ended up with only one district. because it was a district that favored hispanics, they didn't -- they opposed it somewhat, but not as much -- as vigorously as they could. ultimately, it went into litigation. and we won in federal court and got a court order that established two districts. one for african-americans and one that elects latino voters. using a legal theory that we cannot use this time around. i think the point is that the competition -- if you allow the competition to constrain the voices of minority voters, everyone loses out. :

>> i believe, and i'm very hopeful, that if you can build a consistent record of working together with latinos or asians americans, native americans, then you can add the group to recess 50%. but if you're fighting with each other and getting evidence in court about the fighting, that's not going to be hard, then i think that, you know, you lose a

real opportunity. and given the diversity of the african-american community, now which includes many people who are direct immigrants from africa or haiti and other places, you need to think about unity within. one other point. the southeast, georgia, north carolina, mississippi, alabama, places, arkansas, places that have emerging latino majorities, perfect place to start now to build those alliances, to get everyone on the same page and start building power rather than waiting around until there are enough people in both groups to start cutting each other's throats. >> the example, the positive example i gave was in the '80s where blacks and hispanics legislators actually successfully challenged new york city and state, the district. 10 years later there was a group

within the hispanic community that challenged congressman rankles district. congressman rangel represents north manhattan and central harlem, but to the east is east harlem which is a spanish harlem and out to the north is washington heights which is dominican. so we almost had a fiasco and 92 with blacks and latinos challenging other over that particular congressional district. it worked out for the best they can also at the same time i think helping the process was the positive. that was the same time congresswoman nydia velazquez was elected because blacks and others supported her in a new hispanic district in brooklyn. >> i don't think any of us are suggesting that we support reducing the number of districts.

and i certainly don't want to give that impression with anything i said. but what i'm talking about is reality and not rhetoric. ideal in the real world and not academia. what i am saying is based on 18 years of experience, and the legislature and most of us in the south can appreciate this point. that some of us are wondering if now is not the appropriate time for us to ask, is it better to have power or position? is in the best interest of the people we care about for us to increase our numbers and lose our influence? i would suggest to you the only import and color in america is green. and if you are poor you're going to catch hell regardless of income. so senator ellis' point about making sure that we understand the importance of voices that those of us of color who are fighting for, that that kind of representation is what's

critical. i want to say one other point very quickly. because again black and brown, i want to give you a positive example outside of the legislature, about what some of us, particularly in the south, are doing. the elephant in the room is raised in the south. i service caucus chair for the dnc southern caucus. in the southern caucus. black and brown have come together to talk about sharing power. our executive committee is made up of black and brown. we are coming together. here in the south, in january, to talk about the election results. to talk about, i know this is also point but it is more to those of you out there who want to be part of the conversation. it's time for us to stop dancing around this issue because in less than those of us in the south deal with the issue of race and get the key to figuring out how to get poor white people

to understand that it is not in their best interest to be voting for republicans, they don't have -- [applause] >> okay? that's the bottom line. so i'm just saying to you that this redistricting is a big issue. but for a lot of us it is not just about black and brown. the coalition that we're trying to build is with black and brown and for white folk. >> and actually the whole issue also of class. because what you are also seeing, when you're looking at african-americans, hispanics, asians, who are upper middle class and higher, that is also playing a role in this whole process. so as folks from the front line, how have you seen classic emerge as a significant way of

suppressing certain voices? >> it's a tough issue, rolling. you take the health care debate as an example. some of the town hall meetings that some of my congress members was having. i remember going to one and asking people who did have health insurance to hold their hands up. the number of the whites held their hands up. the point is here people who clearly, clearly benefit, people don't have health insurance and a good number of them are white. so it's hard to get them to understand don't forget about my color because somebody is has been. the system has played us against each other. it takes time. this brought issued by the way, it's okay for a black politician and hispanic politician to fight, to have a disagreement. to blacks and arsenic, sometimes i have to remind one of another it's okay if we disagree.

i mean, sometimes something that may be good for his district in dallas may not be -- that's okay. and not let the system played against each other. i can disagree with my white members and it's not personal. so even with hispanics, on this growth issue. book, only for majority minority state in america by my count. the first hawaii. where is the president from? the second one was new mexico. native american, hispanic and anglo. that's what constitutes that literally. the third one was california. the fourth and last one right now according to the federal demographer is texas. and it's not a black thing. 12% of population in this country and we don't always live in segregated neighborhoods anymore. the california market to start talking about community building. if we keep voting on the basis of this, thing. because a lot of people are moving out of those historic neighborhoods. >> i just want to suggest that

it shows there's not a conflict between recognizing and giving voice to minority voters and recognizing and giving voice to low income voters in the redistricting context. my evidence comes from the reno case at a north carolina where the congressional districts, we are two congressional districts that were majority black districts, and when we looked at the economic demographics of the statistics those were the two poorest districts in the state. and beyond the raw economics, the 12th district was an urban district. it united all the way from durham down to charlotte. the inner city areas of the state. the first district was very much a rural district. the issues are the rural poor are slightly different from issues of urban poor. but my point is that you can in the redistricting process we are looking at commuters of interest, you can merge these interests. i do see that there's a conflict

between trying to look at what voices are left out of the process. >> but we admit sometimes for the african-american or hispanic politician to get the votes of those poor board rural voters is more difficult because of the historical things that divide us. even poor anglo whites, sometimes in my district, i do very well with the geeky me. i do well with the jewish community. i do well with wealthy whites because they know their industry strict. they said we could do a lot worse. but some of those others, those class issues are hard. maybe over time we'll get there, but it's difficult for a black member of congress. in south carolina it would be a perfect example. >> i think there's a dynamic between class and political diversity, also in motion here. the black electorate is becoming

more politically diverse, and the white electorate. that one party we haven't, i don't think mentioned yet, is the tea party. they will very much present in this last redistricting cycle, and some interesting things happened. to black block republican congressmen were elected in white, predominate white congressional districts. another factor is that several members, understand, close to half of the congressional black caucus members are representing districts that are not at least 50% african-americans, which means they are representing whites, latinos, asians and others. so the political diversity is trumping class in some ways. people are crossing racial lines to vote for elected officials because they feel that those people will represent their interests, regardless of race. >> where i would disagree with

that is, you said that they are crossing racial lines, but the class issue is so prevalent. and the reason i bring that up because when you look at certain areas of the atlanta area, where you have high income, largely african-american neighborhoods, you are seeing the exact same thing in other places of hispanics. those are now being perceived as suburban districts, and you have legislators, republicans, saying how can you possibly grab those areas because you're not talking to them in an economic discussion, as opposed to racial discussion. and so, with that being said, how do you think the class element, looking at the economic numbers, we'll play in this process, thinking over the next 10 years, recognizing how these neighborhoods are shifting, recognizing how you african-american neighbors,

hispanic neighborhoods are becoming poorer and more because those means are moving elsewhere and leaving those areas. so their interest now all of a sudden changes compared to those who are living in those poor areas. how is that level of class going to play out? >> i think one thing to be aware of is that while low income people tend to move a lot more frequently, high income people of any race have more choice of where they move. and one thing that you need to be aware of, especially in inner city neighborhoods like here in atlanta, which right now have relatively scattered minority population, and then all of a sudden a bunch of luxury condos pop up. and what you thought was an area that's going to give you a majority of 1000 votes, all of a sudden it's 5000 people who are going to have a different outlook. so the old model used to be high

rise public housing complex or nursing center, that is now a condominium. and a people, the earning power in a condominium now changes dynamic and that's where class now comes in. >> right. >> and i think another aspect of this is that the supreme court, especially justice kennedy as he made clear in the texas redistricting case, is i think peter to find -- i think peter define differences among minority populations. there they found that district, a new latino district and a combined urban area that were latino in rural areas down in the valley was not really a minority district because they hadn't been working together. they had different interests. so it didn't count. it didn't satisfy section two of the voting rights. >> so you are saying that, so because of the focus, all of the

skin color was the same? >> focus on skin color, which i think sort surprise anyone in texas because everyone in texas knows latinos in austin and the latinos in the valley are going to vote together. there will be some infighting now again, but come general election they will vote together. [inaudible] >> i guess until this last time, and that raises an issue where one of the latino, two of the latino districts flipped. and i also believe someone state legislative districts in texas and in arizona, that we thought were minority districts were vigorously challenged by the republicans, both angle and latino republicans. and the republicans won. and so one thing we need to deal is look afresh at what really is that district in which minority voters can control the outcome. >> and i assume they will say this last election cycle was a

deviation. the hispanic turnout was not as high. >> i hope so expect those are two solid hispanic districts. sort of like when i got up on the election, my wife says if you lose, you figured you had a. i got nervous. i started thinking about the tea party guy running against me. he sure was handsome, young, young kids and all. i had young kids, too, you know. it's a real challenge. some of that is going to place on the candidate and not just on us. some of us change as our districts change, all of a sudden you started learning about zoning and fire coach safeties. if you want to stay. that's the nature of politics. you tend to represent your constituency. you have to change with the times. >> can i please respond about the peace about the tea party? i'm glad you raised that. as a native floridian, one was from florida, and as a current

resident of south carolina, a former colleague will soon be in congress, is it a mistake to believe that there is crossover voting for the one from south carolina? the first congressional district that my friend, representative tim scott, soon to be, now congressman elected tim scott was elected from -- there was no crossover voting from voters of color, not significantly in the first congressional district. the whole point about some of us of color being offended when the issue of color is used to define us and to suggest that you ought to vote us of color, i think representative congressman elect scott would agree that he didn't run in that district as a congressman of color. elect me because i look like you. if he had done that he would not be congressman elect. the other point that is critical in that is, he was endorsed by the tea party, and our general

assembly he carried a legislation to repeal health care. so it's about speaking to the issues as has been pointed out that are important to people wherever. he's going to congress not because people of color put him there. he's going to congress as conservatives, mainly white republicans, put him in a district that is a conservative republican district. >> i don't see that would've been an issue because you have congressman steve cohen who represents memphis and that was a district that harold ford, jr. held. his father held. and so even when the last two, the former mayor of memphis just ran against him and got dusted your because colin was all about the issues. but i do believe the point, that you're trying to make, not a question of the crossover vote, but how does an election of a 10 scott in a largely white

conservative district and allen west in florida, a cohen in memphis memphis, all of a sudden play a role on those judges when it comes to making decisions? because typically the argument has been need to have district designed a certain way to let people who look like us, but by having the political diversity and the ethnic diversity. if you start having hispanics representing largely african-american areas, doubt in louisiana won that seat. granted it was a special election, but largely black district. how will that impact, this judge decisions as relates to the ruling? >> that's the point you were trying to make. >> class matters. race matters. they are all important factors. but ideology is clearly emerging as a very important driver in this process. the court system, to lawyers

here who can't elaborate come is taking that into account as we go forward in the redistricting process. >> the legal doctrine has always been about candidates of choice of black voters. the right under the voting rights act is for black voters to elect a candidate of choice. so if the people are elected are not the candidates choice of black voters it really doesn't impact whether or not there's a voting rights act claim. is what matters is whether or not black voters vote together. are they politically cohesive? if they are not, if they are voting all over the place, then they no longer have voting rights act protection. so what matters is what are the choices of the voters. >> i think the point is making is as we are making become more ethnically diverse, politically diverse, that may very well come to pass, john. and so the typical claims the justice department, to the

courts made reagan so smooth based upon how those folks are voting. we're talking about a process for the next 10 years, projecting how things are going to change over the next 10 years. so could this very well be possibly the last round of how we truly look at it, based upon america becoming majority minority country. we are only one generation away from the. i want to be thinking forward here as we ask the question. >> i think, first of all, the good news is for someone who grew up in birmingham, alabama, in the '60s and saw the attitudes then, you've got republicans electing the guy, beating a fellow named thurman in the primary i believe, represents the district and has fort sumter in it. those white republicans get elected -- >> health has indeed frozen over. >> i think that's something --

>> come on now. >> i think that's something to acknowledge it and to celebrate for what it is, but not to be blinded to think that that means anything, other than, you know, the mere fact. i can come as a needed said, the focus on the voters and our minority voters electing people in fair numbers. whoever they want. what it is representative cohen or a person of any other color here is what the voters want and whether minorities are winning on an equal basis. >> think what the voters want, typically when we have these discussions they largely are, do they look like us? that what you look at is the election return. you got to minority precincts, you got the white precincts and there's mixed precincts. it's not a secret. everyone knows which are the minority precincts.

which are the white precincts. and you can tell that you can just look at the -- if you look at the precinct returns that each of you have, you know who is voting for him. it's not a secret and we can do experts a lot of money. >> one thing i want to add is you need to focus on the particular office, usually black light contest for particular office, and not get sidetracked by a judicial election where everyone issues voting for the bar. and not to get sidetracked by the obama election. you know, as great as it is, don't try to take it, those returns to the bank because all the other stuff he took to the bank. you know, it's not going to be that way spent i think the congressman figure that out real quick. >> roland, i want to jump in about i guess the election of black republicans. give you a simple example.

most, the vast majority of african-american voters are for affirmative action. if you elect a black person from a republican district, if they go for affirmative action they probably won't get that nomination again. so what we are saying is it's the voters that if it's some point in history african-americans are against affirmative action, we would be out of sync. do you get me? a judge can take anything they want to justify anything. and oftentimes they do. that's what we learned in law school. how to justify doesn't justify anything. so if someone on the supreme court wants to take the fact that history african-americans who hold statewide office in texas, chief justice of the supreme court elected and appointed another african-american on the supreme court did not get the nod from the governor. ran against appointed, one other

bug inside. beat that person but as an african-american, regulate oil and gas in texas. as somebody i could take the position, some core, you don't have any racial disparities in texas because you have three black people who elected statewide. you can justify anything to want to justify. in reality you would know they cannot take positions as would be the case on the position of most. >> i want to answer your question about whether the increasing diversity of black voters in their political views threatened the protection, whether that is the last decade it would mattered and what the data shows while there is more than in the past, there is still enormous political cohesiveness, enormous solidarity. so when we look at the racial voting data, look at election returns, you would find one or% of the black voters he would support the same candidate. now maybe that's gone down to

85%. but that still overwhelming political significance. and i think, talking about what doesn't look like from the mid '70s to now? i just don't think the changes happened so fast that this is the last time for the voting rights act. >> i respectfully disagree, and if i understood your question -- >> which is why i asked the question. >> i think there's a shift in the ideological shift going on in the federal judiciary. when you look at the line of cases, i'm not a lawyer, but i pay attention to the stuff because i'm a manager. >> what did you do, stay at a holiday inn express? [laughter] >> i think we need to think conservatively that the climate today may not work in our best interest, so we need a defensive strategy. and that is not to assume that the kinds of voting rights decisions that got us to where we are after the last round, i think they're moving in a different direction now.

and we need to be more conservative in terms of how we play the game and the process. and a couple of things after -- i was out there. shape matters, you know, bizarre and long gaining districts, reaches for blacks over here and down the road over there. i think that's out the window. >> okay. >> and size matters. attempting to manipulate population, we know it is zero for congress. every congressional district in your state would be exactly the same size. what everybody has been playing around with up until now is this so-called 10% rule. is not a role. i think the rule is going out the window. so when we talk about state and local redistricting, we better stick as close to zero population. the closer we are to zero, the less opportunity there is to critique your plans when they come in. i think those are some of the new directions that this

redistricting process is going in, and i think we are seeing the end of an era, to use your words, in terms of the kind of standards that are going to be applied against redistricting plans going forward. >> i think that's true. it's good advice. the courts are getting progressively hostile. and one thing, especially those of you in a non-section five states need to try to do, especially can is have your plan, your alternative plan better than their plan in these racially neutral standards. lower deviation, get the districts as compact as you can, try and avoid splitting county boundaries and other boundaries. you know, try and make -- if you can have a plan that looks better but all the racially neutral standards that the court like so much, then there you are well underway to showing that they adopted their plan with racially discriminatory purpose

and knocking it out. >> i was in a federal district court in the district of columbia yesterday morning arguing that section five of the voting rights act is constitutional, or at least arguing for that side. i have no doubt that we are in severe danger when it comes to voting rights act and section five of the voting rights act. there are two cases pending right now that shows the constitutionality. one from alabama and one from north carolina. the players have those cases on a fast-track. every possibility that before election, there is at least some possibility i would say that before elections in november 2012 the supreme court could have fooled that section of constitution. i don't mean to say that there is no threat to the voting rights act. my point was about the conditions that give rise to the justification for having those protections in place. >> florida. >> i had congresswoman corinne brown on the morning show, and

she was dead set against a statewide ballot initiative that determined how districts would be drawn. what was interesting though, she was absolutely against it. by the aclu, the league of women voters and the naacp were for it. .. they

said look, let's have crazy districts, let's have sensibly drawn districts that people can clearly understand. and you have people who again -- those who were for that, the coalition was pretty interesting that when you hear black members of congress saying, oh, that's going to threaten our seats and the very people who have typically been their allies and say, no, we're for that initiative. i think it's tough to make a strong public policy argument to convince voters to be against one of these so-called independent commissions. we don't have ballot initiative in texas, thank god, or we would be like california and all kinds of stuff would end up on the ballot. >> constitutional amendment. >> yeah, we could do it through the constitutional amendment. you have to run it through the legislature. you can't run it on the ballot you got to come by with us. if it's on the ballot, if you can do that in florida without have government voters like you

can in california, you can put it on the ballot it will be tough to put it on the ballot. i assume some of the groups would be for it because they believe the voting rights act would still be there. so even if you have this independent body drawing the lines, they still got to comply with what is left of the voting rights act. now, what's going to be interesting -- you made a comment about us being a majority country and i hope i live long enough and i'm still in my right mind which i will see some of my colleagues who argue against the voting rights act saying, oh, no, no no. in texas we got to have that. at some point my hispanic constituents are going to vote and i'm going to have these very people who will fight me say they will put all the barbara jordan and dig up all my best speeches and they'll start giving them. and the reason i raise that -- i certainly believe that we are seeing the -- frankly, the roots, if you will, of that

argument or some might call white victimhood. you listen it when you listen to glenn book and when you listen to others and when you listen to other things when you heard pat buchanan, lord i hope they don't treat us like we treated them when they become the majority minority and you have whites going, okay, the next generation, this stuff is about to change so that will be a very interesting argument -- >> hey, you take voters on immigration. my history was the impresaros were told, when texas was part of mexico, you can settle this land but there's three things you got to do. >> you got to learn some spanish. you got to convert to catholicism. and you can't have plays. and what do you think they were really upset about. i didn't major in history so let me not just go there. you just go -- you just go check it out. but, look, here's the issue that i'm saying.

as we move out of these neighborhoods and as our population changes -- you know have don't think about it when you vote on a corporation you vote on a cumulative sector. you don't go say the people who want to get rid of the ceo. it's a cumulative voting and we tend to operate our neighborhoods, a whole lot of people are moving in the neighborhoods they never thought moving into because they get them real cheap and a lot of people moving out of the neighborhoods they thought was their neighborhoods so it will change over time. i think there will always be some version of the voting rights act but this notion of a bipartisan independent commission, i just don't think we ought to rule it out. i supported it in texas. i got a lot of criticism. i supported it when it wouldn't pass. now, i don't know if i still support it when it will pass. i am a politician. you got to understand both sides of these issues. [laughter] >> but, look, the issue is how do you make it truly independent? >> right. >> and everybody is against the ugly district. you got me? from senator jerry whoever it was that did that salamander in

massachusetts. everybody is against it until they think about it. you know, and they find out the communities of interest, you know, that people in buckhead might have more in common with somebody out in the suburbs than they think they do and when they all end up in a nice little compact district and you might have a mess but you might have against an independent commission when they have a chance to go against it. >> it's important to remember that in each of the commissions that one of the standards they have with compliance with the voting rights act -- i think florida set up enough of guidelines that's a gift of lawyers because it gives you a whole lot of things to argue about. and it is just -- it's going to cause the state of florida millions of dollars in attorney's fees and it's going to cost everyone else millions of dollars in attorney's fees. california has done this with a very elaborate procedure to ensure a lack of partisanship on

the members. it will be interesting to see how that works out because there are some delicate issues in california especially for the african-american communities there. but generally, you know, in states that republicans control, the democrats are in favor of independent commissions and states that the democrats controlled, the republicans are in favor of independent commissions. >> shocking. >> it's an amazing coincidence. it really is. >> anita? >> i just want to point out -- i think we're out of time for redistricting reform of the process to impact the next round of redistricting but i think the issue gets at the fundamental question of what is this redistricting process and who should do it? who should be in control? and i think that it's a policy issue like any other policy issue. and people who we can hold accountable ought to be the people who are doing it. and so -- and legislators who walk their districts and hear

from their constituent they are in my view to know what communities of interest should be brought together. we need to hold them accountable and have an open and transparent process and we need communities of the process -- >> i want john to answer this, but the reason i raise that and i go back to the earlier point in terms of how people from both parties view this process. i do believe that folks who lean democrat or who are democrat spend more of their time as john said assuming that gains already won will be there. the experience shows us with the federalist society, with various conservative think tanks that they are not thinking necessarily about this round. they're thinking about 10 years from now, 20 years from now. so they are testing legal theories. they're testing small changes

now to see how they can be effective to spread in a wider area come 2020 and then 2030. and so that's one of the reasons i made the point in terms of thinking more long term as opposed to, well, what's going to happen in the next 6 to 9 months when you have folks out there who are well funded by multimillionaires, billionaires who are saying, okay, what can we do today that's going to be the difference maker in 2020 and in this various same groups who progressively lean democrat and all of a sudden they are called flatfooted because they were supposed to have been planning for 10, 20 years. john, go ahead. >> independent redistricting commissions, you need to judge whatever process by the goals. you know, i'm an avid student of democracy. but at the end of the day, if

the current rules got you where you are now, there are 44 members of african-american members of congress. there are 700 state legislators, or 150 senators, and 450 members of the lower house in this country. what you need to decide is, in your state, is the process they're talking about, whatever label -- they can call it a label independent. none of them are independent by the way. even in california, when they get down to the -- they had something like 30,000 people apply initially to get on the commission. they got it down to 60 names. and then the four legislative leaders of the california legislature get to veto half of the final 60 so that's really not independent, okay? there is no, quote, process that's totally free of partisan input. even in iowa, another model they hold up, the legislature gets to vote up or down at least on what

this, quote, independent commission does. so you need to figure out in my state, in my locality, am i going to wind up with more on the table or less? i don't care what they call it. it sounds good and you're not going to have -- you're not better off than where you are now, then you should not be for it. >> we'll have time for questions. and we have the cameras there. i only want three folks to step up at a time so you can come here so they can actually see you versus having your back to the camera. if you have a question, just step on up so you can ask of our panel but i'll take three at a time. and then one or two folks can answer the question and again, we're looking for questions, not comments. if it goes too long i will pull your coat. let me also make clear just like old phil donahue, don't touch the mic. i got it. i will pop your hand if you touch the microphone. cool. your name, where you're from,

your question. >> state representative larry miller. i really think you've answered the question. >> tennessee. >> tennessee. can you anticipate a ton of lawsuits, giving the example of tennessee. we have 64 republicans. 34 democrats. 1 independent. in the senate, 2013. i agree wiprisoners. when they start redrawing those district lines -- so we can anticipate a lawsuit. do you anticipate lawsuits coming throughout this country from the parties that are in the minority? >> yeah. >> if any one of you can answer that. >> heck yes. lawsuits are the endgame. republicans do have more power on the state legislative level than they've had in 50 years. but the endgame is all about the lawsuits and, roland, you are right republicans are far more prepared, far more resources, they focused on this much better than we have. we've been quietly having discussions but we're not nearly where they are and we're going to have to go in our state

legislators on budget issues and they are going to cut and they plan on the endgame on lawsuits. >> my plan not only will there be lawsuits but we need to be entering redistricting and preparing now for them. >> all right. name, where you're from, question. >> my name is joe and i'm from california. i'm the chair of the county planning commission and we deal with the housing elements. what is going on now is we're dealing with -- in 20-year increments of the housing and what we're doing is moving the housing into middle class neighborhoods. now back in the day, the changing of the name instead of the game. we used to call them projects. now they call them mixed housing. we used to call them, duplexes, now they're condos. but what of my commissioners got real uneasy because he said in 20 years this will not reflect the community that i thought i was living in. and so they think that redistricting is taking place by way of the housing elements and the housing requirements. what do you have to say

regarding that? >> good question, thanks a lot. disbursement. >> i totally agree the changing housing patterns, foreclosure, is moving people out and moving people into communities. that's one of the reasons we can't attempt to be overscientific about drawing districts. and we have to think long term in housing policy or lack thereof. foreclosure crisis is driving a lot of what you just described. >> john? >> no. the more concentrated you are, the easier it is to draw the majority districts. obviously, there are a lot of societal benefits from having desegregated housing in this country. and, you know, there's no free lunch out there. >> in a big state like california, i guess -- what is california, 40 million people, 30 million people. it's tough. now, you did elect an

african-american as attorney general. but maxine waters' districts is more hispanic. there's a reason why san francisco -- even before the race issue came up used cumulative voting but as big as california is and as big as your population is, you know, you just want to stay in the neighborhood that's historically black, you better move over to houston or south carolina or something. [laughter] >> or get over it. [laughter] >> state of illinois, i chair the redistricting committee in the illinois state senate. we're not quite -- >> your name. >> kwame rowe. we're not quite out of time in illinois. this week, in fact, we passed voting rights expansion with regards to redistricting that would codify what justice kennedy in the bartlett decision said was permissionable in a crossover of commission districts. and i'm going to -- >> anita? >> obviously, you're clapping.

>> i think that's a wonderful model. there's also a california voting rights act. and there are some really important ways that legislatures can add to the protections of the federal voting rights act. that's excellent. >> and also you also see kwame rowe walking around the cane and the president had a busted lip. all of you do that have a busted lip, it's over. don't play golf like you do and you're going to break something the way you break a club. >> we'll leave that one alone. >> ken duncan state representative for chicago. you mentioned, john, regarding the prison population, is there any pending lawsuits that can really help us put that back in the right form. that is the district -- there are home districts where they were arrested compared to those

predominantly nonblack communities or hispanic communities where they are being counted for cbgb monies or several federal accountabilities and state accountabilities in terms of dollars and now votes? what's pending? >> i think you and senator sponsored a resolution on this subject. and there are three states in the country that have passed state laws already on prisoner count. and senator thompson and assemblyman perry here in new york led the fight here to pass new yorker prisoner count law. so you do have model statutes. i think that you can work from. maryland, new york in terms of how it's done or being done in new york. we're working with department of corrections to figure out how to reallocate 60,000 addresses back to the prisoners' permanent residence as opposed to where

they are being counted now in the application >> i'm curious, anita, and as joaquin asked that question, if you're going down that path, do you see a problem where the critics will say well, now wait a minute, we allow college students to be able to vote in the case where they go to school but they live somewhere else could they use that same argument to justify how they count prisoners? >> i don't know the people who are in the country illegally but you count them but you don't count them in terms of drawing the line. >> the analogy between college students and prisons, i think, doesn't hold fully because of the -- the issue with the prisons is partly the fact that they are not actually voting but also they disproportionately minority. and prisoners don't get the choice of voting whether incarcerated or in their home

state. they don't get to vote at all. but the -- because they are disproportionately minority, it's impacting the communities that they come from. >> so in woeler county, they have been fighting their county a long time because they don't want that predominantly black college impacting those local elections. again, i'm just thinking down the line in terms of how critics by saying if you're advocating for those students in those areas how can you impose the counting of those prisoners in that area? >> it went up to the supreme court and that's why my daughter could vote in columbia, new york, and it's their choice. it's their choice. that is the difference. the students have a choice. they can vote whether they are in college or in a dorm or they can vote where they're from. but the inmates don't have a choice 'cause they don't vote. >> yeah. i'd like to add a wrinkle to

this. first of all, prairie view, the prairie view voting case, was in 1976, was the first one i worked on when i was in the justice department. and, you know, there's some good steady customers out there, you know. people that keep us in business. but there's a wrinkle on the prison counting and that's -- you know, it's very important in new york and houston where the prisoners go out in these republican areas and build up their prison population. in the deep south a lot of those rural areas are predominantly african-american and they are areas losing population and if you start taking parchment out of mississippi and taking angola out of louisiana and moving them out, there's some people here who might have a real hard time making up that population. and that's a good illustration of how you really need to look at your own district. you need to look at what's on the wrong, who's there. who votes?

who doesn't vote? who's a jehovah's witness? get out and drive around, know the areas because there are lots of pitfalls out there. >> all right. question, name, where are you from? >> i'm representative geraldine thompson from florida where indeed we now have rules that our legislature will use to draw district lines. i've heard that if you don't like the sight of blood particularly your own, you stay away from redistricting. [laughter] >> or florida. [laughter] >> y'all always have drama. >> we do, we do. but my question is, how do we make sure that there's inclusion and there's fairness in appointing people to serve on the redistricting committees that our legislature will have because those decisions are made by the people in power? so my question is, do you have some thoughts, some ideas, some strategies in terms of how we can be involved in the process?

>> from my experience, i think it's one of those cases regardless whether you're in the leadership or whether you're the anointed one or not, he or she who has the knowledge can have the most influence. particularly, for the minorities. the african-americans and the hispanics, they don't want to get sued and they don't want you in court testifying against them. so the challenge for us, new members in particular, is get prepared. i mean, it is -- i mean, this is that number-crunching stuff. this is not the pretty people stuff. i mean, this is the hard, this is the grunt. you got to join the nerd squad to get in that. you can really have an influence and with limited resources that there are out there -- anita's group out of north carolina, there's some national groups looking at putting up money to help us in smaller states or in big states. it matters and you got to put in time. you have a lot of work because you've got to focus on your budget in florida primarily for your constituents. they will draw your district and

you are house won't be in it. you may not be foreclosed on but you're moving. you're renting a little place and you're renting until you win again. >> we have time for two more questions. here we go. >> my name is new jersey state senator rondel rice. i've been through this process before. i don't have the luxury of time. in january of this year, coming in the june election we'll be in redistricting mode again. my question is really is to the justice department and others. my colleagues have some time to pull this together. what's the earliest point in time that we can involve organizations like yours in the process. you know, we've been in court before, we've done appeals before. but it seems to me from the black caucus and the latino caucus, we need to have someone monitoring it with the attorneys from day one.

thanks a lot. >> i think each of you should go home and google voting sections, which is the office of the justice department that deals with the voting rights act. and learn the site, you know, wander around it and there is on there a content list that has, i think, two attorneys and one para professional for each state as the people responsible for redistricting. monday morning, call them up. start building a relationship with them. they also have weekly noise. section 5 submissions, you ought to be monitoring that. and have building a relationship with the people and the staff there to get a sense of where they're coming from and keep them alert to facts as they develop rather than waiting until the plan is passed and you've got a disaster sitting there. and expect them to come to your

rescue because there aren't as many of them as there are states and counties and school boards and cities out there. >> also, do you anticipate with attorney general eric holder and obviously president obama -- do you anticipate this justice department being very aggressive in looking at these -- the changing of districts and seats over the next six months? what are you getting right now -- are they gearing up for what's about to come down? >> what the department of justice is saying publicly that even though the voting rights act is under attack in the courts, they will vigorously enforce it. they will not be intimidated by these challenges to the constitutionality of the act. so i do think they will be aggressive. but by the same token, they are getting thousands of submissions so you really do have to get -- sort of on their radar screen and get your data together in order to effectively access them. and the other resource i'll give you to get a nonprofit

organization like mine, to get assistance is redistrictinginstitute.org and there you'll see a whole bunch of resources to both help you draw maps, do polarized voting -- >> are you seeing progressive donors coming to your organizations? are you seeing uptick in that at her as well or is it lagging in part to your counterparts? >> yes. the donors are coming to the table. they're slow and not as, you know, we need. there are resources out there to -- it's, you know, nonpartisan. so you have to work through community-based organizations. and other nonprofit groups. but the money -- there is money. >> anita, were you at the prayer breakfast? were you at the prayer breakfast? i'm a teacher. in the black church you always answer to money. anita, no, the money is not

aflowing. it needs to flow faster. it's a black church. it's a new building but still have a new building fund. always ask for more money. >> roland, i want to ask to senator rice. you ought to pool your resources so instead of each like-minded legislators hiring their own lawyers at some point when you think your district is at risk, you want to hire your own lawyer and you won't have enough money to hire the lawyer but if you pool resources you can do that. and you need to draw your district and don't give it to the chair of your committee. i mean, they've already asked me, senator, what do you want? give us your district? do you know what i tell them, give me your district first. don't give them your district because then they know not to give you. >> how would you suggest that we as caucus says from our respective states develop the best strategy to attack this redistricting? >> thanks a lot. >> at least a committee, a task

force. you need a working group of legislators and staff -- your staff is going to do all the work. you're going to set policy but they're going to do all the work. so immediately pull that type of group or subgroup of your caucus together and get the ball rolling. >> i think it says it all. all of us are not going to be experts on all of these issues. you need to figure out who are two or three colleagues or one colleague is and really read that stuff and understand the law or go to some of these -- the gray hairs. toni harrison out in the audience was doing this when i was working on capitol hill when he was in the legislature. i mean, people who have been through it but you got to pool resources because there will be too many things pulling at your time. >> john? >> i think the big question is where are you going to? -- are you going. there will be two forces the republicans who will try to impact your districts and give you all the minorities you can. the democrats will have an interest in shaving your districts, cutting the fat.

so that those voters can be used elsewhere. you need to watch out that they're not cutting muscle as well as fat. and get together on what you think will work and what your best overall strategies is and keep reminding each other that's where you're going. >> gilda? >> i would do that -- >> real quick. >> groups and the community. do your homework. don't sleep either. >> do your homework. get off your butt. figure it out. understand. >> anita? final comment. >> there needs to be more resources out there. [laughter] >> somebody was paying attention. [laughter] >> all right, folks, we're absolutely out of time. give it up to our panel. we certainly appreciate it. we certainly appreciate it. thanks a lot. there you go.

>> y'all give it up to roland martin as well. thank you all very much. [applause] >> republican national committee chairman michael steele is running for a second term and he faces his four declared challengers in a debate today. moderated by grover norquist of americans for tax reform and the daily callers tucker carlson, we'll have live coverage at 1:00 pm eastern on our companion network, c-span. here on c-span2, live coverage of jerry brown's third inauguration as california governor. he previously won two terms to the office, in 1974 and 1978. we'll have that for you from sacramento at 2:00 pm eastern. and later today, a forum on lobbying, covering topics from methods to ethics. hosted by american university. that will be live at 1:45 pm on c-span3. >> for these children, our

children, and for all of america's children, the house will come to order. [applause] >> with the start of the new congress this wednesday, look back at the opening of past sessions online at the c-span video library. with every c-span program since 1987. more than 160,000 hours. it's all free, it's washington your way. >> every weekend on c-span3, experience american history tv starting saturday at 8:00 am eastern. ....÷???ñ?

>> speakers include departing congressman joe sestak and former u.s. comptroller general david walker. this is the final hour of the daylong event. >> i spent my 20 years seeing amazing women create policy. and, finally, decide if i didn't get them into power and a political movement going with these women we would do this rest of my life and my kids life. analog way i got to take our daughters to work and our sons to work. so i'm very excited about no labels. i'm here of course because we

are really focusing on gettin women into leadership in america, and particularly into political leadership. hs we would be able to do a lot more of everything we've been talking about if we had so many women who have had to work across without power and their label without a very long time. [applause] >> that's why we are here. and because we have put a lot of attention on this political area. and the last five years since we focused on that we have been able to train 10,000 women at the local and grass-roots and legislative level. so they are out there and they are ready to go. i agree with david gergen by the way. this isn't the generation that could change its culture. half of these women are women of

different racial and ethnic groups. actually 60% of them are under 35. so young women of america are out there. they are excited and they want to be. but i want to tie some the stuff about them. yesterday -- by the way i'm glad we use popular culture because he's right. if you want to change the culture, you have to go to the culture. i thought things were good. if we don't dance at this revolution we are dead. so we want to have popular culture. we have been using the film to train women on the s.t.a.r.t. treaty. it's a good thing to do. we trained women to be leaders. where are you out there? we want to be able to speak in this movement. this is a nonpartisan

organization. once i met nancy jacobson i knew that we should be partners i can because this is the way we are going move all of our steps forward. i'm really glad, we got her on our board, then we got lisa get on the board of no labels. and you can see the sacrifice, in this movement already. although you did not dance as well as i thought you could. so i am getting a little worried. here we go. this is going to be, it's going to be interesting to see what happens next year. because as i see it, i was a very fortunate what would. i actually got into politics at a different time as you can tell. i got into politics actually windowless a lot of work across party. women on republican side and one on the democratic side, we may

policy together, and we may changes together. and it was phenomenal. it was a very different time. and i was very lucky because i actually had a mentor like mary louise smith. mary louise smith in iowa when i was coming along politically was the republican national committee chair. she and i lobbied in the iowa legislature. our member turning around her one day and i said, why? why in the world are we doing different parties? i haven't heard that question since 1978. but that is what was. now we are in a very different place. we are in -- we are now 70% of the congressional leaders and where 2324% of the state legislatures of women. so we are very start. as we collect and get these

women to come in to political life, and you saw one of them here, lisa, who is from michigan and organize across parties. but when we get into come in, i'll take you to question the women are now asking. this is what they want to know is if i'm going to sacrifice my life and my family, am i going to be able to make a difference? this is the real question, and i think this is what all our sons and daughters want to know about politics right now. if i go into this area, am i going to be able to make a difference? and that's why we are here with no labels. you know, it's interesting when i started doing this work i went back and i read a little bit of john denver's work on negative. john said when he looked at the past past, some the prime is really the most poignant thing in his book when he said, the railroad business failed.

it failed because they thought they were still in the transportation business. they did know, and the railroad business they did know there in the transportation business. so the whole business failed to condemn since i've been getting this whole issue of political leadership and particularly getting different people in and changing how we do business, i have thought about the whole thing because i think to myself, even though we're trying to get women in, diverse women into leadership alongside men, by the way, not to take the place of in but to lead alongside them, to be for men or to be for women is the best you can ever do. so what he said though has rung true with me because right now we are not trying to get women and for gender equity sake, i think. is really not the business we're in. we are in the transformation business. the business that we're in a no labels i think is the political

business. it is really the transformation business. so i'm glad for the women genders movement of political leadership, and a no labels movement for leadership as it transformation business together. i anticipate a great relationship, and one where everybody will actually know how to dance. and actually we will have women living side by side with men. and i thank you so much for participating. [applause] >> please welcome the to 10 -- the two-term mayor of new jersey, mayor cory booker. [applause] >> i feel like i need to do a howard dean yell in your to wake you all up. can we bring up the house lights, please. bring up the house lights. let's see each other. we have a choice year. this is either going to be a

moment or the start of a movement. this will be a moment in time where we will decide this is a time for move. i want you to see each other because what howard dean is a true. it's the only thing that ever has. today means something. now, i like history, but studied it going back to the very founding of our nation and our fragile stages it was one of our wise founding fathers is that we will either hang together or we will surely hang together. this was not just words for that moment. these are words for our nation. we right now are not hanging together around our common principles and our common ideals, and there's nothing more toxic to the soul of a nation when the lives of divide begin to trump the lines that bind.

india 69 when the city of jerusalem was under attack by the romans, and a story that we still studied today said the romans could remove their armies, they will be able to take the city. as one history tells a, they took that advice and move back away from the city inside jerusalem, division started breaking out. fights. they started burning different corners of the city. before yo you you knew it indiae roman army came back and took the city with ease. screaming to historical truth. it's very simple. if there's no enemy within, the enemy with out can do you know on. we right now in our nation must fess up that the enemy we face, it is our inability for pragmatic people to come together around principles, ideals and plans to advance this nation forward. this is the frustration of our day and age. i see it in newark all the time.

there are simple solutions in many of our complex problems if we can just come together. you heard mayor bloomberg up here on the stage, one of my favorite mayors, gave you my best political advice of all my life. he said cori, before you become a mayor, become a billionaire. [laughter] >> brilliant advice. on mayor bloomsburg part. but he actually pulled a bunch of mayors together around the country, republican, democrat and independent to talk about violence. we have a virginia tech every single day in america, but yet we afford to these camps that churchill at each other. i remember when the decision came down think d.c. couldn't ban handguns at almost for endorsing oh, my gosh, there's going to be blood going in the streets of washington, d.c.. this is horrible. i'm the mayor of new york and i said wait a minute. look at all the data.

i found out there was only one shooting in my entire first term, it was done with someone who bought a gun legally. that person was a correctional officer that use their side arm to shoot himself. now that i listen to my friend on the other side of the political aisle who think that any kind of gun revelation is an assault on the second amendment. mayor bloomberg and his team of mayors around the country, we polled using a republican and democratic pollster to find out about this issue of what people think. mayor bloomberg pay for, and we found out that over 90% of gun owners support sensible legislation that would curtail illegal guns getting into the hands of criminals. simple thanks. like the fact right now in our nation we have 10 shows where criminals can show up with temporary restraining orders taken out on them when they're getting death threats to the spouses who might be on a terrorist no-fly list.

they can take it on a plane but they can walk into a gun show and fill up the truck with weapons and then go off and do what you want to do without ever having to show id or tell who they are. we have a political debate right now controlled by partisanship and interest groups they can't even advanced sensible policy that the overwhelming majority of not just gun owners but americans agree on. so now we stand at a precarious place in our nation's history. we look around the globe from brazil to china, we see countries outpacing us in education and economic growth. this leading democracy not to fit in but two stand out, this country that was crafted in the ideal of lies you could be a light unto other nations. this country now is falling behind on so many different measures. that is not the american way. we are a country where possible dreams are made real.

and so we have choices to make. [applause] >> we have choices to make. what would change our dialogue? compromise not be seen as treason? the reaching across the aisle be applauded and not denigrated? in my city right now we are realizing that the future of education in america with the minority. majority of our work force. my grandchildren will be minorities but we as a country have come so far. mckinsey and other studies, other organizations have studied it to say that educational attainment can be measured in the trillions of dollars in terms of impact on gdp if we just raise the graduation rate in america around this country. but yet we fail to do it. i reached out to republican governor who in every way, we could write a dissertation on our disagreement or from

political disagreements to fundamental things. the man is a meat eater. i'm a vegetarian for crying out loud. he likes the czechs. i love the giants. but substantively we said we got to find a way to end the war facing our children. we've got to find common ground so we can advance ourselves. this will be the test. offensive mile at a particular me when i give a speech in manhattan institute here in new york. now they've become my greatest partner. because of the innovation coming from the manhattan institute. this guy is like jack kemp that i became to admire on the other side of the political aisle who thought of ideas like enterprise zones that are creating wealth in urban areas all across the globe. no political party has a monopoly of great ideas.

and in truth this nation will only go as far as we're willing to take each other. there is a democratic destiny and no republican destiny. there is an american destiny. we know from all of our -- [applause] >> we know from all of our traditions, christian, muslim, jewish, the ideal community of people, my parents used to tell me african parables like sticks in the bundle can be broken. they love their favorite three word phrase, the hallmark of this nation, simple latin utterance, e pluribus unum. and so i get back to where i began. we have a choice to make. we can answer the call of our country. we can claim the truth of our nation. we could realize that america is a nation but is also a precious ideal put forth in our founding

that are aspirational but we as a nation must be willing to make the sacrifice. democracy cannot be a spectator sport. we can't get joint out of sitting at home on our couch looking at msnbc or fox and screaming and yelling letting us get agitated but we don't get off that couch and remake our nation in our common image. this is a test that we have before us. we must realize that we as a people in this nation, we drank deeply from the wells of freedom that we did not dig, and we now have an obligation in our generation to make a choice to accept reality as it is or take responsibility for changes. i visit schools in newark all the time because that is where our future is. and i stopped for a moment and i get chills when i listen to our kids. that's where i end. our children every single day, from oakland, california, to

newark, new jersey, from chicago to san antonio. from florida to alaska, all of our children join in a common course calling to our consciousness, now that would be a nation of jangling discourse, but that we will live up to our very name and be the united states. our children say in unison, speaking truth to our stubborn and resistant years. they say that we are one nation, under god indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. may reclaim this truth in our lifetime and make it real for once and for all in our politics. thank you. [applause] >> please welcome u.s. representatives joe sestak from

the seventh congressional district of pennsylvania. [applause] >> thank you very much. i was asked to say a few words this afternoon, and there's two items i would just like to talk about. what is a pragmatic leadership for america, and the other is accountability. for those who know my background, i joined up during the vietnam war. i never, ever wanted to be in politics. bob brady probably said it best in philadelphiacounty said joe, you're a crafty politician. and im. i just want to be a decent public servant. about five years ago i had the time of my life. i got married very late in life. that was my first personal challenge, getting someone to marry me. at the age of 47 i did get married. and then i had my daughter. some of you know she was struck

at the age of four. she is now nine, going on 22, but she was struck with a malignant brain tumor. so i asked to get out of the navy. and then i get a payback to her and i ran for congress, the health care bill that has caused such consternation across this nation. but my lessons in politics come from those 30 some years in the u.s. navy. i can remember when i got out, i went to the local county where i was born and raised until the local chairman that i was going to run for the congress. and he said, you have to call, i document the delaware county community college. i literally didn't know what the ccc met. so i called the democratic congressional candidate, you all know that. they told me not to get in the race. i call back the next day and repeated that they did want me

to run. this was my first exposure, having changed my registration from being independent for 35 years since i joined the military in 1970, till a week before i called the dccc. and a kind of targets to john f. kennedy's worse. sometimes the party asks too much. but iran. by serendipity we won. and two years later we met again. in the district that is 55% republican, 33% democrat. the first time in its three and a half million dollars at the second time it was $28,000 just for your time. somehow we were able to get across the values i learned in the u.s. navy. i can never walking out the pentagon the day 9/11 happened. 20 minutes later a plane slammed into the building. for men and women i had worked

with, who had worked for me, never came out. the next day the chief of naval operations called and said, joe, i want you to set up the antiterrorist unit for the navy. that night we were called together, all ideas were on the table. two months later i was on the ground in afghanistan. as i said in those four years as i went around my district, the u.s. navy was on the ground in afghanistan, we don't read liberals. we don't breed conservatives. we breed problems are worse. someone who can put all ideas on the table to try to come up with a dramatic -- pragmatic solution. then at some of you know i was asked to run against the republican senator in our district, and i said no. i want more time with my daughter. and then agreed after two months, and then republican

became a democrat. and then the party said no, joe, we don't want you. and so for a while there as i thought through it, i was about to go back to my affiliation of independent, because i went around the counties to try to decide whether to get in once the party said they change their mind. and i was really taken by how angry and how upset everyone was. and i was just speaking to democrats. and they wanted to hold someone accountable. but i decided to still run as a democrat. and the last word i would like to tell you is about accountability, because the value that no labels speaks to come and when is asked to speak

today about pragmatic leadership, what i had learned in the navy all those years, i also think there has to be accountability within the pragmatic leadership. i believe in compromise, principle compromise. not a compromise of principle, but that term accountability was taught to me by an 19 year old kid on an aircraft carrier that i commanded. and i always remember, for anybody who doesn't know much about the navy, there's 5000 sailors on an aircraft carrier. their average age is 19 and a half. a mom you to come aboard and she was a coach is a high school math teacher, she said joe, those are my kids. i said mom, i give him a year and a half later. and just like we said, there are tremendous. but an aircraft carrier when they launch a plane, they hook you up to the catapult

underneath. it's a big swing that throws you into the air. when they pushed that button, the ride of your life. walt disney has nothing over it. but sometimes as they are just about to launch it, they say stop, shut down the engines and get out. but no pundit worth their salt -- no pundit worth their salt would ever shut down the agent until they know they've been unhooked from the catapult which is underneath them and they can't see. because if you turn off your engine and you're still sitting in a plane at those kids are great, but they can make a mistake. if they pushed that button, off you go and you were not coming home. so all of a sudden this young 19 year old kid walks down the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, goes under the belly of the plane, where the pilot can't see, and detaches that plane from the catapult, and then that

young man or woman walks to the front of that plane engines are roaring. and gives a very simple signal like this. and then that kid doesn't move. until that time it has shut off his or her engine. and gotten safely on deck. and that kid has said everything which i would argue, in addition to just being able to do a principal compromise is most missing in washington, d.c.. that kid said go ahead, trust me. i'm responsible for having unhooked you from the capital. but i'm also willing to be accountable. and if after you shut off your engine, find i made a mistake and you start hitting overboard to your death, you're going right through me and i'm going

overboard. heaven forbid, washington, d.c., of men and women who actually, who would be willing to do a principal compromise, like kennedy did with mccain on immigration. and then be willing to do the right thing in and accountable way and lose their job. i would argue we came pretty close. because as cory kind of said, and others, they are angry. they are upset. and they want to hold someone accountable. but even more than that, they want to believe again. they want to trust again. i don't care if it's someone in elk county with an nra sticker on his car, or is someone down in the back streets of philadelphia were only 20% of african-american males even graduate from high school.

they are waiting for some very practical leaders. who would just lose their job over what is needed for this nation. so i hope as this effort goes forward, that piece, even more than principal compromise maybe it's part of debate and dialogue. thank you very much. [applause] >> please welcome the state treasurer of pennsylvania, rob mccord. [applause] >> i have been warned there's a need for speed. and we turned the lights back up? maybe it will help people's blood sugar. i've enjoyed my share of conferences and i realize we are not the point where one more speaker can be 10 more speakers than you need to hear from. so i will try to get both quick and interesting. i missed a treasure of pennsylvania which clearly makes me the highest status to everyone who has come before you

today. so you're heading that why do i give a damn moment right about now. [laughter] so let me just first of all remind you that i think many of you are among the smartest people in the country thinking about politics, trying to organize the sort of free floating sense that something is wrong with american political conversation. the work you do is invaluable. part of what i want you to do is urge you to recruit people who aren't already famous. this isn't just about senators and members of congress, presidents and rockstar mayors. i need huge, huge bloomberg fan, and think what he's doing for america as was new york is invaluable. but it's important to start recruit what we in pennsylvania call wrote off. it's important to start talking issues that seemed all but are crucial. it's a pension crisis blah, blah, blah, blah. 550 years and a lot of us were yuppies. we still listen to rock 'n roll and we still call each other

heather and so forth. but the fact is our knees are going, our backs are going there. soon will be in our retirement years, and you can assume the way -- assume away the problem all you want but it will still be there. you can listen to the talking point out the. lushes do what he did in the private sector and go to your 401(k). here's a newsflash, 401(k)s didn't work. they helped their share of private equity people. takeover companies but the average person graduate with a 401(k) at the age of 65 has $67,000. now i think there many people in this room who want to it 65 and try to live on social security, 13 grams give or take a year, plus 5% of $67,000 for 30 just to grab a pension crisis and you're not going to get all the way there if you only talk to the already famous. that's a brief sort of advertising, keep including some of the lesser brand of elected

officials because they will care that you care. let me do three quick things. i wanted to a confession, brief stories and a reiteration of goals. one of my favorite members of congress in history was someone named mo udall. he has relatives are now innocent and so forth. used to say we've gotten to the point, we've got to the point in where everything has been said but not everybody has had a chance to say it yet. i'll say that and try to keep that for the confession story. the confession as i did not think this movement, the no labels movement, would be this successful at this point. i am one of those characters who said well, if i don't raise my hand to get involved, nobody will. and i really like nancy jacobson and i really believe in this goal, so i'll give it a whirl. i had no clue that it would be a license to meet people like cory booker been a hero of mine for a decade, that'll be a chance to sign up with some the most important leadership that mayor

bloomberg has done, that i would have a chance personally to thank congressman castle and congressman shays our decades of public service and for doing the right thing. so i just want to say that when you go back out there, say there was a bit cynical or completely skeptical former venture capital to turn state treasurer who thought there's no way this would work but i'll hit a couple of living rooms, meet some interesting people, we will give it a whirl. and i'm shocked and pleasantly so to see how many thoughtful people there are, how much media attention this is getting. i'm beginning to believe this can be a robust and invaluable response to a a lot of stupid name-calling and slogan going on out there. so give yourselves a round of applause. [applause] >> on the war story but i'll give you three quickies. one about our public and president, when about a republican state senator in me, and one about a private sector labor i will start with the private sector wages came from. i just met with a gentleman who established the third hedge fund

in america. i was looking at him how old are you? he is 87 years old. 3% of morgan stanley. he sets aside money to send 400 african-americans to college every year. the nietzsche found is he said there are kids out there who mean well, who work hard, but they are not top tier academically. the top tier is from the ghetto, get scholarships. but one rundown art. it's that kind of thought leadership looking at real problems and generously and courageously providing real solutions. that i think ought to be included some of you young people in this room will get that wealthy. i want you to remember this moment. i want you to avoid the third wife, the buying of horses come and i want you to do something for other people when you get to that level. [applause] >> the next story is one involving senator for a soda can

i would just hang out and you're a couple of weeks ago and he said, the greatest president, i assure so close to bill clinton, he is huge friends with george bush the father. two reasons to be regarded by history for his greatest. one, he did the right thing by the death and he did in the right way. he did it at the right time. he did in a way that didn't cool down the economy. he crafted a cup of ice. and he was the only living american who could have put together that alliance to go into iraq and, of course, three, go into iraq the right way and take a lot of political heat for not going in all the way. he said what was exciting for me was to watch him pulling together that consensus and see, he knew these people for 30 years. when they took his phone calls around the world, they had already broken bread with him, which reminded me that in an important piece, if he is not just read teleprompter speeches, not just showing up in raising a lot of money, not just winning

election cycles, it's about doing the work for decades. because we are carbon-based lifeforms. every business leader i know said don't forget to invest in relationships of trust. part of what you're doing here is just building relationships with awful people. you do not need to agree with him on every front. just a let's work to find something we can work together on. the third point was, i was giving a speech saturday morning, this has been a new york weekend, to get together to celebrate the pennsylvania society. so i am doing my physical duty by asking all of you, please, i'm begging you, come, spend a couple of hotel nights whether in philadelphia was grand which is very pretty, or come skiing or go to pittsburgh. but you always pick believe me. we just spent a lot of money in this town. but anyway, if someone called pennsylvania manufacturers association invites speakers.

is a very interesting year because they had arlen specter. they governor rendell, governor elect carbon and so forth. it's 90% republican audience. i was not thrilled to watch governor elect corporate who for example, thinks it's a genius dude to say zero taxation on marseilles. and understand i'm against tax. but when can we are the only state in the country who doesn't tax extraction of financial resource when there are huge, human, economic externalities and environment externalities. when you have 7.5% tax in texas and the markets in new england. i'm sitting here biting my fist thinking he is not approaching prudent economic policy women have this huge structural deficit and say we will tax the wealthiest. in this case, i was all for the consensus just in washington because i think we're moving forward. but their mother instead i talked about the money, the

hundreds of millions of dollars we would be making in pennsylvania with a lot of various moves through treasurer and right towards the end, i'm not going to do anything partisan, i'm going to mention the rescue of our account program bring up from 70 to 90% funny. i've enjoyed working closer with the young recently elected republican state senators chairman of the appropriations committee. i had no idea he was in that audience. afterward she asked it to me he said, i know you've been asking me to do x, y and z. i'm just going to do it. let's hold a press conference that i will tell them we'll do it. you tell them why it's such a good idea. just an example in the last 48 hours about finding a way to reach across the aisle can be invaluable. and last, why are we here? one, to put aside labels. too, to make it safer to reach across the aisle. let's be pragmatic.

that needed someone reaches across the aisle and they are not a member of your party can maybe find a way to fund raise for the if they a tough election cycle. three, we are speaking common sense solutions and without her that at least 15 times so far today. so i will try to twist on the. we are also speaking on common sense solutions. my hero cory booker talked about enterprise. that was not a common sense solution. when it was invented. not everybody was thinking about giving scholarships to second and third tier academic african-americans when this hedge fund innovator in been a bad idea. and more important than uncommon sense solution which has to do with things like the price elasticity of demand, pricing things, taxing things that will create the lowest level of inefficiency. taxing cigarettes is a good idea because you want people to smoke less. taxing soda as much as it is derided is a good idea would have a fourfold increase in the

level of diabetes in america and that's an extra cause. that's an uncommon conversation because people don't understand the notion of externalize costs. so we need some uncommon sense but we also need uncommon courage. the kind of courage that congressman castle dentistry when he voted for tax entry. the kind of courage that arlen specter demonstrated when he voted for the stimulus package. the kind of physical courage that cory booker demonstrated when he went on a hunger strike. this is another thing that i think we have a mandate for, and i will end with this. and that's as we said it was the finest intellectual institutions in the world, it's that we need to remind people that evidence, fact, and ideas matter. they matter. [applause] >> too often, especially in government, we set our hair on fire and we put it out with a hammer. right?

it's important to focus on deficit by it's not the right time to shut off unemployment benefits which have highest velocity of money, right? date the boy to stay in the economy with it. it's a hard pace to make it is unemployment, and we say we will attack wage and we turn into, to attack the least lucky. this is an important time to be thinking about how to balance. and i will tell you nobody i have ever heard of has done this better than dave walker, from whom you'll hear i think in a couple of minutes, who led to peterson foundation, was the cocteau, i'm sure he will tell you about his next initiative. he will be working on pins and initiatives, but we have a delicate balance of competing concerns. so when we go out to we have to educate people. politics at its worse is about defeat, and at its best it's about education and consensus.

and you will make that possible. i salute all of you for the time you're taking. thank you for your time and attention. [applause] >> please welcome douglas palmer who served over two decades as the mayor of the new jersey's capital city, trenton. [applause] >> good afternoon. i know you all are tied. of course, let's stand it. why doesn't have a stand up and stretch their legs for a second. my mom was a teacher. i learned that trick from her. there you go. i know you've been listening to a lot of people. i just want to say a few things. first of all, i've been blessed to be an elected official for 33 years. i know what you're thinking. i was five when i got elected, i understand. but i was fortunate enough to be in new jersey, other places it's

county commission. i was there in my hometown for 20 years. and why i am so enthusiastic about no labels is because as mayor, we don't have the luxury of being so partisan as other people in congress or other places. you saw mayor bloomberg, my hero, and mayor booker. by the way, you heard that mayor booker said. yes, mayor bloomberg gave him some advice. he said become a billionaire first. well, when mayor booker asked me what to do first, i said shake your head first and it will work for you. it will work for you. i told eight in debt. so i just want you to know, i was first, but as i look at what no labels is about, it's almost like coming back home. windier a mayor, you don't have the luxury. i was the past president of the

united states mayors. with bipartisan. we don't work on what the republican mayors want to do, this is what the democratic mayors want to do, this is what the independent mayors want to do. we are into solving problems. and we work on those solutions. this is a very important time in our nation's history. and quite frankly, no labels couldn't happen at a more opportune time. let's face it, presidential elections are two years but it's more than just an election. when you call us a movement that's exactly what it is, a movement because it continues to move. you have to continue to move people. you have to continue to move people about commonsense things. i had a college he was a republican, i'm a democrat, we grew up in the city of trenton. his name is robert. you'd be amazed and even mentioning his name right now. he was a republican from the streets of trenton and i was a democrat. we grew up together he served as republican.

i was a democrat. and because we wanted to help the city of trenton, even though we thought about giveaways of taxing services, we came together for the good. and as a result of it, we had, the city of trenton, the new york yankee franchise. we have the time doubles which is another aa hockey franchise. we built those buildings because we worked together. and it takes courage. my friends, you know that. i can remember going to the suburban areas in our town, and people would tell him because he became the account executive and i became a mayor. they said okay, mr. exec, we are for building up a baseball stadium -- stadium but not in trenton. we will never get out of there alive. here's a republican, his own party was telling him this and he had the courage of us working together to see what it would

mean for economy and businesses. if it's not, not in trenton. but that takes courage whether it's republican or democrats. that's what it's all about. commonsense solutions. i understand people are mad. people have lost their jobs, lost their pensions, losing their homes, looking about college tuition for the children. and as a result people have taken advantage of that in very partisan ways. well now it's time for us, time for you and i, no labels, to have a seat at the table. if you don't have a seat at the table, you will be on the menu. and for too long the things that we want to say and do for the country have been on the menu. it's time to act. and again, i will be brief. i just want to say this last thing. one of the reporters said, do you think this will make a difference?

will no labels make a difference? will do and i and millions of others americans feel just like we do, can we make a difference? i will just say this story. one person can make a difference. and as a mayor i know this all well and good. the mayor is in the front lines, at the grassroots level. we are where the rubber meets the road. so when you are a mayor, you go to the beauty parlors, the barbershops, the grocery stores, the churches, the bars, you go every place. i just had to tell you want as going into the supermarket and i tell you, you've got to be real careful. sometimes i feel like i'm sticking around something. what is buying certain things. haven't of it i've i wrote to

kill. people are looking at what you are buying. and this one day, i'm getting ready to wring out, and another beautiful black bald headed guy comes up behind me and he looked into my basket, and look at the razor that i bought, and he said, are these any good? i said well, they're working pretty good for me. he said, all right, he said hold my line, honey. he goes back and he exchanged his blades and got the kind of place i use. now, i said that's really something. so obviously, if i can influence what goes on top of a man's head, i think i certainly can enforce what goes into. and i think we'll have the opportunity and the challenge to make sure that what we are talking about what moves our country for, to have a dialogue

going, gets into people's heads from the grassroots level where that's what it's going to be. being with the people from the grassroots level up. thank you. good luck and let's keep pushing. [applause] >> please join me in welcoming the former comptroller general of the university stage, and the founder of the take back america initiative, the honorable david walker. [applause] >> thank you. it's actually comptroller general of the best days. there's a little difference there. it's truly a pleasure to be with you here today. this is a historic moment. all of us have gathered here today in order to create a new movement for we the people, because our country is in a critical crossroads in our political system is broken. 221 years ago the american

republic was founded. and at its inception our nation was based on a few fundamental and timeless principles and values. these included ones like limited government, individual liberty, opportunity, personal responsibility, thrift, limited debt, savings, and stewardship. at the beginning of the republic we were governed by citizen legislators, who left their the occupation for a temporary period of time to do public service and focus on the greater good. they considered the interest other states and communities but they understood and acted to make the concept of the united states, allies. where do we stand today? yes, america started the world sole superpower with the largest economy and the most mighty military on earth, however, as a nation and as a people we have strengthened the many principles and values that make us great. we also face a range of large known and growing sustainability challenges that literally

threaten our countries and their families future of which our nation fiscal challenge is clearly key. today we are also increasingly governed by career politicians who may or may not have had a meaningful job in the world before they were elected to office, but once they get to washington they definitely are not in the real world. too many of which all too often focus o on the short-term intert other political career, their party, or the individual state and committees rather than the overall interest of the united states for both today and tomorrow. most of us here today, and most of the american people, are not pleased with the status quo. and we want to help change the nation's core in order to create a better future. we are the mainstream of america. we represent the sensible center and the majority in the middle. our displeasure is not based on a particular party or person.

after all, there's plenty of blame to pass around. our concern is based upon a system that focuses too much on politics and not enough on progress. and what about our nation's finances? the plain and simple truth is that our country's financial condition is worse than advertised. we are headed for a fiscal abyss at breakneck speed that we must change course before we go over a cliff. changing course is also essential if we want to keep america great, and the american dream alive for future generations. let me briefly review a few fiscal facts. at the outset of our republican in 1779, the federal government was less than 2% of the economy, and total federal, state and local debt to gain ratification of the constitution was 40%. today the federal government is 24% of the economy and growing. and total federal, state and local debt is rapidly

approaching 100% of our economy. and, in fact, if you look at the two data you will find out that the total debt as percentage of the economy of the united states is already worse than ireland, the united kingdom, spain, portugal and, frankly, we are not that many years away from greece. for almost 200 years, the united states did not run sizable deficits or a keynote significant debt burdens and less we were at war. and i meant a declared war. in depression or recession our basic the significant national emergency. today all too many politicians and economists that it's okay to run deficit. even at peacetime. even when the economy is strong. this is not responsible or sustainable philosophy. we have more than doubled our nation's debt in the past 10 years and we are on the track to double it again in the next 10 years. we have come from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation. we've gone from no foreign debt at the end of world war ii to

where now half of our debt is owned by foreign leaders. this combined with low savings rates and reduction investment of the future, has only served to compromise the future for our young people. to their credit the american people know that we are living beyond our means. they want us to change course. they are the leading indicator if the politicians that are the lack indicated. the results of the recent fiscal commission set up by president obama are illustrative. less than one week after 11 of 18 commission members voted for tough choices on spending, taxes and budget control to do with our structural deficit, there was a so-called these are done by the current leadership in washington whereby the so-called compromise involves no tough choices whatsoever with regard to fiscal matters, charging over $900 billion to the credit card, all the tax cuts more than

people want to all the spin increases, not a dime a spending cuts, nothing to do with the structural deficit. and people call this a compromise? what kind of compromise is that? what type of planet are these people on? it's critically important that commissions good work be put to good use in citizen education. it's critically important that we the people make sure that it is. i can tell you from my travels to 47 states and the last two years, the people can handle the truth. and they deserve the truth. they also deserve results, not rhetoric. [applause] >> given the importance of fiscal responsibility issue it needs to receive priority attention. the plain and simple truth, the choices that we make our failed to make on this issue in the next three to five years will largely determine whether our future is better than our past.

everything must be on the table given the size and significance of our challenge. budget control, social insurance reform, spending cuts including defense, and tax reform with additional revenues. those on the far left to say we don't need to reform social saturday medicare, medicaid and social insurance programs are wrong. and they don't have a credible plan to address the deficit. those on the right to say that we can solve our problems without raising taxes are wrong. they too don't have a credible plan to put us on a sustainable path. it's time for our elected leaders to develop a plan that can be implemented in phases over time where the math works. all of us need to encourage our elected officials to address these issues sooner rather than later. it's true want to do before we have a crisis of confidence in the market that can cause a significant increase in interest rates or a significant kline -- decline in the by a dog that would cost something much worse than the recession. in order to make that happen we need to encourage people to work

together and across the aisle. we need a people to understand the difference between the elected officials who want to solve the problem and elected officials who are part of the problem. [applause] >> as we look to the future we must not forget our past. america was founded by individuals who pledge their life, liberty and property to create what has become the greatest country in the history of mankind. they had a dream and to the courage commitment and perseverance, they and subsequent generations of americans were successful beyond their wildest imagination. however, today we are mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren at record rates while reducing investments in the future, even though they will face tougher competition in an increasing competiticompetitive and interconnected world. this is not just a responsible. it is, it must not be allowed to continue. [applause]

>> in closing, our future is threatened by a range of unsustainable policies and a broken political system. we are here today as founders of a new movement design to shock the political system in order to get america back on track. in doing so we must remember the no labels model, not left, not right, forward. we must also recognize the concept of fiscal responsibly and social justice are not mutually exclusive. we can't and must pursue both. [applause] working together we will make a difference that we will all be proud of. after all, we the people have the ability to do about anything we set our minds to and commit our hearts to. our nation's founders and families deserve no less. remember, not left, not right, forward. thank you. [cheers and applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, now for a more formal introduction, please join me in welcoming no labels founding leader, kiki mclean. [applause] >> you know the most part it's because at an event like this? the last one. i came here today with a lot of really good friends. my best friend, my husband is here. and john avalon and lisa, and i'm going home tonight with a whole lot of new friends. lisa from michigan, darnell, i know you here somewhere. i'm going to go home with the stories that hurt and the motivation that i heard. i'm a texan, and we texans like to take credit for something. most of them we have earned. some of them we haven't. is a great thing we have taken credit for for a really long time. and that's the work that lyndon

baines johnson did on civil rights. we would like to say we own that great victory. but lyndon johnson didn't own it by himself. there was a man named everett dirksen, a republican majority leader from illinois who since his personal political capital to partner with that great texas president to bring about profound and moral change to this country. 25 years ago when i got into politics i did because i had an agenda. i still do. i got in it because i love the adventure of it, and i still do. i got it because, frankly, i was a little competitive. the other reason i do it today is for my two kids. i of a six-year-old and an eight year old. and for joe and me, our job is to see their future. and after today being with all of you, i know we will see their future. because i know i can count on you to go home and make a difference in a way that's going to help me. because joe and i can't do it

alone. it's going to take all of us. and i am so proud to be part of the movement that's going to make a better life for my kids. thank you for being here and safe travel to your home. [applause] .. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ >> for these children, our children, and for all of america's children, the house will come to order. >> with the start of the new congress this wednesday, look back at the opening of past sessions, online at the c-span video library with every c-span program since 1987. more than 160,000 hours. all searchable, all free, it's washington your way. >> every weekend on c-span3, experience american history tv starting saturday at 8 a.m. eastern. 48 hours of people and event telling the american story. hear historic speeches by national leaders and eyewitness accounts of events that shaped our nation, visit museums,

college sites, as top history professors delve into america's past. american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. >> we'll be taking you live sortly to sacramento for the third inauguration of jerry brown as governor of california. he served two previous terms in 1974, and 1978. first lady brown is expected to introduce her husband, and it will be conducted by the chief justice. mr. brown challenges big challenges with more diversity and a weaker economy. california faces a $25.4 billion budget deficit, and 12% unemployment. one similarity as he does take office today, he'll be taking

the helm from a former movie republican governor. when he first served 28 years ago, that was ronald reagan, and that'll be arnold schwarzenegger. that from the christian science monitor. [silence] [silence] >> we are just waiting to take you live to sacramento for the third inauguration of jerry brown as governor of california. california is facing some more traffic congestion and pollution problems than it did when he was

first served in the state in the 1970s. and mr. brown is a life-long democrat. he won over republican meg whitman with 53.8% of the vote in november. after his second term as governor ended in 1983, he served two terms as mayor of oakland, and two terms as state attorney general. [silence] [silence] >> we take you now live to sacramento for the third inauguration of jerry brown as governor of california. ♪ ♪

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♪ ♪ [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for the oakland school of chorus. [applause] [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to the inaugural ceremony for edmund g. jr. as the 39th governor for the state of california. [applause] [applause]

>> ladies and gentlemen, we ask you to rise please and remain standing for the presentation of the colors by the oakland military institute. and the honor guard of the california cadet corps. >> ladies and gentlemen, please join me in the pledge of allegiance. put your right hand over your heart. ready? begin. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america. and to the republic for which it stands one nation, under god, indivisiblable with liberty and justice for all.

[silence] [silence]

[silence] [silence] [silence] [silence]

>> ladies and gentlemen, our national anthem, led by the oakland school of the arts choir. >> o say can you see. forby the dawn's early light. what so proudly we hail at the twilight's last gleaming. who's broad stripes and bright stars through the perilless fight. for the ramp hearts we watched

were so gallantly streaming. and the rockets red glare, the bomb's bursting in air, gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. o say does that star-spangled banner yet wave. for the land of the free. and the home of the brave.

[applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [silence] [silence]

>> ladies and gentlemen, you may now be seated. [silence] [silence]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> and now, ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to introduce to you the next first lady of the state of california, ann gus brown. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you very much. [applause] [applause] >> thank you. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> i can't see any of you. but i thank you.

[applause] [applause] >> thank you all for that warm welcome. and thank you all so much for being here. i really can't see any of you because this light is in my eyes. i can hear you out there. thank you for coming. i appreciate governor schwarzenegger and governor davis for being here and their lovely lives, maria and sharon, two wonderful first ladies of california. i hope i can even begin to achieve what they did. [applause] [applause] >> i also want to thank senator feinstine and speaker pelosi who i am told are here. thank you very much for coming. and for all of the dignitaries who are here today. thank you so much. [applause] [applause] >> i also want to thank my

family, both the gust family and the brown family, some of whom came from pretty far away. we really appreciate all of you who came, and all of the californians and supporters here. thank you for coming to this special day. we really appreciate having you here. and also i wanted to just give one little last thank you to the wonderful students of the oakland school for the arts and cadets from the oakland military institute. [applause] [applause] >> this is a very special day for my husband as y'all know, he's been here before. and so this is kind of a coming back. last evening he attended a party with many of his old workers and supporters and it's just a very emotional day. and we're very excited to be here. so without me talking any longer, i'd like to introduce my

husband, the next governor of the state of california, edmond gerald brown jr. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> and, ladies and gentlemen, to administer the oath of office, please welcome the newly sworn in 28th chief justice of the california supreme court, the most honorable.

>> are you ready >> >> yes. please place your left hand and raise your right hand and repeat after me. i, state your name. >> i, jerry brown. >> do solemnly swear. >> do solemnly swear. >> i that i support. >> that i support. >> the constitution of the united states. >> and the constitution of the state of california. >> and the constitution of the state of california. >> against our enemies. >> against all enemies. >> foreign and domestic. that i will bear true aallegation to the constitution of united states, and the constitution of state of california, that i take this

obligation freely without any mental reservation. >> really, no mental reservation. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> good. or purpose of evasion. >> or purpose of evasion. >> and i that will i well and faithfully. >> that i will well and faithfully. >> discharge the duties. >> discharge the duties. >> upon which i'm about to enter. >> upon which i'm about to enter. >> congratulations. >> thank you very much. thank you. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> thank you. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause]

>> thank you. [cheers and applause] [cheers and applause] >> this is the first time i did one of these inaugurations with my hand on a bible. [laughter] >> and it's ann's grandfather's bible. we used it for the wedding, the inauguration, i think it's going to stick. madame chief justice, governor and mrs. davis, governor and mrs. schwarzenegger, esteemed member of the senate and assembly, constitutional officers, distinguished guests, fellow californians, thank you for joining me today. and governor schwarzenegger, thank you also for your courtesies and help in the transition and for your tireless efforts to keep california the great exception that it is. [applause] [applause]

>> this is a special moment as executive power passes from one governor to another. determined solely a majority vote. it's a sacred and special ritual that affirms that people in are charge, and elected officials given only a limited time in which to perform their appointed task. for me-day is also special, because i get to follow in my father's foot steps once again. >> 36 years -- [applause] [applause] >> in 36 years after my first inauguration of governor, even follow in my own. [laughter] >> then 1975, it was the ending of the vietnam war. and a recession caused by the middle east oil embargo. now as we gather in this restored memorial auditorium

dedicated to those who died in world war i, it's our soldiers fighting in iraq and afghanistan, and our economy caught in the under tow of a deep and prolonged recession. with so many people out of work, and so many families losing their homes to foreclosure, it's not surprising that voters tell us that we are worried and believe that california is on the wrong track. yet in the face of huge budget deficits year after year, and the worse credit rating among the 50 states, our two political parties can't come close to agreeing on what the right path forward is. they remain in the respective comfort zones, rehearsing and rehashing old political positions. perhaps the reason why the public holds the state government in such low esteem. and that's the profound problem. not just for those of you who are elected, but for the whole

system of self-government. without the trust of the people, politics degenerates into mere spectacle, and democracy declines leaving demagoguery and cynicism to fill the void. the year ahead will demand courage and sacrifice. the budget that i propose will assume that each of us who are elected to do the people's business will rise above ideology and partisan interest and find what's required for the good of california. [applause] [applause] >> there's no other way forward. in this crisis, we simply have to learn to work together as californians first, members of a political party second. [applause] [applause] >> in seeking the office of governor, i said i'd be guided

by three principals. first speak the truth. no more spoken mirrors on the budget, no empty promises. [applause] [applause] >> second, no new taxes unless the people vote for them. [applause] [applause] >> and third, return as much as possible decisions and authority to cities and counties and schools, closer to the people. [applause] [applause] [cheers and applause] >> with your help, that's exactly what i intent to do. the budget that i present next week will be painful, but it'll be an honest budget. the items of spending will be matched with available tax revenue, and specific proposals will be offered to realign key functions that are currently spread between state and local government in ways that are complex, confusing, and ineffect. my goal is to achieve greater

accountability and reduce the historic shifting responsibility back and forth from one level of government to another. the plan represents my best understanding of our real dilemmas and possibles. it's a tough budget for tough times. when dealing with a budget gap in the tens of billions, i must point out it's far more than waste and inefficiency that we have to take out. yes, government wastes money. and i'll be doing a lot about that, starting this week. but government also pays for things that most people want. and that are approved only after elected representatives debate their merits and finally vote them into law. they cover the spectrum from universities, parks, health care, prisons, income assistance, tax incentives, environmental protection, fire fighting, and much else.

choices have to be made, and positions taken. at this stage in my life, i have not come here to embrace delay and denial. [applause] [applause] >> in reflecting on the difficulties, my thoughts turned to those who proceeded me and what they faced and what they were able to accomplish. my father who took the oath of office as governor 52 years ago. his mother, ida, born on a ranch in 1878. and her father, august shockman, leaving missouri in 1852 and traveling across the plains to sacramento. i tried to imagine the difficulties my great grandfather confronted as he left germany and came to america. and across the plains and over the sierras into california.

let me read from the diary that he kept during his long trek westward. on the 26th of june, we came to the first sand desert. it was 41 miles. we went there at night and rode 19 hours in it. on the 26th of july, we came to the second large plain. also 40 miles long. here we lost seven oxen which died of thirst, thousands of cows, horses and mules were lying about dead. we disguarded way -- wagons by the hundreds. we saw wagons standing that would never be taken out again, and more than 1,000 guns could have been broken up. here on the 40 miles are treasures that can never be taken out again. we can only imagine what it took for august shockman to leave his family and home and travel across the ocean to america, and then across the country, often

through dangerous and hostile territory in a wagon train. but came he did. overcoming every single obstacle, yet, he wasn't finished. after a few year, he went back to his homeland and found a life, augusta, sailing back to california. their granddaughter, my aunt connie carlson is here with us this morning. this march she'll be 99. aunt connie, would you stand up. let everybody see you. sure, stand up. can we get a light on here? turn around and see. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] >> by the way, those who were hankering after my job, it maybe a while.

so relax. [laughter] >> god willing, the genes are good. i won't say anymore. we can only imagine what it took for august shockman to leave his family -- no. that's what you get when you ad lib. all right. [laughter] >> but here's the point. it's not just my -- [laughter] >> it's not just my family, but every californian is heir to some form of powerful tradition. some history of overcoming challenges, much more daunting than the ones we face today. from the native peoples who survived the total transformation in their way of life to the most recent arrival, stories of courage abound, and it's not over. the people of california have not lost their pioneering spirit or the capacity to meet life's challenges. even in the midst of this

recession, californians this year will produce almost $2 trillion of new wealth as measured by our states domestic product. [applause] [applause] the >> innovations of silicon valley, colleges and universities, skills of our farmers, internet, hollywood, and grit and determinations of small businesses everywhere all give hope to an even more abundant future up ahead. [applause] [applause] >> and so do our teachers, our nurses, our firefighters, our police and correctional officers, our engineers, and all men that are publish servants who faithfully care out our undertakings. this is a time to honestly assess our financial condition and to make the tough choices.

as we do, we will put our public accounts in order, and investments in the private sector will accelerate, and our economy will produce new jobs just as it has after each of the other ten recessions since world war ii. as californians, we can be proud that our state leads the rest of the country in our commitment to new forms of energy and energy efficiency. [applause] [applause] >> i said a goal of 20,000 megawatts of renewable energy by 2020. i intent to make it by the appointments i make and the actions that i take. there are hundreds of thousands of new jobs to be created. if california regulatory authorities make sensible and bold decisions. it will also be necessary to make sure that our laws and rules focus on our most important objectives, minimizing delays and unnecessary cost.

i'll meet with not only leaders of energy companies but with executives from a broad range of california business and industry to work on common problems and the breakdowns that we've been seeing. we're going to break the barriers that have been holding us back. we live, afterall -- [applause] [applause] >> we live, afterall in the 8th biggest economy in the world. we have outpaced the domestic product and productivity per capita. that means each person working in the state is working more effectively in terps of -- terms of what is produced in the country than any other state. aside from economic advance, i want to make sure that we do everything that we can to ensure that our schools are places of

real learning. [applause] [applause] >> our budget problem is dire. after years of cutbacks undetermined to enhance our public schools so that our citizens of the future have the skills, the zest, and the character to keep california up among the best. [applause] [applause] >> one of our native sons, joe royce, he was born in 1855 in the mining camp that later became the town of grass valley. i mention him because his philosophy of loyalty is exactly what is called for. loyalty to the community, to what is larger than our individual needs. we can over come the sharp

divisions that leave our politics in perpetual gridlock, only the loyalty to california above and beyond our narrow perspectives. [applause] [applause] >> i also mentioned josiah royce, because my father talked about him a long time ago and his loyalty. i didn't grasp the importance. but as i look back now, i understand the loyalty to california was my father's philosophy as well. it drove him to build our freeways, universities, public schools, and state water plants. [applause] [applause] >> in the coming year, we'll grapple with problems of our

schools, our prisons, and water supply throughout the reliability and environment, and we'll also have to look at our system of pensions and how to ensure they are transparent and actuarially sound and fair, fair to the workers and fair to the taxpayers. many of these issues have confronted california one way or another for decades. certainly since the time of governor earl warren. it's sobering. and enlightening to read through the inaugural addresses of past governors. i done imagine too many of you do that. [laughter] >> they each start, these inaugural addresses on a high note of grandeur, and then focus on education, crime, budgets, water. i thought a lot about this. and it strikes me that we face together as californians, and not so much problems but rather

conditions. life inherent difficulties. a problem can be solved or forgetten. but a condition always remains. remains to elicit the best from each of us and show us how we depend on one another and how we have to work together with realism, confidence, loyalty, and the deepest sense that california to my forebearers, and prosperity. california, here i come. right back from where i started from! thank you. thank you. [cheers and applause] [applause] [cheers and applause] [applause]

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♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> ladies and gentlemen, a big hand for the oakland school of the arts choir. we ask, ladies and gentlemen, that you remain at your seats until the governor and first

lady have left the auditorium. thank you for coming to this morning's inaugural ceremony. happy new year. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> republican national committee chairman michael steele is running for a second term. and he faces his four declared

challengers in a debate today. moderated by rover norquist, and the daily callers tucker carlson. we'll show you the debate tonight at 8 eastern on our companion network c-span. the 112th congress convened unwanted noon western with 242 republicans and 193 democrats. the house will formerly elect a new speaker, ohio republican john boehner. members will then vote on house rules and a number of motions that get the house organized for the new session. we'll have live house coverage on c-span. the senator -- >> tonight on the communicators, how the policies directly affect high-tech, including taxes, broadband, immigration, and education, ray ramsey, president and ceo of technet on c-span2. >> the c-span networks, we provide coverage much politics,

public affairs, nonfiction books, and american history. it's all available to you on television, radio, online, and on social security media networking sites and find our content any time. and we take c-span on the road with our digit bus and local content vehicle. bringing our resources to your community. it's washington your way. now available in more than 100 million homes. created by cable, provided as a public service. >> now a conversation about the causes of conflict in war with input from philosophy were international affairs, and military scholars. from a forum on war and peace, this is an hour and 50 minutes.

>> good morning. as you know this is the panel on the causes of conflict. and so before i make a few introductory remarks, i'd like to introduce our distinguished guests. to my immediate right, is professor michael scharf, professor of law, and director of frederick k. cox international law center at case. following him is professor paul robinson, professor in the graduate school of public and international affairs at the university of ottawa.

after him is lieutenant colonel john stark from mt. summit, and graduate of west point. jeffrey hellsing is from the united states institute of peace. we oversees much of the educational outright in the united states and overseas development. oversea development, most of the training courses and workshops. findly we have major jose carlos teixeira, lieutenant colonel in the brazilian army artillery branch. all of these distinguished guests are going to be talking about the causes of conflict,

and then the possible resolutions to conflict. my name is jerry piven, i teach philosopher here at case, and as somebody who studied the history of ideas, i find it confounding how the history of humanity is one so replete with violence. toward the end of hamlet, we see an army marching over a cloud of ground and hamlet uses what can the purpose of such blood shed be? it's so tempting to sympathize that history really is a mad house. we have 14,600 recorded wars in human history. how do we explain this?

sometimes we have very simplistic answers, cliches, some of which shed light, some of which don't, we talk about oppression, imperillism, economic conditions, oppression, and those all seem to make sense. but given that history of blood shed, is that enough to explain our proclivity towards violence? does it explain the rage, the excess? does it explain how soldiers could bayonet babies during the rape of nanking, or force fathers to rape daughters. does it explain the belief that what is so evil about the west, for example, is that there's a free mixing of the sexes? does it explain the violence? does it explain the kinds of

things duprey talks about in survivor when he said nazi soldiers were forced to clean the will treens with their faces? does it explain islam-phobia? there's so much that we need to explain. there are many theories of violence. some people see violence at merely the expression of human nature coming out. some thinkers talk about the psychological need for enemies and allies. it's what it means to be human. a buddhist philosopher friend of mine talks about the inner void in itself that motivates us to attack others, and recent research on violence, for example, can talk about humiliation, or even as some of

the paramanagement theorist say, the fear of death that can inspire ordinary seemingly rational people to harm those deemed different. so i'm going to open this up to the group. how do we explain conflict? and then afterword, what can we do about it? gentleman? >> do you want to go in any particular order? or? >> no, i'd like you to fight it out. [laughter] >> i'm happy to jump in if you want to just kind of go down the list. i came to this issue years ago when i was an attorney advisor at the u.s. department of state. and i was assigned to work on the legal issues involving the breakup of the former yugoslavia, and those led to a terrible ethnic outburst, ethnic

fighting, religious fighting, ultimately genocide, and the international community decides to create an international tribunal to hold accountable those who were responsible. my very first book "falcon justice" details the story of that trial. i remember very much in detail the day when i was in courtroom watching as the chief presiding judge who had been an american, she was a former civil rights attorney who had become a judge in the united states, and she along with two other international judges were presiding other the trial. she looked out from the expert witness from the u.n.. she took her said and said i don't understand this. the expert witness said let me try to help you understand it. where are you confused? well, this country, bosnia, was a country that had the best level of interreligious marriage of any country in the world.

even in the united states. it was a country where the ethnic groups had gotten along so well, it was showcased recently in the winter oh -- olympics. all of the sudden there's a conflict, and rises to genocide, people start killing each other, they know what they are killing, and they do it with such veal. how could it happen? the expert said i have to explain this in a way the judge from the united states will understand. and she said, well, your honor, picture what would happen in the united states if all of the newspapers and all of the radio stations and all of the tv stations were all controlled by the government. and that the government then started to beam these broadband, these newscast to the population 24 hours a day, seven days a week saying, for example, that t -- let's just say and this is her words that the

african-americans were going to rise up and kill all of the white people. then the government armed all of the white people. they said why are you giving us guns? they said because the african-americans are about to rise up and harm you. can you imagine what would happen isn't the united states under those circumstances? judge mcdonald who was african-american thought about it. she says okay, i see your point. the point is this, as you alluded to at beginning, hobbes had it right. there's a thin line between civilization and barbarics. what keeps on the right side of the line is government and free press. when the government takes over the free press, and controlling all of the information that's going out, and when the government becomes controlled by people's who's politics indicate that to maintain power, it would be useful to find some kind of an enemy. this happens all over the time. that's the ingredients for mass

ethnic violence and genocide. to answer your question with one respect, how does genocide occur? how does the mass ethnic, racial, and religious violence occur? we know the ingredients. they were proven in that court case. they were proven a couple of years later by the rwanda tribunal, and proven in cambodia trial. we are learning quite a bit about it. one the scary things is if we don't have a free press, the government can unlease the worse in humankind. that will lead us down the terrible road. >> if i jump in at that point. i have to look down a bit. i think it's a bit low. i mean conflict, per se, is a natural part of any human

society. because different people have different interests, so we'll always be in conflict with one another. the question really is why people choose to resolve conflicts with force. and at an individual level, that's fairly explicable. collectively, it's harder to explain. because collectively, it rarely makes sense from the cost-benefit analysis. very, very few wars make profit collect iively. i mean even if you achieve your collective goal, you normally do so at a price which is not worth it. and very often, you don't have a collective goal anyway when you start the war. the ends are not very clear. so from a purely sort of collective rationality perspective, it doesn't make sense as a human activity. but it can make sense for certain individuals or groups. so we're collectively it's not a

profitable undertaking, certain people believe it and certain people profit from it. the problem therefore is often one of structure. okay. it's that power is in the hands of certain people in an imbalanced way. and also the elites who make the decisions tend to think in a certain way which is not always very sensible from my personal point of view. american sociologist once said the problem with the u.n. foreign policy and security establishment which is what they called crack pot realism. that's to say they think they are realist. and they understand how it will operate. they only ever talk of themselves. the realism is actually completely crack pot. okay? but unless you think like that, you won't get a job or be taken seriously -- you are not considered a serious person; right? so, you know, it's not just people tend to like blame george

bush or whatever. it's not just george bush or whatever. there's a way of thinking within the establishment which you -- it's not easily broken. and there are interest which mean that even though something has collectively stupid, it happens anyway. that's one -- that's one problem. and we just heard, imagine if the press was controlled by the government. well, it is even in democracies surprisingly controlled. the united states, for instance, as a grand total of about 100 foreign correspondents. that's about how many u.s. journalists are based overseas. about 100. they are in london, paris, beijing, nowadays baghdad and kabul. the modern days, they write press releases, and they read the writers or the upi or

whatever press release. they page write it, copy it, and have to do it in fewer times. they have to get the news out quicker and quick per of basically they copy. that's why if you read different newspapers, it's often the same story. often the same word. it's remarkingly easy to manipulate the press even in a democratic country. you keep churning out stories of weapons of mass desruction, and copy them down, shove them on the newspaper, that's it. we're not even as immune to that in our society as we would like to imagine. another point which prevents us from analyzing things rationally, collectively, the failings of both individuals and goods. we are not very good as human

beings as making rational judgment. we tend to, for instance, analyze risk extremely badly. we have become extremely terrified by an act of terrorists. whereas, we are a millions times more likely to killed by a car crash, because car crashes happened every day. you adjust to them and think you can control them. therefore, you overreact to dangers which aren't really dangerous. okay. that's just one. psychologist could give us more. there's a whole bunch of other psychological failings. we don't act rationally. we think that resorting to violence and collectively speaking, it doesn't. >> okay. i guess it's my turn. being in uniform at the peace summit, it might seem i'm the emissary of war. but i assure you that i have an interest of peace that goes at

least hand in hand with my colleagues and maybe beyond. because i have been stations in iraq and i wear a bracelet of my comrades who have died in combat. i feel very strongly that events like this are healing for the country. i appreciate the young people, the veterans, scholars, it's a great group of americans. and also international guests, it's really great to see you all here. thank you for inviting me, shannon, i'm going to give you three ways of thinking about the causes of conflict that are not mine. i am at heart a soldier, i'm an armour officer, i grew up not far from here. i could probably relate to your lives, expect i grew up in the '70 and '80s with a doze of sports and ronald reagan cold war patriotism. you may not have had to do that. i don't know if all of you have scholarships. i grew up in a trailer park in

indiana. i thought the military was an enticing way to pay for my education. it sent me to ohio state to get my phd, and i've taught at west point, and princeton, i'm teaching there now a history course. i am a historian, but also a soldier. :

and then we do it even if it may or may not look like it the only option. we still do it sometimes. this may not give you hope for humans if we are looking like ants and apes. however, there is examples in this study where you can look at the vikings in the 800, 900 -- the ninth, 10 countries. they work very violent peoples. and now come you cannot imagine norway and sweden going to war with each other or a bunch of guys going out in a boat and pillaging on the coast of england. it wouldn't have been. so there is hope. in this study is how do we get to that, where one can be like denmark? well, that may not be the only example. i think that that study is interesting, but there's two other ways of looking at it that i consider more important because people actually using them to justify conflict, not if they hope to stop it.

the class of cultures theory, see neil huntington is the idea that we're all kind of -- we grew up in her own culture. you guys are here in ohio and the like the browns and you don't like war. your culture is threatened by somebody else, someone else who grows up doing something different with a different religion or different thought process. and they are scared of us and leading them with ebay and coca-cola in the donald's. and so we developed the reason we fight each other. that theory is not so hopeful as will probably fight he each other forever and it is based in culture and not in our species. a third theory, which i happen to like, but which our panel later with tommy is very teleological and western oriented -- it is. the end of history and the last friend is with a harvard scholar. and his idea is that world

history has been a story that ends that democracy is not democracy as the genie that has been let out of the bottle and overtime is a growth of the number of democracy. democracies don't fight each other. democracies end up negotiating and figuring out a way to resolve conflict without fighting. and even if iran and north korea in hugo chavez came up with a lot of nuclear weapons or obama went insane and bumped the whole world and almost killed everyone, the people that came out of the caves would want democracy because a great system and we've proven it right. and they will succeed again. this is a very. now, the end of history is we've reached the pinnacle of human development with democracy. the last man part of it is there is always going to be someone someone else who wants to restart history and cause conflict because they don't like this result. i tend to like it. i think that is what we are

seeing with terrorism. people do not like the result of democracy, but i'm very biased. i and repeat traffic and i do believe that democracy is the worst system in the government except for all the rest. but the clash of cultures is still alive and we are a species, which does have the instinct to fight each other. it's very complicated. those answers will not satisfy you and give you something simple to go home and write these three theories down and that solves your worst but that's the way i look at it. thanks. >> i'm going to try and build him a couple of things that i've heard and also threw a few other ideas for consideration. the first thing that jumped to me, jumped out at me when i heard the moderator was he interchanged proclivity to

conflict into violence. i would agree with the first, but not the second. i don't think there is a human proclivity to conflict. our conflict is to manage conflict in ways to use use violence. in fact, most human beings don't resort to violence. the problem we have is not out of the fear that colonel stark about, we often have those who do engage in violent, but that's not most people. the biggest problem has less to do with those who commit violence and those who are enablers for violent or those who are bystanders when violence occurs. and what's critical is developed institutions, to the develop processes, both globally and

locally that enable to do with their disagreements, conflicts without resorting to violence. that's one of the strengths for mature, deep-rooted democracy is they create institutions, laws, procedures that allow for the peaceful resolution of disagreement. democracy itself, if you think about it, the election process are going through this country and will culminate in an election next tuesday. there's a lot of conflict. it's a conflict of ideas, a conflict the parties, the conflict of visions. the key is to develop ways in which you deal with those conflicts in peaceful ways. to promote democracy in society

that don't have those institutions. to promote elections before you have a strong rule of law. to promote elections or competition before people of the confidence and it's not simply a winner take all one-shot chance of political power. you're going to have conflict. many of you may not have been in this room, but an interesting debate to race, which was the night duty to send messages of hopes for peace all around the world via the use of flat. that is what a blessing that was articulated for 192 countries. what was interesting about it from a standpoint of conflict is that there were three flags that were in the ceremony to tha taiwan andpalestine that

actually simply hoing upths flags in some areas are somewhat conflict inducing. why weren't the flags of kurdistan or mindanao or chechnya also included? in other words, what choices are made about nationality, self-determination, who was the right to become a nation are not? that one of the things that i ink is really critical to think about in terms of conflict is that identity is a critical component of conflict because we don't see as we did as much in the 20th century. we don't see state and actually soldiers in uniform fighting most of the conflict in the world today. and i certainly respect the

names on colonel stark's bracelet, but we are now in a world where actually few soldiers in a relative sense lose their lives in wars. 90% of the casualties are civilians. >> certainly a lot less in your day. >> absolutely. but partly what we need to focus on is the impact of violence on impact who themselves are not armed, are not engaged in violence and respond to by the means. because what we've done, we've seen a world of what we might call conflict entrepreneurs. people that benefit from conflict. the ethnic cleansing in bosnia was merely the result of those elites who are looking for political power and who are profiting from resources, the distribution of resources among

the distribution of power and they were fomenting fear and future it. and what's remarkable, if you look at most conflicts, even in the midst of that kind of fear, hatred, demonizing the other, most people are engaged in the violent killing. most people are actually just scared. they are bystanders or they may be enablers. they may help provide public support for those who are carrying out the violence because they simply believe it's not fast, if not then, then those people are going to do it to us. and so, one of the things that incumbent upon the international community is to hope develop

institutions, means of dealing with an equity, and equities with distribution of resources, but also in equities have access. and when you think about it, if you're in bosnia, part of the concern was that those other guys were going to gain control of not just resources such as money or minerals or arms, but also who is going to control education. what about access to health care? what about access to one's likelihood, jobs? if you don't have a system that's equitable, minorities will feel that in fact they can't provide for basic needs. and one has to look at the

structural causes of conflict that then can be exploited by conflict of fear mongers, unscrupulous political leadership. and so, it's important to address causes that are linked together and not just focus on well, human beings are just violent and therefore we have to find ways of keeping people apart or find ways of dissent in dealing with the hobbesian world that we live in. i think we need to think much more about i suppose a more lucky in view of the world in which as human beings we can find ways of preventing, managing and reducing the negative consequence is that

conflict. too often we look just at the failures. but there are successes. to me just mention two very briefly. one, the crimean war. not the crimean war of the 19th century, but the crimean war that actually didn't happen after the breakup of the soviet union in which two nuclear armed countries, russia and ukraine in fact had a great deal of conflict over the disposition of the crimea, partly because the majority of ethnic russians in a territory under ukrainian sovereignty. it was a lot of effort put into keeping a lid on conflicts and teions in crimea in the mi1990s for institutions like the organization of security and cooperation in

europe, through diplomacy, through working with local leaders, russian and ukrainian in the crimea. but unfortunately, we don't talk much about that and we don't teach about this in political science or international affairs and most cases. you think about another interesting example. the country of mali in which after there were violent conflicts, some of them were identity-based tribal, that there was a feature of mali was insignificant jeopardy, even though you had, in the 1990s and and that was officially to conflict. you had a peace agreement. you have political arrangements. the violence is still percolating. enter a series of conflict resolution and mediation efforts at the local level, that actually percolated upwards and matt clement praised by the

larger political process in mali. molly has actually had peaceful transitions of government, changes in power and has developed conflict management techniques that in fact are much more prevalent throughout much of the society. again, violence that was prevented in the case that is not studied and is not taught. i think we have to be very weary of just being cynical and pessimistic and just say we have a proclivity to violence and that's what we have to focus on. that's what we also have to focus on is developing strong institutions of peacebuilding at the global as well as the local level. >> well, i guess it's my turn now. with one for all, i would like to say that it's a great honor to be here and they thank you

for the invitation and they thank you to be here with us. wow, i think that michael pointed out a lot of good points about the aspects of law, social aspects, political aspects, economic aspects. i just wish to point some psychological aspects that will not be an answer, but surely will be another question that will be pointed to be sold altogether with those points. i think that sigmund freud, when he wrote civilization in cloture, he said something that

any man could not kill the beast e is a piece of natures. that lays behind any social conflict. we have enough reason that means man is a wolf to man himself. i think this is yet a very main question. this will be the regional beauty of our civilization and at the same time, that's why we are a species that think because we can transform all this beauty,

also into evolution, also into mercy. the social phenomena is not only that of mine, only by reason. there's much of a motion. there's much of symbolism in it. if you give a patient to our uniforms, you will see, for example, minded the screen. it is green because it of course reminds the camouflage. and you can see our badge that our science of iranians. you see the meadows that symbolize things we have done

and were as good, but also many times they are a kind of a scholar and our own schemes because we pay a price in many times a civil price for the so we can hear this from many veterans here. and we do this because we obey orders and because we want to protect our society and ourselves. again, the conflict will rise out of this and reflections that are social structure suffers, that ourselves as a society

viewed. so i think there is really an instinct to survive. not to survive as as coulter of economic systems, survive as a political system. i would remind that another writer that i like very much was an interesting book called live with moderate tea. he is writing -- he says during the last century we something like solid modernity. he means solid because he tells us that the coulter at the time

was much more reasonable for the people within it might now for me. it was right was right and was done. so decisions where they are easy to do. remembering world war ii, it was very easy to choose a side to be with the good guys or to be the bad guy. an afterword, we have seen it. a great improvement. meaningless, we were in the cold war. he also tells us that in our present century, we live a kind of liquid modernity because our values are not sustainable. we cannot keep them the same

way. and why does this happen? may be because we have some difficulty to understand the order. we have difficulty to understand diversity. and in our society, we have many choices to do. it's easy to remind that last century we didn't have human choices of employment. you would be a dark dirt, an engineer, but nowadays could you imagine the diversity of jobs we have? and yet, we play off unemployment. last century when someone had a motorcycle, a car, a house, that

was almost lifetime warfare. nowadays we want to change it every time. we must buy every new model car we can. and we borrow for this and we are getting stuck in borrowing money. so behind all of these liquid values that are ephemeral, we are just a little bit last. we are just fearing something with the society must first protect us enough because we have so much to choose. i think that the violence, the animal they tried, that lives with us, when we feel insecure

if we are not so able to figure this beast. on the other hand, i think at this moment is a very good moment for our evolution as people as a nation because it fosters us to change these values among ourselves, among our governments, among our needs so that we can understand better each other and understand as ourselves so that we can be really responsible for our choices, for our cooperation. india summit, i have observed some testimony that it is

possible. for example, when i seen the dvds of ethnic -- when it heals, profound herds from the veterans. i just thought, we ask citizens of society, even civilian. i think we have two hours discussed violence is not on the battlefield. violence is in our cities. violences in our lives. we must remember about the violence against children, and against women. and why not? economic violence. we must heal maybe ourselves.

maybe our society is seeking for healing. and again, i think that sigmund freud, again stirring something important, that we must treat ourselves, in treating ourselves we will treat our society in getting to know each other, getting to hear each other, it would be easier. [applause] >> well, we have about 15 minutes before we open it up to the floor for questions. so what i'd like to do is ask our distinguished panel a few questions based on what they said. and i found it all extremely fascinating and somewhat

perplexing. in the first debate to address without your teixeira said. if indeed we have this beast inside us, it certainly behooves us to recognize that it is us and not only the other. you have? it behooves us to examine ourselves and our proclivities to violence and so forth. and yet, i have to ask this question. what is the nature of the so-called east? guess we have it, but what is it? the other panel members each weekend and i think a very articulate beautiful way about it. dr. scharf, you alluded to hubs. and when hobbs says that life is nasty, solitary, or a dish and short, not that hobbits are nasty, but that life is nasty and short, why is this the case? where we soper kudo? hobbes himself talks at least in part by this year to come in the

of not knowing what happens after we asked by your. and some of you also called upon not. dr. stark also talk about the conflict of civilizations and our fears will. or helsing mentioned fear and the demonization, the aha. and i wonder, where did these come from? what inspires the terror and the anxiety and the hatred in the demonization? and i'm reminded of some experiments that friends of mine have done, that they enacted what they called majority salant inductions. they subliminally scared people with reminders of their own

death. and they could motivate people, for example, to be sadistic to each other without the person realizing they were sadistic to each other. can you imagine you have these guys experimenting on short order chef's remake of the mortality seduction they put just as much hot sauce in the food they perceive to be an ethnic groups without realizing it. we are that susceptible to fear that were willing to be sadistic. more recently they did experiment where they give mortality salient inductions anything democrat 90 people come up with that that bush was insane and started to support bush's ideas because the fear acted on them that way. ..

>> you know, one of those genetically the same as monkeys, but new research suggest suggests they're not as violent. you know, it depends who you read. one thing we can say certainly is men are more violent than women. this is a natural phenomena. it's hoer hormonal balances and this is clear. however, it's not just a natural

phenomena but a cultural one, okay? it's how masculinity is interpreted, not just the fact that men are naturally more violent. the protest goes like this. historically a society was prone to threats and therefore to protect itself needed people who were strong and good with weapons, so it encourages people to be strong and good with weapons by giving them honors and people respond to honors and they try to be strong, but how do they prove that? they have to fight someone. it begins by fighting society. it's a phenomena where by honor and status are associated with strength, and we know one thing about human nature or some

medical research suggests is that humans are very naturally concerned with status. there's interesting research done with monkeys and british civil servants as well saying health is related to your status. you can do experiences in monkeys and move them to different packs and different level in the pack, the more hormones change. if you are higher in the pack, you have less stress hormones. it's crucial to your health. we really naturally care about it. there's a drive to get status. that is part of the human nature. the question is why is it associated with violence and competition? it's a process. that process means that showing

strength is what all its about, and therefore, the problem is that societies make, particularly the elites who make decisions, feel that they must appear to be strong, all right? there's interesting things with lbj, for instance. he asked why being in vietnam. allegely he took down his trousers and said that's why we're in vietnam. he had dreams of people shouting him him that he was weak. vietnam was about his masculinity, and that is in part, you know, a natural phenomena, but it's a cultural one because we have associated through the years, you know, power and strength and honor, so culturally the way to eliminate war is to disassociate honor and

strength and prowess and war fighting and i don't know that democracy is the way to do that because they promote people who care about applause. one british psychologist said to politicians the one thing you all have in common is the desire for applause. capitalism and free markets and wealth create alternative avenues for which you can satisfy this enate desire, and as a result your society over the long term becomes more peaceful. also, if a society was run by women, it would be more peaceful too. >> well, okay, i like the idea. what is the rest of the panel have to say? >> let me chime in for a minute. >> i do think that often war is

caused by the elites and leadership, and it's interesting how often countries will say we don't have anything against the united states, iraq said, we just hate president bush, and i think we said similar things to ahmadinejad and some of the other leaders. now, one of the one thing that distinguishes us from the animal kingdom is we have systems of justice. we uniquely do this. this is something we are starting to build up so that we have mechanisms to detour and make war less likely and to be more costly to those who are commit ling them, so -- committing them, so we have seen now in the last 20 years the prorifflation of the tribunals starting out with the one i told you about before, the others and

the idea of the tribunals is they create a historic record so as the famous american historian once said, we, if we don't remember the lesson from the past and the mistakes from the past, we will continue to be making those mistakes into the future. that was a terrible summary, but you get the idea. also, these avoid collective guilt so that you don't have -- an example, nazi germany rose up because of the collective punishment instituted on germany after world war i. you have justice for the britains so they don't take into their own hands, and then there is evidence growing that where there's a reasonable likelihood that people will be prosecutorred for these crimes that there is deterrence, so famously adolf hitler said on

the eve of the invasion of poland when he was asking his troops to commit total war, and they said we're not sure we want to do that. we'll be held accountable. he said, what are you talking about. let's look at world world war i. about a million of them were maskerred. nobody was health accountable for that. who after all today remembers the fate, and therefore, his troops could launch their total war with impunity. those days are gone. we're now in an era where you see so many kinds of trials and so much discussion of international criminal accountability in parliaments, you're seeing them in tv shows just last week, "the simpsons" had an episode where crusty the clown was hauled against the court for crimes against humor. . [laughter] the idea is that everybody is

learning about international criminal law. it's becoming pervasive, and this may be one of the ingredients that fights against the human instinct and the human compulsion to always go to war. >> i'll give it a stab. in many clash of civilizations or class of cultures, education is really the best hope that civilizations have to learn about each other, do exchange programs. i would encourage the young people there to consider that. one of the great things about military life is i've been able to do that. believe it or not, i was in tanzania this summer in civilian clots with army cadets doing an exchange program learning what it's like to live in a third world country. i have been to ukraine and evaluated their systems so they could have a chance to join nato. they have not joined yet, but i

did something in poland, and they did join. doing those things open your eyes in ways that reading about it or talking about it doesn't do. if you have an exchange student visiting you, get to know them. ask them if you can crash on their floor. do something like that. that will help in this clash of cultures, even if it's a culture like ours. the first place i went was to sweden. it's not that much different from the united states, but it was enough different to make me want to see more different cultures, and i think that's something very important to the future of ending conflict, but in the end of history example when you have the last man, the guy who is left outside of the democratic system has lost his honor, and this goes back to your point, and i really believe that's very important, and you gave the solution, and i think it's worth repeating. you must have a society with a system that generates the

political and economic and societal possibilities and norms that people have a chance to have dignity and honor. in some of the civilizations out there are limited compared to ours. maybe we shouldn't compare to ours. maybe they need something different. they have a limited sense how you can with dignity advance your position with status which some people believe is important. maybe the military is not the way, a war against the culture that has no chance for men to establish dignity may be counterproductive because now the only way to win honor is to win the war, and the war may go on forever. it's one possibility that we consider. there needs to be other organizations, and there's ways to combat conflict, the best ways probably are not military, and i recognize that as a

soldier. there's nothing more than i want than for the department of the state to go to iraq and afghanistan to end those conflicts in a way that makes those people able to join the community of nations where they can have dignity and honor. maybe they won't have open mcdonalds on over corner and starbucks, maybe that's not the answer, but some other organization other than the military can probably negotiate that path better. i encourage you to think of those paths as well. back to you. >> that's beautiful. when you talk about honor, several thousand years ago in the middle east because you will not bow down to me, i'm going to destroy your mountains, this element of dignity exists to this day. i'd like to here a few final comments especially since

dr. helsing has the courage to actually teach policy and arab-american relations and work with people in the middle east, and i think that's something we should learn from. i sympathize with your per perspective on the importance of this. >> i actually will start. i agree with a lot of what professor sharp said, and i think we are moving more to, i suppose, continuian solutions at the international level that i think we all need to support and the world needs to put more effort into. i would argue that hay treads are often constructed and hatred is used and manipulated in that education is one of the crucial tools to actually underminding

dmonnizing of the -- demonizing the other and there are ways in which one can through education provide for opening minds to more pluralistic perspectives on the world that simply because you were different than i am does not mean that you are a threat to me, and how do you break that down? how do you get those values? it's difficult. since you mentioned the middle east, there's an interesting controversy beginning on in israel right now, and it's related to the use of a textbook, the textbook that i actually personally in our institution help provide support for over the last 10 years. it's a palestinian-israeli textbook developed by jointly

israeli teachers and historians that was meant to look at history of the last century. they initially tried to create a common narrative, and they couldn't do it. there was so many differences between the perspectives, so what they decided to do was create a textbook that had on the left margin the palestinian narrative and on the right margin is the irai 'srrive. blank in the middle for students to take notes and find common interests, ect.. for the last 10 years they have been trying to get the respect of the education to adopt the textbook. it hasn't happened yet, although the ministry announced three weeks ago they were adopting it and changed its mind a week later because of political pressure. there's a high school in --

i don't know if you know with starote is, but it's the community nearest to gaza. it's been under going rocket attack from palestinians from gaza. they live with the conflict probably more than any other israeli community on an ongoing basis. a teacher decided to use this book in the classroom. the israeli ministry of education has now forbidden that. this teacher and the principal called up to tel-aviv and and sort of hauled or taken there said you cannot use this, ect.. well, what i think is interesting about it and many students were saying what are they afraid of? they they we cannot think for ourselves and we'll be brainwashed into adopting the

poll stinnian narrative, but what's interesting is that in this us versus them dynamic, a deputy minister of education told the israeli head of this textbook person who conceived on this and developed it, he said that actually from the israeli standpoint, they were not concerned about all the sudden if this book was adopted that israeli youth would somehow become overly sympathetic and adopt this history. their concern was that israeli youth would begin to challenge the israeli narrative of history acknowledging that we do this in this country with our own textbooks that history is something to be controlled, constructed, manipulated.

we all have nationtives and myths, and oftentimes those are used to glorify ourselves, they are about heroic deeds, and so therefore to allow the challenge of our own narrative, of our own myth weakens us versus them, and that's why education is an oftentimes overlooked aspect of how we can ruce conflict and build up peace. there's one other thing i would also say, and this is -- there's a scholar at the university -- i think he's still at the university of illinois. his name is varsni. he was originally from india. he did a study of muslim communities in india and wanted to know why some of them dignity

-- went into ethnic violence and others did not. his conclusion was it was not enough to have muslim-hindu interaction sort of having dialogues together, but, in fact, what was necessary was these communities coming together over a common problem that they had to solve collectively and collaboratively. another problem of rebuilding something or dealing with an environmental issue, ect.. where they had worked together and solved problems together, they were almost always going to have in place relationships mechanisms of working together that helped them in almost all cases prevent violence from erupting even though in the larger political sphere there may have been increased tension,

may have been incidents elsewhere that led to rioting in other communities, but those communities where those patterns existed, that didn't happen. when people work with each other and their identities are no longer us, them, hindu, muslim, but that their io dementty -- identity bridges them as a community, come together as a people of a common community, and they see themselves in that sort of identity form, when people work together as teachers across ethnic lines or when they work together as has been the case in israel and palestine, environmentalists, hydrology gists who have come together with some interesting common solutions to deal with environmental threats and water issues, ect. in which they with

work across communities and not be sort of be prevented from finding interesting solutions to common problems because of political dynamics, and i thi more and more we can find ways of sort of creating or breaking down those identities that in a sense fuel violence, lead to sort of the exploitation of differences and find ways that people can, in fact, work together and develop patterns of cooperation and collaboration and they can transcend the narratives, the myth, the hatreds exploited by conflict entrepreneurs. >> well, it was asked, what would be this beast? i would give it a name.

i would call it fear. fear we bring inside of us, and they think that this fear is fed by our insecurity feelings, and i'm sure that we can control that. we control it by education. we control it by the talking, by working together in our communities of people of states of nations. we can do it if you wish, and we must do it beginning with our children. i reminded of the ceremony that was held here before. that's why the children were

here. they are hope. they are our future. we must invest in them. with this ideas in ideals, and we must remind ourselves that this beast is, of course, a thing, but it makes part of us, and we must control it, and again, i believe that education is a very strong instrument to do that. if we put into education a sense of the necessity of responsibility, the sense of love for the other, and for the forgiveness for the other, and for ourselves because i'm sure

we are human, and we make mistakes, but always we can try to forgive and look to be forgiven. >> can i come back on one thing? >> well, we are a little bit over. >> yeah, okay. >> possibly you can work it into the answers when the audiences have questions is that okay? >> yeah. >> sorry to cut you off. we only have a half hour or a little more to entertain questions. i'd like to encourage anybody who wants to query the panel to form civilized line before the microphone and please address them.

[laughter] >> thank you very much first of all for a very interesting discussion so far. i wanted to raise two points that i'd like to hear your response about. first of all, i should say i'm nina mccull len, and i work with cleveland peace action, and we recently had a speaker come that i wondered if you heard about. his name is paul skhapel, the director of the nuclear age peace center, and he has written a number of books. he graduated from west point by the way and has been an active soldier. he makes the point that we can overcome using war as a

mechanism for resolving conflicts if we make a change in how we view this, the way we did say with slavery. he uses that an as example that for hundreds and thousands of years it was felt that slavery was a natural thing, and it took a great change in the world view to change that, and he feels that that can be done, and he has a lot of examples of how cooperation and other positive traits are built into human society, so i wondered if you heard about his work and what u you would think about that. the other point i wanted to raise is it seems to me there is what i guess i would call the elephant in the living room that i feeloble addressedded at this -- nobody addressed at this point, and that has to do with the strategic competition for

national power and resources that often underlies governments and groups making war and continue flict, and -- conflict, and the other part of that that is very disturbing to me has to do with the u.s. role because it seems to me in the last 20 years, there has been a concerted effort by those we have defined as neocombs to change american belief significantly and successfully that we should be the world's superpower, that we use military force much more often and aggressively in response to issues around the world, and that we can use it preemptively

and there's an american acceptallism that are the way to do things and should prevail and be the answer for everybody. for me and many of us, this is a huge cause of conflict in the world that has been going on whether it's democratic or republican administrations. thank you. >> i thank you for that question in five minutes or less. >> i'd like to response to the first question which is how do we change the view of war like slavery and everybody dismisses that as a crime instead of heroic and exciting. the international community tried to do that by indicting the germans for the war of aggression charge, and they held them responsible for it, but after that, all the other international tribunals i talk the about have not included in their statute the crime of

aggression. you can prosecute for war crimes, but not for waging or attacking another country when you have no right to do so either because it was authorized or you are acting in self-defense. the international criminal court, the new permanent criminal court is debating whether to add it to its statute, and i went down representing a nongovernmental organization this summer where all the countries in the world gathered including the united states and at the end of the a two week session they decided to add the crime of aggression kicking in in seven years, and the idea and what everybody was saying there we have to make what we tried to start to do at new emberg. we have to change this so it's so depiased it's like slavery that nobody accepts. let's cross our fingers.

>> would the united states recognize the criminal court -- [inaudible] >> you know, the bush administration used to oppose the national criminal court and that changed at the end of the administration when the security court embraced the court. the united states sent the largest delegation of 32 people of the state department, justice department and they were very engaged in negotiations, and at the end instead of picking up the marbles and walking away like at the end of the year of 1998, they gave a press association saying we can live with this and we feel comfortable with this and we see ourselves having a better relationship with the international criminal court going forward. there is room to have on the --

optimism. >> yeah, i agree with the statute of a aggression of war. i think that is right. if i could put your two questions together to the acceptability of war and u.s. exceptionalism, this is not just the neocons. this is what i was saying. their issue was what i said earlier. the idea that not merelily using force can promote american power, but it's an acceptable way of doing. ..

>> the idea something inherently wrong about this is not they accept at all. i would recommend reading a book by stephen walt and so on. about how this is something which is deeply, deeply entrenched within the foreign policy community. i don't know how you can change that except by keeping on friday, keeping the protesting, keep on acting and hopefully people will eventually learn. it will take a very, very, very long time. all you can do is try. >> in my time at college we

wrestle with this problem. as the only american student other representing the entire history of the u.s. armed forces, and at the time it was abu grade and invade iraq, that's what i was there. i had to think about these same question. some of the conclusions i could agree with with my german colleagues, we approach the problems are very different sides. determined to learn from history that having an army would eventually lead to using it in an improper way, and that therefore using it outside of your border was inherently wrong. in the american frame of history, if oun' dohave an armyhat is ready to deend your cntry, u'll e up with pearl haor, 9/11, korea or some other situation that is unacceptable and you end up with a longer war with more men die. that's probably not every american to view of it but the people who were in charge, they kind of fault in those categories on the oppote sides from the european what rumsfeld

would've called old europe, and the american angle alliance on the other side. these products of history, they are hard to change. they will probably take a new dynamic, i know the situation where we are united in our allies in a different way. and then my data trend stood up and surprise me with the comment, america is looking for security. and this exceptionalism as not to wait to get it. you are just making yourself a target. what about giving up some of your sovereignty to gain some security i do not believe that most americans who are either in charge or have people in the military, can agree of who to give that sovereignty to. who deserves it? would we really want to give it to -- you say the international community, that sounds nice but are people who do not agree with our way of life. should we give it to the chinese? should we give it to the

russians? they have their own problems. who do we get the sovereignty to? do we give it to the germans? to have their own problems. they're trying to give it away. everyone is trying to give it to someone else and someone else to act, and because of our history going back to the american revolution and manifest destiny, whether it was right or wrong, through pearl harbor, through 9/11, there is this kind of thinking that america needs to be able to defend itself and that it will not give up sovereignty come hell or high water. this is a trend not just among the elites but i think it's a very populist idea. it may not be among the elite educated. it may not be their idea, but it is probably more than 50% of the people who vote. they do choose, so now i'm back to, it needs to be a paradigm shift, something outrageous. godzilla needs to attack the earth and we will give up our sovereignty to the u.n.

so they can destroy the alien invaders. this kind of thing. something that bizarre would probably be required. that's just my personal opinion. >> i think this question is one that can be addressed at length, and i would really like to do attention to the i must apologize that we are limited in amount of time we could spend on these questions. so please accept our forgiveness for having to address other peoples questions. i think this is very important, so thank you. >> i'm michael phelan. so, if we are able to reach a point where external violence no longer is an issue, it adds two state. one could say. by instance is running a large part of human nature what do we really accomplish?

>> well, we learn. we must be able to learn from it. it as if we do these such things, is because we have made a choice. and by making mistakes we can learn a lot. i think that this moment is a moment for learning. i don't believe that we want reduce any, any kind of absolute answer throughout these questions. but we can learn from ourselves much that will compose us to do the right choices, next term. and i think it's a bit of

democracy system. we must be responsible for our choices, and we must beeducated so that we can do the right choices. but all this we are responsible for that. >> i'm not sure i fully understand your application, but i would certainly say that there's a different between violence and conflict. conflict can create opportunities. conflict is not necessarily mean a bad thing. it's how you manage those conflicts, but i would challenge you to consider, if you think about political, economic or social change, in most cases nonviolent means of achieving change has been more prductive and has lasted that attempts to do so violently.

so, you know, violence come if you accept that violence is inherent and positive part of the human condition, then maybe your question makes sense. but my way of thinking and that many others is that violence impedes social political economic change. and so it's important to try and find ways in which violence can be reduced and ultimately a laminated in a way that one can and still as a people, as a planet, we can continue to develop and create positive change. >> okay. let's take the next question. >> so, you talked about, you

talked about capitalism as a way for i guess men to channel their masculinity into achieving things, i guess. and to me it seems like that's just, that's still a question. it's still a form of aggression to exploit, you know, the lower classes. and i was wondering why you think tt that is so detrimental to war with another state? >> i think it really depends on your attitude towards the competition. on the whole, it works better than other economic systems. i was a student in the soviet union many years ago, it's a fact, you know, it's not a very

good system, to be honest. it's better than something else, and ultimately channeling your desire for status into building a new company and getting rich is ultimately, i don know if society going rhetoric on people, that's basically what i'm trying to say anditdoesn't have to be in capitalism. you can channel it into your local sports team, or whatever. the board so i spoke about choices, the more choices you give people, the more avenues in which event a national competitive instincts. then i think the more people, there will be others to fulfill that sight of that nature without actually klling. that's mybasic point. >> hundred and i think a capitalist society generates more of those spent a number of the people on this panel seemed to suggest that there were a number of ways of displacing aggression and violence into

very banal activities. this is why knee-jerk would say civilization was a sublimation of cruelty and why others could talk about the banality of evil, but the ease with which we conflict what does not appear to necessary the violence and others without being called opal -- culpable. and while i was recommended last night, a book by my friend walter davis, death dream kingdom, the american psyche since 9/11, because he makes the case that we have this predilection to disgorge our own psychological to project it on others and afflict our violence on them. were as we need to be excruciatingly aggressive toward our own elections to violence. and so stop bothering and inflicting ourselves on them. which is all too, my 2 cents.

unless anybody has any other comments -- okay. >> i come from mumbai. i really appreciate the point about the structure of political causes, and i basically bring to the india-pakistan issue in kashmir which is going on. i find in my own country the military budget increasing and that is so true for other nations. why are these nation states not interested in confidence building measures when the military budget is increasing i think that these budgets, i don't find it increasing to the extended so only the nonstate actors which keep talking about, but when hatred is constru through r other systems, i think people in

power are required to, take this and we can talk about peace. my question is, can we ever achieve stability and peace? the topic of the panel discussion ends with challenges to stability. >> i guess i'll take a shot at that. we had a conference at the law school here about a week ago looking back at the irish good friday peace accord that are now 10 years old. and that was a situation where, for 30 years, nobody thought that these two factions were ever going to be able to sit down at a peace table and have sustainable peace. what helped in that case was the sort of exhausted themselves over time. there was mediation from the outside, from the united states. and then ultimately they use what i thought was most fascinating is power-sharing

equation that seems to not only have worked for them, but that is now being exported around the world and injected into other peace negotiations. and so the idea that they did come up with a mathematical formula so that factions can feel the lack of fear, if you keep raising, that they can feel secure, that they will ave representation through this power-sharing equation, that that might be the ingredient for long peace. and so for an island, 10 years and going. so, you know, that is a model. don't know whether it will work in kashmir. there's a lot of other places around the world right now that are on the brink of war. one i want to bring attention to thaudience, the tv audience too, is what's going on right now between north sudan and south sudan. both countries are arming to the hilt. in january this going to be a referendum of independence by south sudan. there was an arbitration that

decided that south sudan gets the oil fields that were on the border, and everything is right for major terrible violence there. this is a place where the world community, the united states taking the lead, has to do much more to head it off otherwise this will be shown in reruns we will be remembering sudan as worse than anything we have seen in recent years. much worse that was going on in darfur, by the way spirit and that points out, me, there's an interesting parallel out because as you mentioned the united states, china has significant investments in oil resources in sudan. but kashmir also suffers from the fact that there are other agendas involved. in some cases the conflicts may be exacerbated by the specific neighborhood. so what's happening not just in kashmir, but the pakistani,

afghan taliban the american and western sort of agenda with respect to that border spills over into and create in some cases obstacles to confidence building measures that might be possible between pakistan and india. but because there are other competing agendas, that oftentimes get sort of shunted aside. and, therefore, again the international community, i would say insurance of the united states, -- i would say in terms of the united states, what we don't see as a strong global leadership. we don't see global leadership that is a function of cooperation of collaboration among parties, countries, that have the capacity to influence the agenda of others. one of the speakers previously

talked about sort of american exceptionalism in america become the world superpower, et cetera. there's some who would argue that, in fact, the united states attempt to do so actually is long past. it met its waterloo, if you will, in iraq. not because the united states couldn't show itself be a military superpower in easily militarily, you know, end of the regime of saddam hussein. but, in fact, it was what came after. the inability of the u.s. and the internet security then to other robust tools, diplomatic, economic, et cetera, that could help create opportunities for peaceful change or political transformation. that's what the international community lacks today. and even though we may be making sort of incremental progress on

international law such as the icc, the inability to actually coalesce around those tools and use them robustly and realistically is a real problem. so that you see, you know, china is becoming a significant superpower but not diplomatically, not politically and not militarily, but economically. the united states has presented its military capacity, but it's economic and diplomatic powers is weakening. that's a recipe for a week or international community, not a stronger international community. so one has to look at the context of all of these things, and northern ireland is an interesting example because the outside powers could also come together to help facilitate that process. but where you don't have that, a

combination with the powers inside the conflict, will be very difficult to create those. >> i just say one thing very quickly on this. sustainable peace between canned and your states, sustainable peace in europe. if you look at global statistics on conflict josie the magnitude of conflict worldwide is massive, massively lower than it was. the press won't tell you this. but it is true. it is substantially less than what was. so we are moving there. it will take time, but as prosperity spreads and all the rest of it, violence will become more and more isolated. >> i also agree with you. veterans are getting better. -- the trends are also getting better. spent i think there is ashift

of leadership among ntions. and i think that it will take some time, but we will arrive in international much more stable and peaceful platform. we learn how to cooperate, to depart, that each nation can do to achieve a sustainable peace. so it's a whole plays, other nations, other people of our world. if we caot d so, ww't be prepared to live in peace. >> i'm glad things are getting better. here i was worried about the hundreds of thousands of people killed in iraq. but i appreciate that.

>> i'm an academic but i'm going to take off my academic out and talk human, if that's all right. academics are real humans, are they? well, that's what i've been hearing. i think that on the human optimist, and i think that war is inevitable as long as we think and believe it is inevitable. i think you've been talking about violence, you said it was more proclivity for conflict. but i think the humans also have a proclivity for peace. and i notice you're not mentioning that. i have worked in many countries around the world. i traveled the world bunning robot fighting competitions for many countries, 30 country. it could be arab countries, eastern countries. one thing i always notice was at the beginning of these competitions we on the with the students or farmers or people, different kinds of people, and you meet up in this kind of a cultural politeness and the

cultural but there. i put these people under incredible pressure with tv cameras everything else. and within a couple of days the culture would collapse and we were all in the same boat. they would be crying and shouting at all sorts of emotions. i really got to look forward to it each new event you would wash the cultural the near collapse and we are all just people together. it was no difference between us. there wasn't a difference between the cultures. and that is to be very interesting because you talk about a beast within. that's what you been talking about. i think there's another peace within. although these is probably the wrong word. i think that everybody has humanity inside them, really, and it can be brought, and i mean everybody, even your terrorist, killer, strapped with bombs. everybody has this love for spirituality or humanity deep down in the. rather than try to suppress other proclivities we should be trying to bring these out. just a personal opinion. [applause]

>> i actually wanted to ask a question that sort of builds off of what the present -- the professor was just saying. we did discuss how humanity has a proclivity to conflict, and i was wondering if we have a proclivity to conflict but not violence, how you all think that inclination towards violence paints a picture how and when we have been talking a lot about sigmund freud and other, more what i would call old school psychology. and i would like to say maybe from the perspective of more developmental psychology, like doctor erickson in his book, i did using crisis, proposes that as adolescents the crisis identity forms opportunities for youth to bome violent and form hatred towards other cultures is

actually into the clash of cultures, which the general was talking about. and i was wondering where you all thought that violence enters the picture and how we can prevent that. >> well, your speech, maybe we are living now kind of shift may be. we are getting very mature society. so we have to overcome some, like actual theory. may be we are just trying to go our way out of these identity crises. and again, i remember a moment when he say that most gives us great possibility of choices. and this causes fear to us.

and also with the previews speech, i agree that we were talking a lot about death, but if there is such a thing, it's because there is life. and life must be pleasurable. and, of course, we always must to remember the arrows, as in freud psychology system we must say. we must remind us every day that the arrows side of energy, most be praised every day when we wake up, when we meet our friends, our wife, our children. and we must remember that any people in any culture will have

rights to have displeasure. they are not different from us. even though their way can't seem to be a little different. so that's the system, we must educate ourselves about diversity. i think that would be key to achieve more smiling world your and just world. there will be brothers, there will be knowledge lost, economics, solve this problem. we cannot distrust the things we had built until this time. so our institutions, they need our support. but also need that we participate with, that we vote,

that we make our choices, and that we make our part in this. >> i think the choice is really important. the idea of the beast inside of us, that's only one end of the spectrum. and professor scharf said he had humanity in you. it is a spectrum, and it ranges from the most noble heroic thing that you can imagine, the most altruistic human all the way through the neutral, to the beast. and i would encourage everyone, the youth especially, be assured that you can make a difference. is not that you are just an actor waiting for the newspaper to come out to tell you we are going to war, or something else terrible is happening. it may be something small that you do. no home and help your little brother was his homework, something that simple. you will move someone towards

the noble altruistic, noble ideal, whatever that is in your culture, in your home. you can have an impact. in fact, almost nothing else will have an impact your reading books, getting smart, traveling the world, those things are great but it is the interaction with other humans and having an example would you were young that will make you a better person and make this kind of thing solvable in the future. probably will not be my generation, and i doubt if it will be the u.s. army that solves the problem of sustainable peace. we can control the oceans with 12 aircraft carriers but we can't stop someone from hating us in another country. we can't do it, and like you said, we really capital the ocean either. somewhere there is some pirate loading his boat right now and we can't get there fast enough. but you as an individual, you should go out like a swarm of

humanity and be positive and make the world better. that's the only thing that will work. i guarantee you that will work. [applause] >> i think this was an excellent question, and my concern is how do we cultivate this that you're talking about, especially since what you are saying suggest from a psychological developmental perspective that certain elements of that violence can be encoded in the process, and that's what your attachment theorists come and even more recently people like alan shore who were talking about the neurobiology of attachment and have it can be encoded in the brain and so forth. it's very sinister stuff, and so i hope you can take what they have said and apply it toward the government of the psychology of cultivating. storage of an you. >> i agree with everything.

i want to share one piece that i found very interesting. a sociologist who studies violence pattern in children from birth to 15 or something, two teenage, over a 20 year period, the parents had to log every violent action by the child. they thought teenage would be the most violent but it turned out not to be. children are most violent between the ages of two and four. ..

>> is there the possibility of the civilization that our panelists discussed because these are profound. i have to apologize for not being able to take every question because i know the people who are coming up to ask questions, but actually our panelists have to run to the airport, and we don't want them to miss our planes because of the discussions and so forth. my apologies to you. ask your questions to the remaining panelists afterwards and communicate by e-mail. i don't want to make you feel neglected ornything like that, but we have run out of time.

again, my apologies. i thank the distinguished panelists for coming from great distances to joining us. i think this is a fantastic panel and thank you for coming. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> republican national committee chairman, michael stehle is running for a second term and faced his four declared challengers in a debate today. narrated by the day lay column, and we show you the debate tonight on our companion network, c-span. the 1112th congress returns wednesday noon eastern time.

they will formally elect the new speaker. they then vote on new rules for the next two years and get the house organized for the next session. we'll have live coverage on c-span. they start with a live quorum call. democrats and independents will hold 53 seats, republicans 47. live senate coverage and c-span2. >> up next three reporters tbr germany talk about the immigration policy. from one of deutsche welle

programs, this is about 25 minutes. ♪ >> this week, immigration in germany, topic of the year. the debate was unleashed by this man and his book, germany does itself in. it looks at germany's effort to immigrate immigrants that led to a storm of controversy. in the look, he sharply condemned politicians for what he calls misguided immigration especially from muslim countries. after the initial release, a debate ensued here on the success and failure of integration on germany. your host this week is me lind

crane. >> it was a debate at kept politicians busy. where is integration heading in 2011 is what we want to talk about today. i'm here with a great group of guests. >> joining today is peter who writes about politics and security and the opinion editor of the title newspaper. >> based the critique partly on what he saw here in berlin as he was a politician here. he describes turks and arabs living off tax money. was he tells the truth in

awkward language or forms resentment? >> well, it's part some to give on that question, but statistics he gave we were discussing over weeks and months were almost i'd say correct, but some of the interpretations he gave were questionable or even a little bit nasty because the nearmans have a -- germans have a certain reference to historical debates that are decent. >> about genetic engineering. >> yes. >> he was dismissed from his job. he was basically punished for having broken, but was it really all that much new about what he had to say? >> well, i would argue the effects and debate were not new

to say we have a problem with integration is not new. it's the combination plus the way he's attacking entire groups of people in a way we haven't seen in germany for a long, long time, and i think it made a lot of people angry. >> the people or muslims? >> well, i mean, he left it at, you know, more than just one group. he mostly lashed out at muslims, but others as well. basically the poor because in one part of his book he actually argues that the poor are poor because they are not very intelligent, and this will, you know, it will stay like that because this is the way our society functions, so i can see why a lot of people were angry with him. coincidentally some of the poor people who are not well-educated like him for not liking muslims. >> was the debate useful?

>> i think it was useful because, you know, as so many people feel attacked especially the migrants that have the feeling that they are judged unfairly, and so, you know, instead of a dialogue, he somehow just separated society and i think that is really something new for germany that someone from the social democrats uses such a language and such arguments. we have had this debate as was said for a long,ong time, but up until now, it will always, people from the right or the far right who use these arguments and it's completely new that this is coming out of the middle. >> 2010 saw the rise of far right parties in many different european countries, but interestingly enough in the yet actually in germany, so is there actually so much potential for

right wing resentment here? >> well, not yet. the right way to describe it, and might be one of the resolves is we should think of our policy towards imgrants and towards integration in order to keep away from these movements which track place all over europe in sweden, denmark, the netherlands, and they rise very sudden, and it's very difficult to get them away afterwards. you have to deal with them for a long, long time. germany is, well, some parts are democratic and rightists are waiting for a movemented like this, and this will be one the most important issues, so referring to astonished high ranking members who made this point in the institution and one could say welcome to reality.

they joined the debate which has to be thought out the hard way because doing it the soft way over 24 years didn't make the resolve. we need to keep away from movements that we have gotten in netherlands, denmark, or sweden. >> if i way, what i think is an important point is the movements that you were referring to, for example, in the netherland, i don't think you should classify it as a far right movement. they look at them as -- >> it's antimuslim. >> yes, but in the joining of these twohings and enlisting it in a new level that we are against muslims because they are not liberal. this can make it explosive. we should not only look at people from the far right. we are talking about people who see themselves as liberals and

the feels they have identified a major enemy, sort of, opposite force that they want to deal with, you know, so this is what makes it so dangerous, i think. >> what do you think of the potential for a phobic movement, an islamic phobic movement? >> well, the potential is there. when you do surveys 20% of the population would vote for such a party, but an interesting thing is there isn't any party at the moment that would somehow, that people can vote for, and we don't have such a party is due to two facts. one fact is, of course, our history makes it difficult for another party to rise. we are a federal country, a federal nation, and in order to have success in all of germany, it takes a very, very long time. others have slow parties in some

of the member states of germany, but never ever manage to get to the national level, and i think it's much easier in countries like, let's say denmark or the netherlands who are smaller and sen tryst to be successful. >> the book sold quite well in germany while the political elites were mad at him for breaking all these taboos, he was selling thousands and thousands of copies, millions of copies. what he had to say clearly resinated with the people. >> it's interesting to know who read it or people who bought it because it's a high-ranking discussion that they read about in the newspaper or watched discussions on the fftions or wanted to have the book, and maybe it's an opposition against the political class because the first thing he said was i didn't

read the book, and it's not necessary to read it. we have sort of a distinction between political class and the people in germany which is rising. in the united states for a very long time, the guys in washington, the bad guys, so the liberals, and so in germany this is a rising sentiment of the people against the political class and if the class says don't read it, they buy it. this may be one of the notions for the asks of the book. -- for the success of the book. on the other hand, the book touches problems that the every day germman has and sees and is not able to distinguish all the shifts of the problems, but he sees, and he reads about criminal things or about communication problems or

schools problems and things like that. >> the interesting thing is there's 11 vur veighs that -- surveys that support and it's strongest in areas where they don't have any migrants. it shows this is not reality that people try too find in the book. it's more about fear, but not what they really experience. >> yeah, but policy has to take a seriously. the strongest movements in recent german history took place in east germany. >> [inaudible] >> it's 1 or 2% and it was strong where nearly you couldn't find any foreigner. >> interestingly enough, he couches the arguments in economic terms saying if germany goes on as it, the economy will flounder. let's listen to what he has to

say. >> we are trying to put those who arrive without education who are retracted by our system of benefits to bring a large family after them and reject our culture. as immigrants, they cause us long term socially and financially cost more than they contribute to society. >> he says that immigrants aren't doing enough to integrate themselves into german society. is it doing enough to help them? >> well, first of all, i don't think germany does enough to help people who want to integrate. but secondly, this is no what he is saying. i think a lot of immigrants integrate very well, but muslims don't, and that's a problem. this is part of why it caused

such a stir in germany because he made such distinctions that sound total and that i don't think are founded. to come back to the original question, yes, germany needs to do more and talk about people who are here already. we have to talk about people who want to come in the future, but we have ones here living here, have a problem, we need to address that with good politics and good policies. >> the question is what kinds of politics, carrots, sticks? this debate began in 2009 with remarks he made as a politician in berlin. at that time they called for sanctions against foreigners who refused to learn german and are unemployeeble. are measures like that feasible? >> eel, i guess -- well, i guess yes. when we start discussing the question of the language, there was an uprise on the left side

in germany, and there were times when immigrants into the nether lappedz were taught english and not dutch because it was easier and more multiculture or future test nateed than learning the netherland's language. we had a sharp discussion about whether the immigrants shall learn german or not, and now we change it a tiny little bit. you have to learn 300 words of the german language to be able to integrate from turkey to your future husband to germany, and we have to say this is not enough. i mean, this is a very first step. the integration test is the same thing. it's a very formal test. you can pause it 100 times without having disadvantages if you don't pause it. we have a lot of carrots on the

other side. some say we should improve our welcome culture, but on the other hand, the sticks seem to be not sharp enough. i mean, there are too many who still immigrate without being able or willing to integrate, and we have to date with that. . >> there's a second side to what you said because there's thousands and thousands of immigrants, muslims, at this moment who employed for courses but can't atepid them because there are not enough of them even though they are part of the government policy. i assume that there are fewer people who have the problem you referred to, and there are those actively looking for ways to learn german. it's not, you know, there's no culture we don't want to learn among any, but there are cases like that, and they are problematic, and for me it's

unimaginable to go somewhere to live and not even try to learn the language. it is a problem. we need compulsory education. i would go along with that for everyone, obviously not just for foreigners, and that would be one example. >> if you were making a new year's wish list in this area, would it include a federal integration ministry? that's been proposed by germany's one most active politicians. >> well, yeah, you can have an immigration min ministry. the more important thing is that you use that money. most of the immigrants, they really want to learn germman, but there's not enough courses, so i mean, that's really stupid because we invest as a society into our future if we had good schooling and integration classes for the all the adults but as long as we don't put

these billions, what would be costing some billions, as long as we don't put this into our hands and look for a better schooling for everyone, i mean, it just doesn't matter what you call the ministry. >> that's the curse of the debate for decades. everybody knows what the problems are and what the solutions would be, but we don't do anything because it costs too much or you lose your votes and con stitch constituencies if you do it as one of the two big parties. >> would affirmative action programs for migrants help? one of the heads of the turkish community called for more teachers from immigrant backgrounds, for example, would that make a difference? >> yes, i guess it would make a difference. i'm completely against affirmative actions by law, but if you look at a certain part of the society, you find an astonishing lack of immigrants. if you look at the side with the

largest police formation in germany was about 30,000 policemen, if you look how many imgrants are there, you find in the rows of the police formations, you would nearly find any. if you look at the police, every fourth police of the hamburg police have grandfathers or grandmothers from turkey. there are parts of the society where you don't have enough with my grant backgrounds. on the other hand, the question will be solved by itself because nearly 40% of the german society will be of migrant different within a couple of years, so the white will intersect and white

prussian will be there and you will not have enough posts for people to feel. >> one said he was taking in some sense a cultural perspective and that immigration will actually be seen as an economic interest. that's a big difference between germany and the u.s.. let's take a look at this report. >> the united states chooses immigrants on the needs of business. typically legal immigrants to the u.s. are highly qualified. in germany, things are different. most current immigrants are family members of previous ones, and often they are unskilled. that's especially true among the some 4 million muslim immigrants in germany. more than 40% of them live from state support such as welfare. if germany had the same immigration standards as the

u.s., 90% of the muslim imgrants never would have been allowed into the country in the first place. >> so, does germany need immigration, but a different kind of immigration? >> well, i think that's in the future generally impact needs immigration because we will be at full employment because we hardly have any young people coming and most of the old people leave the labor market and retire. we will have the gap when it comes to the labor force, but i think it's -- we will have a problem getting imgrants to come to germany because most other countries also have problem with their democratic curve and people can choose whether let's go to britain or the united states, and they would rather choose

english speaking countries and not go to germany where they have to learn a complicated new language. i think germany will be difficult to get imgrants, but they have a lot of people living here since generations. the immigrants we have now who are not integrated and it would be much cheaper to integrate them up stead of getting new immigrants. >> you're saying it is always seemed to me that portraying immigration and integration issues as a matter of economic interest is somehow distasteful to many germans. >> yeah, we are not used to that, and i think we should not get too used to it. there should be two strings to think of. one is the right of the silent seekers. they must never leak that out of their mind, and if we talk about those we would like to have here, i can understand talking about economics. it's not something that i

personally favor. i believe in the diverse society more than i believe in an affective society. that's only me. >> [inaudible] >> no, they're not. i believe diversity is good in and out of itself. others are sexist, but that's a difference in world view. in terms of germman policies, i think we would do good if we had at least an immigration policy that knows what it wants and seeks, but we must not idealize other states and countries that are immigration societies. i have hundreds of relativessing in the usa. >> hundreds? >> literally runs from my arabic family. they are forgetting their arabic, and they have not learned english. they have the same problem that we're discussing here. it's not like everything is better in the united states in terms of immigration or integration.

>> what would an effective immigration policy look like? >> it would have to distinguish between the ones who are here, and the ones that we want to come. i mean, we're mixes up two discussions. the demographic decline of the natural germans gives way to a new immigration debate which is complete different than the one we have inside of germany. we have to distinguish between the ones we want to get, and we have to look for the criteria and how to welcome them on the one hand. on the other hand, we have to tackle the problems of about 35-40% of the ones that are here, how to improve their situation. given that they want to live a life on their own, and they want to live on the result of their own work. they want to make their children

good results in school and things like that. we have to find a mixer of welcoming them into school and even to help people the age of 25 or 26 who have missed the connection to society and just working in the black markets and things like that, and this is a scene that we have to cope with during the next 10-15 years because then it will be too late. we will have another generation of people who have never arrived in germany. >> he warned us not to idealize the u.s., but in terms of affirmative action and role models, bedo have the -- we do have the examples that barak obama became the president of the united states, that was it was possible for a man from a group that was long

discriminated against to become the president. can you imagine in the future geep looking -- again looking ahead at that wish list an imgrant in germany attaining high political office? >> already we have a vietnamese minister and all the soccer team are of polish, persian, or turk irk. it's not the question of good examples. we have a lot of them. >> i think we will have a chancellor who is a migrant background because we have politicians in the federal states who are already ministers of such or who have migrant [background background. for example, the green party h turkish decent and a few more years we'll have a barak obama.

>> you're optimistic about that. i have a different perception. a chancellor from east germany. >> yeah. >> a chance to get the president? >> i don't want to be that guy, but house minister is about as vietnamese as i am. he's genetically vietnamese -- >> okay, 0 we have 20 seconds left. >> i seriously hope you are right. i don't believe in welcoming, that's not the right phrase, but we need to understand if we have people to come here, they need to believe they are part of our society and not judge them by their function. see them as part of our body. >> thank you very much. i'm afraid we'll have to leave it there. thank you for being with us today and thank you for tuning in