children, defendants, global warming, consumers, labor, government corruption, you name it. wall street speculation. what would happen if you read through in one sitting -- and they're all short and guess what? most of them come from the mainstream corporate media, directly or indirectly. they've been reported in the wall street, "new york times," "washington post" or in newsletters who pick up on the reports of the corporate media but no one is going to be able to say, hey, where did you get these documentation? where did you get these? they're all cited. so when you hear one corporate abuse on "60 minutes," read about it in the paper or somebody tells you it happened to their friend, their cousin, their sister, their parent, how do you react?

say, that's really terrible. and a few seconds pass and then you go back to your routine. that's the syndrome of not lacking in care. it's the syndrome of feeling helpless. powerless. what happened if you read 200 of these in one sitting? .. what happens to the fire in the belly? what happens after you finish and the aftermath presents to with the following words, one can be quite self-contained and column, yet express oneself about these business abuses and their limited greed and cruelty with words like these people should be killed. what did it was just awful. these countries have no self restraint or corporate crime pays until it doesn't. or amazing how resourceful the

clever they are. just to think of these schemes, these tricks to take advantage of us. disgusting really. or they're just out of control. or we are the prosecutors, the lawmakers. looks like the fat cats of rigs a whole system in their favor. or the little guy doesn't have a chance, and that is a damn shame. or what can we do about all of this? it just seems to be getting worse. an unstoppable. even after the wall street crash in the washington bailout, it's still business as usual. or sure i'm mad, but i'm just one person. what can i do? or small business could never get away with this stuff. or these tricks make a mockery out of the free-market. these are all comments people of made. and so you turn the page and you

say welcome what can be done? there is a concise corporate agenda. people listen, watching on c-span get this information on c.s. r.l. dot orgy. center for study responsive. and i boil them down based on our experience over the years. they cut into many strata. some are so obvious, larger law enforcement budgets for smarter law enforcement sanctions that will pay for themselves many times and find some this accordance. people like law-and-order for corporate crux. it pulls very well. over 70 percent of the people tin years ago said that corporations have too much control over their lives.

that's a lot of conservatives and libertarians, not just liberals and progressives. that was a business week poll. and the title of the business week front-page cover was too much corporate power. business week, you know, full of corporate. yes, yes, yes on seven detailed pages and then had an editorial which had those memorable words which i never forgot. corporations should get out of politics. corporations should get out of politics. they are not human beings. the constitution is for human beings. so one is like, do you know how small the enforcement budget is? did you ever read about a situation? let's say there is a massive street crime academic in new york city, and there are 200 police. what will people say? not enough police.

if you knew how few attorneys and prosecutors you work that are defending you against incredible you would be shocked even if you are a self-declared cynic. for example, according to the government accountability office of the u.s. congress and the leading expert on this about bill sparrow, and applied mathematician, 10 percent of everything you spend on health care goes down the drain to to computerized billing fraud and abuse. that is $260 billion this year. would you care to guess how many prosecutors and investigators there are? according to mr. sparrow in proper enforce the budget is 1 percent of the estimated death which would mean just over two

and a half billion dollars. and the enforcement budget generously estimates is less than one-tenth of that. so corporate crime enforcement, discourage men of ill gotten gains back to the victims. very important. the second is shift in power by making facilities real easy for workers, consumers, small taxpayers, communities to band together. that means media access, inserts' and envelopes from utilities and banks and other regulated companies there own power for rupert champions. it means reforming the labor laws, getting rid of that pact hartley act. it means a whole series of simple facilities to give the rights and remedies that were supposed to have in the meeting. what good is the right to vote if you have to travel 100 miles

by foot to the voting precincts. facilities are very key. third, you have to recognize in theory millions of people on these corporations as shareholders and investors. they have no power. the owners control the big corporations, including labor pension funds. excuse me, they own these corporations. they have virtually no control. top management has decided over the years church shareholder investors of any option to control their hired hands and executives of the then to sell a stock. a recipe for self in richmond at the top and endless shenanigans by the corporations. the effective protection from whistle-blowers. people have a right to go work with their conscience. and not leave their conscience at home and simply obey what they're told to do.

that is a very important internal deterrent demand there is a bill in congress may pass this year that may really give both federal and corporate whistle-blowers some additional protections. we need to break up these corporations. corporations that are too big to fail, too big to tax, too big to punish are too big to exist. they have to be broken up. we have to go right to the heart of the creation of these corporations. most people think investors create corporations. they do not. corporations are created by a state charter. delaware, nev., other states. a fight with each other to see who can be the weakest and most permissive charter grants. investors fund corporations. do not create them. whatever the state creates, the

condition for proper, honest and accountable behavior. indeed it was in the 1930's when justice brandeis of the supreme court mentioned in one of his opinions that he feared these corporations would become frankensteins in our own myths, of our own creation. we have to strip them of equality with human beings, take away their corporate person had, and above all subordinate them unconstitutional statute and regulation. sovereignty of the people. in other words, the people must be sovereign and therefore super a dominant. corporations must be our servants. that is what they were designed for in the early 19th centuries. corporations were given a charter on condition of good behavior and renewable every two years. now they have become not our servants, they have become our

masters. well, what is the technique of resurgence? i have noticed and going around the country commoner gone around the country good deal, 50 states campaigning three times, plus a lot of activity all over the country. starting student groups, utility accountability groups, worker protection groups, all over the country. i have noticed, and i'm sure you have, to, that people are reluctant to join an effort unless they are assured that other people are going to join, too, assuming they agree with the agenda. even if they agree with the agenda they want to be sure. so we are putting forth this proposition. we want to organize 1 million americans on major corporate

reform agenda, displacement, the concentration, account ability, subordination, law-and-order in ways that actually would pull well over 75 percent of the people. it's not just liberal progressives. ron paul uses the word corporatism very frequently. believe me, he doesn't think he is a liberal progressive. his libertarian. 1 million americans who pledged 100 to raise or donate $100 a year and 100 volunteer hours. so we will have 100 million volunteer hours, $100 million to network throughout the country many of the groups on the ground that are starving for a budget, starving for support, plus new

groups in new energies from all ages and backgrounds. now, how you get people to say that's a pretty get that idea. why would someone want to sell donate $100.100 hours when efforts doesn't know if anyone else will. so we broke it down into four categories depending on your temperament. okay? and all this is on csrl duckboard for those in the audience, the television audience . the first category is will recall the pioneers. want to be pioneers? then you will donate or raise $100 a year and 100 volunteer hours, very well coordinated. 999 other americans do the same and you are satisfied that you have the evidence that is the

case with the written pledge, this is a written pledge right here. i used to say every movement touch with the clipboard. let's try have pledged on a clipboard. this is the pledge. you can see four categories. so if you are not satisfied that 999 will get it underway, that's $100,000. to get it underway, full-time people. you want to wait. let's say you want to wait until you are satisfied 9,999 signed the pledge. well, that is a million dollars. to get it underway even more. move it out around the country. well, let's say you're really skeptical. you don't want to be a pioneer. you don't want to be a founder. you want to be a driver. you wait until 99,999 before you

sign up. well, that is $10 million. and let's say you are the ultimate skeptic and cynic. you say to yourself, not point to join and sell i am satisfied that 999,000 people have signed. that's a hundred million dollars. so no money is sent until one of these categories is filled to your satisfaction. and in the men's out. now, do you think there are a million people who would want to do that? i think there are 50 million people. they trusted to themselves, their volunteer time, the strategy, the agenda, the deployment throughout the country. and bringing into play new

talent, new energy, new skill caught just the way the occupy doing in a small way. they have done all this with 200,000 people marching or in the encampments. you thing that is there pool? they have a pool of millions. 23 million people in this country you can find work or are severely underemployed. the power of the people has to be understood by the people. we have to raise our expectation lowell's about what we can command in terms of grabbing hold of these corrupt institutions, shaking them, displacing them, subordinating them. and if they survive that kind of spring shower or whatever they have to behave. if they're bigger have to behave. the sovereignty of the people is

hardly tapped because people go through life believing that they're powerless, that they can't fight city hall, they can't fight exxon mobile, they can do anything about the congress or the white house. they're best sons and daughters, desperate to find money to go to college, are drawn into these criminal wars of aggression and return for the flattery of the corporate and government to criminals that have gotten them in these places around the world to kill and die and then come back and be forgotten. if that is what has happened. we have lost almost complete control of any semblance of democracy, short of a town meeting in new england or something like that. and we ought to take this personally. it comes down to what many people of told me around the country who have stood tall and fought the good battle for justice. it is a matter of self-respect for themselves and their

children. no routine is too powerful to stop people who have a civic self-respect, no how to connect, who are confident in their value system and their ability to understand public policy and the good society. it is people who apropos mark ruskin's book both engage in being in doing, being in doing. i do want to suggest the following. we have begun to be creative in building seven power, political power, the occupy movement is a great innovation. how many times have you said to yourself : did not think of that? we think in terms of marches and demonstrations. they come to washington, two or 300,000 men hardly get any print

. they clean up afterwards, the cubs and the twisted coke cans whatever. and it's gone. the congress is not here on weekends. how many pro labor, pro women rights, pro the lesbian, pro peace. but to the occupy think? they knew that that wasn't enough. they decide to stay 24 hours a day. and they learn something else. they ask themselves the question, how do we prevent people from dividing the ruling, pitting one group against another? one of the greatest slogans of the 21st century will turn out to be, we of the 99%. they came unified. very, very resistant to being divided and ruled. it's all about people suffering

in 1 degree or another. pursuing a just society. >> a lot of other innovations. how about my check. we're going to pull the plug. you can have a pa system in a public park. okay. level might check. as of that involves the audience. in repeating. it's participatory as well as a summit of asian. we have not scratched the surface. our civic, political, creativity. not to mention our technical creativity. so i hope that those of you here in the audience will consider this pleasure. it has no legal binding power behind it. it is only morally binding. it will only go into effect when any one of those four categories to your satisfaction, 999, 9,999

to 99,999, 999,999 come into effect. 1 million people organize this way. you will never see a faster transformation of our political economy from congress to city hall and from wall street to main street. people in this country are waiting for a long overdue changes, the kind of changes that are confident with their religious, a pickle, and social sense of deep fairness , changes that are confident with the rhythms of their daily lives, things don't have to be uprooted changes that are consonant with their own dreams for themselves, their neighborhood community, and what our founding fathers call posterity. their progeny.

i want to end on this note. this book is probably the shortest book of red. i am constantly told to shorten it. key shirting it. it is a fast-paced book. very important that you give it to a friend or neighbor or someone that you argue with, they can do no wrong , have them take this experiment or this experience and see what happens. some people will go right through it completely unchanged. that is so deeply ideological they are. some people will be very discouraged. no, it was so terrible. let me out of here. i can't face it.

some people will be recharged. some people will say to themselves, what have i been doing? nine discretionary time as an effective citizen in this country of ours. whatever the reaction, it's very good to read something that bounces right back on the. you pretty much find out what you're made of. that doesn't mean if you don't sign up your anything wrong with you. it just means that you may be great with charity and great in your neighborhood and your community, but the central issue of our time is the domination of giant corporations over every facet of our lives. including exactly where we are,

exactly what we buy, exactly who we are with, exactly where we travel, exactly what our genes are going to be controlled by. i hope that in these ensuing discussions it will be focused not on a particular grievance but how to organize this effort and how you can deploy similar efforts with a similar multiple entry level in your own community and your own town, city, or rural area. if you look at csrl duckboard you will see the corporate agenda reform agenda. it is written in a way to be all encompassing, but it is not a laundry list. you will also see how you can download the pledge form and send it to your neighbors and

whoever composes your book clubs or community gatherings. i think you very much. [applause] thank you. [applause] thank you. can we have -- >> the q&a. what you said resonated with a lot of people. well longest applause we have had for a book talk in years, so that's wonderful to see. if anyone would like to ask questions for the sake of c-span and our audience out there to be allowed to come here to the microphone to speak into a please. please line up right here.

>> high. is this on? update. voting. i have not voted for a democrat or republican for presidents of the first time i voted when i turned 21. that was too long ago to remember. in d.c. where we have no voting representation the overwhelming majority of the people still vote democrat, even though the democrats have done nothing for the residents of d.c. instead run offloading, otherwise known as choice rank voting. i think that has to be put in place to get over the temperament argument that prevents people from saying i can't vote like it did in 2008 because she has the chance of winning. that is the thing that i think, that psychological barrier

because it seems like more people want to vote for when and then vote for people who have their back as their interest. so i am just proposing that that has to be done. you know it is already being used in san francisco with very good results and all the places around the world. that's my comment. there needs to be an effort to make that a component of trying to normalize that voting, the mechanics of the voting so to encourage people to vote their morals. >> that's very good. it is part of the whole package. voluntary but effective public financing, free access to the electronic media by qualified candidates, proportional representation, instead runoff. you know, let's say you want to vote for a third-party candidate , but that party can it does not have a chance on the first round to win, so you both for your conscience candidate and then you vote the second choice. and so there will never be a

result with the winner is not a majority winner. so your candid it will on the second round not be in the running. your second choice would go to the candid it's. i have often said, you know, you can't explain in 20 seconds you will never get across. still looking for someone to do that. yes. >> good evening. they keep for being here. i am reading parts of harry washington. pending jeans, human genes. doing so without the explicit permission of patients to come in to hospitals or go in to regular checkups with the doctors. wonder if you could speak to that in terms of a monetary attachment to that and how it is working regarding research and development and our tax dollars?

>> that's a very good book. washington is the writer. she did write medical apartheid. the title of the book now escapes me. i'm so sorry. bring in up on one of the search engines. >> i think she was under mark. kershaw was. >> years ago corporations had slaves. [inaudible] >> aegis of the tunnel is deadly monopoly. >> to a monopoly, yes. years ago corporations had slaves. after all, confrontations. now their work indirectly with serves or something close to child servitude and some of the third world countries, local corporations. now they're making a massive effort to patent monopoly.

the entire genetic inheritance of the earth, floor, fauna, and human gene sequence. they already have thousands of patents for the human gene sequences. and so, you know, whose property are those? well, if they have a patent on it is the property of the vargas . we haven't even had a public debate on it. there is no legal or regulatory framework and genetic engineering. changing the nature of nature by a few giant corporations for commercial purposes. and nanette technologies. hell it became, it's just the case in the media. no more phil donahue for women's rights, consumer, labor, all the frontier justice movements that he put out first for a huge national audience. sadomasochistic. that is an indication of the gate. another indication of the kerrey

is when corporations misbehave. disaster, harming, killing, injuring, contaminating, polluting. there bell that and become more powerful than ever. that's a sign of decay. all street's collapse, washington bailouts. the bankers are more powerful than ever. in the science area you see the level where 100 years ago, 50 years ago there would be a new technology, there would be a public hearing, proposals for regulatory standards. ..

>> 980 -- 1980 we were the world's leading creditor, we're now the world's leading debtor thanks to nafta and the wto andn the china exchange. thank you, yes. >> first of all, i'd like to thank you for being on top of o the most important issue of our day once again. i do have a question. what is the difference between what you're trying to do with your book or the overlap with the movement to pass a o constitutional amendment on the subject of corporate personhood? >> this is a much more tightly-organized effort to put a million people on the ground in their community around,y, including doing something about citizens united. that's part of stripping the corporation of personhood. basically, it's a more intense effort. a lot of times when you get people to say, yeah, we would like to overturn citizens united which let exxon and all the

corporations give all the money they want, independent expenditures, against anyl elected candidate at the local, state and national level.c as the supreme court 5-4. yeah, we want to get rid of it, let's get a petition, let's gete some, you know, op-eds, let's get some hearings maybe in congress. that's nowhere near enough. ea you want a veryen tightly-motivated, steamed group of people who are going to staya with it with the requisiteh th resources. the whole movement to overturn citizens united, i don't think, has $2 million behind it. justice needs resources. it doesn't just need full-time people, part-time people, volunteers, creativity. it's got to have determine resources. and that's what this does. csrl.org. try it out. >> thank you so much for your

speech today. you i have a small correction and a. question. the correction is about one of the examples that you gave. while i share your frustration that 800 americans die everyatio week because of lack of access, and i agree that there are so many countries around the world we should look up to, i don't think israel is one of them. israel has been denying palestinians, millions of palestinians from health care. i don't think that's one of thes examples that should be used to cop vince us to -- convince us to move forward from the current system. my question is, you know, i think many of us are familiar with the proposal of fund raising that you are pitching. it is working on line, the kick starter, it's a very successful web site. can you elaborate a little bit about who and how this money will be spent, who would spend the money? >> yes. be >> and how it will be spent.

what's the governing system -- >> yes. what it is -- you're quites right, by the way, to point that out as you did can. it is interesting that the u.s. gives $3 billion a year to bil israel and israel does supply universal health care for israelis. i'm not sure israeli-arabs and certainly not west bank. and you begin to wonder whether there should be an israeli foreign aid program to the u.s. in other words, we're behind noe just western countries. there are a number of countries in the other hemispheres thatnub have universal health insurancel so we're way behind. you know, peter rosa provoazedc1 universal health insurance 100 yours ago, president truman in the 1940s. we still don't have it with. horrendous casualties. the money will go to the center for the study of responsible -- which is the founding center for all the various groups thatall we've started in washington and throughout the country.thro

and we will be responsible for its deployment.spo so we're really saying, look,it we've been at this for a long time, we have an impeccable record. certainly have all the accounting reports and so on. but if you sign on, it's because you already agree with this agenda. that minimizes delay and conflict. we ought to have more groups like that where instead of justo coming together and then fighting like crazy internallyay and eroding the whole momentum, you say we want you to come together if you agree with this agenda. that doesn't mean you don't have any further input, it just meann you're not going to say, well, i think, i think land erosion's the worst problem.d that's what we should controlatw on. land erosion comes from corporate itch.r militarismos comes fromes corporatism. remember eisenhower's military industrial complex warning.

so the idea is to focus on corporatism even though we migha have our own immediate local priorities. but if you overcome corporatism you're unleashing wide civic and political energies and democratic institutions that will then deploy on the kind of specific grievances that you have.kin and that's true for military and foreign policy. yes. >> thank you. first, i'd like to thank you for your talk tonight. i really enjoyed your comments on corporatism. my question is about how it relates to politics. i had, i attended a great lecture you gave at the university of iowa about 14 years ago about the difference in politics as we're approaching a voting cycle between the democrats and republicans.the and i believe the gist of the argument is, and you can correcs me because i may be just, youbel know, misquoting you, um, but i think that it was that it didn't matter which one got elected because they'reha both in the pocket of corporate interests.ec and i was wondering, that was 12

years ago. i was wondering, my question ist basically, is in the last 12 years and specifically after bush the second, if there had been, if you had any comments on the time -- at this point after seeing that if you still feel the same way or if, you know, if there had been any other thoughts on that? >> you mean on 2000? yo >> not 2000 and that election specifically, but at the time0 that it was, youel know, they wt both kind of equal parties because they're both in the pockets of the corporation, and it didn't really matter who you elected. given the last 12 years, haves h you had any change of thought on that? >> i think -- >> corporatism is still the major player.ll >> yeah. corporatetism dominates them to the core. there are differences in social security, the nature of medicare although there are democrats that want to undermine medicarer as well.erru medicare advantage, etc. but on the big issues, corrupt

corporate -- militarism, foreign policy, distortion horrendously of the public budget whereslea people send the public taxllar dollars to washington, and they are recycled for the wealthy anu the powerful and bailouts, t handouts, giveaways, you nameut, it. and almost department by department they're very, very similar. i don't see any really difference in department of transportation under obama, under bush, under clinton except that there's one trend is that they're all getting worseh regardless of whethere it's democrat or republican. because the grip of the corporation putting their own people in charge of the money iw politics just gets worse. and the question is they both flunk, they're both undeserving of support, and if we do support them because we think one is not quite as bad as another, we're in complicity.ppor if you support obama because he's not add because as

whoever's going to challenge hio or mccain, you are in complicity with what's going on in if afghanistan and all over the world and the obama doctrine of prosecution, judge, jury, j execution on suspicion without letting the courts orp internationalic law decide. you're complicit. there's no way out.tti and there are people who say we're not going to be compliciti anymore. we're going to vote ournot conscious, or we're going to vote for some write-in. the only way we can protest unless we develop this kind of movement and other similar movements to provide more choice for the voter. youto know, i mean, norway has seven, eight parties, chile has eight, nine parties. we've got two major partiesrt blocking any kind of alternative, any kind of ability to grow from one election cycle to another.tion and that's because we have a winner-take-all, money system of

politics. politics. >> would anyone else like to ask any questions? do you want to come down here because c-span is recording this so if you could speak into the microphone. >> yeah, thanks for the speech and everything. it was great. but, you know it's great, i think that we can all read the book and there are many things that we are all -- the drive us crazy and make us incredibly angry, and i wouldn't doubt that people are mad and you know people can be cynics. maybe i might be one, but i don't think people are afraid that they don't have power as much as they actually don't want to do anything.

not just you know, people out there, who you can show an example it's great to move away. i mean even people in this room. and it's the fear of biting the hand that feeds us and if we are addicted to -- off coupon and wherever there is people drinking coke and eating doritos and people here me included who probably would not give up their ipads are there iphones or their imax or whatever it is and they're probably going to debate about what is better, detroit or the iphone. even busboys and poets, supporting italian water. so, my question is you know like labor was abolished but why? we showed how blue bad slavery was or because people stopped wanting to buy cotton as much?

so okay you can complain and we can get angry and we can show people that we are angry but at the end of the day does he get people from getting what they want? $100 million, and i hate to be a cynic but that is pocket change for any major corporation that we are trying to fight. so, what do we do about people's addictions to the things corporations give us? >> first of all it's pocket change but for citizen groups it's big pocket change and try the lobby and see. we have taken on corporations over the years with much smaller, much smaller budgets starting with auto safety, because there are some feedback, some help in the congress. senator magnuson, senator nelson, people who representative certain interest of the people's safety. you make a very strong case

for -- when i was your age i could've made the same rendition and i went to the library at the college and i read all the philosophies of pessimism including the paragon of power and i was not convinced because i came to the conclusion that while you may be right, what you say has no function other than further withdrawal and wallowing in despair. now there are people before 1775 who probably were pretty despairing of the british empire the most powerful army in the world and they did create a perfect system but from their point of view the farmers, they did something pretty spectacular. they surprised themselves because they have a different level of expectation. they were irritated enough to get steamed, you see? so there is an argument to be

made that dictatorial regimes bring the worst out of people, out of ordinary people because they are so desperate. it's like you know, the fight of all against all. desperate for just getting through the day and again their livelihoods. there's also an argument that a more democratic society brings the best out of you and all of a sudden people you never thought would be community and neighborhood leaders, people participating in the occupied, where did these people come from? because they saw an opportunity to elevate themselves into society and to pursue what senator daniel webster once said, the great work on earth is just us. notice that word is the most forgot word, fairness and justice but without justice you can't have freedom and liberty. so it is good for you to be skeptical, as long as you stay skeptical and you don't become cynical. a skip has doubts but charges

forward with those doubts. a cynic withdraws, becomes like diogenes, jumps into a tub. so there is a difference there. we have enough examples in the history of human beings where out of despair and enforce enforced to gravity and powerlessness people's spirits have risen up and a lot of things we are thankful for that we inherited that are still around we are doomed. a few people who carried forward a broader public sentiment so they didn't have majorities on the front lines, but they reflected a need or a change of much greater number the people supported. that is what you have to look for. the occupy movement gets stronger as the public sentiment supports it, right? why do you think -- it isn't

just that you are staying here overnight, which is part of it. it is they are taking the polls and they are saying there are a lot of people who are fed up and a lot of them are working in companies and a lot of them are working in government, a lot of them are at universities or elementary schools or neighborhood groups are chernobyl groups are on the streets or in the jails for trivial offenses, etc.. so that is why if i may give you some unsolicited advice, work your skepticism into the public philosophy. where do you want to go? where do you want to be with your generation, 10, 20, 40 years and have a higher estimate in your own significance to make that change. [applause] [applause]

>> thank you. >> the this is not the model, it's a model and it can be replicated right down to the local level. i can be replicated for statehood, for d.c. for example and we have got plans for that, don't we? >> and i want to add that i think one of the best antidotes to being a cynic or a skeptic is to visit and occupation. it really is a mind changing experience and i think whether you visit it to just go and interact with the people they are or whether you visit it to serve a meal or do something to be engaged, it's really quite remarkable. i was really thrilled to walk to mcpherson square on a friday night. this was a couple of weeks ago, and just see groups of people, young people that are huddled around and you know they are

talking about very important significant issues rather than hanging out at a club or watching television or sports, something that is a little bit more mindless but it's very exciting to see young people being so engaged. i was up in new york that the occupation there and saw the same experience as i saw today. people are sitting and debating issues that you wished people have been talking about for a long long time so i think there is nothing better than an occupation to overcome any kind of cynicism you may have. >> also you know they have their own libraries, their legal aid, their medical booths all over the country. anybody watching this program we want to give them free books and materials for libraries and occupy all over the country. >> the occupation at freedom plasma had just requested us to give them 20 copies of the people's history of the united states by howard zinn and we were delivering to the them on

monday so they want to start a book club on howard zinn's history. those are the things that i think keep the spirit alive and keep you hopeful. i wanted to ask you one thing mr. nader regarding the polarization taking place in this country. i can't help but feel like we are we are having this gathering here but there are other gathering somewhere that are looking at a different paradigm and seeing things very differently. how do you bridge that polarization? how do you bridge the two entities that complement each other and we always have to settle for the make the leaf thought that keeps changing. how do you bridge that? >> well corporatism has been very effective in pitting libertarians and authentic conservatives against livered -- liberals and progressives. they do disagree on regulation of business for example but look at the areas where libertarian authentic conservatives like

lott ron paul and liberals and progressives agree on. very critical of the military budget, very critical of empire, very critical of the wars in iraq and afghanistan, very critical of the patriot act and the suppression of civil liberties, very critical of corporate and governmental invasion of privacy. very critical of the sovereignty charade hinchey impact of nafta and the world trade organization, very willing to push for tough law and order, corporate crime enforcement. that is a pretty good start. both of them would like more investor and pension funds, mutual funds and investor control over these runaway corporate executives. these are really important. not that i don't disagree on unions. they will disagree on some of the things that that isn't what i see emerging. ron paul and barney frank have a

passport with staff to cut the bloated à la terry budget and military contracting corruption. you couldn't have to representatives further apart on say the issue of unions or federal regulation but on that issue, they are converging and if you look at the magazine, american conservator and the "nation magazine," sometimes if you didn't see the title you were wonder which you are reading whether it's military, foreign-policy, the military budget. corporate welfare is another area where there is a convergence. libertarians dislike intensely, and their whole intellectual history going back to their philosophers, dislike intensely big concentrated business that is so powerful it can go for corporate handouts and subsidies

and welfare as a form of unfair competition against small businesses. so these are huge areas that are beginning to converge but the companies are always trying to say, you have to go after the liberals. they divide and rule but increasingly what i have seen is it's coming together like this. the people who voted against the indefinite imprisonment amendment were both conservatives and liberal democrats. so, in answer to your question those are like 10 major bridges that have doctrinal support. they have philosophical support and they have representatives in the corridors of government that can advance. they have to overcome that divide and rule diversion impact by the corporate lobbyists. and by the way that could be the most important combination in the country politically. it was the liberal alliance with

conservatives on capitol hill that blocked the reactor and ended that boondoggle at -- river in tennessee. there are examples where once you get those two groups behind on congress they can be unbeatable but they have got to deal with this divide and rule approach. >> thank you. i want to also make an announcement. we have this coming sunday, we have mr. harry belafonte will be here from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.. i've been reading his book called my song which will be signed and policy studies will be doing an interview with him on the main stage main stage there in the main room. but one little story to be told which is fascinating and reminded me of you mr. nader is that sammy davis jr. lost an eye to an accident where the part of the wheel, which was used to be

made pointy because it looked you know more or whatever, when the car hit another car front the sharp part of the wheel went into his eye and made them blind. i didn't know that but it was the work that you did on auto safety that would have prevented that from happening. >> it's the steering column. i have to say i got stained years ago. i was losing my friends to highway crashes, much more than they do today. there was a much higher death rate and i would lose them in high school. i would lose them in college or they would come back. holy chicks. the minute i -- paraplegics. the minute i saw people in detroit were keeping on the seatbelts, collapsible steering columns, stronger door latches, head restraints, airbags i really got stained and i met a lot of engineers and a lot of

human factories who knew much more than i did about the automobile highway driver interaction but they didn't get steamed so it's not just what we know. it's that emotional intelligence that is so important to change the way we go through every day and leave part of it for collaborating in a >> is there a nonfiction author or book you'd like to see featured on booktv? send us an e-mail at booktv@cspan.org or tweet us at twitter.com/booktv. >> well, here's a book with an unusual title, but it's also part of a series. "obama on the couch" has been written by justin frank who also wrote "bush on the couch."

dr. frank, first of all, what kind of doctor are a you? -- are you? >> i'm a psychoan analyst and a sigh chi chris -- psychiatrist. >> how do you get inside the minds of presidents? >> you take psychoananalytic principles and apply them to people you could never get in your consulting room. so, for instance, freud did that, he was the first one to do that with people like leonardo da vinci and even moses, and then fdr hired somebody to do that with hitler during world war ii, and it's a very well-established technique of studying famous people by using analytic principles. obama wrote two autobiographies, so that made it very interesting to see what he put in, what he left out and then how it relates to his behavior as president. >> what's one thing we're going to learn about president obama in your book? >> he is deeply obsessed with uniting the country because he came from a broken home, he's

half black and half white, and he wants to heal his inside, and that's why he became a community organizer after harvard law school when he could have written his own ticket in a high-powered law firm. but he really believes in bringing people together, and that's the biggest struggle he has because the irony is we're more divided than ever in a lot of ways in this country. and when he gave his speech in 2004 about red states and blue states and the united states, he really believes that. so eventually, he started negotiating with himself to the point where i called him the accommodator in if chief. and that's what the book is about, about why he does that, what it's about and how there's an incredible difference between him as president and him as candidate. >> okay. and your first book, "bush on the couch." what's one thing we learned about president george w. bush? >> well, we learned about bush, a couple of things was that he really was very much a person

who had once been an alcoholic who was what's called a dry drunk, and those are people who are impulsive and are suddenly given to blaming other people, and one of the things about him that was so powerful is that he, when he made up his mind, he never changed it. and he was what's called an either/or president. either you're with us or against us. so he live inside a very different world where he said i don't do nuance, and obama almost only does nuance. so we have the opposite of the two presidents back to back. >> when you write these books, do you hear from people in the white house? >> well, this time i did. the first interview i gave which was with huffington post, that day the director of communications for the white house called up the interviewer and asked them about it. so i didn't hear directly, but they did, and i ended up getting them a book because they wanted to see it. with the bush people, i did not hear directly, except i met a few people who knew him, met

karl rove and some different people, they weren't too excited about the book. >> that was a few minutes with dr. justin frank, "obama on the couch" is the book. we covered dr. frank at politics & prose, you can watch that at booktv dork. booktv.org. >> c-span's road to the white house coverage takes you live to the candidate events in florida through the weekend leading up to tuesday's gop primary. >> by the end of my second term -- [cheers and applause] we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be american. [cheers and applause] and by the end of 2020, we will have the first continuous propulsion system in space capable of getting to mars in a remarkably short time because i am sick of being td