a leading activist in the berkeley free speech movement gave a passionate speech that spoke to the counterculture movement of his day in a way that's just as relevant to the burgeoning movement of today here's the quote that's most remembered there's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part you can't even passively take part and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels upon the levers on all the apparatus you've got to make it stop and you've got to indicate to the people who run it to the people who own it that unless you're free the machine will be prevented from working at all we're so pleased and proud to have in the radical magination today leaders of present day movements who are picking up the baton to help change our political world they want that transformation to include and reflect the people power that savio and so many others have fought for and spoken of for so many decades we have on the show the founder and national director of the movement for a people's party who just this last week was arrested with extinction rebellion movement climate activists in a mass civil disobedience on capitol hill they superglued themselves out to three underground tunnel entrances leading to the capitol blocking access to members of congress who were heading to a regularly scheduled six p session their protest was to block congress and demand that they join the countries of the united kingdom and canada and the clara climbing emergency they demanded that our government tell the truth about the impacts and urgency of climate change and to pursue policies designed to reach zero emissions in the united states by two thousand and twenty five their argument is that government in action is robbing people all over the world of the human rights we claim to have at the forefront of our ideals the movement for people's party is holding and building a corporate free coalition that will free the country from the stranglehold of both the democratic and the republican parties who have worked together for decades to prop up the fossil fuel industry is an industry that provides many of these politicians from both parties vast amounts of money to finance and influence their campaigns breaking the political machine stranglehold gives us a fighting chance to save our climate and millions of people around the world from near certain death so we want to welcome to the rack imagination nick ronna for the movement for people's party and russell gray from the extension rebellion movement and thanks for raging against the machine mario savio would have been proud welcome it's great to have you here  congress and how does it connect these think to what mario was doing in this free speech action demonstrating against a campus that won't allow his political activity and political action and political publicizing of his causes on campus he couldn't work within the system so he turned to other mechanisms to get his point across is that what you were trying to do in your in your action the last about a week ago right wasn't tell us a little about next one to give us just a start on this what happened a week ago in the halls of congress there sure tim thank you for having  yes we face a climate crisis in the world and in the united states that is completely unavoidable and like mario it's obvious that the traditional means of trying to address th lobbying congress writing you know making phone calls visit to the district offices and to to to their offices on capitol hill none of that has worked it's been done for decades and climate change the climate crisis has been known about in fact for decades as well by the oil companies that made their plans to explain the arctic around the fact that there would be faster melting and also by our own government for several decades longer than in fact i've been alive and nothing has been done through the perscribe mechanisms that we're told that we're supposed to be able to democratically pursue change in our country and so that's why last week about fifty of us a nd many other supporters took part in a civil disobedience action in congress where we put our own body on the line to stop the gears of the machine essentially we superglued ourselves to the doorway leading from the glad to have you here yeah thanks so that's a huge question so i'll try to keep it short and to the point we've got time to go right ahead ok so extinction rebellion movement that's focusing on using nonviolent direct action force government to take action on the climate crisis started in the u k in april of two thousand and eighteen and then in the span of a year they built up a strong enough movement they were able to climate emergency correct yeah that's right ok great now you're sound better now and i can hear you more clearly so how how should the government do that how do you want what do you want from the government  which which would spokesman or what do you what are you trying to get from the government to admit or to come forward with it so basically it's just an acknowledgement that we are in the midst of an extension crisis that's threatening to destroy our civilization and also our species so we're not going to get that from the president right yeah eno great and then after that was introduced centrally nothing happened it's been languishing in committee doesn't appear that it's going to come up or it didn't appear that way so that's kind of why we decide to take action is to force the house truth and the nd goal is for the government to enact legally binding policy measures to reach carbon neutrality by two thousand and twenty five and we chose two thousand and twenty five because we read some research that shows that that's the fastest we could possibly mobilization to address the climate crisis and that's basically what you do given the stakes and given the risks of of inaction and then our rd demand is kind of an acknowledgement that congress way so you mentioned the x in the u k a result in the one thousand arrests that would you said yeah that's right right i just want to point out that savio was speaking to an audience of four thousand people and there were eight policy as overwhelming near unanimous support or zero support among the public it doesn't matter because it won't pass through corporate control parties and body and even the efforts of let's say bernie assemble lady that is capable of managing the transition that's a recognition of the level of corruption and parabola right now in our government that is something that we need to acknowledge you know in order to be able to make make serious progress on the climate crisis but also on every other issue and absolutely and sounds like russell you were also mentioning the concerns for the most vulnerable of the population being hurt by this so it sounds like you are working with the poor people's campaign reverend barber as well i know you are right nick and i wonder if extension rebellion is doing that as well  we haven't linked up with them yet and i think i should address this because it's very common misconception so extinction rebellion is a movement isn't focused around passing specific policies so for example our  demand of the government telling the truth it's kind of meant if it's intentionally left abroad so we don't say the president needs to initiate the national emergencies act or something like that we intentionally leave that broad because we  role in a broader movement and our role is to be the engine of change to be the people doing civil disobedience and breaking the law and order thing outside of the system and opening up space in the conversation where these radical ideas or more a ccepted and if we achieve our goals then will create a space where other groups who are more steps have more policy experts or experience come in and fill that space with actual implementation of solutions so that's a very in getting distinction the more important one and i really resonate with that i mean in part this this show is about that too to offer that space for the radical imagination review both certainly the short clip from democracy now july is slated to become the hottest month in recorded history as extreme weather fueled by global warming wreaks havoc across the globe from extreme heat waves in europe and the united states to deadly monsoon flooding in south asia severe rains have killed at least six hundred and sixty people across india in the palled language desh in pakistan and a monsoon that is expected to continue throughout the week the flooding has displaced the millions of people rohingya muslims refugees in cox's bazaar the largest refugee camp in the world this comes as a record heat wave is hitting europe for the nd time this summer with paris brussels and amsterdam all at risk of hitting in large parts of the country it's a combination of heat of wind and the risk of storms and lightning setting such in things plays united nations warned that such extreme weather events in europe will become more frequent and more intense as climate change worsens this all comes as a climate change fueled heat wave in the u s is finally subsided after a weekend of scorching temperatures across the east coast and midwest to put one hundred and fifty seven million people under heat warnings last month was the highest june ever recorded in the u s the number of days with the heat and decks of more than one hundred degrees fahrenheit will more than double by two thousand and fifty due to the climate crisis according to the union of concerned scientists the extreme weather comes as climate activists are sounding the alarm on the need to act against devastating global warming demonstrators with extinction rebellion staged a civil disobedience protest in washington d c calling on lawmakers to take action on the climate crisis and to pass the climate emergency resolution introduced earlier this month by senator bernie sanders and congress member alexandra cacio cortez activist superglued themselves to doorways in the underground passageways connecting congressional offices with the capitol building  tunnel between then that runs to the capitol and then a there's a rayburn over here and there's another tunnel that runs and we had seventy nine dollars people in the longworth cannon tunnel and eight people in the rayburn tunnels they were both shut down so the congress people had to go through this these doors to go to the meeting is that correct or most of them had to go through this so there had to see this yes so it's like norm on a normal day they would all go through the the top most of them go through us and others chose to go around and when they were returning from the vote we please to completely shut the tunnels so everybody had to go above ground get back to the office building so we put a group of activists along the pathway that people had to take office buildings in the capital so they were able to heckle every single member of congress as they came out of the hearing and yell at them about did any wrong then have them talk to you without at all for any length of time but what you're doing w curious did you have any conversations at all with any members of congress yeah so as you might expect there was a wide range of responses some of the more progressive members had some really encouraging words for us and one of them actually told us that the way we were doing during this protest was more important than the work she was doing in august i thought it was an amazing thing to hear that in congress person and then on the opposite side of the spectrum someone who is super glued to the tunnel in rayburn is actually a soul to buy a seat in congress person it's that he walked up and basically the way the blockade was set up there was a person or way and then they were holding hands with another person like that so they can so we have activists with extinction rebellion have superglued ourselves to all of the doorways leading from the little congressional house buildings over to congress and that is to symbolically law the status quo and business as usual here in congress to prevent the members to have a vote at six hundred and thirty just in a few minutes coming up from being able to go about their day ignoring climate change as if this isn't a know there's fires breaking out in the arctic to here right here in d c in the past week we've had a combination of record floods like flooded constitution and also record heat waves you know so this unavoidable is taking a real human fall and the cost of collecting climate change is a whole hell of a lot higher than the cost of addressing it so we need to get serious about addressing climate change and now it sinks in rebellion believes in ending essentially fossil fuel emissions by tw currently we have actually been removed by the u s capitol police as they're claiming that it's a crime scene and therefore nobody can be there so i'm calling a crime scene or actively been blocked out of the  area where there were as are and can't see them anymore so hard left in the dark about what's happening ok so russell nick obviously could start what are the plans to go forward to move forward obviously you like to get more and more people involved in this what are some of the  of the future plans what's the next step c are going to be skipping school and striking and six hundred billion will be there support them at the same time letting them lead and take charge of their own movement and then we kind of chokepoints so we've entered where extinction rebellion is already on board with this and there's several other groups who are also expressing interest so it could be a massive mobilization of many groups companies there with a shared goal we're still in the very there's been like the temptation is just kind of get comfortable with lobbying members of congress but i think there's an understanding that we're in a moment where demand actions more drastic to master urgency situation  and again we're in the middle of summer here so you're planning on organizing and having various teach ins perhaps in the fall so when students go back to college and high school these are the people that you be trying to get out there with you out in the street right we're trying to get everybody right everybody is a human everybody needs this planet right live so really we just need all this if we can get a group focusing on  colleges is good but we need adults too we need people to refuse to go to work to do their own version of the strike so that's yeah we don't want to limit ourselves to one demographic right and it's part of the over week of action climate action in the us from the t october all across europe as well in various european capitals correct russell knows the most about that tobar so there's attempts organized with the sense of rebellion the rebellion in october as well in european capitals yeah that's right so we decided in d c to focus on september rd and i know that there's a lot of other cities who are that are going to be doing actions on be going for a sustained shutdown as well so one of my one of my colleagues put it in a really good way it's like we're in a fistfight with capitalism and you know d c shut down it's like jabbing and maybe london's shut down  working with anyone within the system electorally because you know cortez do you see some allies that you can work with within the system that will help  to externally put pressure on the system is that part of the strategy to i think that i don't think it's necessarily part of the strategy i think that it's you know it's people that need to take back the power i think that's nonviolent direct action civil disobedience represents you know the kind of like i started off saying at the beginning of the show the traditional ways that we're told that change is supposed to happen is that you kind of ask nicely you know and you're supposed to you know by calling and visiting you know members of congress you're like that officials so the minute after you cast your vote you know the power relation is completely squished and all of a sudden you know they're in charge and you have to kind of beg them to make the changes that are know that you need to survive and that in the case of the climate crisis you know civilization needs to continue and nonviolent direct action you know by people actually taking the streets and taking institutions that are supposed to belong to them that represents a reversal of that of that power dynamic you know that represents the people taking back the power you know i don't but i would like you know if there are elected officials who believe in this you know as strongly as you do then i think that they should get in the streets with us and i think that they should participate in the snow so clearly any possible president of the candidates right sooner than later a rd party that would presumably incorporate so many of the efforts that you are now involved in right so there is still the hope t funnel some of this energy electorally correct into a rd party want to speak to that to a certain extent so ultimately we need to take power you know right any instant and that involves electoral party just like the republican party the two parties we have the system that the reason it's so broken is because the two of them are literally committee of corporations when you look at the composition of their central are the ones who sit on those committees you know and so it's literally like committee for asians that are coming together to run the country and write the laws and then somehow we expect that to result in policy that represent working people and you know so of course they don't so we need we need a new party you know that's what the movement for people's party stands for and this new completely years the number of independents is now almost half the country it's forty six percent which means only twenty seven percent associate affiliate with the democratic or republican party you know so by far the biggest political group is independents and then you also have the fact that in the last few years you've had an explosion of the number of people who are demanding an independent party so it's now a majority of americans and it's close to two members of congress you know who believe in actually addressing climate change for example and then in two thousand and twenty this is going to be the rd time in fact that they have rigged their own primary process to prevent someone who speaks for working affiliated with the democrats and trump who you know wasn't really meaningfully affiliated with the republican party base right what this all of a long time political candidates and put those at the front you know so there's this really bottled up desire to kind of find a different look at orientation that works for people because if so fed up with the late things like your little bit afraid that we need to go through one more real hit here and from being reelected before we understand what you're getting getting to i hope he's not reelected but i fear that you will be the democrats once again rick their primary process then we get another corporate status quo candidate like hillary  what are your thoughts on what needs to say here yeah i mean i i couldn't agree more that the political system is completely rigged and broken and again this is lose this but this is the whole reason that extinction rebellion exists and that we've chosen the tactics that we've chosen is this understanding that we are facing an existential threat that is threatening to destroy our civilization that killed billions of people  upbring never before experienced in human history and we have an extremely short time for him to to make fundamental and radical changes to every aspect of our society and given the scenario to look at our institutions to look at congress and imagine them being able to do what's necessary is naive so we enter into this space with the understanding that the only way that change is really going to happen is through to the people rising up and using their collective power in a way that over influence of corporate money over politics a so basically the corporations have a ton of power they've rigged system against and they have a vested stay strong as our friend would say all the best you will keep up with your work and thank you again for being on the radical imagination thank you very very much for watching the rock hall magination this week this is jim brennan's we'll see you again next week on the ah