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On this special addition of The Forum, we present two eloquent speakers:
First we’ll hear First Lady Michelle Obama’s Commencement Address to City College of New York.
Then, we’ll hear Chris Hedges talk at the Left Forum, also in NYC.

The First Lady delivered her very last commencement speech at City College in NYC today. She says she chose City College for the diversity it represents with more than 150 nationalities and more than 100 languages. Mrs. Obama says even though students at the college have experienced challenges, ‘unlike so many young people you have already developed the maturity, the muscle to move through obstacles, to move through pain.’ Michelle Obama drew on her experience visting countries where dictators and those who oppressed others were in power to blast the Republican Presidential nominee. “I have had the privilege traveling and I have seen how leaders who rule by intimidation often do so because they have nothing else to offer and I’ve seen how places who stifle voices are less vital, less hopeful, less free. Graduates that is not who we are .. Here in America we don t let our differences tear us apart.

Rage, Rebellion, Organizing Our Power was the theme of the 2016 Left Forum held in New York City. Chris Hedges, Pulitzer prize winning journalist and author most recently of Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative Of Revolt, addressed the conference.
On the nature of power during this electoral campaign Chris Hedges said, It is not our job to take power. It is our job to make the powerful frightened of us. That is what movements do. Movements keep power in check.

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