electoral polarization, black lives matter, urban riots. that's part of the iceberg that shows. then there's a huge under the iceberg, and under desperate it is rise of income inequality, persistence of institutional racism. because we go all the way down and trace back and talk about all those things. i find it very interesting that, of course, by the end of the kids were able to talk about these issues, the modern-day issues in a very informed matter but i noticed, i semi-lessons at a bunch of different educators from across the city and not a single educators will impact the they all said we can't come we don't have enough time. we have to teach the real u.s. history. there's not enough time for current events issue unit. sorting out six weeks. i kept arguing, it's not a current events issue. it's just teaching everything that's happened, but no, we have

to teach u.s. history. we can't take time away from the importance of real u.s. history. when the last two deaths happen at the end of the police, my inbox was flooded. ayo to senators on black lives matter i had an assumed on black lives matter and it didn't go well. i wonder why? what could you do, walk in and see what you think about black lives matter? i mean, it needs, you need to have a fundamental, radical, we approaching view of u.s. history. you can't put a band-aid on a wounded. you can't address black lives matter account is a 40 minute december the it's not going to work. is that my time? okay. the other thing i want to talk about is how come it took a long time to work out account to address racial issues. i want to go how it worked out.

as educated i had to balance, i want to be a non-raises a question. i also need to be neutral politically from ideologically. that was dashed i could figure out how to get that balance. i need to get the kids to be talking with each other under need to get the concert and the little kids, black and white, talking. i said look, adults ugly divided this country but i said when i'm in my nursing home, 20 years from now, i do not want to hear that you guys ended up dividing the country. i want you that this country is still hold. i said i need you to learn how to talk across difference. it's not about i'm right, you're stupid. i need you to understand each other. i need to reach out and try to understand each others' perspectives and they need you to try to learn how to dialogue. we are not debating the we will

deliver it. we need to dialogue and across difference and come to compromises that are sort of in the middle so that we say when country. that's a conversation i'm talking to my kids. on the very first day of the unit, i reenacted the blind men and elephant. the old indian parable about the climate of the, each person is touching at the part of yellow. look at the. we were all touching different parts of the of the. whites, blacks, liberals, conservatives, rich, poor, we're touching different parts of the elephant and that's why we're describing thing differently. we have to learn how to talk to each other across the elephant and figure out how the entire elephant is come and figure what is the solution for the entire elephant. this is a conversation i'm constantly having with the students. this kind of approach plus the

root causes are the two strategies i use in my classroom. thank you. [applause] >> okay. well, i guess i'll tell you a little bit about how i've got to warrant him in the education world. i started out teaching in a very rundown neighborhood in atlanta in a public school. system i guess you can call it, since they call it a land to a big school system. and then i was kind of duke into teaching at the principal told me that the students came from old money. and i was new to the area and i looked around and i thought whose all the money i've been living off of? i needed a job and she told me we need an english teacher, so i taught language arts.

then i moved to this area and i taught high school in the public school system of prince george's county. in that area i was very pleased with my states because they were not throwing chairs at me and stabbing each other with compasses f1 books out the window and stealing the cars of the teachers. however, that's what was happening in atlanta. when i guided the students, the parents worked several jobs, or at least they work for law very long time and didn't have time to devote to type of parenting that is the avatar should devote to their children. one student told he didn't see his mom always. she saw her on sundays and that's it. it wasn't because she was a bad mother. it was because she was working constantly. from there i went to the pub consisting of fairfax county in alexandria. plus i was teaching debate and forensics. that school system is a bit more of a myriad and showed more of

the cross section of america that meet in public schools, traditional public schools that i thought about. one student's parent really wealthy and the other one's not wealthy and the students talk to each other and to in a school and it felt like your good old school for what it's worth. then i moved to teaching in d.c. public schools, and i hit the wall of d.c. public schools and learned a lot about where kids come from and what they do in question. i started doing more for the debate and i thought that was a way to get everyone together and not so much deliberate but to debate both sides can understand each side of the debate the extent of the they stand by the idea that i teach at a class down the street at emerson prep. everything is you would think the school in dupont circle that cost 28 grand a year would be a bunch of white kids were just rich. but it's a very diverse

community of students and i was very pleased to be able to teach debate with no holds barred and that's what i am now. unhappy to go into some of the questions are prepared. i have a notepad, notes. i'm a traditional debate type of guy, so sometime i will be reading from the notes but i might be able to take it off the top of the dome, too. so i'm ready for your questions. >> we are going to do questions after robyn goes. >> so i can keep talking i want to piggyback off something she said in the very beginning. when you talk about the united states and to talk about our restrictions in the classroom, i thought you would always have to be very objective? the answer to that to answer to that tune is no to the a lot of times when you to teach the student, you do have to come from your perspective as a teacher and tell them what you

truly believe. because sometimes what you truly believe might not jibe with the student that sitting in front of you. but because they see what you believe from your own view as the teacher offered a lesson, he could bring of something they truly believe in england of having a dialog that says listen, i don't agree with you at all. however, you are a human being, i'm a human being. we have her own sense of belief. now we can get somewhere after we decide what we believe this to be true. but when you go against that person and you judge that person told him what to believe in you call that person a moron or a full or an idiot, you close off that person to what you might be able to change in your own heart. when i teach and when i used to teach more in the public schools, i would cross that line and talked to since about what i truly felt about freddie gray are what actually felt about a student who was killed down the street. one time was teaching my english class, no one was listening.

i felt this is disrespectful. you should be listening to toni morrison. one of the students had apple got stabbed last i. this kid, his neck them as apple and everyone was sad about it. so i said how can i go into the next part of the lesson is that one is thinking about the death of one of their classmates? so we did a roundtable. we talked about things that are affecting us. we talked about how students in the classroom have real-life issues. we talked about the human level of education, what it should be. and how if your teacher understands what you're going through, the matter what it is, yeah, maybe your friend wasn't stabbed but maybe your mom is thinking about leaving your dad, or maybe you haven't seen your debt in a few years. these issues affect the way students learn in the classroom. when i tell them to act on it, they don't know how. we ended up having sort of a psychology session and we spoke about issues that affected is the after everyone cleared the

air and there were tears shed and there were some things that students told me about their own personalized, we ended up being able to move on. so there was another thing i thought about which was the idea of inherent biases and how you look at someone, two seconds after that you've already judged where they're from, what they're going to do for who they are over the devote to come are basically give judged their entire life. you treat them a certain way based on the inherent bias. but if you knock down those walls the inherent biases and if you like any human being in your presence has worked and wealth of knowledge for something that you can learn from, even if it's someone who might be one of your peers, not so much an elder or someone who is younger than you but just your own peer level. in the last couple of seconds i will tell you why i'm saying that. as a coach, a debate coach and as a policy debate coach at one point, i would go to a debate

tournament in shenandoah valley and i would be in the judges lounge and on the coach of the number one team in virginia at the time, and people would say what are you doing here? or, can i help you? no, you can't help be right now. my team is pretty much doing all right. but in my heart i was sort of discouraged because i felt that they could of asked me a different question or they could've looked at me with a different approach to but part of that is learning and living, and as we already have that it is not raised the same way. our own views are shaped by what our parents teachers and that's why i'm thankful i have good parents, good parenting in loss and a good wife who can help me raise my children and my students that way. thank you. [applause]

>> good afternoon. my name is robyn and i'm the executive director of in five. of our get started in say a bit about that ottawa to set i'm honored to be on the stage with these two amazing educators because i danced my whole career around the classroom and never landed straight in the middle of an of the utmost utmost respect for classroom teachers and think they are the real changemakers and i'm excited to get up everyday and educate our young people about the world around them, and had to make it into what they would like to see. i truly appreciate being part of this panel. just a minute about mikva challenge. we are named after the late judge mikva who recently passed away. we were founded by group of people he would work with judge mikva come he was arrested in chicago for a number of years on the hill, circuit court judge and then general counsel to president clinton. when he retired a group of

people decide they want to do something to honor his legacy of having worked in all three branches of government, and that it didn't make sense to wait until people pass away to honor the legacy and wanted to do something while he was delivering. and so that it then and apparently the first suggestion was an angel internship for college students. judge mikva and his wife said that he was born there were no interest in doing the trick everybody does that. they got into a conversation about at what point in their life they felt like this democracy belong to them. like they had a role in the way our society works and that they become engaged and interested in politics. everybody went around the table and talk about and experience in the high school. most other people around the table came from middle-class backgrounds, white people, middle-class men, and they all had these experiences with the collector part of our system. the judge said we needed it in chicago and chicago public schools but they start the program 17 years ago.

originally the program was just helping high school teachers get young people out volunteering on campaigns. they did that for a number of years, just helping teachers facilitate young people to go out door knocking and phone banking of candidates of their choice. from that the young people and the teacher said that's great, this is helpful, we have great discussions will come back into the classroom on monday about what we're doing what we need more context to go to think about how change happens. from the would develop what is the our logic program called democracy in action. is a curriculum called issues to action we take young people and students through a process of thinking about their committee strengths and weaknesses, what are the issues they see and how to make change. it's a six step process, basically a community organizing curriculum addiction people through identifying an issue, doing that would cause analysis against looking at the iceberg

situation and think about what is below. picking one of those would cause us to focus on, thinking about how to influence a decision maker. one of the classic examples always used to talk about the curriculum is, if you take the issue that there is not soap in the bathroom, which to many of the adults in the show may sound like a small issue but if you ever been in a public high school, it's not. there's often not soap in the bathroom. and you think about then what, the issue, what does the principle care about? the principal cares about school attendance. the principle care is a test scores and teacher at school. so having something about the means kids don't get sick, kids come to school and thus the influence a person who has a decision that it helps them think about instead of just going out and creating posters, what is the decision-maker care about and how to influence them,

how do get to make the change what? and i do think about what is the right action. if you want the food in the cavity to be better come is that a protest march was at a meeting with the principal? is that a letter campaign? what is rightfully to attack the issue, then going out and actually doing it. we started our mikva challenge d.c. last july with about 14 middle and high schools, and wished young people up and think about the first part of the christian is think about what is the biggest issue facing your community. we have an activity called project so boxer at the in person gets up and give up two to three minute speech, delivers a call to action on the issue and we invite guests and adults to come and listen to the students and then have a citywide competition where kids come together from across the city to those different issues. from the each of those classrooms pick what they should i go to the process i just discussed.

last may we had a civics, action civic fare, like asides there but for community activism. the students despite the projects on things ranging from middle school students talking on social media and bullying, the bunch of high school students talking about racial profiling and the effects and relationships they have with police in the metro police that the metro stops. and actions they took her somewhere students who worke won racial profiling came up with this great twitter campaign called i am more than what you think, and they teachers and did a lot of work with the local police. the middle school students did some work around creating a no bullying week after high school. initial taste those results and we had a now former chancellor henderson came and talked to this is about all of the work they have done. we still also do the work getting young people involved in

actual electoral politics. last january with a 20 students from d.c. to iowa and they got to volunteer on a bunch of presidential campaigns before the iowa caucus. go out, anything but this president sees it makes you all a word about our democracy. is nothing like watching high school students be delighted to phone bank and/or doctor it was like seven degrees, probably negative seven degrees in iowa, go just amazing. they were so excited about getting to that experience in getting to tell people why they thought they should go out and caucus for their candidate. issue are continuing to do voter registration to deny people working on my registration and also thinking and reacting to and talking about presidential debates and the presidential election that is going on. i'll stop there. >> great. thank you, ayo, julian and robyn. [applause] >> i just want to ask a few

questions of our panelists and coaches like to start with us going to comment on each other's presentations? no? nothing comes up? okay. how about come hub talk about some of the issues that appeal to your students or some examples of activism that you've seen or encouraged? >> well, i thought that a charter school that was very come on to say, i taught at cesar chavez at parkside. at the school it's really important to teach them about engagement. one of the students was very excited about the opportunity to talk about what affected her life and why she was being activist. it took me, i was surprised she told me she's really for immigration policy and she really wants to figure out why

things happen on the level that, well, she thought she could expect some type of change from the bottom up. she told a story about a father who was taken away from, out of the kitchen, at the age of five. she witnessed this. she did know why it was happening, and he was gone. a sickly for ever. we went to a march on immigration down in d.c. come issue is one of the people who felt strongly about the issue of immigration policy, and that a limited think about how other students don't have those types of issues. students play video games, watch tv, go to the movies, apply to college, get to college, have the nature and that's it. the question would be what has happened to the kid or two a student that would make them want to be activists? what would happen in the community that would spur them to some sort of action?

that's part of what i had to bring out the students to say it didn't happen to you, but what if it didn't? or didn't happen to anybody else in the classroom you might care about? >> from listening to her students by the soapbox speeches and we had a group of students we work with a similar incident at the d.c. city council. the same thing that concerned adults about the city concern to young people we work with. the number one thing that i have been talking about our gentrification and the rights of the cost of housing and that the effects the founders, how that affects what they see as the cold and nature of the city and how they see that changing, and then gun violence and the relationship with the police i think those are the things i hear most resonating. >> great. i'd like to address the approach although the from teaching. my first year in discovered i was teaching some else's curriculum and do the traditional civics the u.s.

government curriculum, like american democracy is perfect and wonderful. the kids reacted no, it isn't, threw tomatoes at me and the kids come to 18-year-olds i found out did not vote. the second year i had a little bit more input, and so i said yes, you're right, america's democracy is actually flawed. they said yes, you're right. we are still not putting the 30 around a father figure out how to do it and i said our democracy is flawed, but it has a lot of room for change and citizens are capable of changing it. you are capable of changing it and here's some examples of people who changed it. all but one voted. [applause] >> wow. great. so you all three are doing work that in those schools would be considered controversial.

at it like you talk a little bit about how you've gotten your schools to embrace the type of work that you were doing, or other schools you've encountered in trying to do that. >> i would just say the least in my experience in the last year and a half, that most schools i don't think actually think that teaching young people how to make change is that controversial. i think, you know, what is controversial is what kind would was thinking when adults interject their opinions and decision on young people. but if you give young people the chance to think about what's really going on, and to keep asking why is that happening? whitey thing that's happening? what's going -- give them the tools to analyze something and let them follow their own process of doing the research. i at least have not encountered that many people think that process is controversial or.

>> my school loves what i'm doing but this didn't get asked me. they said they stopping confidence in does the administration now you're taking this? i suggested they said that many parents complained? i said no. and one of the ways is because i work really hard, like i said, i worked very hard to teach in a very objective manner, and so we don't, when what i teach a little bit, like, for example, we don't talk a lot about const statements but rather we study as social scientists we study the rise of his popularity. because you do, we ask what is right and popular to? i cheat a little bit. i've asked them what you think of the trump? i avoid questions like that. i didn't get a chance earlier, i had come especially with the issue of race. i want to tell you how i do that. because someone and i want to be nonracist but on the other end i

have to be objective, from al concert point of view. i talked to a black republican friend of mine and asked them what the black republicans, stands, for instance, the recent death on racism. i figured that would strip the race is in or bigotry from the conservative this. and she said we would, i think that there is racism but i don't want the government to do anything about it. so based on that, also i looked at, i read the political classroom, and so i divided the question that you. empirical questions, which is empirical question means what it can be answered by social science data and most social scientists of great america question is, does institutional racism exists? i am treating it as an empirical question and it is a right and wrong answer to that. you cannot have an opinion on it in the classroom.

the answer is yes. institutional racism does exist. there's no room for an opinion on that. however, a follow-up which is a political question is should be, what, if anything, should the government do about that? that i am treating as a political question. that is an opinion based question is going opinion based question that could depend on whether you're liberal or conservative. so divorced from the queue, i divided the question into two like that and also for one that's what the data and research is supporting. some people may disagree but that's what the vast majority of scientists and social scientists say. but also you protecting both extremes in the classroom, protecting, sarcastic, but african-american and latino students from being hurt by very hurtful comments. and i protecting conservative students come of us into have their opinion on the matter as well. >> what obstacle faced a lot was the fact, and they do want to

talk a lot about what you're saying, the administrators i faced a lot of times feel like they have to control what they can control and safety teachers can you can't teach outside the box. we want you to but we really can't let you do that because we have a curriculum that is from the top that needs to be driven on everybody. if you're not on this page doing this thing or that thing, you can't teach and as i was bouncing around so much because i'd find out where i could be. but then the other idea is the obstacles in the classrooms. students to want to filter data want to be backdating thing. they don't want to stop doing things and try again wit to pasn the focus on the way they think is driven by sort of the spontaneous actions that happen all around the. they feel like if i'm going to fail, active have to feel the they have to fail and learn from the failed him to become successful later. to try to teach political

activism and just activism and jonathan classroom you have to understand students tha don't wt to fail and how can you then make them understand that they part of life? you have to fill first or second, over and over and they get to the right formula to enhance whatever your movement is. i would want to talk about you said but i want to be respectful of time. >> unfortnuately, we are out of time and want to thank all three of the panelists for doing fantastic work initially informative to hear about it. thank you very much. [applause]

>> thank you, katherine and thank you to our panelists at our next speaker is wendy fields and she will be speaking about building a movement. she is executive director at democracy initiative, and before joining democracy initiative she was the vice president of strategic campaigns and partnerships at common cause which focus on linking economic inequality and racial inequality to the democracy agenda. before that she spent 17 years at united automobile workers in detroit, michigan, and she served as chief of staff to uaw president bob king. she was the first woman to the highest not elected position with the union.

please welcome wendy fields. [applause] >> good afternoon. i feel like you all should check it out a little bit or something. come on. let me, i'd like to offer my thanks to ralph nader. ..

we have to have political equity. it is clear and i'm sure you can agree, we have have an outside influence over our countries function. they are working to tear down the perception that these issues are unrelated to each other. our members understand all of the important issues being

debated today. the system controls who can vote and how and who can influence decision because they have deep pockets and who was left out completely. as i said earlier, achieving success and climate change, civil rights, women's rights, workers rights and racial inequality are in explicitly linked as fundamental pillars of our democracy. we need not only protect democracy but improve it. we need to expand it and expand the right to vote and the access to vote. we have to decrease the role of power and money that is in our politics. many of our efforts are being invisibly strangled by the power of view with very deep pockets. millions of hard-working people contribute to our society every day. that society is not assessing

our issues. we know to exceed in any of these areas we have to fix the system, not just congress, but in states, counties and, counties and towns. not just in an election cycle, not just about this election cycle, it's it's about governing. it's about everyday impact these policies, or the lack thereof, make on our lives. these few corporations and ultrarich are manipulating ways that most people don't even know about. let alone do they know how to fight against it. we need a clear understanding about election laws and procedure laws that might be cloaked in jargon that makes it sound remote and unconnected to our everyday lives. that is exactly what allows money and power to do what they want and not be held accountable by the public. i think about that these are

real for everyday americans. they are real when resources go to towns with higher income levels in flint michigan to make sure their water is clean. they are real when politicians use their roles to halt progress on gun safety. that's policies that the american majority of americans on both sides want. their harmful voter id laws are harmful. our parents, neighbors and friends are not able to exercise her constitutional right to vote. we must stand together to disrupt that power dynamic. that is the movement we need to build. that needs to be done in order for all our movements to have a real shot. candidates need to tell us where they stand him a question of democracy. will they continue the status quo pandering for our votes up until election day and then

ignore our needs and priorities to please their donors from november 9 on. or, are we going to hold them accountable to truly represent their constituents. second, we need to take those answers and speak with our power, the power of the vote. we all know the greatest power that people have every day is in our ability to elect or reject leaders by voting. we need to vote and we need to encourage every single person we know, and those we don't know to vote two. we have to encourage and inspire people to vote because the more people vote, the more protection we have. it is about our power. most of the time when we do pay attention to democracy reform, we concentrate on what's happening at the federal level and that certainly is important. public priority and opinions often fail to translate to policy because once election day

is over, as i said before, policymakers aren't influenced by the public. their influence their influence by money flowing into their pockets. even more frustratingly of these loopholes inside democracy. you know when you've seen it in the senate. senators abuse the rule, hold silent busters, failed to bring critical legislation to a screeching halt, bring it to the floor they lead critical nominations in our judicial system hanging up there to dry. we have no supreme court. one supreme court justice missing. on and often unrelated project, our courts back home can be fully ready to pass legislation. this has a stranglehold on our democracy and a must and. however, there isn't just a

problem that we need to fight on the federal level. that goes without saying. the saying that all politics is local, unfortunately we know that so the power of big money. in chicago, there in the news every day, a few powerful players with deep pockets control the election while only 15% of chicago makes more than $100,000 a year and in the last mayoral election 63% of the donors did. this donor class does not represent the diversity, values or interests of that community. this year and every year after, we need to disrupt the status quo. on more than the federal level with our votes. we can't waste our power by just focusing our attention to votes on the presidential election. the di will work really hard to

make sure that people vote the entire ballot from the bottom to the top. this is election about us and our election of the kids that it is important for them to hit every box and send very strong messages to every state legislature and county across this country. the role that money plays in politics has been opposed at past elections like none other before. we know this election cycle, as i said this morning is the cycle that no one can argue, no one could argue that reform around the amount of money that flows into our election, it can't continue to go unchecked. we must have strong disclosure and great transparency and the

ability to see who is buying who and hold them accountable for every act they take. finally, we have had some successes around public financing. that is what many of you were old enough, like me. jimmy carter ran in a publicly funded presidential election. do remember that? who remembers that. it was a pretty good system, was in it. many of the groups have been doing very successful public financing reforms in this country. new york had some. it wasn't perfect, but still, connecticut, recently maine, seattle and today, last year,

79% of the voters in chicago voted for financing small donor matches in chicago. we have yet to move that legislatively but that was the question that was on the ballot. how many of you are from maryland. we passed public financing in montgomery county. you should be applauded. there will be a similar ballot initiative initiative in ballard county maryland. across the country we are beginning to build momentum around public financing and small donor campaign to reduce the amount of money and allow anyone to run for office and begin to have a reflective democracy. this year, voter laws, there's voter id site in missouri, how many of you know that? a few. let me tell you. we all know that voter id is a

form of voter suppression. you agree? okay. now you're awake. you're starting to make me nervous. really, it says in order to vote, basically the notion they put out there is that there is voter fraud in this country and we know, we know there is very little evidence to that point. it's all designed to create chaos and fear, to divide and marginalize and reduce our power. you agree with that? now were cooking. in missouri, some corporate votes, we will leave some of them to be unnamed but a ballot initiative to require voter ids in the constitution. how about that.

>> good thing you corrected yourself. i was wondering how you're going to get out here. so, again, we need to be thinking about not just defensive fights like that every day but getting the government to expand the right to vote, not just limited to secretary of state's office that have vehicles, but those who have public services that you can become a resident and you can automatically register and vote. we are looking to expand things like same-day voter registration for communities of color, urban communities, rural communities where people kind of move around a lot. they don't really know where their polling place is. same-day registration is important and we are moving those kinds of agendas across the country. it really is important to have democracy reform when we talk about the things that help us build our power opposed to the negative. agree with that?

all right. it was a democracy initiative that was formed to not just be talking about it from a policy perspective. that's important. as i said in the beginning, it's about to put the real story, the narrative, the impact, what is that power and that stranglehold done to our community? if you care about clean water, clean air, the largest inequality and divide that we have seen in our lifetime, if you care about the fact that government was put in a place to create public service,.

if you want that vision, you have have to be a proactive reform driven by the people and not expect the institutions to do it for you. do you agree with that? we are in a good place. so the role of money, as i said has seen really great initiatives and there will be more to come, but if we are to fight to sustain that momentum passed november 8 because i said, again, we get focused on the election and less about the governing. it's a two-step process. we have to move to create a real disruption that opens the door for progress for all of our movement. we need to hold them on every level accountable, not just when they're running for office. that's how you build trust. we are excited in the fall to

work to have a talking filibuster and be able to create an ability to bring bills forward what what not you see that in the criminal investment sector and climate change and the millennial's and the the primaries. this is our moment to build on those were forms today and build on them going forward. for us, it breaks down aisles across the group, really pushing the reform to make changes in our community. i appreciate your time. have a great week.

[applause] >> thank you wendy field. before i introduce our next speaker, i would would like to introduce if anybody has any notecards with deeply insightful and thought-provoking questions. if you do, please hold them up. we will be around to collect them. be patient, somebody is coming. okay. our next speaker is mitch rob ski. he is going to address the subject of civic engagement and the responsibility of business. mitch is president of better world club which is the only green alternative to aaa. a better world stands apart from

the highway agenda and offers many innovative services and discounts including the only nationwide roadside bicycle assistance. he has been devoted his entire career to socially responsible business. he was president at the creation of a number of important business institutions including the national cooperative bank, working access, business for social responsibility and the better world club. he has lobbied congress on behalf of public citizens and he is here with us today. please welcome mitch. [applause] >> as has been mentioned, i've been in business for the past 30 years, banking mutual funds, insurance and i'm fudging to make myself look younger so i don't get depressed at the

beginning of the talk. you might ask, this is a public interest conference, what are you doing here. after all, business people are on caring, money hungry egomaniacs. let me amend that. these are people who have been stereotyped as uncaring egomaniacs. that is carried as much by business people as anybody else. in d.c. the stereotype is nurtured as many of you know by the trade association such as the chamber of commerce and the business roundtable and the national federation of businesses, just just to name a few. i read about this firsthand when i was working for ralph and public citizen's congress watch on capitol hill. my concentration with the banking and judiciary committees and over and over again i ran into these groups. they had a refusal to negotiate

reasonable compromise to address critical economic problems. frankly, i was surprised. i was shocked that these groups all promoted laissez-faire economic. as if all business people thought they believed in milton freeman and were good republicans. i thought that represented at least as many business people in this country, maybe even more. i sat down with ralph and he and i discussed for business organizations that represent them. out of our discussion, and out of the work of an association of progressive business leaders and social interests, business responsibility was created. subsequently, the american business council, the advocacy

group was focused on corporate practice. obviously the stereotype of businesses uncaring, money hungry egomaniacs hasn't changed very much and i haven't even mentioned donald trump by name. the fact is, business people along with liberals and all americans need a new frame. after all, they just mentioned, our problems remain significant. everybody here is aware of global warming and what's going on with our environment. everybody is probably just aware with income equality. the working class isn't going up with it. it's not the 20th century anymore. we've dropped 6 million manufacturing jobs since the

year 2000. during reagan, manufacturing was 20% of our economy and finance was 10%. today those numbers are turned around. obviously that helps the working class. it should be an opportunity for liberalism. one thing i'm disappointed about how the campaign has gone, but what it really comes down to is the liberal framing is terrible. conservatives want you to believe that the appropriate political frame is the one we've had historically. it's freedom versus the government. that is not what economic policy is about. that's not the appropriate frame. the appropriate frame is that it's the marketplace versus the government. conservatives believe that the marketplace is perfect and by

perfect timing optimal and self-correcting. socialist believes that the government is perfect and by that i mean optimal and self-correcting. it's only liberal to understand that both the government and the marketplace are flawed and you need each. liberalism is not becoming centralism despite bernie sanders. if anything it's vice versa. if you look at the socialist countries of europe, you you will see that the government is shrinking relative to the marketplace. in the early 1990s, government spending government spending in sweden was over 70% of the economy. today it is roughly 50%. that is happening throughout western europe. if anything, as i said, liberalism is unbecoming socialism. socialism may be coming liberalism. the marketplace has many virtues

including again, the fact that incentives, room wards and losses are put in the right place which is huge in which government almost certainly wants. at the same time, we need need business to recognize the imperfections of the marketplace and be willing to do something about it. here are just some of the flaws of the marketplace, not necessarily in a list. the most obvious flaw is what is called externalities or pollution. a business can pose its cost on to people. if i'm imposing carbon on the entire world and don't have to clean it up, that that means i don't have to internalize those costs. it cost me nothing to impose my cost onto you. that is an obvious marketplace flaw. the marketplace does nothing to force businesses to internalize their costs. another flaw is risk. i should add, with many of these

flaws, someone could someone could stand up and say no, that's a virtue. yes, many of the flaws do have a positive impact but they have to realize that they can be flaws in virtue and while not eliminating them as virtues, we need to do something about them as flaws. so risk is another marketplace flaw. if you do not have the money to hand over handle risk, you are in big trouble. what do free market economy say. they say you can handle risk, just get insurance. guess what. the conference board says over 30% of the american people have no discretionary income whatsoever with which to buy insurance. let's take it a step away from not just for a second. let's look at discretionary income. this is another problem of liberal framing. as you know, we are talking about inequality and when we talk about inequality were talking about household income. the, difference there is on household income.

that's one way of looking at it, obviously. perhaps more important way of looking at it is discretionary income that is income after necessity. now were looking at the fact that as i said, 30% or 40% of the percent of the american people have no discretionary income whatsoever. another ten or 20% barely have any. you know what happens with people don't have the ability to buy insurance but then we also know that if you focus in on the 20% who have a slight bit bit of discretionary income, people are going to make bad choices. when money is that tight, you're not necessarily going to spend it on insurance. in fact the book was just written called scarcity which goes into the bad decisions people make when their money is tight. anyway, this is why we need universal insurance as we have

done with social security, unemployment, worker's comp. and even our bank account. obviously we need it for healthcare and any other area where risk is too much for people to handle. i want to add, national insurance is not socialism. what were talking about insurance, were talking about having a marketplace and litigating the flaws of the marketplace. the next law is lack of freedom. again, if you have no money, you have no freedom. i've already mentioned that nearly 40% of americans have no discretionary income which means they have political freedom but their economic freedom, the everyday life freedom is extremely limited if it exists at all. another flaw is inadequate

information. again conservative say let the marketplace handle it. people will pay for it when they need information. consumers don't have the money to pay for it and bad choices are going to be made. consumers will be harmed in the marketplace will actually be distorted. just as an aside, my company is looking at one aspect of this now which is consumers need to have information on actions beyond price and inequality. that's why we are looking to launch buying power which will provide social ratings including environmental safety at the product level for millions of products. we are all looking forward the end of the year, i hope and if we want to discuss it afterwards, i am happy to do so. the next flaw is luck. i could mention donald trump here.

think that choosing your parents is a skill but i think most of us degree is luck. social capitalism depends on luck and inheritance. they are going to do away with the estate tax the next time they get in power unless we dedicate the tax. the most popular taxes are dedicated. social security taxes, gasoline taxes, people may be trying to mitigate them. george bush is a good example. he was trying to change social security but he wasn't trying to do away with social security packages. we should be looking up estate tax and figuring out how we should dedicate it. my argument would be let's dedicate it to a purpose, the parallel that fits what the states are about which is inheritance. that is, we could we could take the 20 billion in revenue, divided and take $5000 put it in an estate tax and in equity

equity fund for all newborns. that 5000 at historic rates would go up to $200,000 by the time people are 60 and at that time, depending on their need, what we would be encouraging to do would be give it to the next generation so virtually every single american would inherit somewhere between $20,400,000. compare that in today's dollars. now compare that to what is going down with what half of all americans own no equities whatsoever and the medium that people own is roughly $80000. so basically, you'd be changing america by turning the estate tax into capitalism for all. now, the final flaw i want to point out is the lowest common denominator. many times the lowest common

denominator can be good, but when it comes to wages and salaries et cetera, it often is very bad. that leads to our need for regulation. i'm a business person advocating for regulation. we need regulation to deal with the lowest common denominator as well as many of the other issues that i very mentioned. if i want to provide family leave, if i want to provide a holley higher wage, if i want to provide any number of living wage to my employees, the marketplace may not let me do so we need regulations to keep the marketplace playing field even in the best possible way. what's really going on as we have a new economy. as i've already said, this is not the 20th century and there are huge factors that both business people and progressives

are not facing up to adequately. the first is globalization. so how do i know that globalization is having this kind of effect? franklin roosevelt federal budget deficit was four-point to 5% of the economy, of gdp. ronald reagan's deficit was 5.25%. point to 5%. obama's deficit was ten-point to 5%. roosevelt's deficit reduced unemployment by 40% in three years. reagan's reduced unemployment by roughly 36% in three years. obama has reduced it by 20%. why does a deficit that is twice as big reduce unemployment half as much? i would argue that globalization is the reason that our money is going all over the world. it's true of any economic model. our money, whether it's supply

side, our money money is all over the world. therefore, in it's not having the same impact. there is a check on that too. if you look at growth rates in the various recoveries to recessions, you will see they are always declining. they were at a peak in the early 50s and then they declined and people talk about how great reagan's economy was but it wasn't as good as johnson's economy in the 60s and again i would or argue that's because of globalization. meanwhile, the other huge factor is technology and what's going on with technology. now course, it's one of the toughest issues to confront because technology does create jobs as well as destroy them. some recent economic studies have said most of the 6 million in manufacturing we have lost has been because of technology. how many people know what the number one male occupation in this country is?

does anybody want to take a guess? the number one male occupation is driving. trucking, delivery, taxis, limos we are on the threshold of driverless cars. uber, which is out advertising for drivers has already started testing driverless cars in pittsburgh. what will be the impact of that. if driverless cars are safer, by the way, as advertised, what would happen do jobs that body shops and repair shops? now, as i've already noted, globalization and technology do have their advantages, and you can make a case that overall income will increase from either one of them. should that justify it if almost all the benefits go to the top 1% and then they go to the top 25%? we need to be looking at what the impact of all of this is on the bottom 50%. now to be clear, i believe in

free trade, i believe in free trade with canada and europe and they have similar environmental labor laws as we do. when we are trading with other people, without tariffs or anything, obviously we are undermining those very laws and the people who benefit from them we need to figure out how to get money into the hands of these people. even apart from work. one model as some people might be slightly familiar with it is the alaska permanent front. they receive a check every year from oil royalties. recently, there was about $2000 for every man woman and child. that means you means you got a check for $8000 which is significant. we need to be looking at that at the national level. okay, you can have carbon tax money and broad-spectrum many,

you could have any number of sources that would put money into people's hands. you need to figure out how to make it easier for employees to earn a share of the businesses they work for. we need the universal trust funds that i mentioned. as i mentioned, we need capitalism for all. people would still manage their money. there would still be the marketplace. they would not be dependent on the government. se and they would have the opportunity to grow so it's necessary because we all understand the marketplace isn't perfect. what can people do? well, first of all, if business people, if your not a business person you need to be talking about the flaws of the marketplace with your parents, your friends and other business people. if you are business person, we need you to look at the responsibility and the business council and we need you to roi

in your chamber of congress and start to talk about this stuff to other business people whose instincts may not be ours. anyway, capitalism for all is a form of of civil engagement and a response of new economy that business people should be able to support. conservative support the alaska permanent fund so perhaps they will support capitalism for all as well. thank you very much. [applause] >> i didn't mention, when i was introducing mitch, he is a graduate of the workman school of business. you may not believe that, but it's true something must be changing their.

for our next talk, it's it's going to be a panel discussion with ralph nader and tim o'neill and they are going to discuss the new citizen library. kim o'neill has been a school teacher 35 years and she also served on the national board of middle school and childhood standard committee. she sits on the board of director for the social studies and the advisory committee for the new york state. please welcome kim o'neill and ralph nader. [applause]

>> thank you. this is going to be a great opportunity because few people know what's going on in the schools as kim o'neill does both as a teacher and a long time high-level official in the national association of social studies teachers. i just want to frame the discussion with what i mean by it, the citizen library. there is no citizen library in the united states as far as i know. this would not only be a library that would be traditional functions of library archives and books in digital information sources, but it would be a teaching library, both direct and remote technologies. it would take a project and tell

everybody about it. you have an emulator function. it would propose new ways that people have read about but haven't yet applied into how to create thousands of citizen groups. we need thousands of citizen groups, local, state and national. when we look at how we progressed in this country, it's because of a handful of citizen groups. how do you start a local neighborhood group or national group or an international group. how do you go to, how do you recruit good people? there needs to be hundreds of thousands of jobs in this new civil society that are not charity jobs, they are justice jobs. justice needs less charity. soup kitchens we have for hungry people to have food, but why do have a country that has have

soup cut kitchens? were rich enough that they should have a good livelihood and not have to go to soup kitchens. that's the difference between justice and charity. i want to cite the discussion with the field of opportunity where citizen library should get funded by some rich people or foundations, what would be the field of opportunity? it it would obviously be students or schools, that's where you would start. the earlier the better. the earlier the faster. we've all been to grade school and high school. i considered it a huge waste of time. i think it could teach everything in eight years or two years and find something else for the kids to do that they could be kept off the street. it isn't because of teachers that don't want to teach it, it's the bureaucracy and the red

tape and the classification study of those who have control over the society. it's a lack of imagination and they are great examples here and there and all over the country in schools but they don't get diffused over thousands of schools. that's one of the problems that bureaucracy generates. let me start, when we talked on the phone kim, you mentioned that social studies are under tremendous pressure because leave no child behind and others. they emphasized the science is a math but the humanities, history , politics, the study of government, economics, that leads to freethinking that's pretty dangerous so this could be education in contrast to training. computer design code, that sort of thing. let me ask you.

tell us what the situation is in thousands of schools around the country in social studies and for those who don't know what social studies covers as the subject, just quickly defined it >> geography, history, civic, economic, the social sciences, we are very inclusive. it's just a great honor to be here and i love to be in a room, thank you very much for choosing this. it's quite appropriate. to tell you what is the state of social studies, i would have you just picture electric stove for a burner in the two front burners, their boiling away and you can think of that as your english and math. the back to burners, it's going okay, maybe it's not boiling over but there's science. then the electric stove, the burner turned off but at least the lids and the pot.

then they have social studies. at this point we are so marginalized it's unbelievable. in elementary classroom, if you're getting 15 minutes a week of social studies, that's unbelievable. so marginalized. you mentioned it with no child left behind because why do schools have report cards, let's make them accountable. social studies isn't tested. if you're not tested, you're not counted. therefore there are not funds put toward it. it's unbelievable. the national council of social studies, of which i'm the past

president, we have one lobbyist, unlike the groups that have 400. we have one and they will go to the hilt to meet with our representative. i thought everybody would be pro social civic education and they just go we don't have anybody who's heading that department but we will give you our stem person. i said does this seemed like an oxymoron because you're here and this is your interest but you don't support social studies education. i grew up in the cold war. maybe this is a conspiracy or something. they said i was giving washington too much credit. it's very serious. when i stand here today and i look for engaged citizens, we want people to be engaged in feel power and critical thinkers and exposure to a range of issues. i'm saying isn't the social studies. we hear a marginalization that

is just frightening. you need to know about this. >> what about the social studies teachers. how many thousands of them and why don't they organize and have a full-time group to advance and protect their career. why are they a group of advocates who are one group removed and have the teachers feed them all the information and how the propaganda czar wrote in the most important subjects in school. these are the most important subjects. our founding fathers, when they went to philadelphia in 1787, as far as i know none of them were experts in stagecoach technology they knew jurisprudence and that's what they brought, what did all the social studies teachers do?

i would dress the convention and it's a big convention. you have a lot of numbers. are they intimidated. the politicians and city city hall, all of that. first of all, we have 10000 members. when i spoke with someone, i said how is your membership and they say it's really dropped. they say were only 60,000. we had 160,000 for hundred and 60000 i was like well, we are ten, we had 20 or 30. you are saying wire social studies teachers out there. they are out there but only half of the states required governments and civics as a requirement to be taught in high school. your level of the number of teachers that are out there wouldn't be the same as in some

of the other class. >> i had no idea was that small. >> if you cut the number of time, cut the number of teachers. what about the parents. you don't need 80% of the parents to be concerned about this. what about 3%. are they worried that their children are not being taught how to be good citizens, how to be skilled citizens and stand up for their rights, how to pursue their aspirations? >> when you talk about testing, again, if it's not tested, there's a perception that it's not important. when you start that, you build upon that and that's been going on since 2001. it's just accelerated that now we get into the common core, that all went crazy, people were so focused on the math in the ela. that's been where the money is.

now, i'm retired but before i retired i became a national board certified teacher because i worked on the standards committee, i have now worked for them and what we been able to do is take a look at certified teachers videos that they've submitted and were able to look at those and pull out what are the social studies pieces of accomplished teaching that you can see. one of them is take action. were getting it in there but in order to be funded by that, it's a nonprofit so the grants that were coming in, i would say do we have one for social studies yet and they will say no they wanted to do science. it was so hard to get anyone to be any kind of grant funded for social studies. >> the foundations aren't interested. >> let's meet them. the ones that are truly, let's bridge science courses with

social studies courses to be concerned about. but say you've got high school students in chemistry courses, biology courses, physics courses, they usually have labs. let's say as part of the curriculum, they test the local drinking water. let's say there's a periodic report from the students of ajax high school on the local drinking water. they they learn how to do protocols and heavy metal testing, arsenic, lead, et cetera and they then learn a bit about the drinking water safety and what the rights are, what the school and municipality has to report to them and how under invested they are in public works, what happens when you take advantage of this tilt toward science, stem, et cetera and you bridge the two. would that be controversial? >> some areas are doing that, some schools schools that i know

are doing that, it's just that it's not necessarily being done. it can be done. what would be the push to do it. it would be the teachers being able to collaborate. you have a lot of pieces to put together, primarily there might be something more at a secondary level. >> let's take another one in our c-span audience might want to pitch in and their local schools with some of these ideas as well as our live stream. let's say you had a government class in high school and the teacher decided to have part of the course do a voting record at the local state legislature or congress. let's call it congress 101 or state legislature where they look over the voting records, what the campaign-finance pattern is for their lawmakers, they tried to interview them,

they put it out on the internet sort reaches a large audience, the politicians know the students are going to do this, it gets them interested in government because they see how important they become just by sheer knowledge about what their legislatures are doing, they distribute it all over in the districts. would that be too controversial? it's a good way to teach civics. >> i don't think it would be controversial depending on where you will be able to do it. if it was a high school, what level, middle school, depending on what the report card was for the testing, the middle school might be very limited in the social studies classes. there might be a push toward the ela so social studies isn't necessarily mandated in middle school so you have a leeway there where it's not taught. sometimes you're finding groups where there's a gap among students depending on which schools they go to and what areas that are actually getting any civics education. >> what about the standardized

curriculum. does that illuminate any kind of initiative by the teachers - it often comes down to districts. in new york it could be different states, i don't know many different states but sometimes it's at the district level where you have a state framework and within that the districts central. >> how do you think the students would react. one of the problem was students it short attention span, nonstop looking at their cell phone, and being bored. that is what i hear. being bored and so forth. do think this would really excite students? they could become very important in the community, let me tell you. >> i totally agree. just personally, what i've done through grants were things that i've done with my students in the community because i was always the reach i was trying to do. if it's not written in i don't know that i would say it's going to be happening.

>> there is a fifth-grade student about 20 years ago, you probably heard about her because she got national attention. a little girl came in and said there's a waste dump down the street and the little girl says what you mean. she took the teacher and it was a whole square block that was covered with shrubbery. it turns out it was a waste dump. she put the students on the project. they had press releases and they became minor celebrities. they cleaned up, the mayor ordered the cleanup so the teacher wrote a book on kids and social action for all teachers and she found that fifth-graders are incredibly mature. if you have low expectations of them, they will oblige you. if you have high expectations, they will surprise you. she was really surprised and salt lake is kind of conservative in utah, but this affected everybody. it didn't matter what the ideology was.

people don't like toxic waste dumps. let's take the fifth grade. i'm often told by teachers that the peak of idealism and questioning is about 11 or 12. after that, they they have other things on their mind. by the way, ronald reagan was more terrified being questioned by teenagers than any of the press corps. one of them once said to them, to ronald reagan, ask a question. right out of the blue he blurted out 80% of comes from trees. not many reporters would provoke that kind of response. what you think of the fourth, fifth, six, seventh grade for really getting down into civics, practical civics, learning about

their community, going to the historical society, learning about the rivers and lakes and woods and whatever. >> i think you should be superintendent or be doing some curriculum writing. it was truly what was done. we had tremendous social studies programs and again, because of this focus, and that's where your funding is coming from, it was just marginalized. when i talk about the pot on the back, there's still some energy even though that pot is off. we feel social studies is sizzling. we had our own national standards put out, the civic life called c-3 and within those four dimensions, one is take, informed action. it's there. new york state put it into their framework which is where i'm from and we had a commissioner who said the only state to put it into social studies happens

to be the secretary of education, john king. we are very pleased about that. >> i think were neglecting that age group tremendously. i was once chatting up with a group of ten -year-olds and you can't believe the questions. imagination was snuffed out a few years later. a girl stands up and says ask me question. why does coca-cola cost more than gasoline? i said what? she said yes. that's when it was patient a gallon of coca-cola cost more than a gallon of gasoline. she said it's sort of simple. see the imagination there. even to ask that kind of question. gasoline, you have to get the oil fracking, refine it, ship it and so forth. it comes in cheaper than coca-cola which is water and

some sugar. then someone else asked me if they were figuring out, this is when you have long-distance calls, they couldn't figure out why a cost more to phone new york and los angeles while someone could fly from new york to los angeles cheaper. long distance call cost more for five hours then getting on a plane and flying. i'm saying to myself, look at the combination of imagination that is snuffed out by a whole variety of things. my sister claire started a little bakery project in connecticut for fifth-graders. you can't believe how excited they were to bake their own bread. something real. they took it home to their families. they said look, i baked this bread. they had someone come up and talk to them about grain and yeast and all the processes

before they got the flower. in a simple question, give your most revolutionary thoughts. >> of getting social studies education back on the burner? >> yes. >> i really feel, if if there's a way we can collaborate, be it the various organizations, the areas to work together, right now were trying to do that with science because they don't feel. [inaudible] its other organizations, if we can just work together to get the word out there because we are just sort of by ourselves. people can't believe it. they can't believe that it's happening. how we go about that, as you say trying to get membership, we have tried and tried and obviously it hasn't worked, how do we get our membership working together and being advocates. what i really think, we've spent time on the hill, i it has to be

right back, door to door. i think it has to be right back in our own communities and that's really where i think the focus is going to have to be to let something happen. how do we do that, we turn to you i guess. >> there is a drive for experimental education and what you think about that, where where you give the students experience? >> in a sense, social studies, we are in query art. were into the compound in question so actually, that's how we want to teach it. it's not the memorization that may be some us have grown up with. it truly is a question, why can we get everything we want and present that as a topic to get involved in the rights and so on. that's really the way we want to teach social studies. we want to do it, but. >> give the audience your website, your contact information so they want to start something in their local community, no excuses there, you've got parents who would love to have their children come

alive intellectually and normatively instead of coming back to this sort of begrudgingly from school. >> ncss.org is the national website : it's for the people and all kinds of projects for high school students, for example, learning how we should select the jury so it's representative. learning how to rate hospitals. learning how to compare food prices in different supermarkets with the same brands to see what the best shopping location is.

>> we are ready. we've got the stuff. >> it simple. >> that's what's great do these people speak. >> learn how to put on a news conference. vic damone how to develop coalitions, they can learn how to avoid being discouraged because the history of success is always preceded by discouragement or failure, defeat your you've got the rebound and on how to share credit. you want to know what i think is the worst peril to education today? >> what? >> karl marx once said religion is the opa of the people. that's pretty offensive to a lot of people. i think there are to be a modern version of it. the cell phone is the opioid of the people. this is an addiction. it is a narcotic, especially for younger people, to have it in

the hands all the time. when you look at the screen, the television screen, the computer screen, the cell phone screen, 10 year olds, the study shows, seven to eight hours a day. and those are not even the ones who are addicted to be two games. that's a 24/7 problem. and how do you face up to that? do you think schools should ban cell phones in the classroom? do you think colleges and universities -- what's the point of lecture students to have an interaction with them and they're sitting there figuring how they're going to win a videogame or whether they're going to buy some clothes? >> what we've done is try to use the cell phones within the lesson. it's not your watching of uganda whether it's looking something up or trying to incorporate it. >> recently i was talking to a high school, after the speech, six students went and had some food at the cafeteria.

so they preselected. they want to know more. i'm talking with him and suddenly i realized there terribly that deprived. how can you have an information age can be fact deprived, right? i said to them, you know the names of your two senators? now. do the name -- do you know the name of the governor? now. about the name of your member of congress? now. d.o.e. supreme court justice is? now. you know why they don't? because they can get it instantly on the internet why bother putting it in their heads and develop contacts day after day where they can build on that? i think we've got to do something like an arm around the shoulder because we are allowing a complete generation to grow up supremely unselfconscious about their addiction because it feeds the ego. it feeds their be friends world.

it feeds what is gratifying to the. sometimes i get young people when they're crossing the road, hey, look. look the other way. they are looking down. petitioners can't get signatures as fast for our because anyone is walking down the street looking at this thing. what's your answer to that? do you think i'm exaggerating? >> i don't know if it's just quote young people. i have seen some older -- >> no doubt, no doubt. it's all but it is very pronounced in terms of lack of self-consciousness of what it is doing to the brain. so what would you do if? >> i guess i would put stock in apple. i do know. at this point i'm sure look back generations and say it would be the television, the telephone. it's been able to use a positive manner versus, as you were saying, put it into a negative. i don't have an answer. >> there is a big difference.

parents can turn off the television. >> you can also disconnect -- >> you can pull the plug. i would left with electromagnetic attacks, the only thing? >> i don't know. >> there's a writer in canada who wrote a bestseller on the unselfconscious society. i think went to pay attention to it because we could be running uphill forever unless we get the people's attention. if there's no attention, if there's a short attention span you can't get anywhere if you don't have people's attention, young people's attention. >> i think that goes back to what you're saying, to engage people in something that meant something to their lives which tries impact of social studies. we have to get them engaged. >> person-to-person, outside of virtual reality, in the real world. >> that social studies. >> they like that. social interaction. you have to save them from

themselves, right? >> i'm ready. >> any last thoughts? >> thanks for being there. anything you can do, people you know to get the word out there, if you want citizens to be the foundation of what we have for democracy we better get out there pretty fast because we have already had 10 years were actually been slipping out of the classroom. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, tim o'neill. i hope those of you around the country saying this will connect because there are a lot of good materials out there. it's amazing how many materials for civic activities everywhere on every conceivable specialized issue. and there are manuals and

paperbacks, websites. i just want to make a few comments on this idea that doesn't take more than 1% to make change. as lawyers reflect the public sentiment, public opinion. we are earlier today there's a lot of left-right support. there's a lot of non-polarized opinion out there on all kinds of very important issues. if you are willing and society, how do you control people? one what is your divide and rule 2000 years. you take the areas of real division, reproductive rights, school prayer, gun control, et cetera, and you will hurl the focus in the media follows on these kinds of conflicts and their repercussions. whereas the areas that are more unified among people 70 to 80%,

90% of public opinion, that's considered dull for the media. that's not conflict. it's not static. people don't shout out at each other. yet we are losing a great asset of social consensus. which really starts making change. change. we are seeing that now with the minimum wage, 75 to 80% support an increase. we are seeing it in the criminal justice reform, seeing it with breaking up big banks that are too big to fail. we are beginning to see on a bloated military budget. ron paul, congressman ron paul got together with congressman barney frank, want to talk about -- and deformed a defense department caucus in the house of representatives to deal with cutting down the defense budgets waste and redundancy. so it does come down to not just the 1% or less. we got bills through congress where we are lucky to have 300

people around the country supporting us actively. but we have public opinion on our side, and we had the ear of some key members of cars and that's what you need for the mass media to start covering. they like to see power. they don't just like to see good ideas. so the 1%, however, has got to be deconstructed at it. the 1% has to work through full-time groups. there has to be full-time groups. for example, a lot of people talk about drunk driving for decades. not much was done about it. and then a woman lost her daughter to a drunk driver. her name was candy leitner, california. and she got real angry. she didn't just have knowledge about drunk driving in the succeeding months. she had fire in her belly. she had emotional pitch which

broke a routine. she started the group called mothers against drunk drivers. chapters all over the country, and laws were tough and they did have an effect on reducing drunk driving. ralph hotchkiss, for example, had a bad bicycle accident when he was in high school. he became a paraplegic, study engineering at oberlin. he decided that wheelchairs were crummy. they were expensive. they were unstable. they broke easily and they were controlled by monopoly called the genies corporation out of london. he broke that monopoly and invented all kinds of ways were wheelchairs could be built sturdy, inexpensive, simple local materials third world areas. and he did it as a paraplegic. and they got the genius award at

one point but he had a workstation at san francisco state. there was a structure they are. as one of the founders of the european common market once said, without people nothing is possible, but without institutions, nothing is lasting. so we have to build many more civic groups. and you can see what a few civic groups have done for our country, the naacp, for example, the american civil liberties again he. these were not huge groups but they reflected people sense of fair play and justice, and they went cases and they got laws passed. so we know it works. we just be more citizen groups and more young people have got to say i want to start my citizen group your i want to be a leader, not just a follower. the idea of developing

expectation levels, just a minute on the. if we don't have expectation levels that are high, the politicians will give us all kinds of low expectation levels, right? interweaving politics is a dirty word, why are we surprised when we get dirty politics? because by saying politics is a dirty word, we have lowered our expectations of our political representatives your you see it becomes a downward spiral. and we stop learning from history. it's easier. how many times have to prove that? how many times left approved that a few people make the difference, that one person can make a difference? in order to encourage more people to step out into the civic arena and make the difference. part of the expectation level is self-respect. you have to have a higher estimate of your own significance, in what you're

going to publish in life so when you retire you look back on your life, if something within making a lot of money or trivializing your talents. and only you can decide that. somebody's got to help save the forests. so we got to say the ocean. somebody's got to reform the tax system. somebody's got to build a decent housing. somebody's got to abolish poverty which is perfectly within our capability, western europe essential to abolish poverty. somebody's got to do all these things, so why not you? and i think it helps to go back in history especially for the young people, and i want to show you what happens when you don't have self-awareness and self consciousness. now you would think it's crazy when i tell you what it was like in colleges in the 1950s. and what it was like the airlines in the 1950s. and then you have to ask yourself, what am i not aware of no?

like the way corporations are strategically planning every aspect of your life. they're planning or education, or marginalizing her childhood, plan your genetic inheritance, planning public budgets, tax systems go for, military policy, planning the food. you to have mike jacobsen in opposition. they are planning land use practices. they plan everything because they want to control everything because that's what they do. that's what's in their dna. it's called predictability. predictability. it is under the control and their commercial value is extremely focused extreme and motivating against the civic values that they have to shunt aside co-op or destroy. so on at princeton university, 1950s. i walk into my classes. i can hardly see my students, my fellow students. do you know why? they are smoking. they are smoking. what would happen if you went

into one of her class at gaucher college students were invited to the teachers to be bothered, or administration, would have if you walked into class and people were smoking? you would be totally off the wall. see what any? i met harvard law school. we have 580 students. 15 women. one african-american called a negro committee couple of hispanics who were the children of oligarchs in south america. do you think any of my white male colleagues were worried about that? i would write about in the harvard law school newspaper but they couldn't care less. i would talk to the professors, and the with the best and brightest law professors in the world. and if you didn't believe it, you just had to ask them. [laughter] i would say why aren't there more women, why aren't there more negroes in the class?

they would say well, as far as negroes can we don't have any discrimination or they did a good sat score, lsat score, there are qualified. wwe will document the nevermind the standardized tests correlated heavily with income level and whether you grew up in islam with sirens and rats, or whether you grew up in scottsdale new york. what about women? i was told by professor women, i see that harvard law school is very valuable, and if we have more women, they're going to graduate and they will get married and have babies and not practice law, so it's a waste. best and the brightest. you wouldn't be caught commuting to job or law professor saying that if you get a professor 1 million bucks in 10 years. see how things have changed? how many people were responsive for the changes? tiny, tiny fraction, and then they built the public sentiment behind it. out the harvard law school it

was a course on criminal law. it was all street crime. there was no course on corporate crime like it wasn't a corporate crime wave then? there was of course, there was a course on estate planning but it was only multi-million dollars estate. that's where the money is when you graduate. there was no course on environmental planning. see the difference? there was no course on civil rights and civil liberties. he took some constitutional law courses but basically, now there are seminars, clinics, all kinds of things now. a bunch of students go testing event with some professors. what i want to convey is what is it today we are not aware of, that we would be absolutely shamed 15, 20, or the years ago for not being aware of the? that's what education is partly about. it's raising your level of

awareness and self consciousness. last point, thinkers read, readers think they're too many people have become illiterate. that is, they read. they know how to read but they don't read. they engage in bits of information, and don't move it to knowledge, to judgment, to wisdom. that's the sequence. as society when all but about how to improve it. all kinds of pilot projects in schools and energy and public transit, arts and healthy participatory sports. but they are not diffused enough, but we have the examples. it works. they are on the ground here and there. we also have all kinds of solutions that are not underground at all, although they're starting like solar energy. that's been around a long time. now it is being deployed, solar panels, photovoltaic, solar

thermal. i think it's a reversible. why did it take so long? because the fossil fuel industry and nuclear industry had the political power. let me add to that just for a moment, which is, what is the future hold for a society that can fill constitution hall two weeks ago, every seat, with bill maher talking off-color jokes? i like bill mueller. i'm on the show once in a while. we were going to target the constitution hall for statehood and for the district of columbia, which does not have the vote in congress. it's the only national capital that gives people its vote, a vote that strips them of the franchise.

you wouldn't want to bet on how many people showed up. what happens when people do not want their rights, did not avail themselves of the rights, do not know about the rights? we get down to the basics. i hope that those of you who watch this on television, those of you who have come here will be explicitly inclined to talk to your friends, neighbors, relatives and coworkers. everything starts with the conversation. everything starts with a person-to-person conversation. and in so doing we start things under way. that's how the students became a force in the '60s. that's why we think that the title of this, these four days,

breaking through powers, is easier than we think, which i put in my little paperback book which is just out, breaking through power, hb2 than we think, is the first step to overcoming people's discouragement, disillusionment, sense of powerlessness, sense of possibilities, going nowhere. we have to believe in ourselves, and believing is a good thing if it's preceded by some thinking. and thinking is not the top priority of our formal educational system or our mass media, or the controlling processes of corporations. they have an interest in stupefying the public so they can make more money over an uncritical citizenry.

i want to switch now to your questions. i'm not able to answer all your questions because our speakers are not here your but we have selected almost all of them directly or indirectly. i'm going to read them and then respond to them. the first one is if i heard you've been fair to credit your phone bernie sanders 80 times without his return your call. so sad. we need our heroes cooperate. what can we do to bring to the together so we can benefit from the synergy? direction. it's been 18 years since he has returned my call. [laughter] i knew him before he was mayor of burlington. we've never been in conflict. he's just a lone ranger there are some good senators in our history who are lone rangers. senator paul wellstone did, connect with citizens groups all

the time. and it's unfortunate, because of the citizens community doesn't connect with leaders in congress, obviously less gets done. because it's got to be a constant vibration back and forth to keep the momentum up. [inaudible] >> a dozen. but doesn't at least. a dozen of times. wrote him letters, invited him to symposium on corporate power. i don't know. i think, you have to ask him. unlikely speak for him. how the young people passionate about progressive change balance their desire to advanced social good with this aside or economy that is hollowed out, public institutions and civic organizations? what's the best avenue to advancing social good a career? i would say joining the state public industry research groups.

a decoding us pirg.org, that's the national student funded group with full-time people -- if you go to -- that represents the state, public interest research group such as the one in colorado or california or massachusetts as i mentioned, or other states. see if you can start one yourself, even a small one right on campus your you develop a check off on the tuition bill for you have an allocation from the syrian government funds, and did it under way. however, small, it will give you experience any will connect you to all kinds of civic groups were you can pick and choose which one you want to intern with, which is step number two. which one you want to work with, which is step three. it's also good to be and, very influential books that have been written like rules for radicals

on how to organize, how to mobilize people out of their sense of hopelessness, or passivity. there are very good books like that. i was motivated a lot ibooks come to a point where i would read the muckrakers of the early 20th century. i would be so excited. i would be trembling holding the book in hand. i could never stand bullies, even when i was a kid. couldn't stand the sixth grade at beating up a fourth grader. just viscerally, couldn't stand it. so when i became an adult i realized there were a lot of corporate bullies around. it was an easy transition. third, this election has me to question whether we need a president, a congress, a supreme court. elected officials -- what's in it for us? can we have a healthy society without them? this seems to be a theoretical

anarchist, which is a very well worked out philosophy. very much local, very much consensual, neighborhoods, co-ops, things like that. david craig venter i think that's his name, he's one of the leading anarchists. he worked with occupy wall street. he's teaching out in england. he was pushed out of yale, considered too radical. he wrote this book 5000 years of debt, which is a fairly good bestseller. so when this question was posed to me, i didn't take it as a frivolous question. it's not like we're going to abolish the institutions, but we can develop a lot of local self-reliance. local self-reliance is a way of drawing consumer dollars and other energies away from the

giant corporation. it's a way of come you can regulate them, have power, litigate but drawing away for community institutions is another good way. and yes magazine which is available free out there isn't the chronicle of community businesses that in effect provide goods and services that big business provides but a much more accountable and often improved manner. another question is, with respect to global issues like climate change on which levels should activists focus most of their attention, federal, state, or local? take your pick. they are all crucial. can't do one without the other. and i think right now there's more local activity than what's going on in congress which is gridlock. and as a result most of the rich people like tom stoddart and

george soros, al gore, who are big on climate change issues will not fund a major lobby in washington whose only purpose, several hundred people, to go up on capitol hill and turned it around connecting with grassroots efforts. politics is not a one club effort. you have got to to clap, a local and national. this question, if you were to propose an alternative to our present government with good examples which follow and how would you for problems like our society in the future? well, tweaking, i would like to thtohave public funding and pubc campaigns, instant runoff voting gets rid of the so-called spoiler alert which is a politically bigoted the word directed to third party candidates only him and proportional representation which makes every vote count. right now, for example, in chile in the green party gets over 5%,

it gets over 5% of the portland. if he gets 10% a gets 10% of the parliament. if it gets 3% it doesn't do anything. the cut off is five. what do you think the cut off is here? you get 49%. if your opponent is 51, all the votes for the 49% don't count. so proportional representation. that's one reason why that the bigger voter turnout in other countries. i would also have voting as a universal duty. there's a whole bill of rights, no duty in the constitution except the seventh amendment, jury duty. i think if you're going to have to be a lot of laws legislated by a lot of lawmakers, you should have a role in choosing those lawmakers. some say that's a violation of my civil liberties. no, it isn't. not if you can pick none of the above. if you have a none of the above choice, which means i do want any of them, i'm going to a protest vote and it is binding and