and have been able to move on and to make some positive changes for women in the workplace. and you know, that has been 22 years of a lot of people working really, really hard and we are not entirely there yet. but we will be moving in the right direction. but i tell people it has taken decades and scores and thousands of years really, hundreds of

thousands of years to get us to where we are now. it's not going to change in 22. so we have this snapshot of today of sort of 50 years ago, what was the status of women. and you know we have been charged as this last panel to talk about where we are today. well, we have got a lot to cover. so, but in preparations for doing this one of the things i did was to go back and listen to that tape of eleanor roosevelt and john kennedy. after some pleasantries and this exchange, mrs. roosevelt says to president kennedy, why aren't there more women leaders in the united states? i mean we are a privileged country. we are educated women.

why aren't there more leaders? and it occurred to me when i was going back through just trying to figure out how we are going to talk about where we are todao be willing to do is to ask like eleanor roosevelroosevel t did, the difficult questions. the questions that you know may be a little bit embarrassing for some people to try to answer, but really are there to sort of engage and move us in a direction that are haps the president wasn't even thinking about going when he entered the room and entered into that conversation. so today i want to talk a little bit about what those difficult questions are that are going to move us from where we are today. i want to talk a little bit about women's leadership. i want to talk about some of the things that i care very much about which happen to be research but also research

specifically in health and medicine, and then i do want to talk a little bit about harassmenharassmen t and i want to just talk about a smidgen -- because it's a topic that is not covered very much. i'm not going to cover wages or education even as i could do it lets think about where we are today. in terms of women's leadership. i always sort of frame it not in terms of 50 years ago but in terms of 20 years ago. 20 years ago when i testified before the senate, i was in front of 98 men in the u.s. senate who were voting on clarence thomas's confirmation. two women, one democrat and one republican. and today, 20 years later as of the election, the most recent election, there are 20 women in the u.s. senate. that is real progress and i think how the conversation might

have been different in the senate chambers had there have been 20 women in the senate rather than to that were there, 20 years ago in the senate judiciary committee -- excuse me, on the supreme court, there was one, actually there were two sitting women at the time. we now have moved to three women sitting justices on the u.s. supreme court and certainly that is progress. one very active retired justice,, justice sandra day o'connor, that's progress but when i talk about asking the next question, we can say yes, it's great to have women on the supreme court and making decisions that will impact women's lives, but we can't be satisfied until we are able to

say we are going to be able to sustain that. and how are we going to be able to sustain it and to do that we have got to sort of look at what the pipeline for women in the courts looks like. women getting to those leadership positions and that is what i think is sort of the next question. not whether we have made progress but are we going to be able to sustain and told on its? and what are the kinds of structures and the kinds of social, social and political structures that keep us from being able to do that? so that is sort of the next move i think we have to make. and for those of you who don't think that women are going to make a difference in the court, i would just say to you think about justice ginsburg's dissent in lilly ledbetter versus goodyear. had she not read that dissent from the bench i am absolutely

certain that there would not have been so much momentum in congress to actually act to correct the supreme court's decision. she didn't in fact change the decision of the court, but i think the impact that she had in the decision was much longer term. so, women are there on the court. we need to be there. we need to be interpreting the laws that affect women's lives and we need to be there, to be that reality check, to talk about what women's experiences really are. a couple of other points i want to make and then i'm going to move on. i want to talk a little bit, because in his last 20 years i have been dealing with a number of issues. a lot of the issues have been medical research and i have been advised by a wonderful member of the community, dr. paula johnson

who couldn't be here today but she is the director of the women's center at brigham and -- brigham and women's hospital. 20 years ago, she reminds me, 20 years ago congress passed the national institute for health revitalization act, and you probably didn't know it because i didn't know it until i was told, that will were not act was passed, the first time, the law required that women and people of color be a part of the research. now, before then you could just do all the studies you want and you could do it only on men. but until then, -- after that

there was a requirement to include women and people of color, however in the area of cardiovascular health still today only 35% of the research projects include women. and then, of the 35%, only 31% break down the information based on gender. so what is that doing? it's creating this gap really between what the law's intent is and what is actually happening in research. so, you know you have to ask that next question. yes we are in a great place. we have the law in place, but is it having the effect that we wanted to have? i could talk about women in the foreclosure crisis and the fact that there is ample evidence for example that women were targeted

for loans and some of the loans that word given during the period and those loans were the ones that were most likely to be foreclosed on. unfortunately, much of that evidence hasn't followed through women have been losing their homes. they have become much more housing in secured, because more and more of them are paying more than 50% of their income just to put a roof over their heads and their children's heads. and so, we still come even though we have the fair credit law, we still have some gaps between what the law's intent is and the lives that women are leading. and we still have a way to go in sexual harassment.

we did in 1990 1/2 the civil rights act of 1991 and for the worst time again, women were fully able to recover their loss when they proved that they had been discriminated against including sexually harassed. nevertheless, what i think has happened is still, even though women can state claims and they can sue, the most vulnerable who have to have those jobs, who need to have that income because otherwise they cannot put a roof over their heads, are not taking advantage of that and i think that the problem of sexual harassment in colleges and universities is just now beginning to become part of where we need to be. so all of those things, have

made many great strides forward. we still have a long way to go. >> thank you. sandra fluke if we are worried about the pipeline for women in legals circles i just have to look at sandra fluke and think there's nothing to worry about. >> i could use a little help though. >> she stepped forward in february of 2012 when congressional republicans prevented her from testifying instead hearing only from a panel of men on women's health on the affordable care acts definition of contraception as part of preventive care for women. she was vilified by rush limbaugh and many others and became a heroin for women speaking at the democratic national convention and i would like to ask you the same question i asked anita although it's been less than two years for you since this experience, which was both very personal and

very public, how it affected you and how it changed your life and your mission? >> well, i think it gave all of us around the country a window into what was happening in many of our state legislatures as well as in congress. unfortunately, i think all too often we are not paying as close attention as we might have been and that was really a moment and it translated into a longer moment that was sustained throughout i think the 2012 campaign where a lot of the country, especially women, also the men who care about us, were really paying attention to what was happening on reproductive health, reproductive justice and rights. and what is really important now is that we not let that he just a moment that passed and think that the 2012 election fixed all of that. it didn't. in case anyone was wondering.

that is really one of the places that we are today in terms of the status of women today is very much in a fight for not only legal and actual control of our bodies and our destinies are not respect but also in a fight for the economic ability to actualize that control, to be the access to that health care. so i think that is one of the moments that we are in right now and it's really important that not be the end of that story. because there were so many women who came to me and said, i can't believe we are talking about earth control again. i thought we accomplish this. i thought we fix this. raise your hand if you are in the room and you thought you fix this. thank you for all you did. unfortunately we are not done yet. this was a really interesting generational moment where i think maybe for some women of an

earlier generation there was a reminder that these fights were not over, that the fight tilts tilts -- did still need to go on and perhaps for some young women it was an introduction to this fight. many folks have come to me and said i'm so glad that young women showed up for the fight, finally. and i want to say we were already here. we were already here by 2012 and the events that were happening that were so public seems to have been a moment where young women and women of prior movements and generations connected with each other a little bit more than they had before. if you talk with cecile richards she will tell you that the membership and supporters of planned parenthood increased exponentially and many of those were young women and young men who were connecting to the mainstream organizations and you know as eleanor roosevelt said realizing that alienating

oneself from the process won't accomplish the goals. but it was also a moment where i think some older generations realize that yes, we not only have to teach leadership to our young people as she said, we have to give them opportunities to lead as well. so i hope that going forward it will be a reminder for the whole country the importance of reproductive justice fight, a reminder of how important it is to have both generations, many generations working together in this effort. because that is how we can make the most progress. but listening to you know what we have heard today about the commission's report 50 years ago, it's really striking, yet so much has changed but so much has not. and you listen to the list of concerns, equal pay, childcare, you know family leave, the equal rights amendment. these are all still issues that as we evidently are talking

about the late mrs. kennedy the harpies are still working on. we are still fighting all of those battles. it is encouraging to see that there are some ways in which we are changing our and we are going into a different area for some of these fights. in particular, i was thinking about the domestic workers organizing efforts and also the fast food strikes. i'm sure many of you have seen the fast food strikes this year in the press. when we first opened today we made reference to 50 years ago was the march on washington and we forget that was the march on washington for dignity and for jobs. one of the requirements in one of the requests of the marchers was a minimum wage of $2 an hour which today if you adjust for inflation is right around $15 that is what the fast food workers are fighting for.

and that is not the type of fight that we might traditionally think of as being about where women are today but it is where women are today. two-thirds of fast food workers are women. many of them single mothers and heads of families. i think that is a very real example of what a lot of on the ground harpies organizing for women is looking like today. it's a little bit outside of the organized structure pay little bit more and it's putting together the economic concerns of women specifically. the other item is the domestic workers organizing campaigns. our historian on eleanor roosevelt was sharing with me that there are rumors of eleanor clubs, where supposedly she would get together with the domestic workers and organize them and they would become a union and there would be no one to clean your house. this was one of the reasons that eleanor roosevelt was despised on a that particular point. the love done many others.

now we really are organizing the domestic workers so i think she was ahead of her time on that point. we are seeing incredible progress there and that's largely about not only the female workforce but the ways in which women's work quote unquote work that is always associated with women and we have to acknowledge what secretary solis did on that issue. i'm encouraged by some of the ways in which this generation and this time, we are moving forward on many of the issues that the commission raised. >> so you would embrace the title if you will of harpy? [laughter] >> absolutely. i would hope to be an effective harpy, not just a heartbeat. but yes. >> and you are associated with the group called the uninvincible's. i've heard that term applied to many people that the obama administration is afraid is not

going to show up and purchase health care. tell me more about this group and what you are doing. >> young invincible's is one of the groups that i work with. i'm not necessarily speaking officially on their behalf today but they are an organization that took their name from the idea that there was this cohort of young people who supposedly didn't want health care reform to happen because we all thought we were invincible and didn't need health insurance. in fact, we are the most uninsured generation and desperately in need of health care reform. one that is turning out to sign up for health care reform and sign up for the exchanges in droves because it is so important to us. so that is one of the issues that we were gone. we also tackle economic concerns related to the affordability of education and to employment as well. my workfare is taking a look at what is next for affirmative actions, specifically race-based affirmative action in higher education.

it's unfortunately in terms of the status of women of color and men of color on that particular question. we need to find some next steps in the path or word that is in just the end of that program. >> what made you an activist? was there an ah-ha moment when you're in college at georgetown i believe or your mother? >> you know, i think anyone who has a true soul of an activist doesn't know how to answer that question because they were just always this. you might have changed what you were working on but you were always fighting whether it was with your parents about the rules or at school or whatever. so i don't have an excellent answer to that question other than i was instilled with a very strong sense of right and wrong from my parents and also very strong sense of duty and so while my parents and i don't always agree, they are a little bit more conservative than i am,

about what right and wrong is, we very much agree that you are absolutely not allowed to be on the sidelines. so pick up your tools and fight fight, whichever side you're on. >> that's an excellent answer and probably along the lines of what our next speaker will give as well former secretary hilda solis. she has a long and distinguished career in electoral politics. she was first elected to public office in 1985 as a member of the rio hondo community college board of trustees. from there she went on to serve in california state assembly and then in 1994 became the first latina elected to the california state senate. she led the battle in the senate to increase the state minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.75 an hour. that was 1996. i don't know what it is now but it's still not a living wage i am sure.

and she authored or co-authored 17 state laws combating domestic violence. she served several terms in the u.s. congress before joining the obama administration 2009. labor laws, the environment, women's rights are all part of her port for leo -- portfolio. as a former member of congress i guess i would like to start with your view of what you think as you look back on your former place of employment. [laughter] >> it was a lot better before, but i do want to thank folks that are sponsoring this event and i want to just really recognized the outstanding panel and those that have spoken. i also want to thank the kennedy library foundation. in fact one of the great events of my life was to be the first woman to receive the john f. kennedy profile in courage award because of my work on

environmental justice and raising the minimum wage. that was back when senator ted kennedy was alive and i will never forget that moment. this was the third time i had into boston and i was just dying that those folks in congress could have the audacity not to get their work done so i couldn't go to the library today all of our employees there are furloughed. but i want to say that so much as happened in the last 50 years since the first word came out and yet so much more has to be done. i am reminded of an interesting person that is not mentioned in today's discussion which to me as somebody that i look up to and that is frances perkins, who was the first departmental secretary of the department of labor. she actually moved out when eleanor roosevelt was inspired to do and did do. she was able to have that discussion i think with the president at that time and be in

the room with other cabinet members this woman defending the rights of children, poverty wages to eradicate that to provide better health care and to also create a social justice in the way that would blanket all communities. i am reminded about the garment workers where frances perkins stood across the street in new york to see this building with a bunch of immigrant young women that were flinging and just flying out of the building because it was on fire. it was garment workers and there was no way of escaping because they didn't have the safety or protection or any type of plan in place to protect women who were low-wage immigrant workers, didn't have good command of english language. these were folks or just trying to make a living. those kinds of rings moved frances perkins and because of that we saw many reforms in the work place. and now as we see, think our labor laws changing and we hear

about some of the great things that are happening in terms of in home health care workers and cabdrivers. there are women cabdrivers out there but we also see where women i think have also been stuck, stuck and i want to just give you a statistic. some of you are doing now it. women make 77 cents on the dollar compared to a man doing the same job. a woman of color who is african-american makes 64 cents. a latino who looks like me will make about 64 cents a talk about the wage gap. it is there but we are not talking about it in ways that perhaps is so noticeable to us. and we still have to i think put all of our efforts toward making sure that we have reinforcement mechanisms. that is why the department of labor has been able in the past five years at least to the obama administration to higher up new wage hour division investigator

so things don't just go in a pile and sit there. people actually get a call back from the department and issues like these are resolved and investigated. we have an office of federal contract compliance that is required by law to make sure that any federal contracts that go out, that they treat individuals fairly and that means women particularly of color, people with disabilities and veterans. we lost sight of a lot of that. i think what it could and -- what happened is we got comfortable. wow we don't even need an office for the women's bureau. there is actually talk like that in the congress and thank goodness people's voices were heard because they would have eliminated it. that's really discouraging because they're so much more work to do. maybe we are used to the notion of women can be acceptable in any position or anyplace but when you look at the statistics and when you look at the researcher doesn't bear that out

that is why it's still so important for us to have offices that do that kind of research. that is why it's important that we know who is in charge of medical advances, who is giving out the grants for research, who is giving out jobs for contracts and things of that nature and who gets selected to go and move up the ladder at the federal government level? we still have a disproportionate number of women that are not being allowed to get into what we call the elite corps, the senior executive management positions in federal government created very few men and women of color, women of color and i say to myself what we have these laws in place that are very team equally applied across-the-board? i think in many cases we lose sight of that. we have pulled back. we pulled back because we are in an era where we feel so hypersensitive about people talking about race in this and that. no one wants to really talk about the white elephant in the

room. i think it's time that we start bringing those barriers down. this president in my opinion really helps to set a standard by bringing more women and more people of color into his administration and i'm thankful that i had the opportunity to serve for four years as the first latino woman, in fact never had a woman and hopefully the next president, she or he may have the opportunity to put more people who look like people in this room and who really and truly represents the american public. it's something that you have to continually strive for. nothing is ever given to you. you have to work for it and don't believe for a minute that we have yet arrived because we still have so far to go and we have so many other people behind us that are looking up to us to continue that fight, whether they are young or old. i find that in every corner of

this world they are saying please just don't give up the fight. we need to have women to have equity. we need childcare and we need family medical leave implemented across-the-board in the public sector. we need to change the behavior some corporations that continue to discriminate against women and don't pay them their comparable worth. we have a long way to go but on the other hand i'm happy that we can have these open discussions and that we need to have more men and more individuals who control the leverage, the levers of power to really understand that we can sit there with them and make decisions and do the right thing for everybody. >> you were speaking earlier and he said when you joined the obama administration there was such great optimism in early 2009, and that we have kind of watch that erode. and now we have looked at the workers that are furloughed and

most of the country are anonymous bureaucrats but they are real people and a lot of them are women and a lot of them are people of color and government services one of the great entrées into the middle class for a lot of people. if you could address that. >> it thing for many of us who grew up, we understood that government could actually allow for more talents level playing field in so many of our ways and are like weather was education or job creation are things of that nature. now it seems the public is very anti-government and it isn't just the federal government. it's also the local government because if you look at the losses people have experienced over the last five years it's been tremendous at the local level. about 600,000 jobs got wiped out. most of those were from women or teachers or firefighters people who do local services in your government and to see that erosion is really a slap in our face i think for people who are trying to come up and especially

for those diverse communities. so we have to think about as our economy recovers where are we making sure that we are back filling these positions and who is getting in line for those positions and to encourage people not to be down on federal government or state government. because it isn't government. we have to come up with something more -- because it's the person who takes care of my mother or your father when ambulatory care has to come into place. someone has to pick up my dad and taken to the hospital and care for him. what about my veterinarian. who is taking care of the street corner when the lights go out? who is taking care and mining when there is a major accident like bp or a mining accident when people lose life's? who's going to be out in spec being our ultra? right now we have a crisis in california. those are all government workers. we have to think about what that

means to our society. all of us agree to pay some form of tax and some people are saying that it's on most of sin to have to pay taxes. i'm saying wait a minute proportionally speaking people who are in the middle class and paying a higher verse and adjust taxes than the 2%. in fact over the last seven years reports indicate that the wealth of those 2% has increased by almost 200%. for the middle class it's been down to 20 and 19%. those do not equate. they do not compare and people need to wake up and understand that there are disparities that exist here and we have to correct them. people need to have their voices heard. i hope people are encouraged by getting involved in doing something and getting the harpers and everybody else out there. >> it's called starving the beast. if you reduce the revenue coming in and that is the lingo. professor hill your biosays her goal is doing courage made of

equitable and positive resolution of race, gender and class issues. it's a pretty big goal. >> it's laudable. >> right, how is it going? [laughter] >> well you know, i like to say when i was coming-of-age in the 70s i actually thought that all of this was going to be sort of you know, talk about how things used to be but it's not the case. we have been changed and gotten to the place where we want to be. but, it doesn't mean that we stopped doing that. it doesn't mean we stop trying to make things better for people. i think what, the thing that i tried to do and you talked about activism. i think everybody comes in in their own way.

but i think that is what we have to understand. i'm not going to be the same kind of activist as you and i'm not going to run for public office but that everyone here really believes in equality and who has a function in life and that brand -- a brain to think in a mouth to speak with has an opportunity to promote it. i just met this young woman who is organizing in her high school now, so everyone must have a role that we can play. it's not easy and especially not easy i think in this sort of post-identity era, where most of us don't realize we are now post race. all decisions are gone. but what i think has to happen is that we have got to be very thoughtful and we have got to think you know one, where are the gaps in the law? how do we fill them? what are some of the new

strategies that we can engage in? who are the decision-makers and whether they are men or women, what do they need to know to make the best decisions for us? we have got to think in the long-term whether it is important for us to start thinking necessarily or unnecessarily are women one monolithic group? i don't think we are, of course not but what if it can be gained from starting to look down and sort of drill down and start looking at people, women's lives and experiences across their entire lifecycle. so that we are not just talking about one thing that needs to happen for women like childcare but we are talking about what needs to happen for women from the time they are warned into the world to improve their chances of successful outcomes by the time that they get older as what we are reading now,

becoming more and more impoverished. so we have got to be very smart and very thoughtful. we have got also to start looking at the impact of race on a woman's experience. what is it like when you quote the statistics on women of color and the wage gap? what is it like to be a woman of color working, earning 54 cents on the dollar? even in terms of the judiciary, the numbers that i look up, about one third of the federal judiciary are women but 68 out of the 750 federal judges in the country are women of color. so, we have got to really kind of look at these holistic lee.

we have to look at women's lives as something that are very complex, so there are no simple solutions. but it does begin with the dialogue and i will just say this, and i talk about the men and the women arguing. things can change and let me tell you, when i first testified in 91 i was getting lots of letters and i still get lots of letters. in 1991 i would say between 80 and 90% of the letters that i got were from women. over the years, 20 years, 30, now going on 30, that ratio has changed. so i'm getting a lot more sub port of letters from men who come to the experience whether it's sexual harassment or just the ability to speak out for what they believe in.

but they come in a positive way and an involved way. now some men come through their experiences with their daughteri think whether it's because of their daughters or something that they have experienced in their lives is some kind of empathy. some ability to relate to what it's like to try to make positive change and to be confronted by people who just don't want things to change. and i think that is how we are going to be able to move. when women earned more money and when women can live safe and secure homes, everybody benefits the society benefits and we have got to begin to understand how to break down some of those

differences but not lose focus of the fact that there are still a gender disadvantage in this country and it's interesting, 50 years ago in that report that is one of the premises they started out with. there is a disadvantage to being a woman in this country that still exists, but that we have to make sure that people understand that disadvantaged is not women's alone. the entire society suffers because of it. >> we have talked a lot today about labor movements, women's movements and civil rights movements. i want to ask sandra about organizing in the 2010, but first i want to go to a question here. >> hi. so as you pointed out before, i made the women's rights awareness group in my high school but when the idea first came to my head i asked one of

my male teachers what he thought about it and i said oh, i'm thinking about making a feminism group at the high school. he was like, well if you make a feminism club the boys will have to gather and make a masculine club. and i said, with all due respect sir, the united states of america is a masculine club. [applause] so my question is kind of a two-part question because also as i look around this room i don't really see a enough girls age here learning about this women's history and i worry about what i have to do as the leader in my club, how to first be taken seriously because as i said to my teacher i didn't feel like he was taking my club or my activism seriously and how do i attract girls my age do this cause?

i feel like they know what it is obviously from their mothers but they really don't know exactly what it means. i am just how i'm supposed to attract people my age to this? >> i have so many things to say on this. an excellent question. but don't ask us, because we are older, sorry guys. [laughter] tell us, tell us what would bring the young people into this kind of conversation. i know that's a hard question and it takes a lot of work to come up with the answer and i'm constantly trying to think of ways to your point of organizing of reaching, whether it's young people are various audiences that we don't reach and that we don't activate adequately, but the key to that is asking those groups. so each of us especially those of us who are young women in this conversation has to take on the responsibility of figuring that out and talk into the rest of our generation and figuring that out and then telling the rest of the movement and the leaders and hoping that other

aspects of the leadership in the movement will be willing to hear us on what it will take. you know i wanted to also offer to you one other response to your teacher, which yours was very good. at one other response might the, okay so let's broaden the conversation a little bit about what a feminism club would focus on and what its goal would be. because i think 50 years ago it was called the commission on the status of women and today we have a lot of those types of commissions that have similar titles and the office within the white house that focuses on women and girls and i wonder if we didn't have that history of names, what we would call it if we were starting a fresh today. i think we might call it something more like the commission on gender or equality or inequality rather. that is absolutely not as

professor hill pointed out to erase the very unique and disproportionate impact that discrimination has on women specifically to broaden the conversation to be about what are all the ways that all of us are harmed by sexism, by gender roles that limit who we can be, how does that harm men as well? not just the wisdom which society is denied women's talents and abilities when women are limited but what are the things that many of our sons wish they could be but don't feel that they are able to be within our society? you can think about one really concrete example is that the way men are taught to deal with their emotions or rather to not deal with their emotions. there is some research that shows it actually shortens their lifespan in the united states because of the limitations we put on boys expressing their feelings. so there are ways in which all of us are harmed by these types of gender roles and something

that is very, very much in the minds of our generation organizing and is it okay that i claim to be the same generation? close enough, right? it's very much on the minds of young people organizing today's the movement within the transgender community. that is thinking about how gendered limits all of us is absolutely what that is about. so that type of a frame i think it's an interesting thing to think about or where we go forward from here because it does ring other people into the conversation and into the fight. why aren't the boys part of the feminism club or the gender equality club? i hope that they are. there are quite a few guys in the group when i was a student but that absolutely doesn't mean we should lose focus on what is still the disproportionate

impact on women in this country especially when you consider things like violence against women and those types of concerns. >> thank you. >> yeah, i've been so does she go and try to recruit friends in their school individually? how does one go about kind of sparking a movement? it seems to me what happened in your case was that the issue of contraception related to the affordablaffordabl e care act actually made young women think that they have a stake in this. believing you have a stake in some political fight that gets people interested and people have a stake in all of these fights but they don't make the connection so i guess the issue is how do you get them to see that they can actually have an impact on washington?

>> seems we are coming at it from the wrong direction. rather than trying to convince people that they have a stake, shouldn't the question be that we ask them what is it you are worried about? what is it that's not working in your life that you want to change in that you want to fight for? let's organize around that because that is when they feel they have a stake. her have that opens the door to further conversations of well you know here is the policy. we had no idea it was impacting your life but let's talk about how that relates to this concern that you have. it can be a top-down, you all should know that you should be concerned about x, y and z. that's not going to galvanize people, right? >> i'd ever know we think there are a lot of ways that you can galvanize people. i think everyone is different. what reaches some people won't reach other people. but i do agree with you that you have to give to people on what they care about. what really do you care about? some people will be concerned

about things that are sort of ideas. other people will be concerned about things that are just their day-to-day living. but what i do think is that we organize and maybe this is because so much is coming out in washington, that we organize -- i don't think we have to organize around political things. i think we need to organize around what's going on in our lives. i mean, if you want to think in terms of what you are going to change in washington that's one thing but you might also just want to change what is in your workplace. what people are being required to do, whether or not people are going to have vacation or sick leave or how people are being paid in their work place or whether people are given the ability to take off and take

care of a sick child or sick parent. our organizing doesn't have to be directed in washington d.c.. we can change the way we live and the way women experience life. >> maybe that's the big difference between 50 years ago and today. 50 years ago government and washington politics was seen as the most direct avenue for change. >> well, i think -- we have have to fight on multiple levels. i have course is a lawyer agree that yeah women should the encouraged to sue for their rights. is that so radical when you saw that is the headline? yes, we should be suing for our rights, but that should not need the only avenue because what we have to realize is that when you are talking about people who are particularly vulnerable either economically or socially, they

are not going to go to the courts because one they can afford to and they can even project what the outcomes will be. so there ought to be other avenues for us to move people forward that don't require us to file a lawsuit. i am all for them, trust me but they should not be required for us to move forward. >> can i say something go? something that is really important as well while we see the dysfunction in washington playing itself out in the last i think four years quite frankly, people have to be reminded that a lot of things happen locally and people shouldn't be -- we are losing so many good women that are dissuaded from running for public office. in los angeles county we just had an election on the city council and out of 12 members there is one woman. she barely squeaks through. this is horrendous that we are going backwards not forwards.

the california state legislaturd in terms of having more women state senators as well as the seven members. why are women afraid to do that? we need to ask those questions why. do they not have money, do they not have supported whom? is the structure of your life touches it doesn't allow them to have time to go out and do that? these are things we have to ask ourselves as a society and figure this out if we want to see equality. while i don't think everyone is made to get into politics i think it's an important voice. when you do have women in many cases when you're in those decisions discussions where you have to make those decisions, and people say this all the time, women look at things very differently. it's about the group. it's not my having power over someone else in that discussion saying gee i won that one. i think a lot of women in leadership and public office look at the benefit of how they can help so many more people and

that is why you see people like former speaker nancy pelosi who i think has been a tremendous, tremendous asset for women in the legislature helping to groom and mentor other women. her effect is so profound i think it's really underestimated underestimated -- underestimated right now. women of this age don't understand fully the contributions. keeping that they also people alongside her who would love to have her position. just think about that. the housing getting bills through and working with the president at that time to get lilly ledbetter and other good legislation. thank goodness we had some good women in the senate and in the house because we were able to get some of the funding that we needed at a time when the other side was saying oh no, the government is too big and it's outrageous when the unemployment rate at that time was 10% and maybe 16 to 20% for people of

color, in communities around the country. >> i think we want to leave this panel with a note of optimism, and so if i could ask each of you and maybe sandra you want to start. what is on the horizon and can give us some reason to be happy about the progress we have made and are about to make? >> well i will start by addressing the point that senators solis was raising why are we seeing more women stepping forward in office to leadership? sometimes i worry that it's because we spend a lot of time talking about the barriers. it's good to knowledge the barriers and talk about the challenges and how we work on them but we have to not get stuck there. as individuals, as individual women on believing that we can't do it to cut the ball of those barriers that we are aware of. you know i don't want to run for office because i will be personally attacked and vilified

in the press. well, we are all still here so you know if the three of us can handle it. [applause] superwomen, no. if we can handle it so can so many women and we need a lot more belief in ourselves in that way. i suppose that is my optimism in the end is that we absolutely have the capacity to change all of what we have been talking about today and we will eventually, we will. >> i always think of fdr to criticism and he said i wear this is a badge of honor. you have had your share of criticism. [laughter] >> yeah i have and it's amazing. i always tell people if i can be optimistic anybody should be able to be.

but what does make me optimistic, there are two things. one is that again, so much has changed. i have seen it in my lifetime and if i think about the fact that i grew up in rural oklahomt people would have given to me as an african-american group rowing up in rural oklahoma, getting to law school are graduating from college, gail law school, to be able to move and work to where i am today and as i tell people i moved all the way from oral roberts university to brandeis so i have come a long way. [laughter] but the chances of that happening for me were not great. they were in fact fairly small. so i know what we can do. i know what is possible and i also know that i didn't do it alone. i did it exist there were a lot

of people behind me and there were a lot of government programs and there was a movement behind me. i have seen it happen in my lifetime and i can see it possibly happening in the future because when i get to fly around and talk to folks, i see so many people of good will who do care and who are willing to work to make things better. the other thing that makes me optimistic is the alternative. i can't be pessimistic. i can't give up. if that's the only alternative, then i prefer to be optimistic and just to keep working. [applause] >> i think that's a nice note to end on so thank you very much. [laughter] [applause] and thank you all for coming and go forth and multiply.

♪ >> we are in the gallery of the

whatcom museum. we are looking at vanishing ice, alpine and polar landscapes in art 1775 to 2012. the purpose of the exhibition is to highlight the rich cultural heritage of the planets frozen frontiers, the alpine regions, the arctic and antarctica. this is a photograph of the greenland ice sheet by a german artist otto becker dating from 2008 and it's exhibited side-by-side with a photograph by camille seaman also of east greenland. it's from her last iceberg series of 2006. many people understand the importance of ice for the planes that help regulate the climate that many people are unaware that there is a collective

consciousness in western culture about these regions. so it was important within the context of climate change to let people know that these regions are fundamental to our identity. comments now from the ceos of linkedin in twitter. jeff weiner talks about the future of this company linkedin and twitter ceo dick costolo gets brief remarks on how to leave the company. from the annual techcrunch disrupt in san francisco, this is about half an hour. ♪ >> hi everybody. with me today is jeff weiner the

ceo of linkedin. he has led us there a successful ipo and has been impressing wall street ever since. i am going to be talking with him today just about the future of linkedin and how that fits in with the rest of the world economy which increasingly has been a big player for us. first, just tell me a little bit about what's happening at linkedin right now. you have this thing called the economic draft that you started talking about late last year which sounds like it's going to be on, recruiting and sales as the basics of your business now. what exact way is the economic draft? >> all the value linkedin is largely oriented around what we call the professional graph which maps the world's professional connections up to three degrees. you have companies that helps you better leverage and tackle your network to create value not only finding jobs with the create the jobs your behalf. our longer-term vision if you look out say 10 years is much bigger than that.

what we would like to do is develop the world's first economic graph. .. the professional knowledge information for each of those individual companies and universities to the extent they would like to share it and our

goal would then be to get out of the way and allowed each of those to come act to where it can create the most value and for capital, all forms of capital, intellectual, working, human capital to go to the leverage and then doing so we hope to play a role in transforming the global economy. >> what might that look like for a small business, say a mom-and-pop store in california? >> for starters it is challenging to compete with larger companies with in certain communities or talent. so for that small business to have a profile to be able to represent for the lack of better terms how it would be great to work in that small business, but it's about the vision of the founders, their mission, their culture, how they are trying to make a difference in their local community and for people to be able to connect with that company for whom that makes a lot of sense. >> what does that look like if you are the user? >> you can search for a company

in a specific geography, and that company profile, one of the top relevant results and then there will be a taboo the profile for careers and on that tab the founders of the small and medium-size business will have an opportunity to show the world what they are all about with the same ease and facility that you have seen in the large enterprises able to do so. >> what you need to do for linkedin to get there? >> the duty is we are already down the path -- >> what you're describing sounds like linkedin today in the sense of business list job openings. >> it's much more than job openings. job opportunities, the company profile page, the business intelligence information data, oversight, professional profile for every individual that ultimately would like to find work. it goes way beyond jobs and it is also about making sure that people in their jobs have access

to the right knowledge they need. but you're point in terms of doing what we already do, every dimension that i referenced earlier is up and running. so, we have got to get the company profiles people may not realize we have north of 3 million active company profiles on linkedin. we are fast approaching a quarter of a billion members. so there is a lot of work that has already been done to leave the foundation to make this reality. >> what's the next step? >> continue to scale it and invest in every one of those dimensions. talking about professional knowledge. so continuing to improve the home page experience which is now generating billions of updates on a weekly basis. each of which is customized for the individual member based on who they are caught their skills, their ambition, connections, industry, etc.. linkedin today is a personalized trade magazine for individuals on the news sharing. linkedin now enables --

>> what about software? there have been rumors around what you're interested in building and the sales force now, but you're also a separate way to provide the sales for businesses. are they a competitor? >> sales force is a partner today -- >> what about the inside viewers? >> i think they will continue to be a partner of ours. sales force is able to facilitate and nibbling the sales person professional to leverage their network to ultimately turned a cold call into a warm prospect. >> tell me a little bit more about your developer process. and house you build tools for your company to use and you told me if you like them well enough, he pushed them to the public. tommy but you're working on in this area. >> i think that you are referring to how we at linkedin are in our own restaurant for lack of a better term and

leveraging linkedin as a platform to generate power for our employees. and it's important to draw the distinction between what historically has been public professional network, which is what linkedin ase, where most of the content being shown on linkedin is available by design coming and a private professional network which is what you are going to increasingly see within the enterprise where there is sensitive information, competitive information, and so at linkedin, we are building tools that enable us to get more value from our own platform. and then success to the extent we generate the right kind of engagement, and the right kind of productivity enhancement. we would then be in a position by virtue of the pot from to think about. >> it sounds sort of like a yammer or chatter interface. >> we wanted to be specific and unique to what we offer today. i think that he would seek greater emphasis on things like professional identity, for

example. but again, there is no definitive plan to offer that it is a product. what we are trying to do is leverage linkedin and get as much value from employees as we possibly can. >> what -- who do you consider a competitor for the economic growth? people reference facebook and occasionally facebook will do some sort of professional update that will get people buzzing that so far it seems to be a much broader layer than what you're doing. you are work focused. who else is doing that? >> there is no company right now that has the professional focus on the scale that we do but that doesn't mean we are not focused on the competitive landscape. and future competitors, current competitors. you know, there's other social platforms that operate with a far greater horizontal focus that could enable a third party developer. >> who would you -- >> we are going to stay focused on the social context now just serve the members and customers will today to 80% plus of the

members are constantly reinforce in the fact they want to keep their professional and separate lives. so the context has served us well but we are going to keep an eye on future competitors. >> google, google plus? >> if they decide to get more focused and the professional context, that could introduce a new dynamic. but again, that's all we focus on and as a result we are able to create greater relevancy and value. and to your point earlier, within the enterprise, i can collect large companies are going to be thinking about how they leverage the social assets and platforms to make employees more productive and successful and that could introduce a new competitive dynamic. >> tell me about your contant plans. from afar it has been hard for me to sell if you are trying to eventually make linkedin into a bloomberg type of service where you have news on top of your sort of financial data you have the professional network.

but you haven't described it quite that way. where do you see linkedin come and your influence program and a constellation of contant property. what is the goal for that? >> the goal was to be the definitive publishing platform where we make it as easy as possible for publishers like your own and anyone who wants to share professionally relevant content to do so at the scale. and for our membership to be able to pass that intelligence to the audience. so you mentioned linkedin and clyburn servers. that has certainly been a big move in that direction in terms of -- if nothing else, shifting the perception of what linkedin is all but. historical some people would have sent linkedin is a rolodex or it's a way to get a job. and with the launching of the influence ours and people like richard branson now being followed by well north of 2 million of our members, sharing information about how to become and how to panora and how she builds the company. he's not alone. jack welch and the president of the united states -- >> but you're not going to get

into the news business per say. you're going to abrogate the news and with your personal for people. see if we were going to offer original content i think it would be very light weight later. we are fortunate to have the tiger team a truly world-class editors led by daniel ralf who we hired from fortune. and he's built a wonderful group that helps to carry to the site. and for us it is not about the editorial or the exclusion of machine learning and data optimization or the exclusion of the social connectivity and the viral dynamics that enable them to have a signal. it's all three of those things, taking the best of the three disciplines to create the most relevant content. >> so you are looking at things like the medium for example as more of a competitor. >> i think medium is much more broad based in just a professional context. and there's a lot of content in the world. and our job is to package of the most relevant content we can find for our members. >> are you still working on your

developer platform? i know you have launched a few versions of that. the data in terms of the fairly restrictive compared to some other platforms. arthu still pushing that with other developers? >> we are approaching roughly 100,000 developers to the aqi. the sales force, those over 1.5 million unique domains on the internet right now that offer a share on linkedin but and because of the platform and working with publishers like yourself. >> but in terms of sharing that the debt to other sites similar to the facebook aci, are you looking at doing anything more along those lines or are you focused on being a service and a constant publisher company? >> i think it's going to eat all over time. one of our primary and objectives is to work where our members works we are investing in mobility and obviously heavily on the api. we don't want people to have to be tethered on to their web site

or linkedin.com. >> tell me a little bit about what is happening with work these days. students who have benefited quite a bit from the recession in the sense that people without work are suddenly beginning their resume boosted up and people try to find new jobs and so linkedin has become a natural way for them to do that. what are the sort of trends that you are seeing right now in the workplace? what industries are growing, you know, what kind of jobs, what skills clacks >> i think there's a few trends in terms of what industries are growing on linkedin, we seem fairly consistent patterns over the last several years where technology, the technology sector, financial-services is reading some of its footing. health care is on a high-growth industry. and in terms of the broad trend of the network, i think the fragmentation of work is a secular turnout. i don't think that is going away anytime soon and that is people taking temporary work.

whether they want to and there is a striking of a different balance in their lives or have more control. or because the longer term full-time opportunities don't exist in the same way that they once did. so i think that the work of the trend to keep an eye on. i think probably one of the most important dynamics that we track is the skills gap in the lightning skills gap. people don't realize that roughly 7.5% while it is improving higher than we would like it to be, there's over 320 million available jobs today in the united states. and one of the things that's happened is opportunities are being created by virtue of new technologies. but the technologies are evolving so rapidly it's challenging to train people to keep up with the new opportunities being created. >> other jobs are being automated and will never come back and right now the growth of new jobs is not equal to the loss of jobs.

what people are left wondering where is my place in the world clacks to have to be a developer, and i have to be data scientist to get a job? >> i don't think you have to be a developer or a date a scientist. you can look at silicon valley at linkedin we have had it probably over 4500 jobs in the last four plus years. and roughly two-thirds of those are non-technical in nature. you also, you know, you look at the resurgence of the economy in a city like new york and mayor bloomberg would be the first to tell you they have created 300 percent more jobs than they've lost during the recession following 2008, and a good chunk of them are in the tourism business. hospitality, construction of housing starting to come back on line and create new jobs. you also see with regards to technology, kind of hybrid effect. and so, companies like b&b are creating what historically has been an efficiency. it may not attract this new job creation. they're certainly economic value

being added and i think that is also important. >> where do you see that going? like right now there are a few spots in technology but there are a lot of areas. how do you see the developing over the next five to ten years? you are building your business around that a solution. >> i think there's at least three things we need to be investing in. first is education. and it's not just primary school reform. it's going to take a generation to make sure that we don't have an integrated system that is continuing to prepare kids for the jobs that once were in compared to what they will be. recognizing there are new skills they're necessary. and for that you have things like the academy and eductive learning platforms and the work they are starting to do. but also with the education we would love to see greater focus. there are jobs that exist today. and if we can do a better job of making sure that the current work force is better trained to take the jobs that exist, they are not just in technology. there is a lot of retail jobs

that have been added over the last several years. and if we can do a better job with the vocational training and make sure that we are not just educating with the training as well, i think that could have a medium-term impact. i think that immigration reform is absolutely critical. there are people that were born outside of this country that have a unique skills to take the jobs are available in the country are going unfilled. and as a result, the tax revenue is not being generated. but perhaps most importantly, these -- >> looking at the linkedin the that, what are the types of jobs that, you know, people need to change to these programs for clacks i'm not familiar with this to some degree obviously, but what is it that you are seeing? >> i don't think immigration reform is one thing or another. i can't you have millions of people that were not born in this country that today are in this country. they are working hard and trying to figure out the right path for them. it's going to be critical. and then you also have situations where in silicon valley speaking of the kind of jobs he referenced earlier,

engineering, data scientist jobs, jobs that significant skills that are required. these jobs are going unfilled at this time because the bar for allowing people born outside of this country to work inside this country are too high. and i always recall a statistic that he might have heard by now, that 40% of the fortune 500 was founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants. and these are the companies that are creating economic opportunities. and then in the third area, it is continuing to invest in the digital infrastructure to make it far easier for people to access the information they need, to develop the training to obtain these opportunities going forward. >> and in terms of just going back to the topic that we were just going over earlier, you know, we are seeing all of these hubs pop-up over the years where people are doing their work on line, sharing their work on line, and you know, they are hiring and firing each other based on their work on line.

and that is all happening within these professional communities. and it ties in with linkedin a little bit. but it's not really what linkedin has. like linkedin is and still seeing some of these developers work. how do you see yourself fitting into that sort of world where more and more people are just living their resume? >> we refer to that as a dynamic you are not listing your experiences, that you are showcasing your work. whether it is a code that you've written a report fully aware of your artistry. and one of the things the we are doing along those lines is starting to leave off the profile experience on linkedin, so that it is not a traditional text base like to resume, that at least it is like a portfolio sciu get the chance to showcase the very center mission of the stories that you've written and of the photograph that you've taken. photographs of the work that you get on down the road, the codes today, pat testiculate generate yet and we want to provide as much flexibility as possible for the professional of any

background to be able to showcase their identity. >> what might that look like in the future for linkedin coming and will it be integrated in these other sites as, you know, sink in with my linkedin profile and that sort of thing? >> the ability to log in with linkedin is something we've already invested in and we continue to see the attraction. going back to something we saw earlier, dole ultimately is to enable our members to generate dalia from linkedin from anywhere, not just on linkedin.com. if that can take elements of their personal identity wherever they are going, we would love to make that possible. >> thank you for your time. give him a big hand, everybody. [applause] ♪

our next guest has created a unique management style that he teaches to his employees. please welcome that letter ceo, dick costolo. >> thank you for having me. i love coming to talk to groups like this. you are the most fun. you are the most fun stage of the company. so many of you. nutter it is just a few of you and everything is possible. and there are no barnacles on the organization or the product or the prophesies yet. and, you know, you are up all night and out of printer paper and you are the ceo and buying the printer paper and it's an amazing time for the company. so, why do i want to come here and talk to you now for just a few minutes before, right before

lunch about how to lead when there are like two or three of you and you are looking at each other and saying are you leader or am i phill peter? why is that important? because the reason it's important is because even at this stage as you go from two people to end people, if you do not deal with these things, this function becomes embedded in your company and this this function becomes learned as part of the culture of the company and is almost impossible to eradicate it. so i'm going to talk about two specific things that i want you to take away from here today about how to marriage and how to lead in your company. the first is a paradox to it and it's the ultimate paradox of being a manager or a leader and it is quite simply this: as a leader, you need to care deeply about your people while not worrying or really even caring

about what they think about you. managing by trying to be liked is the path to ruin. and that's easy to say it and it's easy to me be used and think like yes i do that. i interact with people. but the reality is there are all these ways that managing by trying to be liked were telling people what they want to hear creeps into the organization. and you are going to walk down hall and talk to your cofounder about something they did that and lead to the other day or a person that just hired did and the need to change. as you start to walk down the hall you think they are busy, they are working on all this stuff, they look like they're having a rough morning. i will talk to them tomorrow about it. or you're trying to create some award and it's between two people. and the way you deal with ks instead of getting them both in the room and talking about the fact we have to go do this thing

and you're going to do it i need you to do this, you can't tell the two different people to different things. you go to the first person and say we need to do this thing i decide you're going to do it and call the second person in the room and say listen, nobody wants you to do this more than i do but right now i've got to let this other person do it but don't worry, you're going to get the next thing. don't leave it that way by trying to be liked to be and lead by being forthright. the way you build trust with your team and your people is by being forthright and clear with them from a number one and communicating with them based on clarity, not based on i hope they perceive this in a positive way and i hope they leave the room with me feeling good. that is the most important management step i can give you. it is an understanding of that paradox and how important it is to care so deeply about your team while not worrying about what they think about you. the second thing i want to tell

you, and it's critical gerrans and francisco and in technology and in silicon valley is this. there are many different ways to be successful, okay? and the problem here in san francisco and silicon valley is that we've lionize the personality. and we stepped these people look to these amazing leaders who are geniuses and they are doing everything right and books are written about them that are produced that show us how to do things the way that they do meet and they're constantly on tv and in the media when things are going really, really well and this is how this person does this thing and this is why they do it this way and we take notes and we try to imitate what they've done to be successful. the reality is that these people are the same people they were ten years ago and are going to be ten years from now when a man

not work at all. the same person they are today that is lionized may be frowned upon ten years from now or was frowned upon ten years earlier. so it is absolutely critical and you try to create your company and your culture that you absolutely internalize this fact. there are many different ways to be successful. i was having a conversation with dan silverman, the ceo of pinterest coming and he said it's like all these guys out here, all these women out here that our leaders that we look at to, they have this one cool superpower and it's enabled them to do these amazing things. and they are all different. and i thought that was an amusing insight. and so when i tell you and implore you to find your own means of being successful and to understand there are many

different ways to be successful, will frame it in been silverman's language. fingar individual superpower, but that is, and leverage that and be successful in your own way. if you do those two things, if you are yourself and you manage by deeply caring about your people while not worrying about what they think about you, you will be as successful as you can possibly be. always remember when you are thinking about communicating clearly with people and your team you may think people are fooled if you tell them what they want to hear. you are not. as a leader you're totally transparent. people are looking at you all the time. if you try to leave in some way that isn't true to who you are, they will see it and they will see through it and you will lose the trust of the team. okay? so it is those simple pieces of

advice. have a great lunch. the house and senate will return tomorrow morning for the final day of the first session of the 113th congress. the house will meet friday in a pro forma session starting 11:45 eastern and the senate gavels and at 11:45. the first session will officially end when the adjourn on 1159. the house will then reconvene at noon eastern in a pro forma session to officially begin the second session of the 113th congress but they won't do any bill debate. that will resume next week. you can see live coverage on c-span and the senate right here on c-span2.

about ten or 15 years ago, we started looking at the census department data and something very strange pops out. when you look at where the profits are of the multinationals, you know, if you look at your of you see germany, france, ireland, italy. but if you look at the the the on where the profits are at least to france, germany, ireland. it's just this all of, it is a hugely disproportionate amount within ireland. so that was one indication that something was going on to the journalist and historian david andelman recently discussed the history of the imperial presidency and the changes in power to democratic leaders around the world to the

he had just an audience in new york city. bard college in new york posted this event. it's about an hour. >> david andelman has a biography that i cannot possibly do justice in my short but not short enough introductions. but in brief he is the author of the book in 1919 and the price we pay today. he's the president of the overseas press book where we have seen this as well as at the world policy institute to be if he's the former executive editor at forbes.com and has been a correspondent for cbs news, a washington correspondent for cnbc and has written for harper's, the des atlantic, foreign policy, foreign affairs,

the new republic and a long list of others i just picked the ones that i read. they are all good. today's stock is entitled imperial presidency god and all but forgotten and he will speak about 25 minutes or so. i don't generally introject and we will have plenty of time for q&a at the end. it's my pleasure to shred over the podium. [applause] i have to say for openers that this is a particular honor delivering at the memorial lecture. since james was mile-long predecessor in a great mentor as well when at the view of my career i had the privilege of writing for him at foreign affairs one of our worthy competitors. there was a time in the not

distant past when the office of the president. unprecedented powers none unlike the great emperor even changed the course of history in the democracy or oligarchy and the political systems removed in every other respect from the traditional dictatorship the president still have unfettered power. i like to call this imperial presidency. the can launch wars in algeria and indochina with a gesture to the national assembly that met regularly and across from the palace where he presided. today he must turn to the deeply fractured parliament for approval in every major political decision. in london where winston churchill and the cabinet could join american allies in defense of the empire with barely a nod to the house of commons just down the block today's successor david cameron bows down after

seven hours shouting down as evers deutsch to join the same american military and syria middle eastern state with nuclear ties to the british commonwealth. rarely have the chiefs of state or government then has the of war today in the power of the electorate to barely able to keep a single one blinked on and on how history might treat them. the presidency and terri hail or not is in the one position of the government to pay for which all power flows down to the rest of the government and at the same time in the best of circumstances upward from the people. but all too often in just one direction. and this feeling is most central to our understanding of how the rulers rule and how people are different today. in august of 1983 there was a panic across the stretch of africa the libyan dictator was contemplating an invasion of his neighbor to the south who was a nation that of course traveled the desert of the martha jungle on the south and the forces had a clearly direct shot for the

process into the heart of chad. the french who were controlled as part of africa still maintain close economic political and cultural ties with their former colonies so it was hardly surprising the attachment of the french legion would find its way to the capitol as a show of force. at the same time though, the ruler put somewhat more any brank dictator but also president now the democratic republic of congo. if there were ever an imperial president, for 32 years he presided all but the challenges of the ruler of the nation that he had renamed unmasking the vast personal fortune that seat in 1984 about time i got there was estimated at $5 billion, that is $11 billion today, was known to charter a supersonic jet for shopping trips to paris and the power at home and across

the broad stretches of the content was all but unchallenged to rate the president of chad was an aspiring character from the same cut of cloth she attempted power before i got there and moved to hold the self-proclaimed president partly elected. he was using a secret police organization that he used to greet the power and the documentation and security directorate included gas into the eyes and years and knows of his opponent on to the exhaust pipes of running cars and a technique of waterboarding that few ever managed to survive. now he was hearing the arrival of tanks and the power that she had very little ability to neutralize so it was hardly surprising that his recently arrived and hardly democratically elected president might want to seek some backup from the national leader who might be somewhat compliment to

those than the socialist president who he hardly trusted 3,000 miles away. on saturday morning of august 20, 1983, the presidential jet touched down in the airport and both presidents had anticipated the world press turnout. this was going to be a show. just the ticket they felt to show them just what they would be up against. the team turned out quite a respectable crowd thousands lining the route from the airport to downtown and clearly the doors opened and out stepped in his signature libertas can toga and his some pluses he was confident the down the steps, have a customized jeep with tires higher than his shoulders, grasped the staff with a gold

figurehead and signaled the vehicle to move slowly down the past. running ahead of its they speak on the jungle drums it was all inspiring and frilling and in a demonstration of power as i have ever witnessed. incidentally such dictators still exist in many corners of the world since the independence of mind before the former soviet republic of belarus has never known any president but the alexander lucas who maintained an iron fist control over the nation not to mention influence over the major industries including finance, media and every every aspect of life and what is effectively the latter-day in the tiny indian ocean its president he hung on to the office in 30 years and

years to be pulling strings as his nation seeks to merge to words and azo ones of the democracy. now we have accumulated little wealth on the skill who served as the president since august of 1979 central to the personal network but still somewhere around $600 million. these and a host of other leaders while bearing the title of president maintained many of the trappings of the kind of hereditary monarchs. each rules as he will with barely a nod to those that he or she holds because there are very few female dictators in the strike. for instance they stand between his people and utter instability, brought the property and the stretches of the soviet union and the deprivations of the powerful

families all of which was true but at what cost? so these serve as one extreme. today france is perhaps the other. it's a far cry from the last socialist president's and the means take a leader and control of every word spoken by anyone in the administration. every action from the palace in so many respect when it came to the sense of how the president should rule and where to put everyone to achieve maximum even as the power of the office was slipping away from the hold exerted by charles deval to slow the process. one late afternoon the foreign minister concluded a particularly sensitive diplomatic negotiation and was xm in the foreign ministry running the gauntlet of the french and western journalist. i was there for cbs and i trust

my microphone in front of him and asked him a question in english to which he replied in his impeccable english and disappeared into the french counterpart. each evening at the palace they would convene a group of ministers and counselors to watch the turnout at the o'clock evening news. that particular evening the french national television was compelled to use the sound bite in english subtitles and french. what an embarrassment. a french minister speaking in english and french television. imagine. trust me, it never happened again. after that it became impossible to obtain an english sound bite from a member of the government. but it wasn't something cosmetics. was every aspect of politics, society, economics that the small band councilors control over 14 years. the longest in the french president would ever likely ruler gentry the reason for that

in the year 2000, the constitution was amended and provided a maximum of the twofive-year terms rather than seven year terms when he came to power. now, three presidents later war has changed. she finds himself in a pickle that is reflective of many fellow presidents but fared less room to maneuver to get his dilemma is terrible the burden editorial list writes because recognizing his strategic office he undermines his presidential credibility. but continues to function. he may have all presidential powers, but they would assert themselves as a leader. the immediate context she was talking about of course was france growing economic crisis. standard and poor's dropped to the credit rating from aa plus and in just this year after it died after it lost its aaa

rating. out of the despair the predecessor sarkozy himself to be this imperial presidency is a question of atmospherics. in this multipolar world where the populations are bombarded with a host of stimulus and a range of voices clamoring to the earth each offering appealing solutions ka presidential leadership in the leadership of any stripe. when i arrived in 1980 for the debut of the presidency, in fact even by the time i returned to the united states seven years later there was still no internet in france or anywhere else. the national news broadcast on the television networks with the inner workings of the government and its ministers along with some sensational murders of the

fashion stars and whether the next morning a half-dozen had political persuasions owned by the french communist party and the liberal to the centrist. then was the president who was the lone stone of government when asked society, the homeland. today that is no longer the case in france or a lot of other places. indeed along with much of the civilized world it's been abolished by the forces competing for attention. the term as president was and how poured manifestation of a deeper transformation of the presidency across the globe. circumscribed term limits are now the rule rather than the exception and the only profoundly dysfunctional dictator leaders of belarus and ugonda both no term levels for the president's imagined only beginning in the world had no term limit to the presidents

anymore. the offer an unlimited number of terms to their president with fifer six years in a stretch. so you could go on for a very long time. they let their president hang around for seven years with a maximum of three terms and in theory and practice he has held office since 1994 and shows no signs of fading into retirement. the same open ended holds true for the president of italy but that is largely a ceremonial post and serbs pretty much the will of the parliament. the presidents of the republic of congo, rwanda, uzbeckistan and ireland, a large ceremony of vote reach out to seven year terms. i state this list because it demonstrates that today few democratically elected presidents have the same power and reach as their predecessors. the only remaining imperial presidents are those who usurp their authority to maintain the

office. but the shift in the power balance has led to some profound disconnect on the world stage and the ability to conclude any transformative initiatives. this past summer when the kuran elected a new and forward thinking president, the work rejoiced. rouhanni was a breeze compared to his knucklehead predecessors. the mckennon separated in the nazi holocaust that was and historical fiction. he was prepared to take president obama's phone call and chat for some minutes though a handshake at the u.n. may have been a bit of a stretch at the moment. now, the negotiators returned quickly to the bargaining table. we all know that when the members of the security council plus germany and effort to broker some progress to support the hold on that nation's nuclear ambitions while at the same time lifting the collection of sanctions the was strangling the of iranian economy. but here again cut sharply curtail the president's on both

sides of the tail reasserted themselves. on the iranian side, neither the president more the foreign minister had unfettered control under the existential issue as the nuclear program. when it comes to the foreign and strategic affairs, the nuclear aspirations a single individual involves the strings, the supreme leader, the grand ayatollah khomeini. of course on the of the side of the table there may be no other religious figure behind the curtain. but the ability of the president in u.s., france, china, russia, the british prime minister or the chancellor of germany are constrained when it comes to arriving at a bargain on the transfer but it issue a restraining the nuclear power program. president obama has problems with a broad swath of congress and fevers rather than loosening them and would prefer iran to return to the telephones and candles. the presidents of russia and china have their hands tied

still as well. what is holding both back. when president putin want them to be perceived by much of the world as effective pariahs. which brings us to the next set of the strings on the power of today's imperial presidency. the international image. in earlier times as possible for the leader to conclude the pact with no reference to the forces outside of the immediate entourage. at the conference that led to the treaty of versailles and a world war i, the leaders of britain, france, italy dictated the terms of the vanquished and the already ottoman empire. as i explored in my book a shattered peace, america's wealth largely went along as the means of achieving the principal goal of creation of the league of nations. though the failure to consult with congress led ultimately to the entire exercise. but a particular interest in the

context of the delegation in china generally wasn't seemed to be a focus and verso that they had a respect by the shadow figures by the last of the great member of an ancient royal family from the imperial city of kyoto in japan and equally from china. neither was ever seen in public and each confine himself from behind his respective curtain a loving his diplomats and politicians to my name in public of the world's the so carefully crafted. no power had very much in that at all. the stakes are much higher and far more nuanced they make commitments simply into the balance the have the effect on the course of the economic development and vitality. a way to manufacture that next generation of the electronic device, we to build that power

project or prospect for oil and coal or precious minerals. such decisions are based on a complex, less of the country risk. reliability and confidence and leadership at the top. and the consistency, honest and the continuity. russia with its leader heading into the third decade of all the fun challenge power is falling rapidly behind almost every score. putin is ostensibly the most powerful of every president today and the closest to function to the leaders of soviet russia. the true heir to the millennium of the war. who else among the leaders of the nation's in today's world has been able to leave and return while never for a moment even control over the nation? yet putin is as hobbled as any of the western counterparts with the forces within his own borders that are f. ebit as pernicious as those that are going at the foundations of obama. for russia the democracies are functional and oligarchy ruled

by the powerful and and challenged president he is crumbling as rapidly as any democracy. for putin to maintain his all but unchallenged power, she has to pay off those that helped him rise to the top and keep him there. they have the desired ability to the head of russia may have passed saudi arabia has the largest oil producer, the value of that rises and falls with the flow of the international crisis especially in the middle east oil belt. but even such are of diminishing value and a determinant of world demand. the united states, the leading consumer is now approaching self sufficiency while the number three consumer, china, makes its own side view in corners of the globe. so what is an oil poor oligarch? no longer a superpower russia has been, and reduced and the worst injury occasional spoiler in the world affairs.

but above all a bad debt when it comes to long-term capital intensive investment. in this vital respect, the only good president and today's context is one who can be counted on to maintain a certain modicum of consistency and intelligence see in the use or distribution of power over the judiciary, the legislature bureaucracy of the government he/she male lead. and the democracy of course is a concept of checks and balances designed by america's founding fathers to restrain the powers they were going to be still on the single feeder the president. indeed there is on power not a difference between the president and the other components of a space government read his or hers is the only branch whose powers are controlled by the single individual. in a sense when they arrived at the crux of the modern presidency. for a president in today's world that is no less true the problem of course is that in the ensuing

centuries the forces inside the government have been chipping away at the unitary power. but particularly on the economic front where power today ultimately reside. today this is the principal presidential currency where once the power of the president's rose and fell on the head and flow of the geopolitical and hires the maintenance of the lanes and the conditions in the colonies with the far corners of the globe remember the days the sun never sat on the tradition higher? off any more now is on the corporate titans and the presidents of the new empires they will build their new assembly plants and the will assemble their newest smart phones and the prospect for oil underwriting the pipelines. these are the currencies of power attracting those companies to his country or her country. take in india and china.

india was an apparently functioning democracy and china was an essentially planned government but both led by president. many chinese while laughing at some form of democracy in which they might play a role. there is a cacophony of competing interest with a bureaucratic fox living the infusion was real opportunities to accumulate any real wealth. the indians by contrast revel in their ability to act freely and choose their own leaders and rely on their families rather than the states to guarantee their well-being. but in the end, the international business has beaten the path to china's door with major investments, contracts and commerce to mark the nation and its leaders as a success in the modern world. china remains one of the rare occasions of the president who can fully considered imperial in the classic the modern sense. perhaps we need to reflect carefully on the value of such

power wisely and honestly in the interest of the many rather than a few. there is no rule in the modern world and the transparency and openness in the leaders of oligarchy at the same time there is a broad claim on the neutral ground where the why is rulers might exercise a broad range of authority and creativity so where do we go from here? how many presidents may reclaim his or her power and reassert a claim on history and shape the global dialogue that is very much open question in these days of diminishing the imperial power? appearances would suggest that the imperial presidency is on a permanent downward slope. still, all is not lost. and for a reason to the core of today's modern presidents in any form of a democracy to the president no matter how narrow a ryan ellis in office with a

substantial reservoir of goodwill. i like to use the analogy of a large barrel filled to the brim with fresh water that represents power and influence. it's accompanied by a legal for each of crisis, real opportunity, the president dips into the merrill removing a tiny dollop. on occasion the president may believe circumstances dictate far more than a legal and its tipped over quantities falling out and all too often eager to arrive at a quick victory a2 frequently debt into this and it empties before its time. how judiciously the president uses the reservoir suggests his or her power and reach. but there is one absolute constant. once the beryl is empty and can be replenished only by turning to the electorate for the new mandate whenever the constitution may provide. now in times of existential

crisis the world war in the last century and the missile crisis of 9/11 such a paradigm me be suspended as all to replenish whatever may be necessary to empower the leader in question with all the trappings of the imperial presidency. of course giants do still walk the earth if not in the form of marbles then in the form of the systems they represent. never before in history have so many people lived under a form of government that could be seen to represent what they truly desire. what is must compliment to their hopes and dreams for the rich and meaningful life. at the same time and material presidents are no longer able to dispense half of europe to the communist dictator with a stroke of a pen as roosevelt did or inslee of the regions under colonial servitude as the western powers decrease at the depue of the 20th century. today's curves on the power of

the imperial presidency may produce fewer unilateral certainly less dramatic transitions, but it is incumbent on each of us to choose wisely in designating whose hand should be allowed to wield the legal as it dips into the drum of power and influence. thank you. [applause] >> if your call on for a question if you could wait just a few seconds for the microphone to be put near you, you don't have to speak into it, but it will be somewhere near you and that will be good enough that you will be heard. but questions? yes? [inaudible]

>> terrific. you failed to mention one name who is the most mysterious president at the moment to me, mr. assad in syria. give your analysis on that. >> there is no question that al-assad is serious and at the same time as hard to say what is going to happen to us and clearly this is a very difficult situation. how do you remove a president that has functionally no term of office and the power of the state behind him that is a conundrum that we have not yet managed to figure out how to get out of. i would like to see a system where they could join together to bring about the sections. we are not there yet. we certainly don't have the united nations or any sort of multinational compact in any fashion that has been able to successfully do that and that is a major in the international system today.

>> it's cropped up by some of the most imperial presidents currently in office mr. putin. semidey have helped out but the question is how long this is going to go on. they're trying desperately to have some sort of a agreement with the space nations. it's hard to see how they can continue to support quite the same fashion they have in the past. at the same time, putin and his chinese counterparts are also getting into a lot of pressure on their end to do something to bring them into the position of functioning players in the international community and not as pariahs. they do not to be seen as pariahs. putin has definitely embarked to bring them into the country. his frantic about that. the last thing he wants to be

doing is to be seen helping an autocratic dictator. that is a very difficult position to be in. i would like to think that the international forces at work can in fact begin to move the situation as it has not been in the past in a place like syria. >> you read about the writing of the u.s. constitution and the opinions of both sides and those who didn't want an imperial president, they badly didn't on the imperial president and others felt we needed a federal state. you can see that the idea of an imperial president has been a controversial one. and i would argue that the most recent imperial presidential act i can think of had an enormous impact on the country are going

into iraq. there are a lot of people who think that this is something that younger bush was determined to do. the father and the sun kind of argument. i would ask if you think the imperial presidency really and the large is a good thing for humanity or not. >> knew i was going to get beaten up. thank you for your kindness but there is no doubt there are in terri hail presidents that have used their power and this is true in democracies and in the west and certainly in the case of iraq and quite a number of other areas i would think as well. the imperial presidency, the concept has to be used wisely is what i was trying to suggest. and the question is whether we have the road to the ability of the president to govern any more that we have in fact removed a lot of his in the power to do good as well as eisel to establish a world view. it's interesting henry kissinger who i have known since he was a

teacher back in the 1960's, kissinger had a concept of a world view. there were very few presidents that have a world view. they seem to pingpong along from crisis to crisis much like a ping-pong table or pinball machine. and they never really have found the ability to focus on what kind of a world do they want to leave behind them. ..