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In 1994, the Violent Crime Control
and Law Enforcement Act passed.
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You probably know it as the crime bill.
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It was a terrible law.
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It ushered in an era of mass incarceration
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that allowed mandatory minimums,
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three-strikes laws,
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the expansion of the death penalty --
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it was terrible.
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But it passed with bipartisan support.
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GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich,
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architect of the Republican revolution,
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led the way --
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signed into law by Democratic
President, Bill Clinton.
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Also in 1994,
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I was a senior in high school
when this bill got passed,
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and you were likely to find me
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on the streets protesting
any number of causes ...
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including the crime bill.
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So that's what makes this picture
all the more surprising.
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(Laughter)
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Newt was not on the top of my
"Favorite Person in this Country" list.
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But this picture was taken in 2015.
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This was the start of a movement
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that would pass a bill
called the First Step Act.
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The New York Times
called it the most significant reform
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in criminal justice
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in a generation.
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You know, 1994 Nisha --
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on-the-streets activist --
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might be disappointed in this photo --
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some you might be too.
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But standing here today I'm not.
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This is what I'm here
to talk to you about today.
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This is radical common ground.
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And I'm not talking about the kind
of common ground where --
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you know, we can talk about
how much we love springtime
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or "puppies are super cute."
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And it's not, you know,
compromised common ground.
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This is common ground that's hard.
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It hurts.
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It's the type of common ground
where you will be ridiculed and judged.
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But it's the type of common ground
that can secure human freedom.
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It can save lives.
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And it's the type of common ground
I was born to find.
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I was born here in the late '70s,
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and like most first-generation kids
I was born to build bridges.
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I was a bridge between
the old country and the new.
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And just growing up,
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that's what I did.
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I was a Brown girl in the Black
and white South in Atlanta, Georgia.
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I was like, on one hand,
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the perfect Indian daughter --
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straight A's,
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captain of the debate team --
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but on the other hand,
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I was also this radical feminist,
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punk-rock activist sneaking
out of the house for concerts
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and, you know, getting arrested
like, all the time for causes.
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I was a mix of a lot things.
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But they all live harmoniously in me.
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Building bridges was just natural,
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and I think all of represent
a mix of a bunch of things.
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I think we have that ability
to find the common ground.
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But that's not how
I was living my life ...
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at all.
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I moved to the Bay Area in 2001,
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and this was kind of
a turning point for me;
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it was the start of the second Iraq War.
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And I was organizing
with a bunch of activists --
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of course --
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and we were thinking that probably
we needed to expand our circle
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a little bit --
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that we weren't going to succesfully
stop the war if, you know --
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just amongst us.
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So we decided we'd build bridges,
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expand our circle,
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and so the great, anarchist
vs. communist soccer tournament
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of 2001 was born.
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(Laughter)
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That's it.
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That's how large my circle
was allowed to expand.
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Building bridges with liberal Democrats?
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Oh, no way;
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that was a bridge too far.
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Local electeds?
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That was a bridge too far.
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And that was in 2001.
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I think you'll agree with me now:
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in 2020 it's gotten even worse --
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that division,
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that tribalism.
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We won't sit down at dinner
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with people who voted
differently than us.
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We like, see a mean tweet
from our best friend --
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a tweet that like, doesn't fit
with out worldview,
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and all of a sudden they're cancelled.
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The purity politics of the moment gone.
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I sometimes wake up --
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I don't know what we're going to do.
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And people ask me
"how do we do that?"
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But I know about common ground.
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I feel like we can build those bridges.
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But it's not easy.
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I have a concept that I go back to,
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and it's a concept that should
be familiar to everybody
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since the beginning of human history.
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It's the idea of the commons.
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This shared place
in the center of town --
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town sqaure,
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the quad --
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but it's the place
where you come together,
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your community,
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and you can listen to people
on soapboxes with different ideas,
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and you can be very different,
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but you come together because you know
together we're stronger than being apart.
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And today when I think of the commons,
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I extend it to the resources
we all share --
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collectively owned,
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like the air we breathe.
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I think of schools,
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parks.
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I think of the intelligence we share.
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We can share in libraries or the internet.
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And I think the internet's important.
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In this digital age,
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that shared humanity,
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that access to be together in the commons,
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is at our fingertips.
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But we're not using it that way.
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We're not coming together.
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To choose that path towards the commons
and to be with each other,
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you also have to choose love.
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That's a hard thing.
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But I know you can't go to the town square
filled with hate for the town.
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You can't lead a people you don't love.
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You can't lead a country you don't love.
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And, uh --
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I don't think you can change the world
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and say I'm only changing it
for the people like me,
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my own circle of friends,
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not for the people I hate,
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not for them.
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It doesn't work.
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It's a terrible strategy,
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it doesn't work,
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but that's what we keep doing.
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I see it every single day.
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These silos are just getting stronger.
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And you know,
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your corner of the internet,
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like Instagram or Twitter,
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we're just in an echo chamber
talking to each other.
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So I can be really comfortable
in my Berkley Democratic Socialist commons
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and talk to all of you.
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And my dad can be in his bootstrappy
immigrant Republican commons,
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and I can watch MSNBC
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and he can watch Fox News
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and we will not know the same things.
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We won't have the same --
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I mean, we won't live in the same world.
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We may never know each other
or be with each other again.
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And I don't want to keep going
down that path.
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And I know we can get back
to a better path.
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I know we can find our way to the commons,
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and I know that because I had a first,
like, front-row, firsthand look
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at the ability to do it
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and do it on a large scale.
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And so I want to get you back
to the First Step Act
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and criminal justice reform.
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I interviewed for a job
with Van Jones about seven years ago.
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And he's been a mentor and my boss,
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and he's actually an inspiration
behind a lot of this in the speech.
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And he told me that we were going to pass
bipartisan criminal justice reform
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and I laughed because I thought
that was an oxymoron.
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I was in the streets --
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go figure --
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at the Republican
National Convention in 2000
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in Philadelphia,
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and we were protesting
the criminal justice system.
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And there were no Republicans
on the streets with me at that protest.
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I remembered the crime bill;
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I lived through the tough-on-crime era;
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I didn't see it.
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But he saw it and he walked me through it.
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He saw me and people like him on the left,
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who it's always been and issue
of dignity and justice,
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that this system has been
racist since the start
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and discriminating against poor
people and people of color
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and it's an issue of justice and dignity.
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So there we were.
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But he also saw something different
from our colleagues on the right.
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The fiscal Conservatives,
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they had an economic incentive to do it:
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they saw a system that cost
the taxpayers a whole lot of money
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and was getting terrible results
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and it wasn't making
the communities any safer.
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The Libertarian right,
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who believe in less government,
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saw an expansion of government control,
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an expansion of the police state,
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mass incarceration is like,
antithetical to who they are.
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And the religious right:
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second chances --
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redemption.
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These are values that they hold dear,
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and the criminal justice system
can't see those anywhere.
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And so there was common ground to be had.
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And that's what we set out to do.
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And under the leadership
of the formerly incarcerated folks
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who have been leading this forever,
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we built this bipartisan coalition
to pass criminal justice reform.
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87 senators voted in favor
of the First Step Act,
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and yeah, President Trump signed it.
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And because we were able to do that,
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because we were able
to look at that shared humanity,
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get over our distaste
for working across the aisle,
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20,000 people have been
impacted in just the last year,
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7,000 home who would
not have been home,
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17,000 years of human freedom
restored just in the last year.
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And when people tell me
that common ground is the weak position
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or that my love for the people
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or my belief in our shared
humanity is naive,
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or that if I work with folks
across the aisle
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that I'm somehow getting
taken advantage of,
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I just look at this:
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I look at the people.
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I say, "Say that to this --
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to the folks coming home."
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Say that to those 2.2 million people
that are still behind bars.
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So now our challenge
is to make this possible
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across a whole bunch
of other issues too:
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human rights,
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immigration --
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all sorts of things --
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health care,
-
mental health.
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I think there's common ground to be had.
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But it's not easy.
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If you want change in a large scale,
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you need large movements,
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and that means
our circles have to be bigger.
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And it's not easy being a lefty
working across the aisle;
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I certainly get
my fair share of hate mail,
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but I think that that's exactly
the radical approach we need right now.
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And so this is Jenny Kim.
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She is someone who is dead serious
about second-chance hiring.
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She wants to make sure
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that formerly incarcerated folks
have a pathway to jobs
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and that businesses make it
an amazing place for folks to work.
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She's also the deputy
general counsel at Koch Industries.
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K-O-C-H, Koch.
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She is an amazing organizer,
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and I'm proud to work
with her on this issue.
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And an issue I care deeply about,
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probably a lot of you do too --
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climate,
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which seems divisive,
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seems like there's no common
ground to be had there.
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I think there is.
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Trump's own Department of Defense
this year released a report saying
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that all future wars were going
to be wars about resources,
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wars about climate.
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And so yeah, I want to find
partnership with the military.
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And I used to be the national director,
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the national organizer
for the War Resisters League,
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the oldest pacifist
organization in the country.
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But if there's common ground
to be had there,
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yeah, I'll partner with them.
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It's not easy.
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The approach means
we need to find love.
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We need to get back
to that shared humanity
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and that commons.
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But I know this love,
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it doesn't just get us through
Thanksgiving dinner.
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It's the kind of love
that secures freedom.
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It changes the world.
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But to do that,
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I have to step into my courage,
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and I want all of you
to step into your courage.
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I think we can do it.
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But it's a little bit uncomfortable.
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If you are who I know you to be --
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you know, someone who cares
about change and progress
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and wants to see something
change in the world --
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you probably want to know how
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but you're also a little bit uncomfortable
about me standing up here
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and celebrating these pictures
with Newt and Koch,
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talking about partnerships
with the military.
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I want you to feel those feelings.
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I feel them too.
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I don't enter into these
partnerships lightly at all.
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My entire trajectory of who I am
has made me think
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that it's not even possible,
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but I know it is.
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That feeling,
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that discomfort,
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that's preceded every major
breakthrough in human history ever.
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That's that feeling that comes
before a moonshot.
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And so I want to make you
even a little more uncomfortable.
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I want you think about an issue
that you care deeply about --
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something that you want to see changed
on a national or global scale.
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Think big.
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What would resolution look like?
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On a large scale,
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what would it look like
to solve that problem?
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Can you get there with just
your circle of friends?
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I know you can't.
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The anarchist-communist soccer
tournament isn't going to help
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bring about that change.
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So I want to think about how
we can expand our circle a little more.
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Where is there common ground to be found?
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Can you think of any unlikely allies?
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Strange partners?
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Further than that,
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who's in your way?
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Who's stopping you
from finding that common ground,
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and is there room for them in that circle?
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I think there is.
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I think we have to be able
to find it at this scale.
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And it means that we're going
to have to step into that courage
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and include people,
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hold our vision so strong,
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know that justice
and freedom is so important
-
that we're able to include more people,
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love the people who might
not love us back.
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And so I want to ask you:
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who's your Newt?
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Who's your Koch?
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Who's the military in your story?
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And I want you to find --
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choose that common ground.
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(Thank you)
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(Applause and cheers)