And please join me in extending a very warm welcome to Sherry. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you, Abby. It's so nice to be able to see you all. I was becoming quite spoiled by my frequent visits to Vermont. And I feel like 2020 has really robbed me of, you know, my bonding time with the folks in your fine state. So I'm missing being able to be there with you all during this event. And I just want to thank you for including me in this time with you. And so I just want to introduce myself in my language. And I'm from Hamaquacet, and I'm from Pasalda, and I'm from Kahuasus, and I'm from Pasalda, and I'm from Nagakakugus, and I'm from Zibaik. So my family is Bear Clan from the Penobscot Nation and Crow Clan from the Paswa Quattie Tribe at Zibaik. And Alita Huzziou and I, and I'm very happy to be with you today. And so I'm glad to be able to invite you into this beginning phase of this new community that I'm forming here. I just recently purchased 213 acres in a farm in our original territory. That was given away by the state of Maine. The year it became a state and a land grant to a man named Moses Goodwin, who lived here on this land for 150 years, 155 years. Well, he didn't live here for 155 years, but his family did. And then it went to the Maso family who was here for 45 years. And so the reclaiming of this territory 200 years out from when we first lost this land is very symbolic to me. It's also symbolic to me that there have been only two other families that have lived here and who loved this place very, very well. And I am going to plug in, I apologize. I am losing battery very rapidly for some reason. So let me just plug in. Okay. Can you still see me? Okay. I'm sorry about that. Now I'm getting a little bit of feedback on my end.  So I'm glad to have you joining today. I have a number of questions that I was asked to talk about. And so I'm gonna go down through that list. And the first one allows me to get into a bit of storytelling mode, which I'm very happy about. The question is, where are we philosophically in this moment? And I have held a number of webinars and have done a lot of public talks with different people around the world, not just around the country, but around the world who have stories and insights to share about the times that we're living in. And I have had the incredible honor of participating in the creation of two books that are both out right now. One of them is All We Can Save, which is a book that I'm incredibly proud to be a part of. And it's a book by 60 women all writing about climate change. And so if you have the opportunity to pick that up, I would encourage you to do so. It's a bestseller. It is one of the most beautiful, stunning books I've ever read. And it would make an incredible gift for somebody who needs to have a sense of hope right now. All We Can Save is based on kind of a reverse image of a poem that talks about looking at all that I can't save in this moment and grieving over all that can't be saved in this moment. And I think that many of us have been experiencing incredible grief during this time, not only because there are things that we are, the title of the book Rod is All We Can Save is the top title and it's Catherine Wilkinson and Ayanna Elizabeth Johnson, who are the two editors of the book. And where not only are we grieving what's happened in this country over the last four years, we're also grieving the incredible loss of life and we're grieving our way of life. For many people are grieving their way of life because the way that they have been accustomed to living is no longer available to them during the pandemic. And so they're having to face themselves, some people are having to face themselves for the very first time in their lives without distraction. And it's a very complex and challenging time as we heard in the beautiful words that were offered to us as an opening. It's a very complex time. There's no simple cause and there's no simple solution. And so I wanna share with you a story that I've told many times during the pandemic that I think is really important right now because it helps us to be mindful our place within the larger scheme of creation. And so within our tradition, we have a story of the first illness. And in this story, which is a very, very old story, it gets passed down generation to generation.  So this story is a very old story and it's just so astounding to me how time and time again our stories end up reflecting the reality that we're living in. And so these are not just stories. There's an elder, Trisa Sapir, who's from one of our other Wabanaki nations. And before she told a story, she used to say in the language, this is not just a story that's really happened. And so I'm saying that to you right now that this is not just a story that's really happened. And now it's happening again and we're experiencing it. So in this story, human beings who are the youngest species on the planet have begun to walk away from all of the other beings in creation. And this story is often told during our midwinter gathering and we've already had all of our creation stories told by the time this story is told. And so in all of the creation stories, the animals and the plants and the trees are instrumental in our ability to survive and sustain ourselves on Mother Earth as human beings, the youngest species. And so we've begun to walk away from our relatives in the natural world and not only have we walked away from them but we have started to create things that are actually harming our relatives. We have begun to behave in ways that are causing other living beings to have their lives taken away from them. And so to tell the full measure of this story, we would need a whole day sitting at this fire. This is just the snapshot as my friend Kevin Deere says the reader digest version of the story. And so the animals are pretty dismayed by what's going on with the human beings. And so they go into council together to say, what are we gonna do about our young relatives here who are behaving so badly? And they really deliberate for a long time because a lot of animals offer their lives for us to be able to live and survive upon Mother Earth from the very beginning of time. And they care greatly for us as their younger relatives. But they recognize that there needs to be something. Something needs to happen in order for human beings to recognize their connection to the rest of creation and to stop believing that they're somehow separated. And so in my humble opinion, I believe that there was a mention of original sin that this notion of original sin is really just about othering. It's about us starting to see ourselves as something other than the rest of the beings within creation. When we started feeling like, oh, I'm something other than you. To me, that interest in that Christian story is not the eating of an apple. It's the moment when the human beings felt like they had to cover themselves because they felt like they were something different from the rest of nature. And so we have fallen into this illusion of othering that we're starting. We've been starting to wake up from collectively. And so the animals decide after long deliberation and a lot of grief that they're going to have to give the human beings illness in order for the human beings to recognize their connection to the rest of creation. And so they give the human beings illness that man-made medicine can't cure. And the only way for them to get well is for them to make some substantial changes. And so after seeing the human being suffering for a long period of time, the trees and the plants began to take pity on them and they start to feel sad for their young relatives that they're suffering so much and so many of them are dying. And so the trees and the plants go into council together and they talk about how can we save or help our young relatives get through this challenge without taking away the benefit of the lesson from them? And so they talk for a long time and they decide that what they're going to do is they're gonna send out a message through the dream time to the human beings and tell them that if they will only relearn the language of the plants and trees and reconnect themselves back to the natural world, then the plants and the trees will tell them where to find the medicine that they need in order to heal themselves. And so they float that story out on the dream and one of the grandmothers catches that story in her sleep and when she wakes, she tells the others what she's dreamt of and she said, I'm going to the forest to reconnect myself with the plants and the trees. And so she goes into the forest and she spends time and she reconnects herself to the plants and the trees and asks them humbly over and over again, may I benefit from the knowledge that you carry so that I'll learn how to heal my people once again? And we can be restored to our rightful relationship within this larger scheme of creation. And so after a time, the plants and the trees begin to see the sincerity of this grandmother and then they begin to communicate with her again and she relearns the language of the plants and the trees and then they tell her which plants that she needs to be able to bring her people out of this illness that's been given to them by the animals. And then they learn which trees and specific foods are gonna strengthen their bodies once they turn the corner from this illness and they can get strong again. And so she takes that information back to her people and they prepare the plants and the trees have taught her not only which medicines but how to harvest them honorably and respectfully, how to prepare them, how to dose them so that the people can get well again. And the people in her community begin to get well and then they begin to tell others about what has happened to them.  And the way that I was told the story was that we were the ones who were of the people who went back. And so right now we're being given this amazing opportunity to contemplate our place within creation as a result of an illness that has been given to us by the animals. And so as we've been going through this at the very beginning of this, one of the things that I did every single day was I, you know, I went out and I prayed and I made offerings to ask for guidance from the winged nations, W-I-N-G-E-D winged nations to ask them, what is it that we have to learn? And I had this incredible experience with about 10,000 starlings. And what those starlings taught me was that we need to be moving right now as one biological entity. And as my friend Rivera-Sun would say, a leaderful movement that allows us to, you know, shift directions and adapt as needed to the rapid changes that are coming towards us in response to what the perceived threat is to us as human beings and to the rest of life, which is climate change. And so we all know that climate change is something that needs to be at the top of our radar right now, that it's the one thing that we all are experiencing collectively and that we will all experience, though not in the same timeframe and certainly not to the same degree. There are populations of people who are being terribly threatened by climate change. And so, you know, this moves me into the next question, which is, how can we be a climate change movement rather than being part of a climate change movement? How can we become a climate change movement in and of ourselves? And there's a fantastic book that was written that came out a couple of years ago which is Drawdown. Paul Hawkins' name is on the cover. My friend, Catherine Wilkinson, did a majority of the writing and editing for that book project. And it has a hundred solutions, a hundred most promising solutions to climate change. And within that, there is something for everyone. And so you can, I would encourage you all to, you know, contact your local library, see if you can get a copy of Drawdown or look for it in your local bookstore or ask your local bookstore to order it for you. It's really phenomenal. And there will be a follow-up that will be coming out eventually. But that book is based on the best science that is available to us today that allows for us to find our space within all of these different potential solutions to climate change because we can't all do everything. But what we can do as a collective is we can begin to move ourselves into a way of living. Thank you, Lily. We can begin to move ourselves into a way of living that is not so damaging to the earth. And that's what I'm doing here by building this community here at Wujukum Toltena. Wujukum Toltena Kinship Community is the name of the community that I'm building here. And Wujukum Toltena means let's help one another. You know, we want to be able to live in this way but we can't do it individually. How many of you just raise your hand would love to be living a low impact or no impact environmental life? How many of you would like to be living low-grid or completely off-grid lifestyle, right? And how many of you are obstructed or challenged to do that because you live individually, right? And so, you know, I think that the majority of us want to be living in a way that is less damaging to the earth but our individualized lifestyles are not designed to allow us to do so. And so, the more we chase this illusory dream that's part of this illusion of separation that we've fallen into is we need to start moving away from individualized living and moving back into communal living. And I've been saying this, Abby can attest to this, I've been saying this for years. This is something that has been obvious and it sounds like, yeah, oh, okay, yeah, we all know this, right? But how are you taking steps to actually do that? How are you moving yourself in the direction of living a more communal life? Do you have a food sharing option set up with a group of five neighbors? Do you have tool sharing?  And so there are a lot of ways for us to be able to do that. And some of those ways are in that book. Some of those ways are actually a little bit prohibitive for us during COVID, but actually in some ways, COVID is allowing us to move further along the line. In relation to that, because people are staying home more, they're not traveling. People are learning a very valuable lesson at this time. The second book that I have had the incredible opportunity to be a part of, which I am one of the editors on, is a book that's just out this month. What is the date today? It'll be out in three days on December 8th, and it's called Corona Transmissions. And Corona Transmissions is a book that has all of this input on what is being talked to us during this time of the coronavirus. Everything from the physical to the medical physical. So there's doctors and all kinds of people from all walks of life were included in this who are providing essays on what coronavirus has meant to them. And so that leads me into the next question that's on my list, which is, what is it that this time is teaching us? And what this time is teaching us, of course, the primary thing that I have been learning as a result of this time of quarantine is what I can live without that I thought was essential to my happiness. What is it that I can live without that at one time I just felt like I really had to have? And so we're being given this incredible opportunity to learn how can we pare down our lives in a way that allows us to reduce our impact on the earth. And I think that this is an exciting opportunity. Another thing is that people are having such a difficult time because they're so accustomed to being able to be with people. People who live alone are especially having a difficult time which is really highlighting and illustrating. There's been a lot of huge increase in suicides and mental health crises that have emerged as a result of COVID. And that's because this time is also highlighting for us that we were not meant to live alone. We were not meant to live alone. And so when you're in this completely isolated way of living for six, seven, eight months and you haven't had time to prepare your community in order to shift enough to adapt to this rapidly changing world. Yes, family support is incredibly important but there are a lot of people who don't have connection to their families of birth who need family of choice. There are a lot of people who have been very happy living individual lives until suddenly they're sick and they need something. There's nobody to check in on them to make sure that they're okay. That this whole aspect of community is really being highlighted for us in ways that are unexpected. And maybe you haven't been impacted by that yet but I'm sure that at this point most of you have someone in your circle who has. I have a number of people that I know who are people that I love who have lost family members to COVID. I have a friend who's husband survived pancreatic cancer, one of the worst types of cancer that you can get and had been cancer free for nine months and got COVID and ended up dying within three weeks and because of a compromised immune system. And so there's this incredible grief and this incredible pain, but also in the vulnerability of the moment it's causing us to sit up and say, the ways that we have been living are really not in alignment with us being able to survive into the future if COVID is just the introductory lesson which is what our prophecies tell us is that COVID is the introductory lesson. This is the bell that's ringing that's telling us all how we need to shift, how we need to be moving and realigning our lives so that we can be prepared to survive into the future by making these necessary changes to the way that we're living. So we're learning that what we thought we couldn't live without maybe we can, we're learning to pare down, we're learning that community is critically important whether that's family of birth or family of choice. We're learning also that this belief in separation that we've been operating under, this illusion is simply that it's an illusion. We have as a whole been more connected and had more conversations with more people over the last six, seven or eight months than many of us have had in our entire lives. I have people who they're just homebodies, they've never really traveled anywhere, they've never gone anywhere. And they said that they have been introduced just by following some of my webinars and that online Healing Turtle Island gathering this year where we had 45,000 viewers and speakers from 30 different indigenous nations. There are people who tuned into that who had never had any type of contact with anyone outside of their small circle of people living within a 50 to 100 mile radius of them. And so we're learning that this notion of separation is an illusion. I've been in events where there's a great distance between the people who are facing each other on the camera. And then I've been in others where we start out with a moment of conscious connection with one another where we actually feel like we're really in the room with one another. And so recognizing that we can enter into a space within us that sheds the distance between us and actually connects us in tangible ways. That is helping us to move beyond this illusion of separation. And so there's all kinds of things that COVID is teaching us. Certainly it's teaching us that we have infringed upon the habitat of our relatives in the natural world to a degree that is so significant that the animals now have no choice but to give us illness to help us to understand, to respect their right to live their lives unmolested by human activity. The land also has the right to sovereignty. The land has the right to live without the expectation of productivity imposed upon it by human beings. And so when we start thinking about all of the things that we're learning during this time, we're starting to think about what can we do as individuals in order to become part of a larger climate movement. I think that building community collectives where maybe you can't have face-to-face contact with your neighbor, but maybe your neighbor can drop bread off on your doorstep and you can drop a casserole off on their doorstep and you can still be working to share food in some way now that we know that COVID is less likely to be transmitted through food or hand-to-hand contact as opposed to respiratory contact. And so now that we know a little bit more about how it's transmitted, we can take precautions and we can still go back to sharing food with one another. You know, maybe you isolate yourselves and you find a way to live connected to your own pot of people where you're all supporting one another in getting what you need to be able to survive and to sustain yourselves. Maybe you're initiating conversations about what it is that you're learning to live without during this time that really wasn't necessary to your ability to have a full life, even though in the past you thought that it was, you know, maybe it's a Starbucks coffee, you know, whatever it is. So those who know me well, here's my iced tea not in a Dunkin' Donuts cup and it's delicious. And I love it just as much as I loved my easy grab-and-go Dunkin' Donuts. And so, you know, when we start to think about those simple things, it's easy for us to see what we can do individually. It's easy for us to see what we can do collectively. And as we're doing those things, as we're taking it upon ourselves to look through the hundred solutions to climate change and see what fits within your community. Can you form an energy collective within your community where everybody is contributing to a community grid system that helps to move a whole block of people off grid?  Are you committed to helping to restore the soil? Are you committed to protecting the waters as a collective? What is it that you're willing to commit to that you can tune into with a laser sharp focus? Because when we try to do everything, our laser becomes diffused and we're not effective at anything. But when we can, with one group of people, focus our energy on solving one thing that's within those hundred solutions and really working on that as a collective, what we can accomplish is amazing. I just finished working with 150 people from across the United States, developing a strategic plan for climate change under the ACE framework from the UN that has been presented to President-elect Biden. And, you know, there's so many things, so many things that grassroots people can do in order to address the challenges that we're facing. We need to bring carbon back down to earth, right? It's not about eliminating all the carbon. We just don't want it up in the atmosphere. We want to bring it back down. So that's the whole principle behind drawdown. We're drawing it back down. Look into what does that? What can you plant that is gonna draw carbon back down? How can you participate in this global drawdown effort? How can you protect the waterways? Right now in Minnesota, Enbridge, who is a terrible actor, they have an atrocious track record is building what they're calling line three to replace an old damaged pipeline that they don't wanna bother cleaning up. And it's gonna go right through all of these beautiful lakes in Minnesota, right? Right through the lakes region. And it's gonna go right through the wild rice lakes, right through Anishinaabe territory. So they always have to, you know, bring these pipelines through an indigenous territory. And then it's gonna go under the Mississippi River, right? And so when you're thinking about, you know, this country of yours, America, you know, the Mississippi River is part of your folklore, right? And the destruction that is being created as a result of this is catastrophic to the environment and completely heedless about the safety to the human beings who are there. And so they also will have to bring hundreds of people in from some of the areas that are hardest hit, these workers are gonna come in from the Dakotas, right? Where the last pipeline was built and they're gonna come over to Minnesota, hundreds of them, and they're going to be contaminating all of the people who live in these very, very small towns in Minnesota where they have very limited access to healthcare and very, very few hospital beds. And so imagine the catastrophic outcome that this whole project could have, which is being very carelessly fast-tracked. How can you learn about things like that and get involved in that? Good friend of mine, Tara Huska, who's with the GNU Collection, G-I-N-I-W, they have camps on the frontline. You can give to the GNU Collective and help to support them as we're bracing for a quiet holiday season, because we can't gather with our families. They're bracing for a brutal Minnesota winter in this frontline camp to try to stop this pipeline from coming in to destroy their entire territory. And so these are the things that you can do as an individual. You can get on your phone and you can call and you can say, demand that your representatives stop what's going on here, because this has been fast-tracked, permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers under the Trump administration during this lame duck session in order to try to move this forward and get it to the degree where it cannot be stopped, because of these legal principles of equitable stop. So anyway, we won't get into all that, but those are things that you can be doing as individuals to be making a huge difference because not only is it impacting the people in that territory, but everywhere that that water flows. I mean, in that area, in those regions, are some of the largest aquifers that supply water to a huge population of the country. And if those waterways are contaminated by, Dakota Access Pipeline, by Enbridge Line 3 and Keystone XL, they're all coming right through what's called the heartland, where all of those tributaries spill out to feed. And we really need to think about that metaphor. The heart is pumping the blood, the lifeblood of Mother Earth is our sacred waterways. And so when we think about the heart pumping blood and moving all of that water from the heartland out to the people, and it's contaminated by tar sands, which tar sands pipelines always leak because of the bitumen, because it's so viscous, right? And we know this. And so getting involved in those types of activities right now is critically important because there's been a lot of activity that's been taking place while people are distracted by COVID. And they're trying to just quietly move through and wreak this destruction on the land here without anybody noticing. And I think that that's really critically important. And the last thing that I'm gonna answer before we go to question and answers for the last 15 or 20 minutes is how did this election impact us? And what does it mean for our movements? And I think that the easy answer to that is it's too early to tell, right? We all know that Joe Biden has been a big supporter of hydrofracking. What he does going forward remains to be seen whether people can put enough pressure on him to be able to do something differently is something that we're not sure of.  I mean, he doesn't have a great track record. He doesn't have a great track record on race relations. He doesn't have a good track record on indigenous rights. He doesn't have a great track record on the environment. But some of the people that he's putting in place have done better and hopefully they'll have an influence on him. So I just really don't think that we know yet what this election means, but one thing that I do know that it means is that now is the time to put your foot on the Fred Flintstone pedal, right? We don't wanna put our foot on the gas, but just put your feet to the ground. Like here is where we need to be making friction so that we can create movement, not sitting back and saying, oh, thank God we have a new president. Everything's great because the distraction of the distortions of the Trump administration, there's no way Joe Biden would have been elected if we hadn't had a Donald Trump. Just the extremes are the only thing that really got Joe Biden elected if we're being honest about the political situation. And so we can't be distracted by that. We have to recognize that now is the time because all of them have been moving us further and further and further to the right. All of them have been supporting increased destructions of Mother Earth, every single one of them, right? That we've had for the last 50 years has really not moved the arrow on social justice, racial justice, economic justice. And so this is not the time for us to sit back and think that things are gonna be okay. Now is the time for us to say, okay, now is the time for us to really move because we know that there are at least people surrounding the new president who have historically made better choices than the politicians that we've had thus far. And if we can influence them and influence our congressional leaders and hopefully a brand new Senate, let's hope that Georgia comes through for us again, then maybe we can move this arrow back in alignment with sustainability of life on this beautiful earth that we all share. So I'm going to stop there and then I'm gonna open it up for questions. Great, thank you so much Sherry for those words. It's so great to hear from you again after all this time. Yeah, we're collecting some questions, so feel free to add some to the chat, but maybe we'll start with one that feels like you touched upon it, but would love to hear a little bit more about incorporating healing into activism and ask suggestions for how you think that can be integrated thoughtfully and effectively. Yeah, I think that this is really critically important. One of the things that often obstructs our most sincere intentions and our greatest plans for collective action is our lack of willingness to actually do the healing work that needs to be done in order for us to properly connect with one another and to see one another that the training that Abby is talking about that she and some others participated in is one step towards doing that and there are multiple levels of that at this point in time that are now available. Healing the wounds of Turtle Island is another step. Like really getting into looking at what is your history of trauma that you're connected to? And it's not just your ancestral trauma, but what communities have you been connected to that have history of trauma? Because we all have been traumatized, right? We have all either been experiencing, inflicting or witnessing incredible violence and our ancestors have as well for millennia. And so what are the impacts of that trauma on us? How has it influenced us and caused us to see one another in a way that is distorted? Looking at each other through cloudy glass, we might look really scary, but if we're able to clear that lens and really see one another, then we have a greater opportunity to be able to connect and to work with one another effectively toward solving the problems that we're facing rather than fighting over who's got the better idea, right? It's kind of like kids on the playground who say, well, you know, if you're not, if you don't do this, I'm gonna have my dad beat you up and my dad's bigger than your dad kind of stuff, right? We have these built in and ingrained ideas that have influenced the ways that we've related to other people. Maybe we've been taught that this particular group of people over here is dangerous, right? I always say that we have been so conditioned to feel that dark is dangerous, that we apply that to everything. We have been very, very conditioned. I think that it's, you know, the people on this call, the proverbial choir, so to speak, but majority of people on the planet have been conditioned to believe that the forest is dangerous, that the natural world is a dank and dirty place that you just don't wanna be connected to. So there's all kinds of conditioning that we have to be able to undo, you know? It's decolonization if you're here in this country, especially I think most of the people on this call right now. It's really about decolonizing your minds in really powerful ways. And so we have to decolonize our minds. We have to be able to understand the difference between colonization and oppression. We have to recognize that colonization is always attached to an indigenous population who have been in some ways displaced from the lands that are being occupied. And so, you know, going through this process of decolonizing our minds we can look at all the ways that we have been conditioned and entrained to see one another. And sometimes, oftentimes, the very solutions that we need as being dangerous or terrifying is the first step. You can't really go into the other work unless you've been willing to really look at how have I been trained to think by my society, my educational institutions, my religious institution, you know, and whatever social gospel is prominent, how have those things conditioned me and how has punishment conditioned me to view myself and others and behave accordingly, right? That conditioning that comes with punishment that we also heard about at the very beginning from Marisa that was just, you know, so how do you say your name Marisa? Marisa, you know, that we have been really conditioned to be punitive. And we're oftentimes calculating how can I punish this person for doing X, Y, or Z, right?  And so we really need to be able to look into all of these things that are keeping us from connecting and, you know, this, somebody just posted this that we can't heal without spirit or I couldn't see all of it, I just saw a little portion of it. I'm assuming they said spirit. They could have said spirulina for all I know. But I saw SPIR, so I'm assuming. Spiritual growth, no healing is possible without spiritual growth. And that's absolutely true. I mean, one of the illusions of our time is this belief in the separation from spirit, right? And that whole rationalism period of time that created this elitism of being somehow more intelligent and more worldly if you're not attached to specific spiritual beliefs, which is really religiosity, right? And we have to recognize the clear distinction between religiosity and spirit and the difference between being attached to religiosity and being attached to a true process of spiritual growth as well. So let's move on. Thank you so much. Yeah. Thank you for that. I'll jump to Marisa's question since you mentioned her and she has one in the chat. Marisa says that she found that drawdown solutions primarily focused on converting our current lifestyle to a techier or more renewable version, but not as much actually changing the way we live and wonder about your thoughts on that. And if you can suggest resources that might address some of the more fundamental changes like you spoke about communal living, changing our separation worldview and what those resources are that you might point to in addition to drawdown or if you also, and if you also found that about the book.  And I have also done trainings for two of the other biggest conservation climate change orgs on the planet and had to sign an NDA about it. So we won't talk about them, but we will talk about the fact that there has been an effort being made to completely restructure policies and procedures from the inside out for these organizations. And one of the things that I have found in every single organization that I've worked with from the biggest to the smallest is that climate change organizations on a global scale oftentimes are moving people into a marketplace. They're adaptation strategies for climate change. It's not just greenwashed technology, right? It's moving people away from ways of living that are in alignment with the sustaining of our lives. So working with indigenous populations from Amazonia, you know, all the way to Africa. And looking at what are the climate change strategies that have been put forward by the peoples who are most impacted by frontline climate change at this time. All of those solutions have been greenwashed solutions that move those people away from the way of life that has been identified as preserving the greatest amount of land and waterways on the planet and toward a way of life that is actually in alignment with the destruction of the planet. I mean, this is insanity, right? This is insanity where not only are we doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome, but we're actually moving people away from solution-based ways of living toward ways of living that are aligned with problematic ways of being in relation to life. And so I think that this is a huge problem and it's not just in one area. It's not just in one climate change organization. It's across the board that this is happening. So, you know, you're right on the money, Marie, so that this is a problem that needs to be addressed. And what we need to be doing is we need to be looking at climate change adaptation that's in alignment with the cultural values of the people who are being removed, but also that's in alignment with ways of living and ways of being and ways of knowing that are more connected to the Earth, that are more respectful of other living beings and that are moving people back towards a more indigenized relationship with life. So. Thank you. I missed that first resource when you started and I wanted to write it down. It sounded like, yeah. Mia's tarot is what it sounds like to me. Nia tarot is the organization that I, that I was able to name because Nia tarot, I'm on, you read it that I'm on there advisory. Great. Perfect.  Great. Yeah. And so that was something that we talked about and we addressed that, you know, we can't be moving people into, you know, you can't go and take an indigenous population. We'll just say in the middle of the Amazon, who has been affected by deforestation and they've been completely displaced and then try to move them into some marketplace economy way of living that's completely foreign to them, but also is in alignment with the destruction of the planet and call that a climate change solution because it's not a climate change solution. It's not a climate change solution. It's not a climate change solution. Any more than creating a cap and trade market for our air.   And that's why I was like, okay, fine. I'm not mad that we're not in the Paris agreement because everybody agreed to it because it's a creation of a, of a commodities market. And the commodity is our air. It's our, our supply chain. So we have to think and think about, what is a climate change solution? And what is not a climate change solution. And stop promoting the go along to get along. False promises that green wash solutions are providing to us. That's a perfect transition to a question from Isaac. It sounds like you already somewhat answered it. But he asks it. Do you think the attempt to maintain economic growth, globally, is a barrier to understanding our society's need for more transformational change, including our need to reduce consumption and live collectively. Absolutely, I do, 100%.  And so, really moving yourself as an individual, one of the most powerful things that you can do. And that's what the whole system is going to be based on here at what you can tell Tina is really looking at a maternal economy. And so, we have to put in our imagery, what is a whole healthy loving mother do to care for her children? A whole healthy loving mother makes sure that her children have enough, right? And I talk about this in sacred instructions, I talk about mama bezu and ala bezu.  I have enough food, I have enough shelter, I have sense of belonging, I have a sense of security, everything that I need to be well and to be whole so that whatever I'm carrying within me can actually rise up and come forward and benefit the whole rest of the community, right? And the whole rest of life. And ala bezu is does everyone have enough, right? And we recognize that mama bezu can't exist. I can't have enough if ala bezu isn't true because part of my sense of well-being is connected to the well-being of all others. So, if I have this false sense of well-being, but all others don't have that same sense of well-being, my sense of well-being is not full, it's not whole. And so, the two of those things go hand in hand. And so, how can you create a community structure?      And her response was, I don't want them to be embarrassed if they see me on the street. And so, you know, she was preserving their sense of dignity. She didn't want them to feel like they had to ask for something in order to have everything that they needed to be okay. She wanted to make sure that they were provided with that without any expectation to give something back to someone else. And I have 65 first cousins. My grandparents had 14 children and we are a prolific group, right? And so, she made sure that we all had enough. But then she also made sure that everyone else in the community had enough. She was the living example of that. When she passed, they talked about her in regard to this really pure form of love, right? What is the word? Somebody knows the word. I know the word. I just can't think of it right now. Agape? Agape. And so, she just had this pure form of mother love where there were hundreds of people at her funeral talking about how when they were a small child, she always made sure they had winter boots because their parents had a big family and they couldn't afford to make sure everybody had good winter boots, gloves, hats, mittens, coats. She made sure everybody had those things. And that's really what it's all about. And we need to move away from this thinking about an economy in return in regard to winners or losers. Something else that I talk about in the book is this concept of competition. That we have, we always had competition within our traditional societies. But for us, competition never determined someone's ability to be able to live or die, right? Someone's ability to be able to sustain themselves. We now live in a society and have an economy that's based on this sense of competition where people are, the outcome of that competition is going to determine whether somebody keeps their home, whether they keep their job, whether they're able to feed their family, whether they have to choose between food and medicine, whether they have to choose between heating their house and feeding their kids. There needs to be an elimination of all of those forms of competition that have those types of outcomes. And the economy that currently exists is based on the development of greater and greater aspects of competition and an equitable exchange balance, an equitable power balance that can never get us to the place that an economy based on maternal love, maternal economy that has principles of Mamabizu and Alibizu balanced can deliver to us. Thank you so much. I wonder if you have time for one final question and then we want to make sure that you have time to prepare. Yeah, we want you to prepare for the storm as best you can. And we so appreciate your time and you've given us so much to think and talk about. But maybe if we can end on a question that really focuses on centering justice in the work that we're doing as climate activists and organizers and how we do that well, especially for those of us who are white or have other privileges. And there's some questions about how that might be similar or different when we're talking about the work of decolonization and anti-racism or the flip side colonization and oppression and like working to dismantle those because there are similarities and differences. But whatever your final thoughts are on that bundle of questions, we would so appreciate it. And then and then we will be also talking about those themes and questions in smaller breakout groups and really for the entirety of the work that we're doing. So we don't expect you to. Yeah, these are these will this will launch us into our small group. Well, you know, obviously I can't answer the whole thing. But I would like to say to the debate that's going on on the chat that it's really a good idea to not get locked up in terminology and to just, you know, recognize where is the convergence of interest, right? Because that's another form of competition. Well, I like to say this. No, I want to say this. And you know, we really need to start thinking about that. If we're going to start thinking about justice, we need to start thinking about the ways that we engage one another and the ways that we engage life and and how can we have conversation about something that's really critically important. Our lives literally depend on how we engage this conversation right now. The the life. So I'm a grandmother now. Some of you may not know that. And so, congratulations. Yay. Yeah. And so I have this amazing two year old granddaughter who I want to be able to not only survive into the future and someday be a mother herself, but I would love for her to be able to thrive. That's not possible if if I can't get over myself and show up for the work that needs to be done. And so, so when we're talking about justice, I mean, it starts with an individual, right? But also, the centering of social justice issues is at the heart of the problems that we're facing. If you look at environmental destruction, environmental racism has been a huge problem. And, you know, back in the 1930s, Felix Cohen said that the American Indian is the miners canary and signaled the the shift from fresh air to poisonous gas in our political systems.  And, and not having learned from what those who have been on the front lines have been trying to warn about forever. I mean, when I was a little girl, you know, back in the 70s, they had that commercial of that fake Indian guy from Sicilian guy with the one tear coming down his face, right, to demonstrate, look at the pollution out here so that we could get a clean air act and clean water act passed in in Congress. And now here we are with one administration, three and a half years of functional, I don't know if we can call it leadership, functional governance that has unraveled some of our most important protections environmentally 50 years, right. And so, you know, when I, when I'm talking about this stuff, there's a class that I teach online, it's available on my website called the cultivation of warriors or talk about soil, right. And, you know, what does the soil need to grow, there's this whole list of things, but there's also a warning, you know, because it's really about how do we cultivate the soil that we're growing our future leaders in, that the soil can be contaminated in one day, one line three Enbridge Pipelines bill can contaminate the soil for a generation. You know, and also, thank you Julie, there's there's also a class that I'm teaching right now on, if you go to my website that Julie's just posting on the front page of it, it'll say check out this new class teaching a class that starts on the 15th and there's only 100 spots open in that class and I've gotten I've gotten a lot of emails from people saying I'm going to register for your class. And so, you know, it's first come first serve because it's all done online. And I'm teaching the six week seminar with a colleague of mine, Dr. Darren Ranko, who is the chair of the native studies program at the University of Maine. He is one of the most brilliant thinkers about this. These issues that that I've ever worked with. And he and I have a lot of respect for one another and we're going to teach this course together on racism colonization and other distortions of thought. So, you know, there's whole glossary of terms that's going to be included with that seminar. And it's important for people to understand how can I be an effective ally? How can I navigate issues of race and colonization and oppression and privilege and understand the distinctions between all of these different things and how they intersect and how I can be an effective change maker in the midst of all of this confusion because it gets so complicated and people don't understand the terminology. You know, one of the catchphrases of the day is let's decolonize decolonization because everything's being labeled decolonization and not everything is decolonization. And so, you know, there's a there's a minefield to navigate as we're moving through this time. And so this course is specifically designed to address that issue, Abby. And we're doing it in a six week seminar. So, you know, being able to understand look for some resources that help you to understand all of the terminology be willing to do the work and and be willing to learn to educate yourself and ask a lot of questions. I think that, you know, one of the things that I talk about as a core value and sacred instructions is being humble. And the key to good leadership is being humble. And what that translates to is being willing to learn, right, continuing to have an openness for learning, because if you take on a leadership role and you're unwilling to listen to anyone else, if you're unwilling to learn, then you're going to be a terrible leader.  And I've seen a lot of people who are old line activists who are just like, ah, you know, I just I'm too old to change. I'll leave that to the younger people.  If you're going to take up space, then you need to take up space from a perspective of being willing to learn and to grow and to move with what's going on. Otherwise, you're hindrance to the to the movement, you know, in some ways. And, you know, maybe you're just a teacher in the movement of showing everybody else how how, how things need to change. So, you know, I think that that this is something that people really need to be thinking about and looking at that everything that we're leaving to the young people is going to crush them. Right. And so we need to really hold up our part of the sky right now. And everybody needs to be doing that everybody needs to be holding up their part of the sky and that means really centering social justice work, you know, in regard to racial equity, economic equity, looking at the disproportionate impacts of climate change on certain populations, whatever that is that needs to be a central part of the discussion. Otherwise, you're going to be completely ineffective at doing network. So thank you so much, Sherry. Thank you all so much to think about and continue learning and discussing and we're so grateful for you sharing part of this snowy or rainy afternoon with us. Yeah, thank you for having us near your fire. Yeah, it's it's wonderful and there's a there's actually a good solid coating of snow out there. So I'm excited it's going to crunch under my feet. You can imagine it when I go out and I pick up some snows. So thank you all so much for having me and for being in this work. Thank you for showing up in a time that is so challenging in a time where people are struggling to just get through their day to day life. Thank you for continuing to show up because the work that you're doing in regard to climate change with 350 Vermont, this work is for the benefit of us all. And I just want to acknowledge and honor you for doing that. So thank you very much. Thank you so much.


Hello, I welcome you all once again to my channel Explore Education. I am Dr. Rashmi Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of Education, Assistant Schrinna Girls 2D College, University of Allahabad. And this time I am going to discuss with you a very new concept for you that is learning of concepts and principles. Okay, so it is under the syllabus of educational psychology and this lecture will be useful for you as well as it is a conceptual understanding for you. So we are going to study learning of concepts and principles. So what you have to study is concept formation, concept mapping, mapping and learning of concepts and principles. So concept formation and concept mapping, but I have already talked to you about it. This was a small topic but it was creating a loophole in the middle, it was creating a gap in the middle, so let's complete it so that you can understand the totality. Look, learning of concepts and principle learning, I mean learning of concepts or concept learning and principle learning, to understand it, we have to understand the hierarchy of gain and hierarchy of learning. And the hierarchy of learning, the conditions of learning, I have already talked to you about it in two videos already on gain. So you can understand it from there, but to connect this line, where is the concept learning and principle learning and what is the connection between them, I am sharing this diagram with you. Look, the hierarchy for the gain, hierarchy means that according to the rules, according to the rules, it means everyone's rules, you can't do it above anyone, this is the hierarchy set, that the lowest one is signal learning, after that there is stimulus response learning, SR learning, then chaining, then verbal association, then multiple discrimination, then concept learning comes, then rule learning or it is called principle learning and the top problem solving gain problem solving is the most difficult one and signal learning is the most difficult one. So this is the hierarchy and it also means that first the person learns from the signal, then after the stimulus response, that is, the connection of the stimulus response, that is, you can understand it through conditioning, then when these many stimulus are connected, and then the person learns how to respond to the stimulus of the stimulus, then verbal association, that is, the relationship between them is established, which is verbal, then multiple discrimination, you learn to behave in it, that this way of association is different from this association, it is different from that association, and as soon as you learn to discriminate, your concept formation is formed, that this way of characteristic, all the objects will come under this concept, they will come like this, then when there is a relationship between many concepts, then it becomes a principle, because it becomes a rule, and when a person learns a rule, then he comes into the state of problem solving. Now let's see what learning of concepts is. I have talked about concept formation before, so you can understand it, you will understand that concept learning is also known as it is known as a category learning, it is known as concept attainment and it is known as concept formation. The concept attainment model of the groomer is also there, you can check it out, so he is saying that he knows it from so many names, and what is its meaning? The search for and listing of attributes, that is, we search for those qualities that we can make a list, that can be used to distinguish exemplars from non-exemplars of various categories, meaning that we have found the category in different categories, in that we find which attributes we can make a list of and distinguish between non-exemplars, as soon as you distinguish between non-exemplar and non-exemplar, i.e. you will keep things as one side, you will distinguish the other, the same concept will be formed, because what is the concept? Let us assume that there is a concept of a bird, a concept of birds walking on the street, what do we see in it? How does its concept form, that it will walk on four feet, it will see you walking on that street, it will see you walking on that street, this is your concept, but then we learn from different elements in that concept that the dog is different from the cat, the cat is different from the horse, the horse is different from the cow, so what is the concept of all this? Then he is saying that more simply put, concepts are the mental categories, that is, we say in all other languages, the concepts that we have come up with are the mental categories, i.e. a category formed in the mind, that help us classify, through which we get help, we are able to make use of it, that it is based on the understanding that each object, event and idea has a set of common relevant features, according to which it has come up with that concept, it has some common features, that is why it is in that concept, the other common feature concept is made like this, thus concept learning is a strategy that requires a learner to compare and contrast groups or categories that contain concept relevant features with groups or categories that do not contain concept relevant features, i.e. a chop has come up, there are four legs, all of them have come forward, there are two legs, then they have come forward, so the concept relevant feature is different, on the one hand, the concept irrelevant feature is different, then in that concept, everyone will become a concept that this is, this is, this is, let's go separately, so it is the principle of the concept of a common relevant feature. The human and machine learner of concept learning task is trained to classify objects by being shown a set of example objects along with their class levels, the learner simplifies what has been observed by condensing it in the form of an example, and the learner who is going to learn it makes it simple in such a way that he understands that if there are so many rules, then this concept will become a part of the example, this simplified version of what has been learned is then applied to future examples, and when we have learned that this concept should have these rules in this concept, then we can use it in other examples, we can apply it, so this is the learning of concept, then learning of principle, we have seen the hierarchy of the concept, we will learn the principle first, why? Because there are many concepts involved in the principle, that is, there are many examples of rules in this concept, so what it is saying is that a principle is composed of two or more concepts, that is, more than two or more examples of rules or principles, and this concept should have a chromic relationship, it is not that a concept is there, a concept is here, no one will become a principle, no, the concept that comes in the principle will have a relationship, it will have an ordered relationship, a principle has been learned when it can be shown that a problem involving specific concepts can be solved by identifying these concepts correctly and placing them in the correctly ordered relationship with each other, in other words, by applying the rule, what is it saying? This principle has been learned, that is, you can learn a principle when it can be shown that a problem involving specific concepts, that is, a specific concept has come in some problem and how can you solve it when you set that concept in an order that is their order and that problem will be solved. The principle is a capability that makes possible the demonstration of a sequence of behavior, each element of which may involve a concept. And the principle or the rule, it has this capability that the sequence of behavior and the concept involved in it, what do you mean by saying that the concept is involved in it, there is a relationship and that relationship is ordered when you put the ordered concepts in an ordered relationship, it becomes a principle itself. Principles are learned under conditions that have two major requirements and when can be learnt, what are the requirements of the two main points of learning the rule, what are the principles, the first thing, the component concepts of which they are composed must be previously learned, that is, in that principle, the concepts that come within, you should first know, first you will learn, then you will be able to learn the principle and readily recallable and you can recall it too when you want to remember it and communication, usually verbal must be made to the learner indicating the correct sequence of these components. And communication which is mostly the language through which the learner will know that the components or concepts, what is their correct sequence, if they both know, then you will learn the principle. Then it is said that learning abstract principles is an essential goal of education, we always have certain principles which we have to think about, we do not see them, we do not touch them, but such principles can be difficult to acquire, but it is a little difficult to learn these principles. So, it is said that if you learn analogical encoding, can facilitate the acquisition of a principle when the principle is difficult to understand. It is said that when it is difficult to learn a principle, then you can easily learn it from analogical encoding. What is analogical encoding? What is encoding? We make a code, let's make a code. What is decode? To break the code. What is encoding? To make a code. And what is analogical? That is, some form. Let's make a code of something that looks like one. So, it is said that a growing body of evidence indicates that comparing two examples can facilitate learning and transfer comparing examples focuses the learner on the common relational structure. So, what is common? Let's look for this. Adding abstraction of the underlying schema. You all know that the schema is a concept in the development of PRJ's cognitive development. So, the schema is a mental image. So, the abstraction of that mental image will help. This is a common feature. This is a relevant feature which is similar. Thus, comparing two analogs leads to abstraction by focusing the learner on the deep structure shared by the cases. So, if we look at two analogs from one place, but they are not one, then the common features that you extract and separate them and keep them in your mind, then what will happen is that the two analogs of the structure share their deep structure with each other. It will come into your mind, it will become a list, it will become a search, rather than on the idiosyncratic features of an individual case. That is to say, if you see the viscist above, instead of that, the deep structure, that is, beneath, they share something that you list from the common features. So, what will happen is that it will be easier for you to learn the abstract principles. Analogical encoding is a kind of pre-requisite, it is a kind of facilitation. Like you learn abstract principles. And the other concrete principles are that you should know the concept and you should know the sequence. As soon as you use the concepts used in the principle, you will get an ordered sequence. The principle will become, you will understand. So, this is it. Generally, you do not get a matter on this. And especially on the net, if you look for learning of principles, no, no, if you look for the principle learning, then it tells you the learning of principles. You do not get the principle learning quickly. So, first of all, try to understand the hierarchy of the guide, the principle learning is above, the concept is below it. To learn the principle, you have to know the concept first. And the concept learning is also called concept formation, concept attainment is also called. So, you see the model of Bruner, what is the concept attainment. There is detail, I have shared the concept formation and concept mapping both already. You see from there. So, this will be completed. Okay. So, in this way, I have completed this very topic too. So, thank you and do not forget to like and subscribe my channel, Explore Education. I have done from my side.


Now I'm going to show you how to safely use a Bunsen burner in the lab So if you notice this is what a Bunsen burner would look like. This is what you'll see when you go to the lab So this is a Bunsen burner and it's attached to the rubber tubing this rubber tubing Actually attaches to a gas outlet right here So it's important for you to know How the gas outlet functions? So right now the gas outlet is actually in the off position And you know this because the gas handle right here, which is a part of the outlet It is perpendicular to the nozzle right here. That's how you know that the gas is in the off position So in order for you to use a Bunsen burner you have to make sure that you turn the gas Handle to the on position in that case. It will be perpendicular to the gas nozzle right here so Before we actually use a Bunsen burner We're going to use this to light the Bunsen burner, which is called a striker So you want to practice using the striker so that you know definitely it will ignite the gas Fumes as it comes out of the Bunsen burner. So you want to forcefully move the The striker so that it ignites against this gasket here So you want to move it so that you see sparks That's how you know the striker is working So I'm going to light my Bunsen burner now. I'm going to attach the tubing Firmly to the outlet another thing you need to look at you need to observe your tubing to make sure it doesn't have any leaks Or any cracks. So let me just do that So you're looking at your tubing to make sure there are no cracks and there are none so we're going to attach the Bunsen burner back onto the gas outlet and What you want to do is to turn the gas handle Until you hear the sound of gas coming out of the Bunsen burner So you don't want to turn it all the way on Because you want to protect yourself from being burnt So I hear the gas coming out of the Bunsen burner So I'm going to now light the Bunsen burner and If you notice you have your nice blue flame, which is what you want to see So when you're actually using the Bunsen burner, let's say you're heating up a Substance as part of your experiment You want to make sure that the test tube is held away from you so that any fumes That possibly could be escaping through the hole in the test tube. You would not directly get affected by this So when you're finished heating Note that your test tube is hot. So you need to hold it with a test tube holder You're going to put it securely away in the test tube rack here So you put it away so that nobody can Touch it and as a result get burned and then you're going to turn off your Bunsen burner by switching it to the off position which is perpendicular to the gas nozzle and then you Remove the tubing from the gas outlet and that is how you use your Bunsen burner


A great city of Shanghai on a September day in 1937, a new kind of war. The first mass bombing from the air of a helpless civilian population.  To find the answer to this question, we must first understand something about China and Japan. And to understand China, three facts must never be forgotten. China is history. China is land. China is people. Chinese history goes back for more than 4,000 years. That's a long time. It was only 168 years ago that Washington crossed the Delaware. Only 452 years have passed since Columbus discovered America. It's 1,500 years since the world saw the fall of the ancient Roman Empire. 3,400 years have gone by since Moses received the 10 Commandments. 3,700 years have passed since the pyramids were built. But more than 4,000 years ago, the Chinese Empire was already in existence. And more important, so was the Chinese civilization, a civilization of art and learning and peace. Yes, China is history. And China is also land. More land than the entire continent of Europe, a third larger than the United States, and rich in raw materials. This vast area consists of China proper and four outer provinces. To the north is Manchuria, huge and desolate, but abounding in raw materials. Next to Manchuria are Mongolia and Xinjiang. Here lies the Gobi Desert, a vast plateau twice the size of Texas, inhabited by nomad tribes who lead their camel caravans back and forth over ancient trade routes. To the west is Tibet, the icy roof of the world, its borders encompassing the eastern end of the Himalayan mountains, the mystery land that few have entered. And from these vast mountains of the west rise the three great rivers. The northern most of these is the Hwang Ho, the Yellow River, far to the south flows the Sikyang, the Pearl River, which enters the sea past the great ports of Canton and Hong Kong. But the greatest river of all is the one that flows between the Yangtzee, winding for 3,000 miles through the heart of China, bringing fertility to the good earth and bearing upon its broad waters half the commerce of China. Yes, China is land. Next to Russia, the largest country in the world. But most important, China is people. 450 million of them, population of China were to walk past you for a breath that would never be an end to the procession. For new Chinese would be born and would grow up before the last man could pass by. Of every five persons on the face of the earth, one is a Chinese. And since one fifth of all the human beings in the world are Chinese, we should know what sort of people they are.  They're that sort of people. They developed the art of printing for movable type. They invented the Mariner's compass, without which no ocean could be crossed. They were among the first astronomers. And their observations of the stars and planets made possible the accurate measuring and recording of time. They are that sort of people. And why do we call our dishes China? Because the Chinese invented the art of making porcelain. And as we all know, they invented gunpowder, not as a weapon of war, but to celebrate their holidays and religious festivals. And it was one of China's great philosophers who, 500 years before the birth of Christ, gave mankind these words. What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. They are that sort of people, enriching the world in which we live. Yes, China is incredibly old, incredibly big, incredibly populous. Yet it was until recently a land with which few of us concerned ourselves. But now a great change has taken place. China is now our fighting ally. Or more accurately, we are China. But China has been fighting our enemy, Japan, for seven long years. Why is this?  Because China is land, four million square miles of it. And because China is people, 450 million of them. And because Japan had a plan to use them both. That plan was finally stated in the Tanaka Memorial, a blueprint for world conquest, formulated in 1927 by Baron Gishi Tanaka, the Japanese foreign minister. In order to conquer the world, we must first conquer China. Here was their mad dream. Phase one, the conquest of Manchuria for raw materials. Phase two, the absorption of China for manpower. Piece by piece, so as not to arouse the rest of the world. Phase three, a triumphant sweep to the south to seize the riches of the Indies. Phase four, the eastward move to crush the United States. One fact was obvious. China was to be the giant back on which Japan would ride to world conquest. Just as Russia was to be enslaved for German use. But how was it possible for Japan, only one 20th the size of China, and with only one sixth its population, to think of conquering China, much less the world? There were two main reasons for this. In the first place, modern China, in spite of its age-old history, was like the broken pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece controlled by a different ruler, each with his own private army. In modern terms, China was a country, but not yet a nation. While Japan was a united, well-knit, highly regimented military dictatorship. Second reason lies in the uses each country made of our Western civilization. Let's see what China took. You will notice that this is a very old piece of film. Actually, it is more than 30 years old, and it shows a very great man by the name of Sun Yat-sen. In 1911, this man fathered a people's revolution, which brought to an end China's ancient imperial government and began its new era as a modern republic. Winning for himself in Chinese history a secure a place as George Washington has in ours. And he and his followers chose for the cornerstone of their new republic, Chinese words that echoed those of another believer in democracy. Government of the people, by the people, for the people. And to make these principles become reality, they built more schools and colleges. They established scholarships so that their young men and women could go forth to the universities of America and Europe and bring back to their own country other Western ideas. And this new generation returned to China with new techniques of industry. Architecture, science, medicine. They built more hospitals to free their people from the blight of disease. They introduced compulsory education. They laid down as essential two of the four freedoms for which we fight today, freedom of expression and freedom of religion. In 1925, Sun Yat-sen died. But his disciples, led by Chiang Kai-shek, carried on his monumental work, their aim, the unification and modernization of China. Chinese industry was old fashioned and inefficient. Transportation was slow and inadequate. But now railroads began to link the great seaports and river harbors with the inland cities. A network of highways began to stretch beyond the railroad lines into the deep interior. After leaving them untouched for centuries, China was beginning to use her vast store of raw materials. Soon the tools and machines of the new factories were delivering the goods and products for China's new economy. For the Chinese believed in using the best of Western civilization for the progress of their country. And while they were building this new nation, just a day and a half by steamer across the Yellow Sea lay Japan. God Emperor and his fanatic warlords were using this same Western civilization for one purpose and only one, to create one of the world's most powerful war machines. Their aim, the absorption of China and the fulfillment of the Tanaka Memorial. Here, Japan had deliberately copied military weapons and industrial techniques discovered in other countries. For years, Japan, under the pretext of lacking raw materials for industry, had been buying in every corner of the world materials not only to build this war machine, but materials which could be stored to feed it in the war of conquest they were planning. For years, while other nations were trying to outlaw war by reducing armaments, Japan was feverishly and secretly building a modern army, a modern navy, a modern air force to strike its infamous blow at the civilized world. And we all now know about the islands in the Pacific that Japan fortified in violation of all international treaties. These were the reasons why it was possible for Japan, only 120th the size of China, and only 1 6th the population of China to think of conquering China as the first step to world conquest. And as you have seen, in 1931, they embarked on phase one, the occupation of Manchuria, a small bonfire that the Japanese lit in Manchuria was to grow and spread with uncontrollable fury until the entire world was aflame. And if the Tanaka plan was completed, and exactly as planned, the Japs had been confident that this first and sudden land grab could be accomplished without their becoming involved in a major war. And they were right. The unification of China was still too remote for the Chinese of the South to care what happened to their kinsmen in the North. Using the step-by-step technique, a few months later, the Japs took a crack at Shanghai. These resistance was so great, they hastily called that deal off, waited another year, and then struck in the North again, carving the province of Yehole out of China proper. This too, they got away with. World criticized, the Chinese protested, but still, the Japs got what they wanted, another piece of China, and without a war on their hands. And to rule over Manchuria and Yehole, the Japs then set up a puppet government under their stooge, Henry Puyi, the Chinese quisling prince. But the leaders of New China remembered that in other centuries, other barbarians had invaded their country. The evidence still stood in the Great Wall, built by their ancestors more than 2,000 years earlier, and stretching for 1,400 miles across mountain and desert to protect themselves from the barbarians of the North. Of the Great Wall, it has been said that it is the only work of man which would be visible from the moon. But the Chinese knew that modern barbarians can't be stopped by a wall, however strong or high. They can't even be stopped by people, unless the people are united. And by 1937, the unification of China was making such progress the Japs got worried. The one weapon they could not permit China was unity. They would strike again before China could become a nation. This time, it would be a big bite. Five more Northern provinces out of the heart of China. At the United States Embassy in China as military attaché for a number of years was Colonel William Mayer. Let him tell you what happened. The first thing the Japs did was to prepare their usual fake alibi. This time, it wasn't a damaged railway track as it had been in Manchuria in 1931. A Jap soldier had disappeared. Obviously, he'd been kidnapped by the insolent Chinese. Once more, Japan's honor had been insulted. Once more, the insult must be avenged. So, on the night of July 7th, 1937, at the Marco Polo Bridge near Peking, the Jap war machine struck. Within the space of the few weeks, the invaders were in control of Tinson and Bapin. It looked as if the Japs were going to have another walkover. Now the Japs sat back to digest and organize this new conquest. The peace-loving Japanese didn't want a war if they could get their land grabs without one. But this time, they were in for a rude surprise. This time, instead of protesting or negotiating, the Chinese struck back. And not in the north, but at Shanghai, where the Japs least expected, but we must know something about the city of Shanghai itself. Situated near the mouth of the Yangtze River, it is the biggest city in China. As the largest seaport in the Far East, it dominated the commerce and foreign trade of China. And through its great docks and chandles passed most of the wealth of the Orient. In Shanghai, truly the East met the West. In this city of three and a half million Chinese was another city, the Foreign Settlement. Made up of the French concession and the well-known international settlement. There, the various powers, including Great Britain, the United States, and Japan, had stationed detachments of troops, Japanese, British, French, and our own United States Marines to assist the police of the Shanghai Municipal Council in the preservation of peace and order and to protect the boundaries of the international settlement. These detachments were limited in size, but the Japs secretly and in violation of all treaty agreements had increased their garrisons so that when fighting started on the border of their concession in August of 1937, they thought they were fully prepared for any eventuality. So the Chinese counterattack almost drove the Japs into the Wangpu River. Backed up by the heavy guns of their warships, however, the Japs managed to hold out until reinforcements arrived. Japs landings were then made in the vicinity of the Wuxiang forts and in Luhou and Lotian on the Yangtze River north of Shanghai. The Chinese drew back to positions five or 10 miles inland where they could secure some protection from the heavy Japs naval gunfire. At the same time, the invaders succeeded in making a surprise landing some 20 miles to the south of Shanghai. Put two divisions short and pushed rapidly north to outflank the city. The Chinese position was thus made untenable and a withdrawal was ordered to the west and to the south toward Nanking and Hangchao. But only about half of the Chinese army that had fought at Shanghai was left to withdraw. Meanwhile, enraged at the very idea of anyone resisting the Imperial Japanese might, the Japs took their vengeance upon the civilian population of the city. A city without guns or planes to defend itself and deliberately slaughtered thousands from the air. Refuge inside the international settle where Japan was afraid to bomb the property and people of the foreign powers. Just yet, the beach you found safety inside, there were thousands fluttled beyond the gates, standing helpless and undefended against the Jap attacks. There was no escape for these surging and panic-stricken people. They scurry through the narrow streets, pushing and packing themselves into the center of the city to be trapped and buried alive in the collapse of bombed and burning buildings. Japanese introduced the world to a new kind of war, mass murder. Of deliberate pain was over, the Japs occupied the entire peninsula east of Shanghai. Reorganizing rapidly, they then launched a coordinated drive on Nanking. One column pushed along the railroad while another swung further to the south. This column then split and continued its drive, hoping to cut off any possible retreat of the Chinese armies defending Nanking. It was here in the Yangtzee that the blood-crazed Japs attacked an American gunboat, the USS Panay, despite its distinctive markings. It bombed and sunk with the loss of American lives, the first American warship to go to the bottom in this war. But officially, at least, this was a mistake and the Japanese government apologized. Meantime, at Nanking, Chinese armies valiantly defended their city, which was the capital of the Chinese Republic. The city fell to the invaders. The Japs again outdid themselves in barbarism. The helpless populace was trapped by the city walls. They could not flee. The soldiers went berserk. They raped and tortured. Bloodiest massacres of recorded history.  These scenes were photographed by an American missionary and smuggled out of China after the rape of Nanking. This nightmare of cruelty was all the more horrible because it was deliberately planned by the Japanese High Command to tear the heart out of the Chinese people once and forever. That which Sun Yat-sen had dreamed of, that which Chiang Kai-shek had toiled for, that which is stronger than stone walls had at last been born in China, the will to resist. The Japanese had accomplished what 4,000 years had failed to bring into being a united China, an aroused China. The Chinese knew that the will to resist was not by itself enough. They knew that China must develop the power to resist also. And this was the reason why the Japanese were so desperate to fight the Japanese. The Japanese were so desperate to fight the Japanese. They were so desperate to fight the Japanese. And this cannot be created in an instant. So they too made a plan. And it was this. They would slowly yield territory piece by piece while they developed the power and built the weapons to rid the land of its invaders. The industrial strength of China must be moved to the west beyond the mountains, beyond the railroad lines, beyond the lines of communication. They are safe from enemy attacks. They might produce the rifles and guns that China so tragically needed. Thus China would trade space for time. Space for time. Blow up the roads. Forge the earth. Leave nothing for the invaders. And the people rose and moved. Riding, walking, crawling. Spontaneously driven by an epic impulse. Rows and made their way west. Moving westward on a trek that stretched through 2,000 miles of roadless wilderness. Thus the world witnessed one of the most amazing spectacles in human history. The greatest mass migration ever recorded. Whatever could be of use and could be moved, the Chinese took with them on a Homeric journey. Their libraries. Their schools. Their hospitals. All dismantled and carted away. The machinery from over a thousand factories weighing over 300 million pounds was moved away in trucks and ox carts and on their backs. 2,000 miles away. 2,000 miles west. Wherever they could, they gathered along the few remaining railroads waiting, hoping for some chance to ride part of the way toward their westward goal. And when they had packed the last train with the last ounce of humanity and machinery, the tracks themselves were taken up. Rail by rail. Tie by tie. To be transported westward. To leave nothing for the enemy. Pointing westward was heavy laden. Every sandpan, every bar was pressed into service. Weighted down to the water's edge with the precious tools for new China. Not even the rivers that narrowed the mountain gorges. Westward with their loads of machinery more precious than gold. It was measured by the mile. By feet. By inches. The trail they broke was moistened every step of the way by their sweat. Where there were no trains, no boats, no ox carts, there were still willing hands and willing feet and straining backs. 30 million people moving westward. Westward from the invader. Westward from slavery and death. Westward to freedom. Cities sprang in the fresh and modern life. Chief of them all was the new capital of free China. Chongqing. It's high above the Yangtze River that Chinese had re-established their government. They knew, however, that the people of the city would not be safe from Jap aerates. The memories of Shanghai were fresh in their minds. And in the sandstone cliff on which the city is built, thousands of workmen rushed the construction of enormous caves with shelters for the people and for the pitifully few machines. More important than life. To the Japs, Chongqing became the heart of the Chinese nation they were determined to conquer. Destroyed Chongqing and they would break the spirit of new China. Still alive? The city by land. They would send their bombers to blast it from the face of the earth. These Japanese armadas, slow and obsolete Chinese planes, made a suicidal attempt to defend Chongqing. Japanese planes near Japanese bombs could destroy the life of the city. But not only the people, but the factories had gone underground. Where the vital machines could operate by day and by night. Safe from bombs and shrapnel. These had anticipated their enemy. In spite of bombs and fire and destruction, this time the Chinese stood fast in the symbol of their indestructible spirit. Bold arms sounded throughout new China. From the vast interior, China's millions answered the call to form a people's army. With a new faith in their hearts, men and women left their homes and farms to fight for something bigger now than each man's home and each man's farm in each man's life. They were fighting for new China. Soldiers awkward and unskilled like all new soldiers. But they toughened and trained. They knew they must strike and strike hard. They learned to kill. China also came forward, training to care for the sick and the wounded. Girls joined their husbands, brothers and sweethearts in uniform. China came volunteers from other lands. Men who pledged themselves to fight against tyranny and oppression no matter where. Americans like the legendary Colonel Shandong and his flying Tigers who, with their few American planes, were knocking down enemy planes at the fantastic ratio of 20 nips to one of their own. The Japs had hoped to ride to World Conquest on the back of the giant Chinese workhorse. Phase two of the Tanaka Plan called for breaking the horse to their will. But the great patient horse refused to be broken. The enraged Japs saw their whole plan of conquest bogging down. So they set out to drain the giant's strength by cutting the arteries through which flowed China's lifeblood of supplies. They penetrated along the rivers. Railroads destroyed by the Chinese were rebuilt with slave labor. As the Japanese moved inland they made sure control of key rail lines and important communications. And China's supply lines from the outside world were cut off by Jap warships blockading the coast. The Japanese strategy was the isolation of China. Port after port was occupied. This meant China was being cut off from supplies she couldn't manufacture for herself. Supplies she was getting from her western friends without oil, gas, guns and planes. China was doomed. With the whole of the Chinese coast in the hands of the Japs there would only be two routes over which to bring the vitally necessary materials. From Indochina a narrow gauge railway ran inland from the sea to Kunming connecting with a truck road that went to Chongqing. But its capacity was limited. And then there was the old trail of the camel caravans from Russia across the Gobi Desert which could bring in even less. Not only did these routes provide too little for China's needs but they were too near Jap territory to be safe. There was only one other possibility. In Burma was a railroad that ran from the port of Rangoon to Lashill. Separating it from the truck road at Kunming were hundreds of miles of high mountains and deep river gorges. If this stretch of... If this stretch of tortuous mountain trails could be replaced by a modern highway where now only pack trains could pick their plodding way China would have a practical supply route to Burma and the sea. Several internationally known firms of engineers were called in to do the job. They said the work might be completed in six or seven years if China could supply them with the most modern machinery. But China didn't have the modern machinery nor did she have the six or seven years. So she began building the road with her bare hands. Thousands, by tens of thousands, by hundreds of thousands. They toiled at the back-breaking task of carving this desperately needed supply line out of the reluctant mountains. Six or seven years but in less than 12 months a monument to the new spirit, to the new China. As soon as it was completed the road went into immediate service Thousands, the truck shuttled back and forth between its terminals climbing to nearly 10,000 feet around hairpin curves along the edges of sheer precipices where passing trucks had barely one foot of clearance. The blood plasma of new supplies flowed steadily over China's lifeline to the sea protected by Colonel Shanault's incredible flying tigers. But Chinese sacrifice cannot be measured only in miracles of construction. It must be counted too in the tragedy of destruction. For while still the Burma Road was being built the invading Jap armies had fanned out and straddled fully two-thirds of the railroad lines of the country. In the summer of 1938 they set out to capture the remaining one-third starting with the vital railroad junction at Chang Chao. Chang Chao is situated on the banks of the Yellow River China's sorrow. Originally the river flowed from Chang Chao southeast to the Yellow Sea but nearly a century ago a great flood abruptly changed its course swinging it far to the north. For generation upon generation as the spring floods rushed down to the sea thousands of Chinese worked on the dykes to hold the river in its new course protecting their homes and their crops how as the Japs advanced on Chang Chao the Chinese blew up the southern dyke of the Yellow River thus loosing a flood between themselves and the Japs. Once more the river flowed in its old course forming a barrier which to this day has prevented the Jap from entrenching himself in this area. Once more with no thought of the human sacrifice of the material cost the Chinese traded space for time and the Chinese had still other tricks to pull from their patched and faded sleeves. You will notice that this map of Jap conquests doesn't look like the military maps you have seen in the previous films. By all military standards it should have looked like this which is the way the Japs wanted it to look. But the Japanese were learning that the occupation of Chinese cities and control of Chinese rivers and railroads still was far from meaning the subjugation of China. But the Chinese had formed themselves into guerrilla bands trained to harass the Jap forces. These guerrillas were mostly farmers who had stayed behind on the land when the great migration to the west took place. Peaceful farmers one day deadly fighters the next. They made an unpredictable and uncontrollable enemy. The Japs held the lines of communications but in the pockets thus formed these unconquerable guerrillas constantly sniped at the Jap invaders. When the Japs tried to annihilate them they disappeared only to reappear in another pocket. Even surprise they ambushed enemy patrols. The Japanese were fighting more than the Chinese people they were fighting the Chinese land the great distances the rivers the floods the swamps and marshes these two were enemies that defied the Jap war machine. The giant back Japan intended to ride to world conquest was proving to be a bucking bronco. Phase two of the Tanaka plan had bogged down in what the Japs still referred to as the China incident. This left them in a fateful quandary. Phase two of the Tanaka plan was still incomplete but phase three and phase four could no longer be delayed in Russia the overwhelming German offensive was taxing Russia's military capacity to the limit removing any Japanese fear of Russian interference. Britain after the sledgehammer blows of Dunkirk and the Battle of Britain was left groggy and militarily almost exhausted. Her navy scattered across the seas guarding her lifeline of supplies but here in America we were finally awakening to our danger and taking steps to protect ourselves. We had appropriated funds for the construction of a two ocean navy and our army was rapidly expanding. If the ultimate objectives of the Tanaka plan were to be achieved now was the moment to strike now when Russia was otherwise occupied now before Britain could recuperate now before we could gather too much strength so the Japs made a fateful decision they would embark on phase three and phase four the conquest of the Indies in the United States without waiting to complete phase two the conquest of China thus to paralyze American power in the Pacific without warning as they have always struck they struck again China's position should now be greatly improved For in her war with Japan China now had fighting allies ourselves, the British, the Dutch but it didn't work that way for China for in those tragic early months of 1942 when we sustained defeat after defeat at the hands of our common enemy endured the worst setback of all out of our defeats China lost the Burma Road China's courage never faltered her determination never weakened and in the history of those long and tragic months of black defeat in 1942 one bright page stands forth the page written by our Chinese allies here is the city of Changsha the Japs wanted it for two reasons it was in the center of the Chinese rice bowl and it was also an important railway junction twice before they had tried to take it and twice before they had been thrown back massing a large striking force near Youchou on Christmas Eve 1941 the Japs started southward toward Changsha in three columns at three points during the drive south the Chinese forces put up token resistance but instead of withdrawing toward Changsha they withdrew east into the mountainous flank by New Year's Eve the Japs had surrounded the city they quickly pierced the outer defenses and attacked the inner defenses from four directions in spite of fierce resistance the Japs were certain that the fall of Changsha was only a matter of hours what they didn't know was that they had walked into a well-bated trap for the Chinese forces which had withdrawn into the hills now swept down on the Japs supply lines and cut them to ribbons the Japs forces attacking the city soon ran out of food and ammunition and began a withdrawal whereupon the Chinese launched a counter-offensive and pushed the Japanese back where they had come from the column was forced to run the gauntlet continuous attack by the pursuing Chinese forces now was a magnificent victory for the people of China the people who wouldn't surrender the people determined to fight for their freedom their good earth the people who can't be beaten and as 1944 dawns there is another and greater story being written the allusions to the South Pacific we are on the offense in the jungles of New Guinea in the Gilbert and Marshall Islands on the shores of New Britain on the broad Pacific waters Japan faces the daily expanding power of the nations she attacked the Chinese forces are gathering strength under Lord Mountbatten for the liberation of China for China's war is our war and now her millions belong not only to United China but also to the United Nations leader of our American forces is General Stillwell who has the unique honor of being the chief of staff of all the Chinese expeditionary armies division after division of thick Chinese troops are being flown in our planes from China to India where they are armed and equipped with American weapons trained and hardened to spearhead the coming drive against Japan through enemy hell territory in northern Burma the new Lido road is being pushed over mountains through jungle and swamp from India to China to connect with the old Burma road in the jungle on either side American and Chinese patrols protect the road and strike at the jacks supplies and ammunition brought in by plane parachute fields in India an air transport command plane takes off every six minutes loaded with artillery jeeps ammunition men and supplies for the armies of China over this Burma skyway over this hump of mountains 16,000 feet high more tonnage is being flown into China than was ever trucked in over the old Burma road and in the skies over China Japan faces new opposition young Chinese many of them trained on the fields of Arizona New Mexico, California fly and fight beside their American comrades the fighters and bombers of the Chinese Air Force and those of General Shanault's 14th Air Force today fly far and wide over China the concentrations smashing their sea lanes along the China coast the same people that moved a nation 2,000 miles that built the Burma road are building airfields out of stones mud and patient tireless hands though still cut off by land and sea from the rest of the world Chinese armies and Chinese guerrillas still stand firm against the Jap war machine the poorest and the youngest of the world's great nations together with the British Commonwealth fight side by side in the struggle that is as old as China herself the struggle of freedom against slavery civilization against barbarism good against evil upon their victory depends the future of mankind we in China like you want a better world not for ourselves alone but for all mankind and we must have it