 So, put in notes or questions. This is not a formal presentation. That is, I haven't really prepared for it. I just decided that I would do it and explain things. So, everybody's aware of the youth that Trump administration failed to nominate someone to be elected, to represent the United States, to be elected to the committee on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. So, I want to put that in context because people sort of think Trump is out there, but actually Trump is right in the line with what every administration has done. Like everything he does, he takes it to the extreme, but it's not inconsistent with other administrations' behavior. So, to put this in context, I need to start with the idea that the treaty convention on elimination of all forms of racial discrimination was signed approximately about 1966 in terms of when the world put the treaty in force. Okay? Elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. The U.S. signed the treaty, but that has no effect. So, saying the U.S. signed the treaty in 1966 is sort of meaningless. The question is, is when did they ratify the treaty? Because the treaty has no effect until it's ratified and ratified in a certain way. When did that happen? 1995. So, for 30 years through all of those administrations, no administration ratified a Democrat or Republican, and ratified the treaty to eliminate all forms of racial discrimination. Okay? Under Clinton, the treaty got ratified, but it got ratified in a very restrictive way. The United States consistently puts itself forth as being a defender of human rights and in that context telling people that, yes, we've signed all these treaties or we've ratified the treaty, but what they don't tell people is even when they ratify a treaty, they do it in a way that gives American citizens no rights. So, the treaty was ratified, but it was ratified with clauses that said, hey, yeah, this treaty has a lot of rights in it, but you Americans don't have any more rights than the Constitution provides. The Constitution is the highest level of highest document of the land and it governs what rights you have. Well, that makes sense, since we're a constitutional monarch, I mean not monarch, a constitutional government, but the problem with is our Constitution has no human rights in it, none. There's very few, there's a few civil rights, but we have no substantive human rights. All the rights we have are procedural rights, so we have a right to a hearing before they can take our life and our property and our pursuit of happiness, but you don't actually have a right to life and to your property. The government with an appropriate hearing can take it. So we have procedural rights, we have no substantive rights under the Constitution. We don't have a right to education, we don't have a right to housing, we don't have a right to clothing, we don't have a right to food, we don't have a right to health care. We have no substantive rights under our Constitution. So, when the United States says that even though they've signed these treaties that recognizes all of these human rights, they're basically saying, no, we don't recognize anything our Constitution has, doesn't have in it and our Constitution doesn't have any of this. In addition, the United States, most of these treaties provide individuals with a right to file a complaint against their government if the government is violating the treaty. Almost every human rights treaty has that in it. I, as an individual, can file a complaint against my government if, but the government has to agree to allow you to file the complaint and guess what the United States did. They specifically excluded the ability of an American citizen to file a complaint against the United States as a whole, saying that they would do it on a case by case basis, which meant that they have never done it. They have never allowed an American citizens to complain about human rights violation in the international courts. Republican administration Democrat because the Democrats could have changed that when they were in power, they could make a change to the treaty the change in interpretation of the treaty, they don't because they like it the way it is, and they get to play like the good guy. So Clinton, the World Conference Against Racism is coming up in 2000. The planning is getting started and it becomes an embarrassment for Clinton that everybody's going to be talking about the World Conference Against Racism and the United States hasn't ratified the treaty. So that the treaty got ratified with all the problems that I have it identified. The treaty requires the government to do a report every two to three years. Don't hold me to this because I'm having a senior moment and I don't remember the exact number of years but it's thankful. Okay. United States missed the first two reports. Yeah, we do in the treaty but we ain't going to abide by it. So, so coming up on 2001, the Clinton, they, they get a report, and they had the hearings and whatever they have in the United Nations has. So the World Conference Against Racism is coming up in Durban, South Africa, and America is deciding they're going to participate. Their reason for not participating is they don't like how Israel is being treated. So I'm kind of like, wait, whoa, wait a minute. We're talking about racism in this country. And you're not going to participate in the World Conference Against Racism because you don't like the language that may come that may come out of it based on Israel. Okay. So the United States really didn't participate in the World Conference Against Racism. And in no administrations in a delegation, Bush came in right at the start of this in 2000, he didn't, he didn't, he didn't do anything different. Okay. So, during the Republic administrations, they saw that they, the one of the things that conventional elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. Did was submit a committee. And the committee has no power. It's just a research committee. It researches and put out reports. Okay. And it does it for the world. I mean, and the United States kept a member on the committee. So this is the step further that Trump has done. Okay, because the United States has refused to take any of the steps recommended by human rights people. One of the responsibilities under the convention of the lemonade all forms of racial discrimination is that you establish a human rights network that educate your citizens about what human rights are. And how to address them. Do you know of anyone is doing that. Is there a national government government organization that is dedicated to the education around human rights. People, and every administration has refused, and that was the specific ask that we that we and I say we because I was heavily involved in the international human rights thing at the time that we asked of the Obama administration. We have to do something really quite small. And that was to change the name of the Office of Civil Rights to the Office of Civil Rights and Human Rights and guess what the Democrats did. They said no, because nobody wants Americans to have to look at ourselves and human and through a human rights land. They don't want to educate American citizens on what human rights are, and how they have no human rights under the law, and how they restrict people access to the government to the to to the national conference. Yeah, yeah, my good game a good was quite an astonishing black woman who has just an amazing international law background history advocacy was appointed to the committee by Obama. And I think that's the primary reason that Trump's probably not appointing her. They just, they don't care enough to appoint someone is anti what they're what they're for. And, and they would get picked on if they appointed someone who did not understand international human rights because one of the things that that committee has consistently done is that at least the people who have been appointed to serve on the committee has an understanding of human rights and has an understanding of racism and the convention on elimination all form of racial discrimination. So, Trump refusal is big it's a big step. Now remember that it's not an appointment directly to the committee it's appointment to be elected to the committee and no one. There's always been an American representation on the committee and the community is huge, 15 people, which tells you right away is not a committee designed to do anything. Once you get past three people you really talking about just juggling personalities and interest and moving towards the middle, but it did. They listen carefully, and they have done some good work in terms of studying and researching and put out reports. But like I said earlier, the problem is that the United States has restricted the all human rights treaties not just the elimination of forms racial discrimination. It takes them forever to sign I'm, I think they may have finally found the sign the treaty on the protection of the child but I'm not sure and that's been around for decades. At any rate I want to stop and see if people have some questions that I can answer because I didn't want to go too long on this I just wanted to clear up that what Trump is doing is a step further than everyone else, but it's consistent with everyone else. He's just more overt and outrageous in his behavior. Yeah, I the key I think the Democrats are useless and I think until we bite the bullets and say we ain't voting for Democrats anymore, even if it means Trump gets reelected, even if it means that someone we don't want gets reelected we have to at some point decide that we can never get satisfaction for the Democrats because they run, they primary in the center and they're making you think that they're going to do something, and then they run their elections in the middle, and they govern from the middle. And if you want something progressive they're never going to do it in voting for them maintains a two party system, and we'll never get out of this trap until we get another party, at least one of the party probably three or four we need a couple parties on each side. We need a parliament or a sort of government where people where where people can go and vote and have no confidence vote that the president is picked by the party, instead of, and that the party, you have no confidence votes on the party, and in the, and that they have to form coalitions, because they have three or four parties they have to form coalitions with other government parties in order to run and those are the parties hold them to hold them accountable for what they said they're going to do. Right now we have no way to hold people accountable I get so mad when people say, hold them accountable. Yeah, how, how exactly do we do that, when all we get to vote for is a Democrat or a Republican. I'm ranting. Any questions, any comments. The car, I didn't quite understand. No, I wasn't reading so I don't know what your comment, no, not the government, there are nonprofits that do I don't know what that was to the key I'm as I said the cars the key I'm sorry. The first the first few letters of your first name and your last name together. Okay, I guess there's no more comments or anything. Thanks for taking your valuable time listening to me. If you have any questions after you thought about the thing that you know what I think we really need to get a commitment every we need to get a commitment to do human rights right from these candidates, any candidates. And that would mean not just ratifying it I missed an important part of what it takes to make human rights law in this country. Maybe the United States signs human rights treaty, they ordinarily treaties are law immediately upon ratification is the law of the land, immediately upon ratification, and the only they're there above the law for everything, but the Constitution. So, for non human rights treaties. The Senate just needs to ratify it. But what the government has done is adopted the view that human rights should not even though they ratify a treaty is ratification for the purpose of reporting and stuff like that. And if we, you don't get any new rights under a ratified treaty, unless a law has been passed new new rights and guess what, no law has been passed on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination. And that's the big thing that could happen is is that, if we got, if we passed the convention on, if we, if the conventional elimination of all forms of racial discrimination was ratified, I mean not ratified is already ratified if it was adopted into law. That's a huge step for helping our people be effective to eliminate racism, but of course, neither Democrats nor Republicans are interested in that they absolutely refuse to do anyway, I'm going to stop as I said I was going to keep this short. Thanks. Thanks everybody.