university here in new york and about this time every year we have the director of the left forum on the radical measures nation to tell us more about this new york city event that draws the largest gathering of progressives annually in north america possibly the world this is the second year we've walked them to marcus great who's co director along with ashley abbot of this year's left for which will be held from june first to june third at john jay college here in new york the love form for those of you who are in the audience who aren't familiar with this history was founded in the  the socialist scholars conference and we founded in one nine hundred eighty one to create a forum which would present theoretical historical work in a mostly scholarly format but for a broad audience reaching far beyond academic circles practically every major socialist progressive thinker has appeared at some time during the social scholars conference and left forums history major  paul jay and reverend billy and the stop shopping choir among many many others the form has not been without internal controversy after all this is a conference of progressive and passionate leftists of various factions sex and persuasions groups historically and the tory asli known to sometimes develop various authoritarian strained become involved in self destructive infighting led by ego istic righteously pyrrhus leaders and sometimes even becoming involved in outright physical and psychological bullying and threatening of their comrades marcus took over leadership a couple of years ago for  adler who had the longest tenure nine plus years of any past director under sarah under seth the form saw unprecedented growth and the greatest number and diversity of panel panels and workshops in its history and marcus has continued that growth and diverse tradition was remarkable skill tenacity and breadth of knowledge of the intricacies within and between the american and international left he's helped make the form even more inclusive and diverse creative and interesting all with a steady and kind leadership so that the left can better imagine and developing a new and winning strategy for america and the world and before we meet marcus in person we're just going to have a short clip here of jimi hendrix and the star spangled ba expecting several thousand and every last year in the years before we had an attendee number which was way over four so way over four thousand feet as though you might have seen that come over the weekend right and you were saying now actually enters into the twenty first century so you can use that website on your phone you can scroll the program you create an account and you can for example put an event on your watch list and i'll  wait for that right now for this year yes it works it works though but but but that's so you created a forum where people can come and stablished their own panel in the sense people usually what they do this the whole the american left and the international as far as we reach them are being asked to propose panels workshops for the first time in the year we have book readings film screenings music do we have a closer look after several since events happened and it's a little bit cooperated so to say and then we put them into different forms we have a form of politics of form on an economy on history and theory for people in your room even though the most of these panels of all are just very very interesting and yeah they are the words deserve attention but if you get them in mass and if you get them all together and people make selections ok i the title of our show here is toward a winning strategy so we can maybe mix it together a new winning strategy for the left so how do you come about this team and is that what  you know how are you promoting that what are you hoping to accomplish with this year's form toward that well if they seem idea came around before donald trump got elected new strategy for the left because we don't want it to be to put about too high and say we will win the next battle i think that's if you look at the state and conditions of not only the united states laugh but also in other places is winning strategy for the left is only be possible i think if that's if this is frenzy on an international level let's not to next couple of weeks or months and we would certainly known achieve this at a conference and manhattan but what we should do what we want to work towards is work toward as this show was about radical imagination you are an american so you're with all this vast experience and bringing that to the american experience and i i think look i agree with you on this we're the left the progressives are still in the embryonic stage here where we're we're trying a lot of different things i think there's an absolute need for a progressive winning new left and that's why i'm so interested in hearing how we're going to tackle this at platform but yeah i wouldn't difficulties which getting along with each other a lot of things you have engineered in your in your statement and i think it is it is very very important then in this new liberal era where capitalism transformed from something like what we call in marxist terms and four distinct era into more like capitalism which is where the individual in the workplace and in terms of how you address an individual as a consumer and what kind of lifestyle he or she should have which would fit into only a liberal capitalist system all this has has transformed the individual in a very very substantial manner and in ways that were many are not really fully aware of if you mean we need to present ourselves right i mean we need for violators for and we have to push marx said it of course we always have to bring our skin our nerves to the market place that a capitalist might say hey i need your workforce because you know might be strong enough smart enough or whatever but these days there's more than that that's performance that's that's becoming a specific kind for moving forward and for achieving a common strategy within the left and we need to reflect on this issues and of course then on the structural constraints those sorts of the ego says one thing and then the social in international level or how does this you're going to have a quite an international presence yeah i mean on an international level i mean how do you work i don't know i mean this people bring the history and whatever it is as a g i can just tell you coming into an international meeting no matter what kind of political viewpoint you might have there is a history people know about the social democratic party people know about i mean in the left at least they know about  whatsoever i mean that's so and you as an individual as let's see you would be a worker who wants to get organized of course you enter a meeting like this but it would be put on you or that you deliver that kind of knowledge which is being associated with that group you're coming from so you are looking for people to come in and add to this dialogue this is you know this is not of course a pure  very correct in trying to slow down the growth of the handles i think you're down to a much more manageable level here and again the new strategy that you're seeking people to discuss  and come to grips with is also rooted out by this trump experience isn't it you're not exclusively a course but we're all moved by that to some extent although there's much larger forces behind trump as well of course my take on this would be i think we sub several people in organizations i'm sure would agree with this i mean that we witness that the left was actually pretty strong  before it all from got elected we had a drive i think that's what you call it we had to move forward with the movement different movements had a very strong move forwards into the consciousness of almost every language like we want to do a political revolution i mean when did you hear that and liberal country like united states or in europe that someone is advocating for a political revolution and run and runs as trying to garner in a sense and foster and nurture and we're not starting at square one here we do have particularly in your generation and younger people a willingness to look at these different economic and political systems out in a way that certainly has not existed certainly since the sixty's was that would you agree you mean in terms of when i know it takes a level of intellect going back to me and actually maybe the activism i mean we don't have either anti war movement yet and so on but we're it's blossoming it's emerging and i think what we're seeing here the energy is there what form it might take and what new form it might take i said right which is very often kind of the shoelace for a better world where you just fall over very often it's like you see this in those movements actually if you study them and how they actually falling apart and what kind of important than the action what we've had actually a couple shows recently on the columbia rebellion sixty eight had mark rudd on and todd gitlin ray brown some of the leaders of that and also saying do again and so so concretely now so so well hopefully won't do again i mean because it's just gets the bad places and stuff but any case so here you are you tell us a little about some of the panels something some of our audience who's listening that many perhaps of been to the former many are interested in what would you tell them your what could they expect as they go over there after they register which they have an idea and interests and an agenda that's so obvious in so beautiful to see so again somebody comes to the forum for the first time what should they expect what's going to happen yeah s s in all the years you have just weighed all roughly two hundred eighty maybe three hundred different events on all the different questions we're actually concerned on you have people who talk more extensively about economic inequality and how to s  build the world as a worker and therefore you should have a say how you build it what do you build and which kind of conditions that that is so you could have twenty or thirty panels and variations of th was coming from different angles and that is an interesting thing so there's people coming from the labor movement for example is about the question well you have groups of course would i would say are more like concerned citizen citizens interested in that question issues or academics people who are invested in this for very long time because just one of it and then other events are for apparels very important questions as of course all the different varieties on what happened with black l lot of us more celebrate we have very good we've got almost all the major lefty organizers and academics many of those who have a name show up this year they really c disco and i don't want to name names because i risk just to leave people out right it's really extensive i have not seen this and the last for four years in that intensity is really a lot it's really people who the very creative efforts to open up the dialogue economic and talk about political parties alternatives perhaps third  are very capable of bringing about some significant change in this they do they do a reading and so as a german and i guess what that means grown up into a political system which of course important form of being together aligned if you have similar political viewpoints and similar political interests and you need to be around something like this you might not become a member or you might not really be happy we're certain forms of bureaucracy so in this kind of institutions or you might not be happy with the leadership or maybe some in a better way and most of the european countries political parties for example specifically on the left but not only there even the conservative parties are working towards more internal and towards  mechanisms to democracy ties their institutions actually they can't go away from this people see that you have the machine you click continuously on like on this and this why can you not like a specific politics right that's being implemented right now more and more political parties in europe but you are in united states you don't have a strong political party whatsoever who could make a si but it has its narratives they use his restaurant which also create a certain consciousness and create and in body themselves a specific in for us and that still is rooted or connected to people who are disenfranchised and pressed hard to the left message envision they have to have it right so that the so what needs to be done then of course and we have the slate of mainstream media and so on which actually hammers a little bit to say certain leftist things because of lip service because they want to get elected they were moral integrity would have a moral integrity who have an vested interest in the concerns who really do the that's an interesting again question where will that energy go will it will it become part of a political party i mean he's all over the place and there's a lot of people who want a piece of him now and that means to be he of even organizations develop some for years some are relative may might be a little bit more new or something but have a more attention than the older ones example for various reasons if you would say ok this is all part of the camp which could build a specific political party or would form let's say the links to you know what she's doing you know the ecological devastation the economic inequality the structural racism and the materialism the multiverse exactly so the question is if we if we if we if we agree on the question we need a which are new in terms of the way the production process is going on and that's the new strategy in how to cope with this because that's the new part of it but it's still the humiliation and disrespect yet the suffering of putting it there is this problem has to be solved my guess is it's might be slightly little bit better with our busy lives that we get an election leadership elected somehow which can  be of course also being replaced after i think we should look closer to the more better examples some progressive fully tickle parties developed in recent years like we would look for example to what foot space you know it's fine if there's some people who are performing better in front of a microphone and of course those people should get the shot too not to do the job but i will point of course those people need to be know and even the party the link is in its way not that political party most people really want to want to see otherwise they just would just get ten percent so there's a lot of work in consciousness raising and connecting strategize from different levels you need to have an individual strategy to cope with the next couple of months and years we need to get rid of donald trump and not only donald from as we know and that's a huge huge effort and thinking about lifetime commitment and i need well fed up jim they are we know that so we have the show to this is this is alternative vision and we know that and this is actually this is a place to meet people also and to link up with fellow comrades you are not alone out there and there's a lot of people out there and a lot of look i've been going for thirty years more i guess i don't know however long the damn thing is going on i've been going on with it and it's just terrific and i just  the whole program i mean it's it's it's amazing it's overwhelming you will learn something you might meet new friends absolutely and i really mean that it is a very creative way of spending your weekend it's with a terrific video here on the revolution are you ready for the revolution and then we'll have a short clip on reverend william barber to close us out this is jim verraros along with our server guests marcus  and you got to memphis he had races moderates politicians a president and even jealous criticism from black leaders who used his position against the vietnam war as an excuse to diminish his status and liberal white america while raising their own and then the bullet running and his body feel often we call dr king's less poverty and militarism when he stopped by memphis to stand with garbage workers he saw the connection between all three and knew that you could not address one without the best and the other and that's why before he ever said anything about the mountaintop he said we must give us a chance to this struggle until the end and nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now when the voting rights act has been gutted and we have less voting rights today than we had in one nine hundred sixty five and for seventeen hundred forty five days the congress has refused to fix the voting rights act twenty three states passed rac poor people for teen million children and we lock up people and right here in memphis memphis this majority black southern city is the most impoverished metropolitan area after paulton area in the nation nearly twenty percent of its residents living below the stage and say they are the king while every day they disown him with policy we have thirty seven million people without health care in america sixty three cents of every discretional dollar is going for in flint michigan but you can't get on live it was the people die every day from policy what coretta scott king call policy violence black people are shot in the street by police and others and many other people from low wealth and low income nothing would be more tragic than for us now so we must be the resurrection those who love the tombs of the prophet you don't want to love the tomb of a daughter got in alabama because alabama refused to expand medicaid white women from appalachia chiefs from apache nation latino men and women from el paso men who are working poor working veterans of revival in america we don't need to just remember the blue we need to reach down in the blood because there's power in the blood and that's why our lives feel how this is here with me as the co chair because there's power in the blood that's how well when you stand on the shoulders of the mothers their power when you refuse to go back that power when you won't turn around this car when you're focused on love and truth and justice and the truth and we've got to hold it until we die no matter what does holding no matter what races do how no matter what injustice does hold it up we've got to hold it up until  we've got to hold it up until every vote is protected until every person is respected until every person has health care we've got to hold it up until every child is lifted in law we've got to hold it up until every job is a living wage job we've got to hold it up until every person in poverty has guaranteed subsistence we've got to hold it up until every black man and woman is free from being shot by the police we've got to hold it up until every