the attack on the next generation. therefore, one can't speefkt justice, for the real crime taking place today is the redistribution of wealth of the current older generation of the expense of the wealth of the generations coming along. i sympathize somewhat with the young folks evicted from zuccotti park. whatever these distribution the crusaders clamored for the from the 1% of the rich pales in significance to comparison to the massive and unjust distribution now going on among the generation. the sovereign debt crisis not liberal democracy as such under the welfare state model. clear. just think of how many ago, we're touted europe in the

european welfare state as the model for america. invoke europe in a positive vein unless it's to describe a lovely dinner on some ngo's dime and yet, in president obama's blueprint for the future the great challenge of our time barely makes an appearance being mentioned in a couple of lines, the paltry savings of $1 trillion which is mostly fictitious anyhow. the debt crisis not central to

obama now, and it will likely not be central to him in the future. in fact, while obama's speech was covered in the press mostly for its analysis of the issue of growing income inequality and diminishing economic mobility, the real news as i see it in this speech should have been something and it calls for a massive new domestic spending and education and mostly higher education and for infrastructure, mostly high-speed train and for technological research for solar and wind energy. if this new program is to be paid for, and i assume it would be it will come from the upper 1%, but this program will do nothing at all to address the existing trends towards mounting deficit. we are broke, going broker, but we can at least take solace that we will pay for our next spending binge by new taxation. for this reason it appears appropriate today to speak of the real division in this

country as being that between the party of reality and the party of evasion. the party of reality faces the main crisis of our team even if it's different wings, some democrats and some republicans. . it keeps insisting on more spending and creating more right. it plays the old magical focusing the audience attention on things that do not count, leading them to lower the things that really do matter. president obama's osowatomee speech is the party of evasion. i hope the 2012 election will present a clear choice between the party of reality and the evasion, but this still remains to be seen. thank you. [ applause ] thank you, bill and hudson for having me and e.j. for the

kind introduction and it's good to be on a panel with you all and i enjoyed your work over the progressive era over the years. i'll try to be brief to get to back and forth. one of the things i want to focus on is how boring the election of 2012 is likely to be compared to the election of 1912. i know it's maybe easy when you're reading history books, but what's most fascinating, about the 1912 election was how much of a serious challenge there was to the two-party system. we haven't really talked about that. so you have this fight for the soul of the republican party with teddy roosevelt and taft and the creation of a new party which has its own divisions which people don't acknowledge as much about the progressive era and a serious fight about issues of monopoly and regulation. the wisdom of an administrative state and being used of

supporting this big dominating state and if you look at the origins there are discrepancies and ideas about how these things play out. progressives weren't concerned about an overwhelming state undermining the direct democrat see. you then have this fight between the new nationalism and the new freedom and you have the socialist movement which scored quite well in 1912 and you had the fight whether they would be the masters of the constitution and it would basically put property rights among human rights and people are trying to figure out how to deal with the issues of industrialization. >> compare that to today the issue of the two-party system is bubbling, but nowhere near boiling and that's when i say 2012 is likely to be boring.

if we had a proportional system like europe the democratic party would likely break into three parts. you would have a populist left, environmentalist, probably intellectuals and people on the more activist side that would be akin to ot the new nationalism

and it was the square deal and he'll be for fair play, a fair shot and a fair share. these were pretty common themes in u.s. politics and the party that can embrace these, you want to be on the side of the middle class o t fairness. i think this fight over the payroll tax cuts and that he wasn't putting out a radical transformation of american politics and he's running against the tea party. he's essentially saying that it was the news on watt me addresses. all of the things that he basically outlined. and there aren't too many people and the success of the conservatism, and the last three decades is post-war liberalism and not progressive. they went after the big state that was doing too much and spent too much money that was

interfering in people's lives. with the rise of the tea party and the house republicans and you heard this all over fox news and glen beck in the leadup to 2010, they were actually going over the progressive era and if you look over the new nationalism, none of that is controversial today. conservatives like the referendum recall process, they used it well to use the size of government. they used the administrative govern chlt to do anything they want. the social and industrial justis agenda, most people would not protections that were set up there. i think obama's quite wisely most popular expert in government and the final assault on the progressive era. so if it's obama, protecting a vision of government post-19

pre-1910, obama will win that fight and i think that's why he set it up this way. as mr. rove outlined in his article today in the wall street journal, republicans aren't going to fall for this. they're not going argue, i would imagine they won't against the wisdom of teddy roosevelt's new

nationalism and they're going to go after his agenda whether it's on health care, stimulus or other things like that. the other thing that's interesting about the speech obama gave, there wasn't any big policy change in what he outlined. he has now taken his new foundation idea which is is an investment in education, science and research, tax reform, financial regulation and he also talked about the wisdom of the financial reform and in georgetown 2009. he's taken that same agenda and put the rhetoric of fairness. and that's how he's defending it. >> this is not a radical agenda. and the biggest -- and the charges of class warfa cf1 o rhetoric has to match action and

it has to be authentic. i'm not sure most americans would be aware of some of the themes outlined in the speech and they'll continue to push the fair shot and fair share which sounds good to many different levels and will probably work, but i don't think it will define a whole new era of politics away the way new nationalism did. let me get more differencent ane radical rethinking of how we do things. he's trying to get back to the american dream of the post-war era and the prosperity of the clinton era. there really is no fundamental challenge in obama's address to the political order. there's no real talk about the reforms and level that teddy roosevelt talked about, and accomplished and we have the toxic distrust of government today which is not unfounded. this is completely different than the days of teddy roosevelt. we didn't have all of this distrust of government. this is a big challenge that people that call themselves progressives have to take seriously. modern state is one that is incompetent. protecting the new ideas achieve. the second biggest one is the economic contest and they suffer

solutions that deal with the libertarian laissez-faire and -- and most of the problems that we're now facing particularly on the economy, and tran 16ed our own capacity in our own national quarters. it's something that would address the economic conditions that today they'd be looking for more global solutions and that didn't come into play at all here, but i think ultimately this was a -- a fantastic address to rally obama's base in many ways. i think he did that. he's wrapped up his policy in fairness and the bipartisan at one point, belief in progressive ideas, but the idea of a new new nationalism or what's next is a

long way off, and i don't think this address that obama gave was reformers on the left to opportunities and produce national posterity and i don't on and my guess is -- i enjoy hearing your thoughts and look forward to getting some questions and thanks again to phil. >> thank you all. a great panel. some of my best progressive friends for this discussion. >> that's a severe --

>> i said my friends because we don't agree with everything, but ideas with the american thought or the promise of american life. the fact that the american progress and the heritage are both doing a series of papers about the meaning of progress ive in 1912 and it tells you something about why these questions are important. which in the end, american politics is less about the debate and more about america. >> and that's why every watershed, every realignment in american history can always take up to these questions about what we are again, and another

president's term is the campaign ahead. so where does he turn? he began by invoking lincoln? more recently he's been campaigning as harry truman running against the do-nothing congress and he might think in hard times someone mentioned he would go as a good democrat and appeal to franklin roosevelt who famously criticized the money change in the temple and yet in the making, the president goes toes on watt omy and believe me nobody goes there for no good reason. >> so there he gives what i think will be a defining speech in the administration or as e.j. says the inaugural address obama never gave. >> i think that this establishes

that he's given up on american politics and he's doubled down the progressive model and this tells where he's coming from and where he is going. >> it's the question posed by the prre the formal progressive revolted against was that america was different or in the context that we tal about it and america's eeptial it's dedicated to universal right. we're often as equal and we are down to the life and the pursuit of happiness. this principle in the constitution law are the foundaons of the american dream. it makes possible the dynamic social order in which every member of society can work based on its ability and the primaryo secure property rights and break

down barriers of opportunity and uphold the rule of law. th isou ecomitory. wh protted there n incenterk, is reap what you swhen o orc w, more pple will sow and more people will eap. >> when a othe property extends toall the amount of wealth throughout society increases exponentlly and we can pursue our happiness. the basic safety net is provided by society and public assistance at the appropriate level of government and that can now protect those who cannot take care of it. >> what's truly revolutionary about this model, is the freedom and opportunity is available to everyone. result, poverty not extinguished has vastly diminished. more importantly, it is no longer a condition from which there is no escape. >> about a hundred years ago

there were those that i would describe as a different dream that government could better engineer how society operates. lesser reforms were convinced that not only had they been wrong about man, human nature and the necessity of limited government, but also that the advance in science had to eradicate the inequalities of property and wealth. the democratic path would result in growth with commerce and business and the government based on the revolving right, the living constitution would greet us and level out those differences to taxation, the regulation. >> and american life. he allows that americans have an almost religious faith in the country, and the traditional american confidence and individual freedom has resulted in a morally and socially

undesirable distribution of wealth. the time has come to devote ourselves to a dominant and constructive national purpose. centered on a new period of the state in which experts administered government can have the outcome, by becoming responsible for the subordination to that purpose, the american state will in effect be making itself responsible for a morally and desirable distribution of wealth. so, teddy roosevelt is looking for a new philosophy and he finds it. when out in the safaris of africa when reading it and gobbling it up. the material progress and prosperity of the nation so far as they lead the moral and material welfare of all good citizens.

the initial draft was written by crowley himself, progress and welfare apply to the naturalization of politics. a break in the -- they now play an interventionist role with real democracy because if we do not have the right kind of law and the right kind of administration, the law cannot go forward. so in his own osowatomee speech, they are on the progressive mantle and not nowhere near as high minded as they are in the first place, but he does it nonetheless. he does elude the beginning when hard work pays off and they can mick it if they try, but that was the argument of his earlier generation. his basic bargain is so eroded that the final issue of our time

is to restore growthing and prosperity. and the choice as he frames is is that offered by the progressive 100 years ago and it was economic. >> in the harshness of market capitalism which he defines in the fashion as you're on your own economically with a real life -- whatever you want from whoever you can. on one hand, in the benign fairness of progressive national and we are greater together and the fair shot and everyone does their faire share. the word fair occurs throughout the speech and not opportunity, with the things that things must be made fair and in a nation we must come together as one point,

through our government through progressive fashion and he returns to his old mantra, not a bold and new initiative, through federal education programs and the economic regulation, and of course, raising taxes in the wealthy is a way to pay for these investments and that's only fair. he denies the class warfare, of course, and his class warfare is conventionally defined. what he's actually doing, however, is abandoning the average middle class voter and his middle class values and probably gathering an allowance state dependent. his progress is fundamentally

about the rise of the new government class and insist on the political and economic and it is based on special interest. yes. at some point in every presidential campaign there's a speech that provides the candidate to provide the rationale for the country. by turning to the new mold, imperfect as it is, obama's revealed that it actually goes back to the progressive model. going as far away back with the roots and they continue their progressive transformation of america and with various phases over the 20th century and to call it now a fair society and ensuring a not equal opportunity and fair outcome. as those of us who take the arguments of the political plot they like to look at politics by way of analysis. we see newt gingrich, for predatory wealth and relative with with the courts. they have judges that refused to testify before congress. just the argument that brought

them, to bolt his party and run as a progressive independent. and then ron paul that goes back to the midwest progressive, and why he's doing so well in iowa. but the are mere amateurs. president obama's fairness program seem to be the simple idea of the administration and his party. this is a risky strategy. for one thing, it's a tough sell to the american people. they have an economic objective and it's very important, somewhat important or not important. and, treatmently very important category, to grow and expand the economy, 82% and increase the quality of opportunity for people who get ahead. 70%, the income in wealth gaps between rich and poor, 46%. . americans have become more

skeptical with the solutions rather than less and they're each less likely to embrace a new birth of progress of performance than some thought to endorse in 2008. what's more is this is president obama's re-election template. it opens a wide space for the republicans, admittedly, usually inarticulate and as yet ununified and makes the broader case for economic opportunity and the reforms that better the conditions to the american people and solved the real problems we faced as op posed to tired centric policies despite they make everything equal and end up with everyone rising. . that case, the argument for opportunity has been made by folks like paul ryan with the progressive and a week ago and more recently, just this week in mitt rom no's new stump speech

on tuesday, so here we are, they become a referendum, and the promises and the american dream. that's a debate conservatives welcome and this country needs to have one and one that is the model, i think, barack obama would have. thanks. >> bill has kindly said if i wanted to reply, i could. i wanted to start by saying that if anyone frommes on watt me, kansas, is watching i want to salute jim caesar for doing such an excellent job on behalf of the party of evasion because the party of evasion claims that the biggest problem facing our nation is a budget deficit whereas the party of reality understands that the biggest

problem facing our nation is the growing concentration of wealth that has afflicted us for almost 40 years. the party of evasion tries to argue that they try to protect the very wealthy by saying that elderly people who need health care in an increasingly expensive medical system are the source of our problems. the party of reality argues that the budget deficit has to be seen in the context of this economic inequality and the difficulties middle-class americans are facing in a new world economy that has added literally 2 billion people to the global labor force. i could go on like this, but i'm perfectly happy to do so, but i think jim underscored something that was actually very helpful for us which is why did barack obama give this speech in osowatomee, kansas, and he gave this speech because he wanted to define w w