaking. He wrote the present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be. And it is necessary that the revolution should be made in it. The contrast is like dead and living bodies chained together. It wasnt just a u. S. Problem. It was a global problem. The great mass of the poor and all countries have become a hereditary raise. Its next to impossible for them to get out of that state for themselves. For the sake of justice and humanity, he said not in 76 but in 1796, it is necessary to make change. Specifically to make properly productive of national blessing extending to every individual, not just a few. Are we in times that try our souls . For sure. Lets hear it. Are we . Are we in revolutionary times . [inaudible] thats the question were going to address today. [laughter] we will recall angela davis who said we should not be afraid to ask for what we want. What robin good has called our freedom dream, she said, need not bear the imprint of compromised. So ask away, compromise not, to address all of this and more with richard wolff, professor of economics emeritus, university of massachusetts amherst, visiting professor at the new School Graduate program, author of many wonderful books including marcus at work, a cure for capitalism, occupied economy, and capitalism hits the fan. The Global Economic meltdown of what to do about it. He also is a wonderful Weekly Economic update in new york. [applause] and syndicated nationally. Chris hedges spent 20 years as a Foreign Correspondent, 15 of those for the new times where he was part of a team that won a pulitzer prize. He denounced the bush recession is called to a day iraq and losses most of the time. He is the author of bestsellers, and he writes weekly column that you must read for the website truth day. [applause] cornel west as columns of a bluesman in the life of the mind. Longtime princeton professor now at Union Theological seminary, these best of was classic race matters, democracy matters and his memoir, brought the west, living and loving out loud. It appears weekly on many programs, when they let him. As well as on his dear brother tavis smiley pbs tv show. He can be heard weekly on the National Public reprogram disputed by Public Radio International and ugly also heard on the radio. Thank you all. [applause] the format is going to be as follows. Wonderful gina has distributed cards. If you have questions you to write those questions on corporate we do actually do not guarantee to answer all your questions. But we will sort through, discover some themes and posting questions to the speakers once they have laid out their arguments, for about 45 minutes. Ill get a chance to pose a couple of questions about own and well have you out of here in 90 minutes of pure. Enjoy. [applause] [inaudible] we selected paine louder. House that . Okay. We selected paine for a couple of reasons. First of all, hes arguably the only real revolutionary theorist america has produced. We produced some admirable anarchists, emma goldman and alexander berkman, noam chomsky, dorothy day and others. We have produced some powerful prophetic voices out of a all pressed communities, whether that is Frederick Douglass or malcolm x, my friend cornel west and others. But in terms of revolutionary theorists we have almost none. Paine may be the only one. In many ways he was the first intellectual in the sense that he never tied himself to Political Parties but it was always in opposition to power. I thought it opens the discussion with richard and cornel by highlighting some of his major strengths. Ones i think we can learn from. The first would be that paine in a way that many of the four figures of the revolution were not, understood the monarchy, understood reddish power to keep income to the United States antilles 37. Part of his job in common sense was to explain the structures, the power to the colonies who didnt understand them but even figures like benjamin franklin, up until the very last moment wanted to build with the king. And it was part of paines job to explain why this wasnt possible. I think one of the things i think all three of us probably feel, and i will stop any second and legible address this, is that there has been a misreading on the part of the american left, and even among the Progressive Community of the structures of power. And for that reason it is rendered as impotent. We have effectively been challenging our energy back into a dead political system. I wrote many of ralph naders major speeches for an 2008 election, going back to 2008 there were a lot of people in the left forum who are drunk the koolaid for barack obama. I think that was because they had quite been diverted quite effectively into the personal narrative of a candidate which is irrelevant in terms of understanding the mechanisms of power. And just as paine understood that the into real power of the british had essentially blinded itself, that its hubris made incapable of listening which is why had one of the largest armadas, 350 ships, sent on new york. I think were in a very similar moment as well. Maybe begin, cornel, with you and talk over the about that idea up structure of power. Yeah. Did you want to say something, brother wolf, before i said something . Okay. I think for me its not just a question of structural power. Its true that thomas paine comes at 37 years old to the new world, and already has a critique of not just good and bad king but of men monarch as all. Hes talking about a structural systemic analysis that most of the americans at the time had not moved toward. That in 1776 there were over 400 pamphlets published. And one pamphlet we still read, common sense, sort of the number of voices being listed here this 37 year old who arrived, later this structural power but keep in mind who he was. His father was a quaker. He inherited a fundamental solidarity, we as the downtrodden with those who were excluded, that he was willing always to cut radically against the grain in this conception of himself at 37 was he was going to die, or he was going to be willing to die if he, ensuring that he would act honorably, think critically, that he would be willing to sacrifice his popularity for truth and justice. And would always view what other folks on the Grassroots Movement he has the conception of himself that is quicker like. He was not an atheist but he was a ds. He hated organized religion. He hated dogma, especially religious dogma but also ideological dogma and to consult as first and foremost a member of those we call everyday people. He was a comment to the core. He engaged in a revolutionary act in how the road, not just what he wrote. Because how he wrote was a critique of the pomposity and the obscurity of the latin, greek upset language of the edmund brooks and others, that he is going to speak a language that was so clear. He said i want to write as plain as the alphabet for common folk ache as i come out of the common folk. So that was a revolution in form and style. It was the first time the folklore they could read at all could be read to, to get through a language that was part of their colloquial style. That was part of how they communicated. Going back to the class, he was not working class. He was arkansas class in northville. But he identified with the common folk. What we dont have today is we dont have intellectuals. It was the First American modern intellectual unconnected. No doubt about that. What we dont have today intellectuals who have not been seduced by the professional managerial carrots and the subculture of the university who are fundamentally committed to the plight of predicament of commenters, everyday people, working people, poor people. And view their calling, not a career as having organic connection, with their struggles no matter how strong or no matter how weak they are. There are some intellectuals that do that. Fear and fewer and fewer. Why . Because what thomas paine didnt have to deal with is the backup of impending ecological potassium the backup of possible nuclear catastrophe, the fashionable character of being cynical and despairing even as you are highly professionally approved and recognized. A sharp analysis by no willingness to pay a cost, no willingness to take a risk, no willingness to cut radically against the grain. And, of course, he dealt with the consequences. He died it right here in greenwich village, 72 years old, six people at his funeral, two of them black because her critique of african slavery, the first piece he wrote in march of 75 was real that led to the Abolition Society in the new world. He was fundamentally committed to a critique of White Supremacy. Very oftentimes among highly visible white intellectuals. Brother chris is rare. Rick wolf, rare. We can go to we can kabul this because the list is so short. [laughter] im not just talk about making a symbolic gesture of talking front of the committed to your analysis to White Supremacy is an integral factor among other crucial factors, and then you make the organic connection. Thats the kind of brother thomas paine was and it is very, very difficult to build on his legacy even though we have to acknowledge just how crucial that challenge is. I want to pick up on something that you all just did, when laura was still speaking before we started. She asked how much a change was needed, or some words to that effect, and it was a strong, clear statement, yes. Then she asked about revolution, much less strong. Much more wobbling. Now, thomas paine is exactly about that difference. Just as the name of this conference, the name we chose for this conference is reform and revolution. Faced with a situation that is becoming more and more unequal, unfair, unjust and intolerable, what are we going to do. And what paine, for me, what makes them stand out is that care that he takes to go right after that question. And the way i hear it is this. We now face, he says about this time, more than enough evidence, decade upon decade of accumulated outrages, injustices, attacks on our freedom, our rights and our security. In a sense we have tried to address this one and that one, to work out an accommodation here, to get every form over there. Weve been there and weve done it, and it hasnt worked. And weve got to face that. We cant make reforms, most of the time, because the power structure against us blocks of us. But even worse, when occasionally we get a reform, that same power structure, having lost the effort to block it, now goes to work to undo it to reverse it and to go right back to where they were. Therefore, the conclusion paine reaches and tries to teach the American People than is the same one i think many of us want to teach now. Youve got to change the system. Not because its an alternative to being, achieving reforms, but because changing the system is the only way to make a reform thats adorable. Revolution is the way you complete the reform process just as it is the condition for the reforms you get to last, and he mean what you wanted them to mean when you fought for them. Thats why the word revolution ran in paines work so powerful. Its a big change. Not that theres we to say to the king of england, go home, youre out of your, its over. The british empire, hundreds of years of dominance, we quit. Youre out of here. A powerful ending of the colonial relationship that you this country its a modern birth. Its whole history. An amazing thing to say to the people, to separate. And yet arent we in the same . Isnt that the legacy for us, to . To finally say, let me pick up on one theme because i know many of you have encountered references to, or if you a lot of time youve read the book by thomas the caddie, a lot of time, 600 pages, it takes a long time and hes a good economist as a writer not so much. [laughter] in our profession thats absolutely normal. [laughter] but his point is the same, isnt it . He says he studied capital for 250 years. He and his colleagues in california at berkeley are the go to statisticians to understand the ditch vision of wealth and income in the world these days. His conclusion in that book, capital in 21st century is that capitalism inherently, anywhere and everywhere it has been established produces at its inherent tendency and growing inequality of wealth and income. Periodically, he points out, people get so freaked by this that they push back and we have a reform. And then as soon as its over, the same capitalism undoes the reform. We all know that, dont we come here in the United States . The last 40 years is the undoing of the new deal. There it is, again. And part of his power which is the power of all great revolutionary riders is that he utterly appended that language to the extent that he redefined terms like democracy. Democracy was a pejorative. Republicanism or the republic was a pejorative. He declined to those words and give them a new definition. The other thing is that he spoke in the language or he wrote in the language of everyday people. Now, that as a writer is deceptive because it is actually extremely difficult. Wall well masteredcapacity. As a writer i want to be that clear windowpane by which people can see through and when he writes his response in the rights of man he goes after the florida style. I think language and i want to raise this with both the new, extremely important because we live in a society now where those who have bought or have created specialized vocabularies that shut the rest of us out. Economists have been particularly good at this. But just about the technocrat. And we are ruled by technocrats. Created a specialized vocabulary that those of us on the outside are not able to penetrate. And that becomes a kind of barrier in terms of our ability to exercise our rights as citizens to influence power. And pain understood that extremely well. And it is why his writings were so effective. Arguably one of the greatest lessons in english. When he writes the rights of man and it becomes extremely important because and that second party actually outlines the whole of state. End the government goes nuts. They pass the 2act a law which bans, just as we see in the wake of the occupy movement cabanes large public gatherings, makes it easier to prosecute people for treason. Paine himself is tried for sedition and has to flee to france. He ends up as one of two foreign delegates in the National Convention, stands up and opposes the regicide of louis the 16th. He ends up prison. But when he writes rights of man he gives to the english workingclass, and you have to remember at the time they were in far worse economic state than the White Working Class and the United States. Three out of four people in large metropolitan cities in europe were either poppers are beggars. And when the government creates all sorts of worker organizations that begin to discuss political issues the government shuts down and drives it underground. In make this point that one of reasons he is better known in england is because he gave them the whole vocabulary to the kind of workingclass radical labor. Think that is an extremely important issue and that this kits to report from the peoples reaction is that we are still in a process of searching for the language by which we can describe the political and social and economic reality that we are enduring and how to respond. I think at the center of that revolution and form and style was a genuine anger, our righteous indignation, the conditions of the people that he was fundamentally working alongside and struggling along side with. Plain speech, frank speech, speech that is unafraid, the language of the great victoria garcia and malcolm x. It cuts through the jargon. It does not remain there because it articulates a vision so that there is an alternative. That is what is lacking. Part of the problem is when we do have persons with those voices what happens . Well, paine went to jail and london, pushed out, 11 months in prison in paris, makes and out. When he comes back here he has a critique of George Washington, even joker religion in the midst of the first awakening and is completely pushed aside. Oftentimes persons who have these voices are either in prison, incarcerated, live on to character assessment it will literally assessment it or just boost to the margins. [applause] we can go on and on and on in this regard. The challenges hell were living in a much more cruel to a fascist state. The spies are operating. Your friends to when you thought you could rely on them. They are currently, to conformist, too complacent. Who do you rely upon . That is what he was wrestling with most of his life he dedicates the next thing you know he is living with James Madison in paris. In the critique is so devastating, George Washington is the icon. They wont touch him with a 10foot pole. His critique on George Washington is so unrealistic. No one talks about george. But still a story someone his view is not just black people but in the eastern plane and pennsylvania when he met with indigenous brothers and sisters and went on to write what . These were my brothers and sisters, but these indigenous people. We dont even have white activists talking that way. We have some in this room. Are talking about as a movement. Why . You grew up in such compartmentalized spouses were you have very little assets. These nice little in the schools and go sophisticated and so forth. Not in any way connected to with the struggles of bin. He refused that and he left school when he was 12 and a half. Im not recommending an. But that is also a way in which he was not incorporated so easily by the gentleman of his day. John adams, jefferson come to you when they said good things about him he was still so unsophisticated and raw and course. The unimportant relative to the issue that he was talking about. That is why it is perfect. I think also not to be the good news pair but lets prepare lets be clear. All of the people returned against an along the way, the vast majority of them, we dont even amid the are. What survived was with this man wrote. And did not just survive because he was a great writer. He was committed did not survive because he found ways of changing the meaning of words. Incredible skills. Chris is right, one of the writers. The reason he survived is it is the same question. When you begin to look of what we could build a wall lusting conversation around, we found him because he addresses that same issue, what is to be done if i could bar the way another important leader posed a question, what is to be done. This is his recognition. And it think we ought to be for a moment probe that the United States produced such person, probably generated someone who could post the reform and revolution question so dramatically that even though his coming down on the side of revolution which frightens so many people returns now to something we want to talk about and that we want you to return to read and learn from as we have. There are lots of powerful insights in their about what it is we face now. In the media, in this country, face now and extraordinary structure that has done nothing except were so upset. One example, democracy in those days was a word akin to a chaotic current disorganized, messy. We live in a sense in a bizarre reversal. Now it is the holy of holies. But it is all a fake. We celebrated democracy the way we celebrate cowboys in the old days. A complete fantasy. The makeup. So that we can endorse this desire. As an economist to keep saying this. I know some of you heard it from the 04. We go to work was banned five of seven days a week and our jobs. When we go to work which is where we spend most of our adult life we enter a place in a capitalist society that is the absolute opposite of democracy. A kind tiny group of people make all the decisions that thousands of employees not to speak of the communities where these employees work have to live with. Their participation in those decisions is completely excluded in principle call law, and attract. So we spend most of our adult lives in an institution that is fundamentally undemocratic and pretend live in a society where the fundamental commitment to democracy. This is crazy. But it is the craziness that has to be opened up by a genius kind of vision that paine brings to it so that you kind of shock a population into recognizing that all along that is what has been bothering me. It is not just that im poor, that im living in a polluted environment in an overcrowded city. Its that im not treated like a human being. And this is revolutionary stuff. That moment of recognition of american help along with the kind of writing he had, that lights the fire. A very, very powerful. I want to talk about the two weapons used against them most effectively. The first was vilification. When you stand up and speak the truth as powerfully and eloquently as planned as the state and this was true both in colonial america and especially true in the england of volume but india and finally in a jacket in revolutionary france where they were terrified, which is what he ends up on the luxembourg. He is slated for execution. The only reason he is not is because they would mark the doors of the people to be guillotined. The dollar to his cell was open. Denmark the inside. He sat in the room holding his breath waiting as the guards past supposed people are of a luxembourg would be guillotined the region passed him by. Is the only reason he is alive. There is actually an amazing scene, an ally of his is brought to the luxembourg and they embrace. Vilification, you was followed. The government funded all sorts of front organizations, letterwriting campaigns, and a disturbing. The power of vilification should not be diminished. Worked. Paine was being burned in effigy by the very people that he was writing for. In france, of course, he almost died because he opposes the reign of terror. He was a quaker. They would not let him be buried in act quicker burial, but he opposed the Death Penalty including the regicide of the king. He stood up and the National Convention and gave quite an eloquent and moving speech as to why even your enemy you must feed and protect your enemies because once you begin this kind of rain of terror it comes back to haunt you. Very press interested the direction. That is the first thing. I know that cornell west were speaking the truth about the administration has suffered from this kind of vilification. What it is a perfect example of what a truth teller has to undergo. The second this historical amnesia. [applause] lets think about it. Thomas paine was one of the most important founders of our country. Where are the monuments . He has been erased as a kind of visible figure. And this gets into the frightening trend of erasure of the entire radical tradition which has been extremely effective in the United States. In essence, it is a way of in a kind of stalinist way of rewriting our own history. The communist party in this country, and if she wore a black person in the 1920s where were you going to go . All of the tactics that the king used came out of communist tactics from the 20s and 30s. The wall please. But he represents that radical tradition that the establishment has worked from the beginning of the public to race so that paine even in his own lifetime becomes apparent. Even jefferson who had been a friend pushes february. A thought in america talk about the mechanism the state uses in order to blunt and this jury the radical prophetic words. And that is so very important. Philadelphia, 100 Year Anniversary they took a vote. Refuse to have a statute in tribute to him he walked on foot from trend of philadelphia in support of the military thats the kind of gratitude. Walking back because he was so genuinely revolutionary that once the revolutionary was over we got to move toward the counterrevolutionary status quo as the federalists, as they feared the french revolution, the john adams and others. I do want to end this, the greatest black revolutionary socialist in the early part of the 20thcentury was a brother named herbert pierson, founder of local five socialist party. The most popular lecturer in the city of new york and was very close. And it was reading thomas paine that turned him into not simply a revolutionary but also an agnostic. Now, paine was not an agnostic. He was a deist. But when he came off the boat and chemistry to harm, and when he died there were just seven folks there. An unmarked grave to this day. Hubert harrison, historical and nation. Everyone knows about poker to washington. God bless the negro. White money, white elite money against the unions, against precious immigrants coming in, deeply pro capitalist. Everyone knows prakriti washington. What about Hubert Harrison . We could go on. That is why another powerful combine a magnificent force. Who knows about the great victorian garden . We need to know more. But when times reach a point where the truth pastor in merger going to be so hungry for these voices. We will be needing of their courageous example. Because at that point you are either courageous or you go under. We are not at that point now. Psst and dont think we live in revolutionary times. I wish it were. Paine arrived in a moment with the revolution already in place. I wish we could just drop in. And we can just drop been on that and then write a pamphlet. Were going to get together tonight in iraq that pamphlet. These are counterrevolutionary times where there is revolutionary awareness escalating given the defeat, the relative defeat of the left in the last 35 for 40 years with the counterrevolution tramping in the name of capital. White supremacists, even when you have black figures who are the public faces. That is our moment, and one of the reasons why folks were a little bit leery. We do want to be honest about what were up against. None of us are going to lift the revolution we are talking about at all. Some of us could cursed like harpers. The powers that be are powerful. He believes that the people organized were always mightier than the gains choose to run things. But the gangsters are powerful. Very powerful. There is no doubt about. And vilification and cards i would not compare my case to thomas paine. Canada cannot almighty. Adjusting to a teen it is impossible to tell the, a specially about the various vicious legacy of White Supremacy in this connection the capitalist exploitation without knowing your candid for character and the literal assassination paprika is just a fact. Over 400 years there has never been a person from john brown to nat turner to ella baker who was told the truth about White Supremacy and its connection to capitalism to was not targeted chronically, systematically across the board. That is where you had to have your spirit intact. It it intact and a secular way. People say whatever they want. I have my integrity to preserve. How do you bear witness . That is what the arc or crimes against humanity nasa says. Those are crimes against humanity. A workingclass abuse, while, and is a crime against humanity. The drones dropping bombs on innocent children. Crimes against humanity. Just call it for what it is. Using that kind of language of just did you in trouble. It can get you killed. One last thought about this, and maybe there is a product of tension. We dont know where we are in the revolutionary process. You all know that afterwards. Was it the right time, was it possible, where the conditions in place . Part of what it means to be a critic in the spirit of tom paine is that you have always cut to push. You have got to push to see where and how far can go. And the are here. [applause] and you are here. And and this is probably the biggest attendance that the left form has ever enjoyed. These are very interesting bits of the information. I think we have to always be willing both to be cautious in on this above all were up against, and gloom the right. But always a little space left before that and know where reality if. The author are referred to earlier he made famous that question what is to be done was venice for another remark he made about this question. He said sometimes for decades nothing happens. And then in a few weeks tickets have he have to be open. If you are not open you cannot. It is not just the effect his writing has on the revolutionary situation. It is the fact that a revolutionary situation even when not grasp consciously plays its role in shaping what it was possible 44 to right. We have to be in sync with that unknowable extra partly to live in a time like this and partly to be able to be progressive and a time like this. Alexander bergman writes an essay called the invisible revolution. He talks about in life in a revolutionary society as being like cattle that is boiling. You dont actually see anything. All of the traditional edifices of power structures not all there remain in place but a pier model and it did it when they collapse, when they go down it is it appears to be absolutely certain. As a Foreign Correspondent at or something that i experienced covering the revolutions in eastern europe, including the east german stasi state where and tell our security and surveillance state was the most pervasive Security Apparatus in human history. We have done things they did not even dream of. And what happened wasnt you had mostly lutherans holding candle lit vigils, and there were not even very clear. The first demand was that they be legally recognized as a group they hardly appeared revolutionary. Yet they can push a death kind of zeitgeist which is there within the American Society looking for a language and to express himself. And paine gave revolutionary american that language. But in that sense we are rapidly losing faith in the institutions, the formal structures of power which have become wholly owned subsidiaries of the corporate state. But language is key. As long as you continue to speak in the false language of american democracy, liberty, hulk and use the word liberty when every single one of ours in this room has all of our Electronic Communications downloaded and stored in perpetuity. You cannot use of order and ready for a population that has a wholesale surveillance. You have to use the word slavery. And any government that has the capacity to use that mechanism will use it. The purpose of wholesale surveillance in a totalitarian state is not to find crimes but to gather evidence so at the moment that you seek to criminalize an entire group of people you have the trivia. It is not evidence because at that point crimes and truth and all of this is a fiction. But you have the material. And that is precisely what is happening to us. And so when that stops the state felt, it fell in a week and it fell and suddenly this handful of protesters were joined by 70,000 people. Nine and an basin to down an elite Paratroop Division to fire on the ground. Just in the same way the cossacks would not fire during the brides in petrograd which forced desire to get into or away kerogen that became for me get back. And the same thing happened in east germany. Gone within a week because the paratroopers would not shoot on the crowd. A question that is completely related to what you just said. Insofar as were talking about the anatomy of revolution many to talk about the anatomy of a counterrevolution. If were talking about a man who was an abolitionist and the great revolutionary we end up the sleeve of the republic. How it was the u. S. , not colonial, but u. S. Forces did fire on rebels in shays rebellion in the uprisings against. In that time between the declaration of independence and the rising of the constitution. Thomas paine supported the banks getting paid. He was against the mob. He said, you changed our rule of law or the military. The analogy to address the counterrevolution. The thing to remember, in pennsylvania there was notified between away again tory. The pennsylvania elite were wholly on the side of the british monarchy. The Pennsylvania Assembly back the property costs. And so on like in the other colonies the opposition to the king and the Independence Movement it was expressed through paine. Radical constitutional us who had no connection with pre revolutionary power. And so in pennsylvania after the revolution those who took power on like every other colony had not been in power before. This alliance was extremely uneasy because as you correctly point out with a slave holding class, and lets not forget the we have at the beginning of the revolution African American soldiers and telecharge washington, a slaveholder, banned the conscription of blacks in the continental army. The only reason that the southern slave holding plus support of the republic and had a rebellion of landless whites in the 17th century, the only reason they supported it was because the liver in class was pushed out of the political system. So you have this kind of false narrative for false language is used by figures like jefferson while ignoring the huge percentages. So once the revolution is over and in the this even before, they had to push him out as fast as they could because that abolitionist egalitarian movement was even at the time of the revolution and alliance of convenience that made them uncomfortable. And on the issue of the banks demise suggested that his conception of laissezfaire capitalism came an announcement. And adam smith has a very benign view. I am about to probably embarrass myself immensely. Miami your understanding. Anyway, that there was a kind of my you feel that capitalism was creating a kind of equality. I think he was wrong on this, just as i think he was very naive about human perfection an inability to understand san and human corruption so that when paine is in support of the banks and against the Paper Currency which it calls hyperinflation, it comes out of this night he believe that that was a democratizing force. What else . A developing you about the economy. Very different. A second volume of rights which is basically social democratic. The first person the call for a guaranteed and the very front page is every citizen not to receive a lump of money when theyre 15 and another major when the voting and, if no matter what sooner you break down the inheritance transmittance and people of year and chances to let the teenage years in new and and ripe for the warriors did you start a new live again with another injection. So hes very fragment, systematic. He did not receive 1 penny from the money he get. The two bestselling tax in the history of the english language. Every penny went to the movement every penny went to the cause. That was a way of supporting private Financial Support for the war. So we had to have a National Entity that would provide resources to keep the water going. He supported them as well. He did have a suspicion. The and in critical. When he talked about the people did not humid as an attraction to he and the critical view of the weather was democratic since a bloody invasion. No, i would argue he was still wrong. His larger vision and sensibility. I guess i raise the question because of its relevance today. As we try to decide where our allies are and define the basic composition of the community of the population of hair and. My other question as to do with this question of the intellectual revolutionary today. [laughter] every week were interviewing grassroots intellectual revolutionaries. Of thinking of people of and took power and called for a total transformation in a place where there was a viable. The dreamers with no access to power, no access to the system changing our entire comfort rather immigration policy, even occupy. They get all the help of the media. But they raised the question of capitalism in a way that we could talk about it and i when we had not been able to for years my suspicion of the mob makes me uncomfortable please some of my favorite people are in the mob cards you want to jump and . Of speech generous. He thought that many of the problems he saw an accumulated in this society at the time of our colonial and to burn could be overcome by a cataclysmic act car revolution cutting a soft from their society of which we have been a colony, rejecting the marquee, believable. He then had to face as many revolutionaries half to what it was he thought was a problem turned out to be the only part of the problem. It was a necessary but not a sufficient steps to take to achieve the goals he so brilliantly put forward for us, that he so brilliantly expressed so we learn in the aftermath, either with him more after he dies that there is more to be done, that being an independent country cut off from their colonial master is necessary but not sufficient. How many nations have been discovering that in the last 200 years . Particularly in the socalled third world. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient fat. What else has to be done . We have to understand that if we actually want to realize their goals of thomas paine whether they are articulated in the American Indian war and the liberty and Equality Fraternity idiom of the french revolution, more has to be done. That is what inspired, if i may be so bold, karl marx. That is who he is. He is born in the euphoria of the american and central pollution the show is there was not liberty but where capitalism is not the better of liberty, equality, fraternity. It is the biggest obstacle imaginable. Then begins the learning me. By our problem. We feel empathy for the money it does away on that. Our problem is an Economic System. It is not that he was wrong. He needed to open the space of that we could get to what is on the agenda for the human race now. That is an enormous debt that we have to him. Some other questions coming from the audience. Famously remarked in his article that the center of anti capitalist revolutionary revolution has switched to the third world. Do you agree . I dont think you can talk about the third world as monolithic. It depends on which corner of the world were talking about. I dont think it can be broadly characterized in that way, in the same way that i agree with you in the example that you gave to my folks who are telling the truth, exposing lies, bearing witness in the name of the struggles of poor and working people are not a mob. It only because a mob when the gangsters takeover. That is when the mob bills over in two banks your activity in the name of the people just like there were gangsters in the name of the can, the name of the church, the synagogue, and judaism, christianity, buddhism or ever. For him actually this was what he called their religious duty. He thought he was following the will of god by doing justly, loving mercy and endeavoring to make his fellow creatures happy. That is the language. But as the center of revolution shifted . Hidden when has american empire been the center of revolution other than 1776 and possibly the 1960s . America has been a bastion of White Supremacy and the rule of capital ever since 1776. We have had resistance. We have not had a south africa, of venezuela, cuba, china. India, 1948. America has been a bastion of capital, what lenin called the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie the. And that is why violence in america is a vigilante violence. Eighty out of every 100 americans owns a weapon. In the government has nothing to fear. And this is the problem. The one sort of figure in our revolutionary and sexual tradition which has been marginalized and silenced has not had any errors. And so hofstadter writes about this and that book on violence quit recently. You know, you go back and look at American History weather is the sleep patrol or the pinkertons for the coal mining and looks tsk on the vigilantes , right up to the tea party and the malicious. Violence in American Society does not revolve around in a way that it did in europe around a transformer in radiology. Around these kind of proud of fascists. And that is something that as we move forward as a nation and me in toward the effects of Climate Change and economic disintegration were going to have to confront. You know, look at nevada. Suppose those people had been black. What do you think would have happened . And in a way those vigilantes become important to the system, tolerated, occasionally reprimanded, but tolerated because and a moment of crisis the become used by the capitalist state. So you have the complex plan and the 1920s. Three to 5 million members. Rain of terror in the south, taking over states including indiana. And that is something that were going to have to confront. You know, these armed militia figures, the survivalist cults, these which have terrorized africanamericans throughout the history and many is to kill battles. That is an example of how the wage or rage in the gym in rage and anger has been skillfully manipulative to turn on the vulnerable on the scapegoats, the weak, and let me just in terms of revolutionary tradition we should not forget that we are the british monarchy. We are the empire. We have the disease of empire said that even i dont talk to very many people in princeton because even at Princeton University you will get these absurd discussions about sending the 101st airborne to afghanistan to liberate women, as if you can talk about and i have been to war and they havent, as if you cant talk about human rights want to start using cruise and hellfire missiles. The answer to the question was to worry about the center of revolution sifting because it was never year is probably comes a lot. Can you connect his radicalism to the immediate crises associate with Climate Change . A couple of questions related to a Climate Change. Come the change gives us an opportunity, galvanize the revolutionary segment of society the mall will business continued as usual until it is too late . If we had a source of abundant energy, would we have our revolution . Well, here i would break. He not only in human perfectibility, but he also believed in wholeheartedly material advancement and progress. The arts is given to us as our inheritance. And he broke with jefferson on this. Jefferson was terrified of the industrial revolution. Paine side as a benefit and often talked about giving a political activity in design and and bridge and had a deep interest in science. So i think if we talk about plans months that would probably be 16. This. All rights. The think the way that i would connect him death, we are now forced to see yet another consequence of capitalism than the way its intrinsic logic endangers us. That is, it is not just that it produces of surged social inequalities that are selfdestructive, but it also distorts our relationship to the egos here, and that it is another argument. But it in just takes us back to having to confront we have an Economic System that is fundamentally dysfunctional for the vast majority of us. What are we going to do about this situation . And no matter how long mr. Mr. Reaction to the environmental command really is another kind of alarm is and that you can likewise generate for social inequality in many of the other consequences of capitalism that always bring you back to are we able now to think through our relationship to capitalism that is parallel or comparable to what paine took us through in thinking relationship to the colonial master. The oligarchs and the plutocrats of Arctic Maastricht among big banks, big corporations are the equivalent of the monarchs. Poverty is a new slavery. The new jimcrow is an intense form of slavery. It means that working people get into a declining economy in which wages stagnate, prices escalate and profits at the top. It is also a form of slavery metaphorically and literally speaking. And we need language like that to some house sees the imagination of people to begin to see, lo and behold, there is either way out or not. Now, Climate Change for me is a serious issue. I dont think its going to be the catalytic issue. It is either going to be revolutionary transformation that allows us to get some control so that we can treat nature. But when i hear a lot of this goes to Climate Change in your peoples thinking, my life will be like a wasteland. For poor people its a wasteland every day. Every year. Year after year. So how do we make the connection between the Climate Change agent on the one hand but also those who are wrestling with these new forms of slavery in the kneele liberal capitalist regime to . And to recoup one little piece of credit for the United States, thomas paine teaches us to think about revolution as a matter of changing a system. That is a very powerful contribution. Made her stand out from others of his time, and it is urgently necessary for more of us nowadays to be willing and able to confront it not this or that outrage, not this or that intrusion on our lives, but a system that supports and reinforces all of that can and will out with us as long as we dont confront it as a system. And that we need his help to do. Well, on the system point. It is worth remembering that the tea party, after all, was not against the king so much as the company, the east India Company and the relationship between the rural power, the monarchy in the corporation, something very familiar to date. Looking at all of this a couple of people wanted ask your exact suggestion for how to keep hope, your suggestion for how to start an organized movement, and your suggestion for things people can mobilize around today. I am convincing a few different questions. Insofar as concrete suggestions whether it was around the continent of congress or around the inheritance tax and a guaranteed minimum income, what would your speech today . Are there things like that that one could organize our he would like to see as organizing around . We have about four minutes. I will give you five. Well, let me start. My colleagues will figure what theyre doing the sec. I have one thing that i get, although i get it from other places. I think it begins to confront a systemic issue. We depend as human beings on the enterprises in our society that produced a good and Services Without which life cannot continue. Food, clothing, shelter, transportation, everything else. We permit the institutions that we depend on, the productive institutions to be organized in a fundamentally undemocratic way that leaves all of the decisions, those that affect the environment, the distribution of wealth, everyday life in the hands of a tiny number of people that sit atop the pyramid of these institutions, what we call corporations. If we dont want this set of outcomes we call the consequences of capitalism, then we have to fundamentally alter the organization of production. If we want the production of goods and services, the core economic pace of our lives to serve all of us, then we have to be in charge. And it cannot be a subset of us that variegates that position to itself. The radical transformation, what he was beginning to do and talk about in jackson is part of a broadening recognition that that fundamental revolution, that reorganize production, that is where we have together to achieve, to concretize where his work pushes us. Anyone else . I am clearly convinced that a 40 percent of americas children lived in poverty, and one out of three yen people were on parole, prison, or probation, it would be a different historical moment 40 percent of white children lived in poverty. One out of three bright Young Brothers from parole, probation, or in prison. Would be be a revolutionary moment they leave were going to have to do something about the legacy of whats of privacy and its relation to the kneele liberal capitalist regime that is so tied to lives in terms. The issue of black and brown is not just being morally sensitive its an antisemitic issue that goes right back. Sheath theyre disproportionately targeted. Heal a time the fed the possibility of that was in the 1960s and so we to account were ready to come back viciously can. It will be but theres that will also lead the vicious attack. And they were not in positions of power. Now they can facilitate the vicious attack. That is why on the top10 list being a terrorist with a black president and the white house. The black freedom fighter. We dont want to say word about it please shame on us in terms of the legacy these kind of settings were they told the truth. Look what they have to go through. We so easily turn our backs. Lo and behold, the service, the sacrifice can be marginalized in the same way that are dear brother thomas paine. Only one figure that is comparable to thomas paine, david walker appeal to it colored citizens of the world. He did what . Wrote his text and died in that hotel room 11 months after the spies got to him. He went with the small. He told the truth and he exposed lines and bore witness. You have one minute. The reason we are in such an incendiary moment is that the political and economic, cultural pressure of poor people of color is now being visited on the sons and daughters of the white middleclass. And that is basically the engine of the movement. These are the intellectuals. Always cited these intellectuals as vital for revolution arguing with marks on this. But he was right. You have the sons and daughters who indoor police oppression, who cant get a job or at least a job where they can sustain themselves who are in during what poor people to marginalize people of color have endured for decades. And at that moment the state is in serious, serious trouble. An alliance between an alienated white, essentially middleclass or formerly middleclass, of those people of color, especially lowwage working poor is one that i think once galvanize can begin to create. That is where the fight for them minimumwage is absolutely crucial. That is a form of political control but there on purpose. Ask any africanamerican. Sharecroppers were kept in slavery long after slavery was officially abolished. Will we have done for College Students is absolutely criminal. They would have to pay 50,000 a year ago the college. Precisely what you should be doing here. The ruling elites determine the configurations of rebellion. Unable to respond to the mortgage foreclosure crisis, the job crisis, the Climate Changed. No entitlements. They will exploit until exhaustion or collapsed. It just wanted thank participants. Guest your neighbors before they join the vigilantes and make revolution everybody. Thank you. I just want to thank our friends