On Saturday, the third day of “Building a New World” conference, activists had a busy schedule. With various lectures happening all day it was hard to pick a topic. Some of the highlights included a panel of speakers talking about the indictment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, a session about health care, another on animal rights, and a talk about revolution.

During the discussion about the Bush-Cheney indictment, panelists started off as “normal” citizens believing everything the media and government fed to them. After doing some research on the 9-11 attacks, speakers became angry that they had been deceived by their own government and began speaking out and wanting either impeachment or indictment of the president. Panelists included David Swanson, William Woodward, Gareth Porter, Lynne Stewart, Cathy Garger, and Jesse Johnson.

Over the course of the lecture the speakers pointed out our rights to pursue  actions against the government and what the government has done to deserve such actions. One panelist discussed a book that was printed about five months before the attacks about what the government can and cannot do (Environmental Crimes in Military Action in International Criminal Court). One of the speakers believes that if Sen. Barack Obama knows about what is going on in the government right now that he should promote the fact that if elected President he will take the actions necessary to put responsible parties behind bars.

One of the day’s lectures was based on animal rights, not what you see in movies where “no animals are harmed in the making of the film,” but the killing of animals for clothing or for food. The speakers involved were Dr. Karen Davis, Melissa Karpel, and Alwyn Moss. They talked about how important it is to make small changes in our everyday lives to prevent the torture of animals. Melissa Karpel was a representative of PETA, an animal activist group. This organization puts on sometimes controversial demonstrations to illustrate what people are doing to animals and how they are tortured for our pleasure.

During the discussion, speakers pointed out facts such as animals have the same amount of feelings as we do. “We are all animals,” Davis said when discussing the burning of poultry beaks. Adding onto her statement she said, “‘Animal’ has been taken out of the picture, they are called ‘meat.’”

While listening to the speakers and hearing how passionate they are about the harsh reality that most citizens either do not know or do not want to face speakers want to promote that harsh reality of the situation and put it out there. All of the speakers were very passionate about animals and about today’s situation and want to promote the fact that this is happening and there is something we can do to fix it.

Another of the morning’s sessions was about health care in America and two of the panelists involved were included in Michael Moore’s most recent documentary Sicko. Donna Smith was the keynote speaker and the final speaker was Reggie Cervantes. In between the crowd heard from Dr. Stephen Landau, Geraldine Perry, and Eric Stoner.

One of the day’s fiery sessions was called “Revolution,” and starred Cindy Sheehan as the keynote speaker. Panelists discussed how common Americans can take back their country from the corporations and public officials who have hijacked a government for the people and by the people. Donna Smith was part of this panel as well and coined the term “Radford Revolutionaries” to refer to conference attendees who would hopefully go forward from this conference inspired with a revolutionary attitude.

The conference concluded on Sunday with a morning-long brain-storming session on how to move forward with solutions to the many issues and problems presented at the conference.

Check with the New River Voice later this week for a recap of the conference and more notes and quotes. Also, we’ll we’ll give you a glimpse of Green Party Presidential candidate Jesse Johnson, who was a conference attendee and panelist for several sessions.

Tim W. Jackson and Anna Keffer contributed to this story.