long as the development of abm or other forms development will not contradict the principles of this treaty. and this is a sensitive moment. as president obama, i am optimistic about this and we hope that this will not stop the treaty or withdraw from it. having some problems about abm or other issues, but everything depends on us and other politicians that would treat this issue later on. . >> perhaps seeking coordinate on the ratification process. >> would you like to make a question? you have this opportunity.

>> you have been invited by your president. >> thank you, i will ask a question in russian. mr. president, next week we will be discussing with the senate this synchronized simultaneous ratification as the main issue that is being asked by our counterparts. . sident submit this document to the russian parallelment? when will the american president do it? the first week of may? then we will do the same thing right then. we can do that as a package deal, like two packages. in the morning, i make a call to in the morning, i make a call to mr. obama and ask him, are you it. and i do the same thing.

i sign the package right there. >> perhaps you could give him some advice on how to synchronize our own legislative branch. >> we have a problem. it's called the united states senate. but if i could -- >> congressman delahunt. >> congratulations on signing the treaty and many of us hope that the senate proceed to ratification. i do have a question and you referenced the economic relationship between the united states and russia. and recently, we had a visit from the state duma delegation. and that issue did arise. and we all agree that the level of commerce between the united

states and russia is unacceptable. it is abysmally low. we have ideas on the house side as to how we would like the russians to make some adjustments. but if you had a wish list of what you would like to see coming sfr the administration -- from the administration and congress in terms of initiatives economically, what would they be? [russian translator] >> well, the question is how many wishes can be fulfilled? for example, there are wishes that are never to come true. that we aren't even mentioning anymore, because they are impossible ones. they are wishes impossible toll fulfill, such as the withdrawal of the amendment.

it is such a complicated thing that even in terms of this audience, i'm not speaking about it. well, seriously speaking, we need to review our current economic relationship. before the crisis, our bilateral trade was around $25 billion, 30 billion. that isn't that much taken the size of the american and russian economy. frankly speaking, the volume of trade between russia and the e.u. is $250 billion. the trade between the russian federation and peoples republic of china is smaller now, but still, it is 2 1/2 times bigger than that of the united states. but it is not only about the volume of trade, but about the investment as well. as far as the investment is

concerned, the situation is not that good, but at least it's a parity situation. we often use this word. the volume of the u.s. investment in the russian economy is around $7 billion. this is nothing. it's a zero. the volume of the russians' investments in the u.s. economy is $6 billion. this is a little bigger than with other countries. but after all, it's not that much. anyways, the volume of the dutch investment in the u.s. economy is $150 billion. this is the difference in the balances. it doesn't mean that we will be able to bridge this gap very soon, but anyway, mutual investments bring countries much closer together and they fulfill development.

most importantly, there should be understanding between investors and the state should see these investments positively as well. it is about creating favorable regimes for such investments and internal -- about a favorable treatment to such foreign investment. in our country, the development climate is not the best possible and we should do everything to make it more attractive. it doesn't mean that things are so perfect in the united states, but there are things we need to do in order to improve the climate and its elements, including some economic regimes that could be used, including the situation with the legal system. we can improve the functioning of our courts. we could combat corruption. those are the barriers to trade and investment, and not only from the united states. we see these problems. and most importantly, our

partners should see their own problems as well, including those problems that impede russian investments or the implementation of joint projects in third countries. >> i want to ask if it's true what i call the retirement of jackson-vanik is an impossible wish? >> i do not believe it is impossible and i think there is sentiment in congress today to address the issue. you are probably unaware, but there has been the formation in the house of a russian caucus and it's an issue that is being discussed and discussed seriously. >> toby? >> there was a great outpouring in the united states of unity after the terrible terrorist

acts and this is due to the contacts that has been made between the americans and russians in the past 20 years. in your first comments about this attack, you said that russia had to deal with terrorism very harshly, but also respect human rights and the rule of law. but we have heard about the first and very little about the latter. and there was a tightening up in the political system. you have talked for many months about the reform of the security structures and the judicial system and maybe it's even more necessary now. my question is, how do you convince society and other people in your government that part of the fight against terrorism is respect for human rights and for all of russian citizens? and how do you hope to avoid the overreactions that have taken place in other societies after terrorist acts?

[russian translator] >> well, you have touched upon a hard issue. it's not always that this society requires that human rights be respected in the wake of a terrorist attack. as a rule, the society requires that criminals be punished and in a most serious way especially for terrorists and only some secondary voices speak to the human rights. and this is something typical, not only for russia. this is not only a tradeoff of the civil society in russia, this happens in all the countries in the wake of terrorist attacks. the people demand retall yation. but in the -- retaliation. and in the 21st century, we understand in case of such

attacks, a full flidged investigation should take place and should involve all the parties concerned that are in charge of such issues in a country and the final decision, the final ruling should be made by the court. but there is a gap between the public sentiment and position of law enforcement and judicial system. and this is an actual problem that we cannot turn a blind eye on. besides, it is necessary to establish a climate of understanding not only inside our society, but also understanding between the russian society and american society, between the russian political establishment and the u.s. political establishment. i'm referring to the following. we need to use the same scale to each other after the perptration of the latest savage terrorist attacks on the russian metro.

the reaction of the entire world was son -- consolidated and correct. nevertheless, in some cases, we still see old stereotypes are used that are insulting to russia, including these cases are seen in the united states. i reviewed the press after the attacks and terrorists were still called rebels. we cannot accept that. it is unacceptable to us. i believe it is insult the memory of those who died in the subway station. this is a small detail that is quite indicative on such issues. we should be much closer together. we should hear each other better and then we will be more successful in overcoming the consequences of such terrorist attacks, speaking about the great solid dart of the russian

people towards the u.s. people in 2001. this was quite high and we should learn to use the same scale while evaluating each other's situations. and we should be show it to each other in many events, even such tragic ones as the death of president kaczynski and a great part of the polish political elite. >> thank you, director of norn policy at brookings. -- foreign policy at brookings. and thank you for your wise and constructive leadership of russia. my question is about iran. i wonder if you could describe for us how you view russia's

nuclear program. is it a threat to russian national security interests? are you concerned it triggering a nuclear arms race in the middle east and now that you and president obama are on the same page when it comes to sanctions, are you on the same page with him when he says that force should be an option that's kept on the table? [russian translator for president medvedev] >> the talks about iran with mr. obama and my other colleagues are a part of our agenda. we do that regularly and on a full basis. this means that iran is a problem.

and what is important that we find evidence of what their nuclear program is, as any society. they do have the right to develop the civilian nuclear program. but the problem is how they convince us of the community that it is and lately we did not bring any improvement to the situation. it has aggravated. and iran ignores the questions addressed they keep saying small praise it and make small suggestions. we are talking about the future. we will not favor sanctions, because sanctions is a repression and imposing of actions. if nothing happens, we will have

to deal with sanctions. the question is, what kind of sanctions are these? many times i have asked these questions. i do not favor a paralyzing sanctions and who make people suffer in a humanitarian sense. this is immoral. it creates negative results. it is negative feedback. i have grounds to believe that some people need to write this. they are waiting for a real crash of position. sanctions must be intelligent. the question is, how we understand this word, what is acceptable? what is unacceptable? sanctions must be universal. they must be discussed with the main participants of the

international process. the sanctions must be aimed results. that is why imposition of sanctions depends not only on the united states but also on china, and let america. -- and latin america. they are able to give results. ut middle east and what can happen over there if the nuclear program is implemented. and a nuclear conflict arises. well, that would be a gigantic catastrophe. we all can't imagine what could happen in the middle east if just one terrorist act happens there or nuclear arms is used.

middle east is called middle east because it is so small it is enough for bombings to happen in one place, for it to start spreading all over the world. and that would trigger a humanitarian catastrophe and exodus of people from different countries. and the most bad thing is it will trigger the nuclear arms race. many colleagues from iran will -- arabic world that if iran gets nuclear arms, they will have no scrupeles without having it as well. and this will enlarge the nuclear club and then no summit will help if all of those countries have nuclear arms. that will open a new page in the history of humankind, which will be very sad.

and i hope we will be able to agree and will manage to solve this issue by political -- >> mr. president, i really want to thank you for being here. i come from that generation of american people that were involved in the second world war and we certainly had great pride when we went into great britain and france. but i don't think we really thanked the russians enough for the fact being on the east coast and having 25 divisions and i think it made a lot of difference. what i want to do is thank you and the russian people for that. the question i'm going to ask you is the same question i wanted to ask general petraeus today when he spoke at lunch time. and that was asked, the military

decided that we had to go into afghanistan. what would have happened if we, the military, had said to the russians, will you join us, because after all, you had a big battle there and you still have problems there. [russian translator for president medvedev] >> if i understood you rightly, you are talking about military presence of russia in such operations, do i get you right? >> joining the united states in military and its allies in the military operations in afghanistan. [russian translator for president medvedev] >> every country has their own history and times it is very sad. our country has a history of

work in afghanistan back in soviet times and that was a very hard page of our history. and i'm not sure that our society is ready to once again open the page. but that doesn't mean that we would like to stay on the side lines and agree upon all questions of cooperation in afghanistan, starting with military, transit, military, social and economic projects, restoring of its economy. we should cooperate in this realm, but what is more today is given an opportunity to the afghanistan political system develop because we understand that america cannot be there all the time. it cannot be lasting forever. it's a very hard burden. but if america leaves afghanistan and the alliance

leaves, then how will the political system live in afghanistan? . . they rejected this political

system and experiment. today's game is that the modern political system would be created and effective. it would appear there. they may say that our teams have been dumb. -- done. >> it has a pertinent report sent to the effectiveness of how our coalition operations referred to your own country. current situation? >> the situation in current situation?

it is living through it's living through a stage of a legitimate development and unfortunately, i believe that responsibility for that is borne by the authorities in kyrgyzstan themselves who hadn't taken effort earlier to consolidate the civil society to agree with the opposition to settle the numerous conflicts under way and to organize normal economic development once the former president was outcast by the opposition and he was forced to leave the country and one of the reproaches he received was economic crimes, corruption, a

couple of years later we see the same thing slow -- the same slogans and same people there only they switched places. which is quite sad because kyrgyzstan is a close neighbor of ours and least of all we would like to see kyrgyzstan turning into a failed state. the risk of kyrgyzstan falling into two parts, the northern and the southern part, is still there and it is important to prevent bloodshed. around 100 people have been killed already and now the question is not about who started the whole thing, though certainly an investigation should be held to see who triggered all those problems. the most important thing is to prevent a civil war now and i believe kyrgyzstan is on the verge of a civil war now and all the forces in kyrgyzstan should realize their

responsibility toward the nation and the people in kyrgyzstan and to the future of that state. we ourselves understand perfectly what a civil war means today if, god forbid, it is started. it will immediately attract terrorists and extremists of all tinds because in the course of such conflicts, the best possible conditions are created for radical movements and in this people, instead of kyrgyzstan, and afghanistan, of some years ago can emerge a different afghanistan before the military operations there. our task is to help our partners there to find the calmest possible way to

overcome this situation. how can we do that? we need to soothe down the people, we should form a government that would be viable , and some political leaders will need to assume important decisions as to their future. a decision that should be motivated by the interest of the people of kyrgyzstan, not by their personal political ambitions. >> mr. president, i'm darrell west, vice president of government study here's at brookings. i was interested in your talk in the section about technology and how that broadens your source of information and i'm just curious how technology has changed our leadership style, and when you go online, what are you looking for and also do you and president obama ever email one another?

>> we don't email each other with president obama, but it is a good idea. indeed that would be the fastest possible way to talk to each other because until we coordinate our communications with our assistants, then we get communications in writing, it takes a lot of time. in this case, we could just have a couple of iphones and just exchange text messages or emails. i am quite familiar with that as well as president obama, as far as i understand. but speaking about the changes that occurred in my life through this new information environment, i should say that a lot of things have changed. it's not a figure of speech. this is about our habits and habits are the things we're made of. if some time ago i started my morning with reading a

newspaper or a digest or just watching the tv, i don't do that anymore. i go online and i find all the things there, newspapers, tv channels, russian media, foreign media. media that are favorable to the russian president, media that hate the russian president and they certainly speak whatever they think, which is very important because i don't have a perfect picture of what is going on. the picture that many predecessors of mine and in other countries used to have. this gives an opposite effect. very often, i review some requests or comments of desperate people who write about corruption, law violations, about other problems. i certainly cannot answer all

those comments, but the most outstanding things, due to internet, can trigger support from people and then a whole open letters written by many people at the same time and this is certainly a reason for a feedback from me and then i instruct my agencies and ministries and the government to attend to that. originally it caused some kind of surprise but now people are used to that, moreover, i have started a blog that is run at my presidential website. now governors have started doing t others really communicate with people. officials were threatened by some of addresses to their

bosses. they are threatened by such comments that people can write this is becoming a part of our life. of it is certainly helpful. in russia, it is more important than anywhere else probably. in our society, this bureaucratic tradition has ages long history and authorities have been too far from the people. probably, it originated from political traditions as well. it help them adjust this tradition. i'd like it. >> i do not know if it'll be possible to have simultaneous

ratifications of the treaties. i am sure that your opening proposal about how you and president obama will communicate is going to cause a nervous breakdown. cate is going to cause a simultaneous nervous breakdown in the white house and the kremlin. but i'm sure you're up to handling that. >> no problem. >> antoine fanachwal, i would like to switch to the economy. two questions, looking back and looking forward. looking back, after the global crisis, russia was hit by a -- quite a steep and fast economic recession. did that surprise you? also, how fast russia bounced out of it. second question, russia is well known to be -- to have the largest reserves of gas in the world. is that changing now that so

much gas, i mean, huge quantities of gas are being found in the united states, hungary, all over the world, how will that change relations with europe and even china? >> speaking about the global recession, if i was surprised, i will be frank. well, i was surprised. every one of us have their own stereotypes, their own understanding of what are the weak places of economy and what are not. so the thing that happened after the crisis, the beginning of the crisis in our country, was a surprise because the extent to which it fell was more than i could have expected. i'm not talking about other

economies. i talked to my european counterparts and american counterparts. all of them were surprise. but that was outrageous -- were surprised. but that was outrageous for me. how our economy depends on raw materials. i never understood that we are so much dependent on raw materials and this made me talk about the modernization, about technology. but for the crisis, probably we would live by our eninertia and living with the high prices on oil and gas. i'm happy that this crisis happened. the economy has fallen down, but it is bad that this crisis

made people suffer, many people lost their jobs, it hit people very hard. but this crisis should change our mindset, our economic approach and thus far it hasn't changed much. many businesspeople and ordinary people are waiting for high oil prices, it's $85 a barrel now. it's ok now. maybe it will be $140 someday, then we can rest easy doing nothing, but the problem is that this is top-down development and one day, the price will fall and the prices will harr monoize somehow and being -- arm onize somehow and

bling -- harm onize somehow. -- harmonize somehow. the major challenge is how fast we can do that, we would like to do it as fast as possible, but this is difficult. we have outlined five priorities of economic reforms not because they are universal but because they are important and if we are successful in these ones, like space, atomic energy, pharmaceutical drugs, energy efficiency, new technologies in energy, we will have some advancement in these realms, then it will be very good. though high prices for energy carriers is good, why not go and lower them. it gives us some advantage. the main thing is not to rely

on gas and oil only. and the fact that they have found new gas opportunities, this is not bad. that will help us be more attentive toward our possibilities. our opportunities. and whatever we say, once 50 years and energy revolution happens, first coal, then oil, then gas, then nuclear power and i believe that in 30 to 50 years from now the situation in both our countries will be different. i don't know if we'll use hydrogenic power, but being complacent with gas and oil is not good today. >> i want to tie this question onto that one.

you mentioned the brick countries in your opening remarks and you meet from time to time and are going to be meeting shortly with your fellow leaders in that grouping. when you get together with them cork you talk about these issues and compare perspectives and plans? and what do you see as the future of that grouping? >> i not only speak to them, after this meeting, i'm going to latin america where the brick summit will be held in brazil and this group, this community of countries today, is formed already. this doesn't mean that this is full-fledged organization, but that doesn't mean these are four countries developing at a fast pace and if we are able to

find consolidated approaches, we can do that on many questions, not on all of them, but the things we discuss like economy and politics is very important and today, brick has become a factor of economic development. does that mean that this is a community having an eternal shape and it is rigid? i don't think. so but in order to change it, we have to reach common approach. we have to agree. last year, when we met each other and discussed these issues in russia, with all of the statesmen of brick we discussed national measures and

economic development. this is very good for us and the outlook of our society is positive and we're going to develop this structure. >> this will be the last question. >> this is probably the first brookings event at which two questions about kyrgyzstan have been asked. this is number two. since the -- >> the dirg stan nation will be happy. >> some analysts, including in russia have noted how critical russia was of him. and said that russia was angry that kyrgyzstan had not kicked the americans out of the base. can you clarify this?

can you say that russia has no objection to american access to the base in kyrgyzstan, to support our operations in afghanistan? >> how can russia even object against sovereign decisions made by other states? this is their decision, we can either like it or not, but it's a decision made by the leadership in kyrgyzstan. the president there is a coherent person he first said he was going to make a decision to eliminate the american base in kyrgyzstan and then he made the very same coherent decision to maintain the center for

transit movement. i believe that coherency and consistency is always the best characteristic of a politician. the more coherent a person is, the better his results are and we can see the results of the incumbent president of kyrgyzstan now. it doesn't mean, though, that we in some way are trying to impede that. on the contrary, when i met the president, i always told him it is necessary to assist our u.s. partners in addressing the tasks in afghanistan. the other question is, how effective this assistance is. therefore, all the possibilities were there. >> mr. president, before i say a few words of thanks to you, i want to ask our friends in the audience to please remain seated after we have concluded the program so that i can

escort president medvedev out of the building. to you, sir, i would just like to express particular appreciation not just for the substance of what you have said, which was remarkable in its breadth and depth and in its candor. but also the spirit that you brought to this discussion. you opened your remarks, first of all by quoting our founder, robert s. brookings he would be very proud indeed to have his name associated with this event today. you also said some kind words about the summit that president obama hosted, i'm sure you've had a chance to express those to him. obviously that meeting set a very high standard a very unusual standard. but you've cone the same thing here with this discussion.

and i can sense, i know enough people around the room, i know the body english and the body russian, to have a pretty high degree of confidence that we all are in your debt for spending this much time with us and covering as much ground as you did. i ask all of you to please join me in thanking president medvedev. [applause] >> i would like to say a few words more. first of all, i would like to thank you for being so patient to listen to my long answers. secondly, indeed, two questions about kyrgyzstan were asked today, which is quite unusual. on the other hand, i didn't hear the questions that i always like and appreciate and that i am always asked, like the question about the development of our political

system, the development of our media, our relationship with mr. putin. i haven't heard none of those questions today and i believe that is a reason for me to come back and discuss again our domestic political life as well. [applause] >> i have a very simple proposal. since you've already given nervous breakdown to your staff, why don't we give them another and just have everybody stick around for another hour and we'll discuss all of those issues. >> no. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>>, and a few moments, in the that the employment. in 45 minutes, a forum on how new media is being used by the political opposition in iran. timothy geithner on the economy and the financial regulation bill. later, president obama's news conference at the end of the nuclear security summit. on "washington journal"to tomorrow, more on the nuclear policy from trent francs. his member of the armed services committee but did mark begic discussh is the

legislative agenda. elizabeth warren discusses home foreclosures. it is live on c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> a couple of live events to tell you about. the joint economic committee will hear from ben bernanke at 10:00 a.m. eastern. that is also on c-span radio and online at c-span.org. added to 30 p.m. eastern, at the senate commerce committee looks into the national rabin plan released last month but the federal communications commission. they will question the chairman of the plan. >> may we be prepared that a

republican president and the republican congress in february and march 2013 will repeal every radical bill passed by this machine. >> missed one of the speakers at the seven republican leadership conference? at the new c-span video library, you can search it and what it. one trustee thousand hours of video from last week or last year. -- 160,000 hours of video from last week or last year. >> more now on the economy and the employment rate. our guest was former labor secretary robert reich should produce this is 45 minutes. --. this is 45 minutes. host: have a very early hour in california, robert reich is joining us to talk about the economy. many of you know him as the

former labor secretary under plaze -- president clinton and now the policy professor at university of berkeley, california. also, the author of 12 books. i wanted for some headlines out there for you this morning before we get going. here is the "wall street journal." that is the front page. the "washington post" frontpage says the team is optimistic. and then we also saw in the last couple of days that the economy is on track to possibly grow up 3.6% from off -- 3.6%, create $518 billion in recovery and the banks have started to repay their loans from taxpayers. are we on our way to recovery? guest: greta, i wish i could say

we were on our way to a vigorous recovery. we certainly are on our way to recovery. the business cycle follows isleton's law, but in reverse. everything that goes down eventually -- follows isaac newton's law, but in reverse. everything that it goes down and eventually comes up. the stock market is recovering in part because corporate earnings are up, and corporate earnings are up largely because companies have sliced their payrolls. they have cut their cost and, again, their payrolls, their employees, are their biggest cost. many companies are going abroad for sales. they're also going abroad for workers. so, what is good for america's big companies in terms of their property -- profitability and american stock market may not be necessarily good for american workers. we are seeing in this recovery a little bit of a two-tiered recovery, that is, big companies

and wall street are doing very well. their workers and employees are doing ok. small businesses are doing badly. people on main street still are without jobs and is going to take, unfortunately, even if we have a pretty good recovery, it will take years and years before we take -- before we get a level of employment back to where we were before the recession. later on, we will get to some of my concerns about why this recovery is going to be quite anemic, unfortunately. host: you wrote yesterday in the "wall street journal" this, the u.s. economy has added 162,000 jobs in march. that sounds impressive until you look more closely. at least one-third of them were temporary government hires to take the census. better than no job, but hardly worth writing home about. the real jobs were fewer than the 150,000 needed to keep up with the growth of the u.s. population. it is far better than it was.

we are not hemorrhaging jobs as we were in 2008 to and 2009, but the bleeding has not stopped. at what is going on? guest: you can say that we are going in the right direction, but still not producing enough net jobs to fill the need for jobs by a population that continues to grow. we have lost about 8.4 million jobs. net jobs from the american economy, and on top of that, we're down 2.7 million in terms of population growth, the number of people coming into the labour force, people who would like jobs, young people who were counting on jobs. that is over 11 million short of what we need. even if we had a very vigorous recovery, and that would be about 300,000 net new jobs per month. you can see that it would take five to eight years for us to get back to where we were before. i do not want to be doom and

gloom. i am quite an upbeat person in real life. but i'm looking at these numbers and also realizing something else, that is, many of the old jobs are never going to come back because companies have been using the great recession as an excuse, or maybe they have been forced to do it, to trim their payrolls with outsourcing and also with new technologies, office software cannot machine tools, whatever -- office software, machine tools, whatever. the combination of software over there is actually reducing the number of jobs in these companies and, perhaps, will reduce them forever. many of the old jobs simply will not come back. it is not a typical recession or at the end of the recession you get a lot of old jobs coming back. the people you have lost their jobs, and we have a record number of long-term unemployed who have been out of work for six months or longer. about 40% of the unemployed are

going to have to get new jobs, often that pay less than the jobs they used to have. that is a hidden dark side to this so-called recovery. it is a hidden dark side to the unemployment figures because when you have a lot of people who settled for new jobs that pay less, they do not have money in their pockets to turn around and buy things to keep the recovery going. host: i know our viewers are easy to to -- eager to talk to you. let's go to the phones in citrus heights, calif., randy on the republican line. caller: thank you for the opportunity. conservatives also get up early here in california. my question is, it seems to me that it is kind of a no-brainer that the uncertainty about the agenda of this current administration is what is holding down people from hiring. there are too many things pending that business owners are

afraid are going to affect their bottom line. while all this stuff that the administration would like to get done is kind of hanging out there, you know, it is not known whether it is going to be done or not. with cash and trade, are they just going to say we will not -- kappa and trade, are they just want to say we will not pass a cat and trade -- cap and trade. we will just give dollars to do it, kind of like with fiat. i do not think anything is going to turn around unless we have a regime change in this country. host: what should the obama administration and congress do to get businesses hiring? caller: they should take the bull by off of their backs. it seems like every week they have a new business group that is the bad guy out there. these are our employers. just because they have money does not make them bad people. the administration seems to just

flippantly throat around accusations against -- throw around accusations against people with money. i guess they are trying to harness this populist backlash against business or whatever. host: professor reich, what do you think? guest: randy is correct that there is a lot of uncertainty in the business community right now about new regulations, new rules coming down. but i think the biggest source of uncertainty is whether there's going to be enough demand among consumers for all of the goods and services for the pri -- the businesses they are producing. we have had ituri and legal uncertainty before, but the businesses -- we have had regulatory and legal uncertainty before, but the businesses are reluctant to hire when they do not know there will be enough consumers out there to buy everything they want. that is the number one uncertainty. until they know that, they are simply not going to do a lot of hiring. small businesses have a special problem. the biggest problem for small

businesses is not the regulatory uncertainty. it is not even necessarily knowing how many consumers are going to be out there. the biggest problem for small businesses is that they are still having a lot of trouble getting credit, bar wing. big businesses do not have to worry about borrowing right now. they are sitting on a huge pile of money, in fact. but small businesses do. often, regional banks or community banks that are sitting on a big pile of a -- of non- performing loans, those small businesses are being told by the banks, even though you are a very good credit risk for a pretty good credit risk, we cannot take the risk right now. host: burlington, wisconsin, david is joining us on the democratic line. caller: professor reich, thanks for your good work. i'm a constituent of congressman paul lyonrayns.

i'm wondering if his road map for america is a good idea, or if it is just more handouts for wall street, stockbrokers and the wealthy. i would appreciate your thoughts. guest: i wish i knew exactly what congressman ryan's roadmap is for america. i think we have to be careful about any more handouts to wall street, and also, the wealthy. wall street is now saying to anyone that would listen, that is, the big banks are saying, we have paid back most of the bailout. i was reading an article this morning that many people in washington are breaking our champagne saying that the bailout work aned and they gives back almost as much as we gave them, but that is not true. the allies a hidden cost. in fact, it is not so hidden.

the cost of the big banks now knowing that they were not too big to fail. they were not quite sure of that before they got bailed out. now they are quite sure of that. that could lead to risky behavior of a sort that got us in the problem in the first place. with the zero interest rates, we basically have a circumstance not unlike 2006 and 2007. we have given the banks a great deal, not just through the troubled assets relief program, but also true low-interest loans. the federal reserve has been extraordinarily kind to the big banks. and now, without any regulatory reform, financial reform, all they know is that the federal government is going to be there for them when they need it. and this is a different situation -- and frankly, i will tell you, i do not think this is a liberal or conservative or democratic or republican issue.

i do not see the logic in bailing out the big banks. i do not think we should have done it. i think we should have come up with extremely tough regulations and rules that prohibit banks from doing anything like this again. the cost to the economy was incalculable. the cost to the global economy -- a recent estimate by a scene was about $four trillion. the cost to americans who are still out of work is extraordinary. -- the cost was about $4 trillion. the cost to americans were still out of work is extraordinary. this is just the tip of the iceberg. host: memphis, tenn., bill, independent line. caller: i have a question concerning the relationship between the large millions of illegal aliens who are here and americans who are out of work. i know it is a cliche, but it

seems to me that the 20 million something illegal aliens better that means they are taking 20 million jobs. i am concerned about that. they are improving different things. they cannot speak english. i see them with illegal documents. we will host: leave it there. guest: you wrote about the issue of jobs. guest: there are a lot of concerns of their about

undocumented workers. attorneys say a couple of things. there are fewer undocumented workers as far as anyone can tell. the numbers are hard to come by. these are undocumented people. there are fewer by almost every measure then there were before the economy plunged. the simple reason for that is the most undocumented workers come here to get jobs. reason for that is that most undocumented workers come here to get jobs. when there are no jobs for anybody, and how unemployment is very high, they tend not to come. or they go home. if they're coming here and remitting their salaries back home, they leave because they can do better back home. i think there is very little evidence that undocumented workers right now are taking a lot of jobs away from americans. the big problem, obviously, is the economy for everybody. the economy is not generating

enough jobs or enough demand for jobs for everyone who is here. number two, giving precisely to your point, most of the studies show that the undocumented workers who come here tend to cluster in particular occupations that are not occupations that native-born americans tend to want jobs in very much. we are talking about elder care, certain kinds of construction jobs. undoubtedly, there is a negative income affect, or negative employment effect on certain americans. they tend to be low-skilled. they tend to be clustered. those native-born americans, in the same places that foreign- born undocumented workers are migrating to. but the overall effect on unemployment is almost by every measure very small compared to everything else that is going on.

host: new orleans, louisiana, john on the republican line. caller: almost every year since this bill was implemented by the president and congress, it has not seem to have much affect. it seems like it would encourage irresponsibility. people can say i can get billed out again if i engage in irresponsible -- bailed out again if i engage in its irresponsible behavior. what do you think the american economy would do if we found ourselves in that situation? guest: i agree with the thrust of your point in terms of the bailout bill. i think without tough financial regulations preventing this from happening, all we have signaled to wall street, to the big banks is that they can be bailed out. and they will be bailed out if they get into trouble. that is an invitation to more risky behavior on their part if they can make a lot of money off other people's money.

i think is a very unstable situation and a dangerous situation. i worry that the near lobbying and financial and political contribution power of wall street is making it very difficult for congress to come up with the kinds of rules, tougher rules, the kind of laws with tough teeth that will prevent wall street from doing this again. i thought initially would be talking about the stimulus bill, which is something different from the bailout bill. the stimulus, $787 billion, most people who look at this closely, and i'm talking about economist that are not affiliated with either party and have not advised your party, have come to the conclusion that the stimulus has had a substantial impact in a positive direction in terms of creating jobs. it would be much worse off right now in the job situation if we did not have the stimulus. a lot of people like me worry

that when the stimulus is over, and also the federal reserve board has to start raising interest rates again, that there is not enough demand among consumers to keep the economy going and to keep us out of either a double-dip recession, or at least out of a very anemic recovery. host: treasury secretary timothy geithner of this morning's rights in the "washington post" what are your thoughts on that legislation? guest: i am one of the ones who -- maybe because i cannot sleep sometimes at night -- i actually read the legislation. it is very weak. i do not think the legislation goes nearly far enough. for example, it does not control all derivatives. it allows derivatives called credit default swaps and others that are specialized to escape

being regulated by any exchange whatsoever. that is a huge loophole. it is the kind of loophole that investment bankers can drive there flurries through. second, there is nothing -- drive their sports cars through. second, there is nothing in the credit rating agencies -- and that is the issue the credit rating agencies have because they are reading these and if -- raising these in the first place. and it puts the consumer protection agency in the fruit -- in the federal reserve board in a way that replicates the conservative bureau that the fed already has. it does not give enough powers over all. it does absolutely nothing about executive salaries or trader salaries, linking them to long-term performance by banks. there is still an incentive to do very short term shenanigans

to prop up your short-term pay. and that is what got us into trouble. the volcker wilrule that would separate some of the functions in investment and banking are very weak. the bills coming out of the house and the senate also give too much responsibility to the regulators in their despair -- and their discretion. when you do that, you are begging for the same problem that we just had because the regulators essentially sat back and did nothing. thereafter be requirements that under certain circumstances, regulators to x, y, and the. and finally, neither bill sets 11 to the size of the banks. if these -- sets a limit to the size of the banks. if these things get too big, they will be too big to fail. these big banks are likely to

get into trouble, several of them at the same time, because they're all using the same financial techniques. this is just what happened last time. if more than one gets in trouble, even though the resolution of 40 may be there, regulators -- resolution of 40 may be there, regulators and congress will be prone to -- even though the resolution authority may be there, regulators and congress may be prone to bail them out again because they will fear that the entire system is in danger of going under. my point is that no bank should be too big to fail or not to fail. and nobody has come up with any logic or analysis showing why banks over, let's say, $100 billion in assets should be allowed to exist. we have antitrust laws and have used them in this country to be sure that big entities to not get too big for the economy or for politics.

one of the original purposes of the sherman act of 89 he was to limit -- of 1890, was to limit the political affect, not just the economic impact. i think the bills that are coming up, the two financial reform bills, are far too weak. host: thank you. kevin on the democratic line in some -- in the louisville, ohio. caller: i have been traveling around the country and we cannot find any work. it seems like all of the big projects are put on hold and there is a big freeze on infrastructure. no one is letting loose of any money. i just cannot understand what is going on you know, why it takes so long to get these projects. a lot of projects are started and everybody pulls out. it seems like they do not want

to spend their money. host: are you unemployed then? caller: i have been unemployed for six months and i have traveled from new york to florida trying to find a job. host: are you collecting unemployment benefits? caller: i am, and it is rough. getting your salary set by -- i mean to ahman it is one-third. -- i mean, it is one-third. host: your thoughts on the prospect of getting a job, and if i could throw in there the "wall street journal" editorial this morning saying that extending unemployment benefits as an incentive not to work. he quotes larry summers in his book in 1999 that argued when you give folks unemployment benefits that it just means they stay unemployed logger. guest: let me take that and then i will get back to your point,

kevin, in a moment. unemployment benefits on average only pay 40% of the pre-earnings that people had before. there is very little evidence that unemployment benefits keep people from getting a job. most people who are out of a job desperately and -- want and need jobs. not far from where i'm sitting -- a hearing california, there was an employer who needed 4500 workers and 45,000 workers showed up to apply for those jobs. i hear the same thing all over the country. unemployment benefits are not keeping people from wanting work. there is no factual background or foundation for that. kevin, back to your question. you say you have a lot of infrastructure projects around the country that are not being fully funded. that may have to do with the fact that the big stimulus bill,

that $787 billion bill, that is funding infrastructure projects around the country. it is taking a long time to get the money through the system. every level of government wants to be absolutely sure -- and this is a good thing -- that there is no fraud, that the money is being spent wisely. nobody wants headlines in the newspaper saying that the government money was wasted. but the cost of that is that it is just taking longer for these projects to get going. a little bit more than half, as far as i can judge, of the stimulus money has been spent. the peak of the spending is over. the stimulus money will probably be all spent by the end of this year. my advice to you is to keep on looking, look in the private sector as well. i know there are few private sector jobs. i want to say one more thing about this because i tell this to a lot of people who have been unemployed for more than six months.

it is very hard for many of you to keep your spirits up. many of you blame yourself. many of you find it almost impossible to get up in the morning and keep on looking for jobs. i want you to know -- and i say this as the former labor secretary and someone who has studied the job situation very carefully and knows a lot of people who are unemployed -- a, is not your fault. b, jobs will come back. but they may not pay as well as the job you have lost, but is better than nothing. you may have to settle for that at least for a while, until you get some experience on the job. and c, hopefully unemployment benefits will be available for those of you who are for now uncertain about it. the house and senate have agreed on at least in one month extension, an additional extension of unemployment benefits.

hopefully, that's stop-gap measure will help a lot of you. host: charlotte, n.c., sandy, you are on the air. caller: it is a pleasure to speak with mr. reich. it amazes me how the republican voters are so misguided. i would like mr. reich to elaborate, please, on aprilthe republican agenda on the new world order, which i think has been planned to drive down the standard of living in this country to make us more competitive on a global basis. could you please answer -- which administration was the one that actually offereauthored nafta ae caftqa bill?

>> the after the election can of the clinton administration. it was difficult to convince a lot of -- the nafta bill actually came out of the clinton administration. it was difficult to convince a lot of americans that it was a good idea. it did not create all that many new jobs north or south of the border. it diwas worried over by people who thought it was going to be a job destroyer. most of the jobs that did leave the united states did not go to mexico. they went to china. and china was obviously not part of the north american free trade act. let me get back to your basic statement. i worry in this country about the polarization of all of us. one of my best friends is alan simpson, former republican senator from wyoming. he and i get together and talk

about how republicans and democrats rarely talk anymore. in washington, washington has become a much more polarized place than ever before. when i am on tock shoulders -- talk shows, very often pitted against the conservatives, the producer speaks into my ear and they say, we want you -- during station breaks they say, we want you to be angrier because that helps us sell products or gets people to stop surfing through the channels. when they see a very angry debate. we need to talk more with each other. republicans and democrats, most republicans feel and want to ultimately the same thing that ever one else wants, and all democrats won. we want good jobs, an economy -- and all democrats want. the one good jobs, an economy

that is working well. i can tell you that a man who is not in washington and nema lager, but keeps careful tabs -- any longer, but keeps careful tabs on washington, this polarization keeps things out of control and does not reflect our most people are in this country. host: and just to be clear, we do not have a producer in secretary reich's youear. we will move on, ron in las vegas. kollhofcaller: could morning ank you for c-span. my problem is tied to the economy, but a bit different. i'm a 29-year-old male and 12 years ago i was convicted of a felony when i was 18 years old.

basically, i have a lifelong barriers. i am receiving welfare right now and the taxpayers are paying for my rent. about a week ago i tried to get a job and young lady who was doing the hiring, she said i was really a good candidate. i told her about my felony and i did everything i can do in new york state law to get my records cleaned up. they offer you a certificate, but they do not give you an expansion. this ticket is a piece of paper called a certificate of release. she said she wanted to hire me. my application had to go through the administration. and they denied me. host: we will leave it there because we are running out of time.

talk about those seeking jobs, educated, non-educated. and it is callers situation, a felony record. -- and in at this collar's situation, a felony record. guest: i'm sorry that york state has a law that will not allow you -- new york state has a law that will not allow you to expunge your record after you have paid your debt and several years. it is very difficult for those who have paid their debt to society to actually get jobs. those records still blocked employment. but greta asked a moment ago about people generally getting jobs right now, if you are somebody who has not finished high school, your actual unemployment rate is about three times higher than someone who has finished four years of college. one thing the unemployment rate

heights -- it hides many things, but one thing it hides is an -- is implement is related to how much education you have. a college educated person who has for years of college, the official unemployment rate is only 5% -- that has four years of college, the official unemployment rate is only 5% rather than 9%. that does hide a lot of people who are underemployed or too discouraged to look for work. but nonetheless, there's this huge difference if you have graduated from high school, -- there is this huge difference. if you have graduated from high school, the unemployment rate is about 8.7%. if you have two years of college, it is slightly better than that. whatever level of education you have, your chances of being

unemployed are lower with the higher level of education and more education. i would therefore urge anyone out there who is having a hard time getting a job to seriously consider using this as an opportunity if you cannot find a job, to get some more education if you can possibly afford it. of course, that is the problem, because many people simply cannot afford it. my earpiece has disappeared. let me look for it. host: we will go to the next call while you look for it. on the democratic line, go ahead. caller: it is hard to believe that the economy is going badly when you see at all with that thousand dollar product and

people standing in line for it. they give the tax breaks and they exchange names after seven years are over. host: let's take your first, because we want to get some more voices in your before the end of the show. about apple and ipod, how can the economy be doing so badly when he said thousands of people are lining up to buy ipod and i phones? guest: the short answer is that people are able to -- if they have a job or even a part-time job, they're able to express some discretionary spending. not very much, a lot of people have to trim their sails and be very economical, but if there is a product that everyone wants to have, they will probably trim their sails and elsewhere in their budget in order to afford

it. let me just say this, one of the problems we have with this recovery, this so-called recovery, when we do find ourselves in recovery, one of the problems is that many people will not be able to use their homes as essentially cash machines the way they did between 2001 and 2007 carried during those years, as you recall, -- and 2007. during those years, as you recall, it was very easy for people to refinance their homes or get some kind of home loan based on their home being collateral. that created a lot of cash that people used to buy things with even the wages were not going up. these days, those homes can of the cash machines. also, many people are worried about keeping their jobs. you need two incomes in most families to pay the bills. and therefore, the chances that one of those two incomes is

either going to be jeopardized by a loss of jobs or a loss of ouhours at work, or attending fr of a loss of a job also is putting a crimp in people's spending. people do have to replace their cars. they have to replace their clothing after a while. other things, appliances breakdown. we're seeing a little bit of an uptick in spending, but not much. one final thing that may explain your ipod example, people who are in the top 10% of income earners, those people tend to have most of their assets in the stock market. people below them tend to have most of their assets tied into their homes. people who have most of their assets in the stock market have seen that the stock market -- a little bit of a stock market

improvement over the past three months has given them a feeling that they have more cash. it made them more willing to spend. but we cannot have a sustained recovery simply on the purchases of the top 10%. the middle class is still, for very understandable reasons, holding back from the malls. host: we have a twitter comment from a viewer who is winning in about unemployment benefits. we will go to philadelphia where carol is joining us on the independent line. caller: i'm enjoying listening to this morning, professor. i have a couple of questions i would like you to respond to. host: we are running out of time, so can you- caller: a brief overview of myself, two of my daughters have lost their jobs in the last few years. wherwhy is washington refusing o

recognize people who are trying to support families? host: we will have to leave it there. guest: washington's response to the problem that many people are having just keeping their homes, i do not think it has been adequate. there are reasons for the obama administration has held back from as much support for, let's say, bailing out homeowners as otherwise. it does not want to create a kind of encouragement of irresponsible behavior. it does not want to make people who have kept up their mortgage payments feel that they are johnsochumps and less advantaged relative to people who are getting help. but you are right, the combination of loss of jobs and at the same time having these very crippling mortgage

payments has made life very difficult for a large number of americans. most people are under water these days. they owe more on their homes than their homes are worth and they are getting behind on their payments. they are in trouble not because they took on too much home or too much borrowing, but because they have lost their jobs. they did not anticipate, as nobody did, that the job losses would be as deep as they have been over the past two years. washington has got to do a better job helping people who are in trouble with their mortgages and their homes or now. host: some people on our twitter page are wondering where you even need a and your peace. let me just let them know that you cannot hear the phone calls without it. with that, we will take one last want your guest: -- one last one. guest: yes, i'm not deaf.

i need it just so i hear you. host: sorry for the trouble. go ahead, caller. caller: my question is this, suppose in the beginning instead of the stimulus, they had just turned around and declared either a six months or a one- year income tax cut off. in other words, you would get your income tax in your paycheck instead of having it deducted ahead of time on your income tax. wouldn't this have done exactly what you were saying? keep up consumer demand because people would have more money in their pocket and everything else. and it would have gone directly to the consumers immediately so that it would not have been delayed. i will listen to you on the air. guest: that is a good question. about one-third of the stimulus

was tax cuts. business tax cuts primarily. but let me respond to your question about why personal tax cuts might not have had as big an impact as stimulus spending. the thinking is that people take their personal tax cuts and they very often pay off their own debts, which is fine. it is completely rational from the standpoint of individuals, but it will not get the spending bill in the create additional jobs. or they may take their tax cut and they may go to the mall and they spend money on various products that, really, are coming from china or from abroad, not stimulating jobs in the u.s. many economists think that the best way to stimulate jobs in the u.s. is to provide infrastructure projects, to provide help to state and local governments. in other words, to get money

into the system that will generate directly -- directly create jobs in the u.s., even if the second order, that is, people who get that pay then go to the local mall and buy something from china. nevertheless, there will be a multiplier effect that is still significant. i think that was the logic behind the decision to give most of this in terms of a stimulus in terms of either a state and local government aid and relief for infrastructure. host: one of our twitter comments now is -- do you agree with that? guest: i have always agreed with that. here's the problem. tax breaks to corporations assume that corporations need the tax breaks in order to create jobs.

but they will not create jobs until they know that there are people out there, consumers who are going to turn around and buy things. without enough consumer demand -- and this is the core of the problem right now. consumers are 70% of the u.s. economy. without enough consumer demand, companies will not invest in new jobs. they will keep the tax breaks. or they're going to amass a lot of money. this is exactly what has happened with big companies right now. they are sitting on a pile of money. they're not turning it into new jobs. they are either using it to expand operations abroad where there is demand for goods and services, or they are using it to buy other companies. we are seeing a bit of a boom in mergers and acquisitions right now. or they are using it to essentially buy back their own shares of stock as a way to boost their share prices artificially. but they will not and are not

going to use their cash, whether the cash is from tax breaks or any other source of cash, to create jobs until they know there are enough -- enough consumers there. that is that we have got to crack. that is the critical issue with regard to getting a vigorous recovery. host: robert reich is a professor of public policy at university of california berkeley.

welcome everyone to our event on iran's blogosphere and citizen engagement. i think we have a different kind of conference today. i'm a professor here at g.w. of media and public affairs and i'm also the director of the institute for public diplomacy and global communication which along with the broadcasting board of governors is hosting today's event. like i said we're doing things a little differently today. our goal is really to talk about the importance of engagement. means of engagement.

the importance of person to person contact even when foreign policy between two countries is difficult to say the least. and we'll be talking about new media, of course. and one of the things that we're going to do that's a little different today is we're going to have an online moderator who will be bringing in comments and questions that we've received through our conference web page and facebook page. and twitter feeds. and also some videos that have been sent in from everyone from a noted film director to iranian bloggers. g.w. students some of whom are here now. i mentioned that we're partnering with the broadcasting board of governors. again, for the institute. it's always been a wonderful partnership. and i want to get started right away so we can get to our keynoter. by introducing jeff from the broadcasting board of governors. jeff is the managing director of the washington, d.c.-based partners and is also a senior

advisor to ogilvy government relations. he has broad political and international experience. since 2002 he has been on the board since bbg. he's also the director of the u.s./russia business council. and he's also a board member of freedom house, a nongovernmental organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the worded. -- world. without future ado, jeff. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, sean, and i really appreciate the partnership with george washington university. and its institute to present this timely program to you. for those of you who may not know the broadcasting board of governors is a federal agency that supervises all nonmilitary u.s. international broadcasting. we broadcast in 60 languages to over 171 million people around the world. every week. each of our broadcasters, the voice of america, radio free europe, radio liberty, radio

sawa and radio free asia is deck indicated in the coded in u.s. law that provide reliable news and information, contributes to international peace and stability. the broadcasters of the bbg work on a daily basis to promote freedom and democracy through the vehicle of objective, fact-based journalism. we do so in iran through the voice of america's persian news network and radio free europe's radio liberty radio farta. they broadcast 24 hours a day in iran. bringing unbiased news to the iranian people. a lot of the information which they cannot get elsewhere nor can they get from their own indigenous media. according to independent research, nearly 30% of the iranian population watches paa

and radio farda found them as well. never have we found our work more challenging in iran. as i tried to figure out how to put this to you in language that everybody can understand and briefly, we matter. and the reason we and other u.s. -- other international broadcasters matter -- the reason we know that is because the iranian government spends so much time, effort and trouble trying to shut us down. and trying to close out our distribution routes. whether it's by jamming our broadcast. blacking internet. or blacking internet transmissions on the uplink or the down link. they do it all. they do it on a daily basis. we at the bbg are dedicated to fighting this. we have developed new technologies to defeat their jamming. and we know it's an ongoing struggle. and it's very difficult to do.

we have actively combating iranian jamming through web-based proximating service and circumvention blocking software. it ballooned 500% after the elections in 2009. we have developed the first persian language news app for android and iphones. it allows citizen journalists in iran to send videos and photos anonymously with the push of a button. we do so what president kennedy told the voice of america in 1962. that freedom of information is a fundamental human right. whenever oppressive governments attempt to control government information and there's a lot of those around the world today including iran, we work to get people the information they need to make competent decisions for

their lives and we will continue that mission if ever that is accomplished. with that i would like to introduce my colleague and friend, frank to introduce our keynote speaker. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, jeff. thank you, sean. and welcome to everyone here today. i'm frank. i'm the director of the school of media in public affairs here at the george washington university. and here at the school of media and public affairs we examine, study the intersection of media and politics, public diplomacy and nowhere is that exploration of that intersection more fascinating and more important than in iran. our keynoter today is best known as the author of the national bestseller "reading lolita in

tehran." it's a compassionate but harrowing portrait of the islamic revolution in iran and how it affected one university professor and her students. the book spent more than 115 weeks on the "new york times" bestseller list. not bad. it's been translated into 32 languages and it has won several literary awards. excuse me. including the 2004 nonfiction book of the year award from book sense. the frederick w.ness book award. and several others. reading lolita in iran has earned critical praise in tehran and literary distinction as it has built a enthusiastic readership. they have been captivated by the story and the characters framed in this alluring and confounding place. iran. the book is an incisive exploration of the transformative powers, that

truly transformative powers of fiction and a world of tyranny. she's a visiting professor and the executive director of cultural conversations at the foreign policy institute. of johns hopkins school of international students here in washington, d.c. where she's the professor of ethics and history. she teaches the relation between culture and politics and held a fellowship at the university. she's taught at the university of tehran. a free islamic university. before her return to the united states in 1997. she's earned respect. and international recognition for advocating on behalf of intellectuals, youth, and especially young women. in 1981 she was expelled from the university of tehran for

refusing to wear the mandatory islamic veil. and she did not return to teaching until 1991. she has written for the "times" the "wall street journal," our cover story the veiled threat of the iranian's revolution woman problem published in the new republic has been reprinted in several languages. she's currently working on a book entitled "republic of the imagination" which is about the power of liberation to empower the minds of people. she lives here in washington, d.c. at the conclusion of her keynote i will join her for a few moments and have an opportunity to explore what she said with her and to open it up to you for your questions from that mic in the middle of the room. so please, as she speaks, and as we speak, if you'd prepare your brief questions, we will get to you as well. so now it is my great pleasure to welcome to the george washington university and to all of you azar nafisi.

[applause] >> thank you so much. >> thank you so much. it's such a great pleasure to be here today. especially when all those wonderful institutions that are constantly reminding us how important the truth is. the academia george washington university and the board of governors and all these people on the panel. and i do think that truth is, in fact, the main issue.@@@@h&@ @

were not the images that were later taking over the internet and finally the media over here. the images that was given to us through his cartoons. the image of that amazing girl nadal, who has become the symbol of iran and iranian youth. and definitely you would not have -- nobody would have thought when they thought of iran of a group of young girls sitting in a room overlooking the snow capped mountains of tehran and reading lolita. when you think of each one of these images you would not think of iran. iran was defined at that time by wmds, by terror. and the first image that came to your mind -- because his image was all over the media here. from larry king to anderson cooper to charlie rose. everywhere you looked we had our

wonderful president, mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad with a shirk on his faisst as if he had broken the neighbor's window and gotten away with it. and by golly he had gotten away with it. he reminded me of a george clooney or brad pitt this fascination people had with mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad. the questions like how many kids do you have? do you love new york? how many kids are in your jails? how many are being raped as we speak? you know, those questions, of course. and it reminded me -- when i thought of that view -- because, you see, the whole idea is that you need to look at a nation, at an individual, at any -- at any -- at reality through diverse eyes. through different perspectives in order to come as close as you

can to one -- to the whole -- to the whole image. and in order to understand a country like iran, in order to understand a country like united states, you need to understand it. not just through the eyes of the governments. even when the governments -- even when the politicians are democratic. far worse when you live in a totalitarian society whose first act is to take away the group of voices. to reduce all voices. to just one image. and so the point here -- and what i celebrate now -- and in a meeting like this is that finally those voices and those images that had been forced underground for so many years have burst and blossomed. on the internet and on television screens. and when we talk of iran, we

know more talk one aspect of iran but iran as a country that is mysterious. and one of the most important debates and will be the answer to many of the very important problems that we are facing today. so whenever i think of mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad's perspective, i remember of an anecdote -- i mention it in my book but many people have later also mentioned it. it becomes sort of the metaphor for me about this whole idea of truth. and although it sounds very abstract, how important it is in our lives, not just personal but also political and cultural. and when we are here talking about iranian journalists and

bloggers and how we can connect to them, we understand how essential their role is in not just changing the iranian society and changing iran's role in the region and in the world but changing our perspectives about ourselves. because the way we look at others is a reflection of the way we look at ourselves. those people we think as our allies and our enemies defines who we are. and where we stand in the world today. and what we expect of the world today. well, the image that comes to my mind is the image of this guy who was the censor for iran in 1994. he was blind. he was nearly blind. so he would be sitting -- one famous director told me that he would be sitting there and somebody would be sitting beside him. and he would tell him things like now the girl is approaching

the boy, you know, cut. you know, so he couldn't see. but he could say how people should be acting. and after 1994, his job was changed. and he became the head of the new television channel in iran. the main censor for the new television channel in iran, channel 4. and his successor who was not blind -- i mean, not physically but metaphorically definitely blind. he used the same method that this censor used. he would have people give their scripts to him in tapes, tape-recorders, and he would listen to the scripts. they did not have to enact it dramatically. can you imagine to be a script writer and not present your script dramatically. he would listen to them and decide how people should act. and this metaphor of the blind

censor for film and television for me became a metaphor for all those totalitarian mindsets who, in fact, afraid of the diversity of voices, of the diversity of opinions, of the diversity of ideas -- they tried to impose their own image of reality upon -- in the case of the islamic republic of iran. upon a whole, you know, nation. and so when the islamic republic came -- took power and the blind censor a philosopher of kings came with it. the first targets that they found -- the very first targets were those who have symbolized this diversity. which was women, minorities, and those who worked in what we call culture. the academia, mr. mahmoud

ahmadinejad, recently claimed -- recently stated would regret. and that the iranian academia, since the beginning of last century, had remained -- had been secular and liberal. and, unfortunately, the islamic republic has been unable to do anything about it. so their first targets were, in fact, women who unlike what has been said had been fighting for their rights since mid-1800s. and that one of the first things that a totalitarian regime does -- in order to legitimatize what it is. in order to legitimatize its confiscates history. they want to impose their fundamentalist views upon a society. the first thing that they do is confiscate history.

the first thing they want to do, they confiscate and redefine what it means, for example, to be an american. or what it means to have a constitution. that is the first thing that they do. because history needs to justify what we do. what we were in the past will show us what we are now. and what we will be in the future. so they reduced that history of an ancient country. iran goes back to 3,000 years of history. it wasn't even islamic. islam came to iran in seventh century. but after the invasion of iran, that islam mixed and mingled with the past of iran. every country that is muslim is muslim in its own way. in the same way that every country that is christian is christian in its own way.

you have so many definitions. and yet all of those components of islam from shia to sunni to the mystical -- one of the most peaceful philosophies and ideologies that came against orthodox islam. and had its origins in iran, and mysticism -- all of these were lumped together. and, you know, and all of them were reduced to state, an official version of religion. because you noticed that, you know, this country is a christian majority. and yet we have so many different denominations where we talk about america being christian, are we talking about sarah palin's christianity? are we talking about obama's christianity? are we talking about reverend wright's christianity?

are we talking about reverend falwell's christianity? there are so many ways of interpreting religion. but once religion becomes the state -- let's say from tomorrow, we say we're a christian nation and ms. palin's christianity is what we will all do, then religion itself is confiscated. and yet when you said that, people both in power in iran and those apologists for them here would call you western. you know, to say that religion should be diverse was an insult to islam. now, iranian women, iranian men, iranian clerics from the beginning of the last century -- from late 19th century had been fighting against an absolutist

monarchy and against an absolutist religion. and they were the first in the region -- iran was the first in the region to have a constitutional revolution. the same forces that you see in the streets of tehran today are the great, great, great children -- great grandchildren and grandchildren of those forces who came out into the streets of tehran and other places in iran 100 years ago. and created the constitutional revolution, which was the first revolution to create modern and open institutions. and the iranian women who are called western because they say that they need to have a choice -- they have been fighting for their rights for over 100 years. their rights was not something that a shah could give them. so that an ayatollah could take away. they had been -- they had been fighting. they had been beaten.

they had been exiled. morgan schuster in 1912 wrote about iran. he lived in iran. and he wrote about iran. how iranian -- i talk about it in my second book in "things i have been silent about." iranian women in the course of a few years have made leaps of centuries. and they have -- they are far ahead of their sisters in the west. so what i'm trying to say in this very short time is that what your facing here is not a regime that is defending religion. that is defending tradition. that is defending culture. that all totalitarian systems come in the name of half-truths. and all totalitarian system takes something from the society, some aspect of society and then extend it to the society as a whole.

and when we talk about -- and, you know, one of the things -- this is a good time because when we talk about iran, we also have to learn about america. right? this is a dialog. and in dialog, it's not ever a one-way street. really what amazed me was that over the 18 years that i lived in the islamic republic, i had some of the most amazing experiences in terms of the flourishing and the need and the thirst and the hunger to connect to the world. and to connect through the best the world had to offer, it's ideas, it's philosophies, it's novels, it's poetry, its music. we had some of the most -- you know, i remember once i gave a talk. there was almost a riot. you know, people -- when they came to watch the movies by the

avant-garde by a russian filmmaker, it seemed as if they were going to a concert by michael jackson. you know, so the whole idea was that there was this thirst for culture. and yet i come here -- and, you know, and also, for example, about the issue of the veil. there was far more freedom among ourselves to debate the issue. and i want to mention this here because it's very important to understand that the issue of the veil is not about religion. it is not about whether the veil is good or bad. when i refused to wear the veil, it was because i thought that no state, no authority has the right to tell its citizens whether to worship god or not and in what way to worship god. that it was dependent upon the citizens to decide that for themselves. and my grandmother, who never took off her veil, had the same idea as i did.

and she would cry and tell us that this is not the real islam because they do not flog people. and they do not put young women in jail. and give them virginity tests. they do not insult god's children in this way. if they are true muslims. so i want you to understand that this society is very traumatized because not only its history, not only its culture. not only its reality. but also in the name of its religion something has been taken away from it. that for the past 30 years it is trying to retrieve. so the whole idea then was when i came here. and in a society where i'm free to write, when i'm free to talk, when i'm free to criticize, i realize that the same reduced images, the same mutilated

images that existed there are now dominating here. and when you talk to people about, you know, the right of choice, about iranian women, they look at you oh, but you're western. oh, it's their culture. and some people from the right and some people from the right -- from the left -- the people on the right say it's their culture. so let's attack them. they're terrible people. people on the left -- it's their culture. let the natives do whatever they want to do. now, the whole point is that what did they attribute to our culture? when the islamic republic came to power, iran had some of the most progressive laws on women. we had two women ministers. one minister for women's affairs. my own mother was one of the first women who went to the iranian parliament in 1963. switzerland didn't get its right to vote for women until 1974. we had women in the industry.

we had women pilots. we had women judges. the nobel laureate was the first circuit judge because they said women are too weak to be able to judge. and for women like her, that did not take away their motivation. they came back into public and became defenders for women's rights and human rights. this is the kind of women that we have in that society. but the first thing that the government did before having a new parliament or a new constitution was to repeal the family protection law which protected women at home and at work. they reduced the age of marriage from 18 to 9 for females after women fighting for almost 20-something years they finally raised it to 13. but still the judge can give its

consent for the father to marry a girl under the age of 13. how critical for a culture who would put a man in jail if they have sex with a 13-year-old girl to tell me that this is my culture. or something that had never existed in the history of iran, which is stoning people to death for prostitution. what they call prostitution and adultery. if that is my culture, then slavery is the culture of this country. and not abraham lincoln. and frederick douglass and flanary o'connor and william faulkner and mark twain. if this is my culture, then inquisition, fascism and communism is the culture of europe. fascism and communism came from the heart of civilized europe. they didn't come from the muslim

world. they didn't come from the east. that is their culture. not dante, st. thomas aquinas, jane austen, shakespeare and others. every culture has something to be ashamed of. there are no innocents in this world. not a single innocent nation. but what makes a culture great is its ability to see the points that are terrible about itself, shame, genuine shame. not the kind of shames that politicians -- nowadays they don't even apologize for the shameful things they do. not the kind of things that the politicians do, oh, we are so ashamed. oh, we feel your pain. no, not that kind. real shame, which leads you to change.

real shame which created the abolitionist movement in this country. when i left this country in the 1970s, obama and mr. lieberman -- none of them maybe could have gone into many institutions in this country still. hillary clinton as president, hillary clinton -- women like gloria steinam and betty friedman were made browbeating as women at home. it's the fact that within the past 30 years, in the past 100 and something years from there it has come to here. so that we now not only have a barack obama who is the president but a barack hussein obama who will remind many husseins in this country that they do not have to become terrorists. that they can become, in fact, presidents.

and if barack hussein obama who chooses to become christian and keep the name hussein so now maybe a hillary or a bill will become jewish or bahari or maybe a hussein or ali will become christian or jewish or atheists for heaven's sake. i mean, i just want to actually go through the conclusion about the bloggers because i think the most important thing. but what i was trying to show was that if you are talking about truth, whether it's about iran or china or darfur, you cannot go to those people who fabricate the truth in order to gain power. for truth you have to go to history. you have to go to culture. you have to remember that this iran sees its identity in its

greatest poets that iranians know further see or by heart even when they're illiterate. that's 750 years ago. a poet whose book is in every iranian house said -- talked about hypocritical clerics who drink wine in private. and flog people in public. you have an agnostic astrollger every time you pass my grave you douse a glass of wine to remember my life. wine in mystical iran poetry is a symbol of communion with god. these culture we call muslim, they are sensual and erotic and colorful. life, liberty and pursuit of

happiness is not an american thing. the woman in afghanistan who has been shot to death, the woman in iran who is being raped in jails, the woman in saudi arabia who is being flogged for the way she looks. the woman in darfur who is being -- whose children are killed in front of her and is being raped, they also want to be happy ...

>> is that truth is always, always, you don't need to be political. and i want you to know the reason that the movement in iran will be successful is because it is not merely political. i know that is wrong to say this in washington, d.c., but that is why washington has been getting iran so wrong for so long. because there's, like south africa, and like eastern europe, is a movement that is fighting for something far more important than politics. it is an existential movement. for 30 years, iranian women have been fighting against these laws, through educators, the 1 million signature campaign, and there is a book out now in

english, where it is the history of 1 million signatures campaign that the iranian women created so that they -- against the repressive laws. they chose, the first line of light iranians are important for us, is iran is not going where the regime is going. if you want to fight a totalitarian system, you cannot be totalitarian yourself. military attacks, insults to the regime, just call for its overthrow, this is not what the aim of this movement is. the aim of this movement, it has learned its lesson, is not just a mere change in regime, but a change in mind. which is far more difficult. and a change in mindset means that the ends does not justify

every single mean that you can use. that the means you use will become the sum total of the end your and the iranian, the reason it will teach us a great deal about ourselves, about the region and about the world is that it has chosen to use democratic means in order to change a nondemocratic system. they have the guns. they have the jails. what do we have? that is the point. for iranian women use the wondering signature campaign to educate women both within the country and without. and they showed to women across the board that whether you're an orthodox muslim woman, or whether you are an agnostic

modern, you know, very open woman, these laws are against you. the laws that do not give you custody of the child, the laws that marry you while your father's wish at such an age, the laws that do not allow you to become judges. these laws are against all of us, and in the streets of tehran in june, and later on, you saw women. you saw they had to wear the veil. but you will see the differences. you saw young and old, male and females, asking for freedom, asking for their openness. this is the strategy, to educate and to default against the guns. because if the struggle is political, you know how in politics is always compromised. it's always compromise, but you

need to have other areas in the society where you can use other methods. this is what a democracy is. you have politics. europe literature. at humanities. we -- the writers, the journalists, the artists, we can become the conscience of society. and what we do then is to use the truth as a weapon. that is what is happening right now in iran. and the bloggers in iran, the first panel can talk much more than i can about this, but notice that if they flog women for showing their hair, if they put bloggers in jail and tortured them, if journalists are jailed for just simply telling the truth or showing a

cartoon, that shows how vulnerable the regime is, how afraid they are. because women, the bloggers weapons of mass destruction is what they write and is a bit of hair that the show, you know, and so i am very much on time, @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my they have taken responsibility for their lives, and they have refused to be victims. so what you need to do is to support their voices, and to add your voice to them, and to communicate to them via radio

liberty need to create a conversation with the iranian people. they are now in jail for reading and chronicles, education, people were trying to prevent a revolution because they were reading, for heavens sake. how many of my students know that? they are taking the best that the west has. your best weapon is not your military. your best weapon is the culture. and they are taking that culture, they are putting on their websites and they are reminding us in america that today in this terrible crisis the crisis is not financial. it is a crisis of vision and it is a crisis of the united nations, and iran is here to remind you that the root against the blind, here in america or their in iran, is through a

conversation that is based on imagination and on thought. thank you so much. [applause] >> thank you very much. it was fascinating. a great privilege and pleasure to have you here. on campus, and your metaphor of the blind censor is killing, really. but i'd like to ask you this question because much of the world, shortly here in the west, we have so much about the part of iran. we hear about ahmadinejad. we hear about the nuclear program. we don't hear much about what you refer to as a trauma tide society. what do you think is the cultural dynamic at this moment in iran? and as you formulate your entry, i will invite those of you who may have questions to move to the microphones the weekend get our response here in a few bits we have before move on to the

next item. >> you know, we do have to, i'll say that we have to thank the islam republic for so many things. to show me just the divine details of life, like the sun in my hair is very important that one of the things that the revolution debt, which was very important, was it forced us, not just question the world or not just question the regime, but to question ourselves. and that became part of the culture that had sort of question itself. for example, when they would talk about women, the way women should be or the way muslim women are or the way iranian women are, we ask ourselves is this true? so we have to go to history, to read the history to find out the truth. and as we found out the truth, we changed. and the same was true of the world. we were deprived of connection

to the world so we had, many of my muslim students who were in top positions at the university, they would come to the class full of prejudices. why are we reading withering heights? it's all about adultery. they would leave our classes full of curiosity, wanting to know the world. >> you mention bloggers. you mentioned the role of the voice of america, and various other broadcasts that have come in, in search of the truth, how does an iranian citizen today obtaining the truth about the world? >> part of it now is through the internet. that is how they do. of course, there are -- there is always access it. one of the amazing things in iran as in many took out 10 societies is that many, the guardians of revolution who defended this revolution at the

beginning, through contact, with the world and with what is happening, changed. and so there are always rogue elements within the regime, within the ministry of guidance that open the road that lets you publish a rogue book which then becomes censored. but mainly now i think it is through the internet. during my time we had a one-sided relationship with satellite dishes where we got our information year and, of course, bbc and all the others also provide information. >> let's go to your questions. >> dr. nafisi i was just listening to your comments here about faith. i'm just went if you think that iran can successfully democratize itself and reclaim that cultural identity? and remained and islamic republic. >> well, i think the title

islamic republic is a contradiction in terms. it's like the german republic, the communist. the republic supposedly is based on a democracy, where they would be many ideas. i don't think that it can remain and islam republic, and at the same time have that. first of all, religion used as an ideology does not represent the whole of the iranian people. we have muslims with many different ideas. we have jews, we have christian, we have others. and all their interests should be represented properly. many of the former revolutionaries, now are talking about the secular open society.

>> does that have traction as they talk about a secular open society? >> it does have a great deal of attention that the other panels will talk about it, but that is what iran is so exciting because you know they are really finding what democracy is, you know. and destroying the myth about democracy is simply western thing. there were debates when i lived in iran, and i left iran and 97, there was a magazine where they brought in first all these debates. >> can you talk a bit about the psychological aspects of the nuclear program? why iran brandishes this program beyond whether it wants weapons or not, and particularly what ahmadinejad is so obsessed with the nuclear program. >> well, i think you'd be able

to answer that much better. this is barber, and just much more information than i do on this topic. i don't know. i think -- first of all, i think that mr. ahmadinejad, whatever he is doing is not out of strength but out of frustration them both domestically and internationally. and he takes these things as hostage, that if iran, like with the american tourists that they now have. you take on says agitate people hostage. and they think they can intimidate the west once they have the nuclear weapon. by, you know, sort of move to their side, or do as they want to. i think it is a very dangerous game they are playing, and it definitely does not even have support inside iran.

but really, you should talk about that. >> she has, actually. >> i mean here. >> yes. i would actually like to follow-up on that though because there is a lot of projection, and this will be our last question because i think we need to move onto the next part of the program. there's a lot of fear and get onto the iranian nuclear program. what role does that play, in your view, and this sort of national pride and national psychology of the country? >> well, you know, actually answer that with a question, this question that i asked a friend of mine who is a wonderful person. she is a lawyer in iran that and i told her about it. she said why do you people live over there think that people like us wake up in the morning and their first worry is we need to have a nuclear weapon? she says i'm worried about much of not having a job. i'm worried about the future of even the house that i live in. the pollution is already killing

us over here. so what she was saying is that that is not uppermost in the minds of most of us. and the second thing with national pride, i think every country, i mean, americans sometimes very crude talk about national pride, you know. so every country has their own national pride. but why do you think that iranians would be more proud of having nuclear weapons then being represented as a civilized country whose representative is not mr. ahmadinejad? why do you think they will feel less ashamed of having someone who comes here and denies holocaust and says we have no gays and we have the best system in the world, and whatever he says, embarrassing every mode. that does not embarrass us, but having, not having nuclear weapons embarrass us? iranian's national pride is this amazing history.

it is their poet, it's there philosophers. your national pride is mark twain and frederick douglass. our national pride is other. i don't accept that as national pride. >> thank you very much for your comments and for your thoughts. >> thank you. [applause] >> we're going to move into our first panel, and i'd like to introduce ivan buglers created a phenomenon to introduce himself and upheld. thank you very much. [applause] >> hello. good morning. i'm going to be moderate the first panel. and this discussion will be the new media landscape in iran. we're going to discuss and interrogate the ideas of who

exactly is online in iran and how they get information, how they participate online and how they discuss, and envision and write their own lives. so we have a distinguished and group of commentators this morning, and i think we will go and get them on stage as quickly as again because we have a limited amount of time. so i'll introduce them and they what they will come up and will begin our conversation. so mohamed abdel dayem is the middle east and north africa program coordinator for the committee to protect journalists are prior to joining cpj, he was a research at the coalition and the national endowment for democracy, and also before that he was analyst for five years.

hida fouladvand is the executive editor of the persian news service. prior to joining the oa she was at cnn international at the u.s. affairs desk for many years, and also worked in a american journalism for many years covering everything from hurricane katrina to u.s. domestic politics. and next we have nick kosar. nick is best known for depegging iran's most powerful clerics and politicians in his cartoons. and he is a member of the "new york times" syndicate of cartoonist and has worked for many international news and information networks. sorry, i'm a little bit nervous.

we're going to get on with their conversation very quickly, and then we will have a conversation amongst all of us. and you. >> so we're going to begin today with mohammed and he's going to discuss the media landscape in iran and particularly with the focus on how iranian bloggers and how they engaged in the professional media space. >> thanks, ivan. i want to start out by discussing a point that i'm sure all of you have considered at one point and another, and that's really the divide between professional journalists and bloggers, and where does that line really lie. and i think in iran that line is

lower your than it is in many other places. and this is a result of multiple factors in iran. in the late 1990s that iranians government shutdown upward of 100 publications in a matter of four or five years. as a result of that, and a lot of journalists really migrated online in the late '90s and opening years of the 2000. hundreds, thousands of journalists really and you see those professional journalists alongside regular students, doctors and engineers, and nurses, and all kinds@@@@@@@ @ cyberspace, as it were. iran, not just iran, but really all the countries of the middle east region have had an explosion in internet

penetration. between the years 2000-2008 was a 13 fold increase in number of people who are online and so not only are the number of people writing online on blogs and elsewhere, mushrooming, but also the number of people who have access to this material is growing at a similar speed. so we have an iranian blogosphere that is roughly consistent roughly 70,000 active blogs that by that i mean blogs are basically of blood at least once a week, if not more regularly. and that's only a fraction of the entire log is your. the entire blogosphere is as made between 70,001,000,000 blogs that just to compare this, the arabic language blogosphere is roughly half of that, about 35,000 blogs, and when you consider the population of iran, a little below 70 million the population of the arab world is around 350 to 360 million, it really gives you an idea as to

how active the iranian blogosphere is. iran is also unfortunate at the forefront of online impression. when you compare to other governments in the region, and it really is a combination of old school tactics as well as new ones come and they do this in the legal realm but they also do it on a technological level. so for instance, when a blogger in iran right something that offends authorities for any number of reasons, they have a whole host of options as to how to neutralize this individual. so legally speaking, they could prosecute this person under penal code that they could prosecute them under pressel or prosecute them under the newly promulgated cyber criminal penal code, cybercrime penal code. and the provisions of all very vaguely defined and can essentially be altered to really go after any blogger that

anchors the authority. in 2004, the initial wave of arrests of bloggers that took place in early 2004, authorities in a matter of a couple of weeks arrested almost 30 bloggers. and i want to make it specifically one thing that was said to one of the leading bloggers in iran at the time, he was arrested, interrogated quite roughly and, in fact, tortured. and he was basically told by his interrogators that there's too many of you, there are thousands of you and every day there are more and more of you. and we can bring all of you in your. we can't interrogate every single one of you, but we can make examples of the people that we bring in here. . .

>> we will those who discuss the perspective on where people receive information in iran. and also -- >> good morning. i'm here from voice of america's persian service and i'm here to talk about how important

international broadcasting is to iran. voice of america started in 1942 as you may or may not know. and it's been broadcasting to iran since 1942 in intervals. however, after the 1979 revolution, they have been going nonstop. this past year in 2009, it became quite evident how important media is to the iranian people. a lot of people underestimate where the iranians can get their information. the blogosphere, television, radio, the internet -- everything was very easy to prove that when the iranians want to pursue information they have raise to do it. this year voice of america the 2 million people on their websites.

it was one of the most popular websites for the service itself. i bring this up for many reasons. voice of america, you know, was known to be of an audience of an older demographic. and nowadays 70% of the demographic right now is about 30 and under. and we have tapped into that in so many different ways by adapting that into facebook pages, youtube channels, twitter pages and other -- several other social media websites. you know, i grew up in iran between iran and washington, d.c. and it's really important when people want to get their information, they have many ways to do it. in the early '90s they would have satellites all upon their roofs just to get the different channels that they would get from turk sat, arab sat what have you. voice of america and other international broadcasters have tapped upon these different ways

to put, you know, funnel in information into the country and let the people decide on the information that they can't get within their own state media that's happening. so it's very extremely important to understand that international broadcasting to the region primarily to iran and other countries in the area is extremely vital to put the information out there that they cannot get anywhere else from their own country. and have them make their own decisions upon the things that are happening. i'm a firm -- we are all a really firm believer of giving voice to the voiceless. and to putting out all the information and having people decide. so i cannot underscore enough how important it is in this day and age in journalism. and in broadcasting that you have to be very multiplatformed. know how to reach your audience. know who your audience is. and how to give them all the information that's out there. so i'll be more than happy to take on more questions as warranted. >> i think we should -- we

should have brief statements from everybody before we go into a conversation. so nik, please. >> i just wanted to say -- add a few things. but later after i show my cartoons. so if the cartoons are ready to show, i'll talk about them. this is about the fate of iranian reporters and citizen journalists all together. many have had to leave the country after the election. in june, 2009. and many of them are in turkey, france, iraq and other places in need of help. and why am i bringing this up? one important thing is that many iranian journalists turn into citizen journalists. what you were mentioning was a reporter who also used to blog. so many iranian citizen journalists are actually journalist/citizen journalists.

it might sound weird. as ms. nafisi was talking about, we transform islam in our own way. we transform the mongolian army to an other -- what's the name, being. so we also transform citizen journalism into something else. that's our art. and the second one, please. yes. this is about iranian journalists in total. they bear their own cross. and we know we will be crucified in the future but we love it. we love it. the next one, please. i call this the sound of silence. of course, not from the movie "the graduate" but in another way. many people can't hear the sound of journalists. they hear about mahmoud ahmadinejad. they shouts a lot. he talks about lot. he shouts a lot.

he causes this many that many in the media cannot hear the voices of the journalists. next country please. this is the balance we have actually experienced in iran. because we know if we do something wrong as imprison journalists, we will fall from the cliff. the next one, please. this is what the government and the judiciary actually expect from us in iran. so just to be quiet and publish whatever the government asks us to publish. next one, please. if you're a thinker, you're a stinker in iran. so they would actually terrorize your thoughts but yourself as well. next one, please. this is how we've coped with censorship. we can't live you without each other. as ms. nafisi was talking about the blind censor -- no, we have

censors better than governor paterson. spitzer, i don't know why. this is what happens to iranian journalists who are actually imprisoned for a while. even after getting out of their prison -- after getting out of prison, their pen is imprisoned. next one, please. we're talking about how internets can help us. but when even google is blocked, it was blocked for a day or two through many internet service providers known as isps in iran. and it was very difficult for people to use other search engines. google is addictive. but this showed the problem. next one, please. we talk about balance. in iran many of my colleagues know that being impartial is very hard. usually journalists take sides.

they are members of actually parties. it's funny. that they have to promote whatever the party leader is saying. so during an election when you're walking along the ballot box, you just have to keep your balancing this way. sorry for my language. [laughter] >> this is how mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad claimed to actually win 62.6% of the votes but nobody could actually vet it. and the journalists actually had a lot of questions. but whoever questioned the authority was imprisoned or had to get out of the country. so he's just showing the percentage, nothing else. next cartoon, please. [laughter] >> this is about citizen journalists. actually many iranian journalists turn into citizen journalists. and because of their names and

their fame, many other people who were interested got involved and became citizen journalists themselves so they use whatever tools they could find like cell phones to actually record what was happening. so if 20 years ago in the tiananmen square people were able to use cell phones, they could have sent this. smile, you're on youtube. next one, please. years ago i drew a crocodile that caused a lot of trouble for me. i went to prison for it. because the name remind with the name of a powerful cleric. but i usually use the crocodile to symbolize the iranian conservatives. oh, the elephant stands for -- okay. something like that. but he was first the judge of the press corps then the chief prosecutor of tehran. and when they had to get rid. -- of him they got rid of him actually. they cut him off.

if there's too much pressure through the blogosphere and through youtube and although all readers coming out and people around the world would know what's happening, the conservatives have to bow. and they do it. next one, please. talking politics, i brought this up to have some fun. you remember mr. mahmoud ahmadinejad said that we don't have homosexuals in iran. when i drew this this was another conception. he's having this tango with mr. chavez. i don't know somewhere around tehran. and they're having a lot of fun. he would deny this, any connections but it's happening. next one, please. [laughter] >> do you remember mr. obama said if our opponents unclenched their fists we would stretch out our hands and shake hands with them. okay. shaking hand with the devil with his hand is actually bloody wouldn't be that clean and clear.

so i think somebody has to bring a wipeout after mr. obama who was shaking hands with him and stepping on the green members. this is iran and iranian journalism and somehow citizen journalism. thank you very much. [applause] >> so mohammed, if -- as moussaoui said every citizen in iran is potentially a journalist, how does -- how does that kind of behavior -- and you state -- you quoted some numbers, upwards of a million '1n#n @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @#

and maybe also you could comment on that as well. >> as the iranian government took a number of actions -- i would say over the last 10 to 15 years they have really pushed sort of traditional journalists and many regular citizens into this arena. and people have made the most out of the new technology and the tools that are provided to them. and so there is a lot of linking. there is a lot of exchange between the iranian blogosphere and the arab blogosphere. and the iranian blogosphere and the western european and the western blogospheres. the bloggers read the "new york times." they read some of the arabic newspapers and they link to them and they write their own stories about those stories. so i think the cross-pollination exists. and it's all over the place.

and all you got to do is go to virtually any iranian blog to see that taking place on a daily basis. in many ways the iranian government has done itself a disservice by narrowing the options so much that people were forced to migrate to a new medium all together. and they're reaping that as we speak. >> you know, 70% like we said the demographic is under 35 or 30. and everybody saw that they actually have a stake in this whole movement. primarily the movement was made up of a lot of women. and a lot of young folks. who were all technically savvy. so everybody with a cell phone, with internet access could find a way to put their voices heard. we know internationally that all the broadcasters from all the different venues were trying their way to get into iran and they couldn't prior to the election.

and regardless right outside people were watching the social media websites like twitter, which became hugely on the map after that. so much so that the chinese apparently were learning from the movement that the iranians did. so everybody realize they have a stake in this. if they are going to make a change they literally have to take out their cell phone just like your brilliant cartoons show and put it out hey, you're on youtube now. how are you going to censor this. so i feel like -- everybody realize that if they want to make a change, they have to do something about it. and now they have the tools. and that older generation of folks didn't. which makes it all the difference. >> if i may, let's go to a blog -- blogger. he was in jail in 2005. and he recently is calling for a campaign on other bloggers to write about the prisoners who

are lesser known. this is his web blog. and he's calling it like a game, like a bloggers game. and he's calling on his other bloggers to write about these people who are still in jail. and nobody knows about them. and he himself has been writing about the fictional prisoner who can be called hassan ali who's sitting somewhere in a prison in iran and nobody knows about this. and this just shows how bloggers are using this new media. and the point you mentioned about this movement, each citizen is a media. and this is what they're doing. they're publicizing the cases of prisoners who know one knows about them. you don't read about these people in the "new york times" or "the washington post." even in the media in iran which is under the control of the government. but these bloggers are launching this campaign. it's very powerful, i think. >> so is technology a silver bullet? >> not exactly. >> what is it?

how does -- >> a rusty silver bullet. >> how does the technology interact with political movements and reform movements in fact? how should we think about that relationship? >> actually, it helps. but let's say the government cuts off internet connection in city a or city b or decreases -- what's the name the volve, how can people reach out through facebook or twitter or other websites? so there should be a combination of traditional networking and modern networking. so if we combine these together, how did the networking work in the 1979 revolution in iran? did people have internet? no. did everybody have a cell phone? actually, a majority didn't have phones. but it worked. >> they had cassette tapes. >> that's right.

that's right. >> faxes. >> you have to use whatever you can. iranians are very good and sophisticated in that. >> not a silver bullet at all. i mean, i think it is merely the latest innovation that is being used by activists and citizen journalists. and it's being used by the government. the iranian regime is very sophisticated in its filtering and its blocking. they are perhaps only really second to china in the way they filter and the way they block. for example, it's the only government in the middle east region that is -- that has -- that is developing its own soft and hardware to filter and block. and journalists -- citizen journalists are sitting in prison a printout of their chats and their surfing history and all this stuff is thrown in narrow face -- their face and

they're told to admit to everything they have done and haven't done. it's not a silver bullet. it's more like a cat and mouse game. the technology is available to the bloggers. the technology is available to the government. and there is no ultimate winner as it were. it's a catch-up game. incidentally it's the governments that is that are most repressive where you see bloggers and citizen journalists of the highest of technological sophistication. whether it's syria or iran or saudi arabia. those bloggers are far more proficient at circumventing those kinds of restrictions when you compare them to a place like morocco, for instance, where the government isn't as severe in its approach to freedom of expression online. >> if i may, you mention how the iranian government is using the internet by filtering websites. but that's not all they're doing. they're doing more.

there's an example of former vice president who was jailed in iran. and who actually updated his blog from prison. it was a very clumsy attempt by authorities to show how prisoners are well-treated in prison and nobody believed them. but still it was very awkward. and if you could click on the -- yeah, this is his blog from prison with his picture. saying how nice time he's having. and very nice talks with his interrogators who allow him to use his laptop. and how everything is rosy. he's out now. >> one thing iranian bloggers and a group of hackers actually hacked his web blog for a while just to stop the government's propaganda. >> you know, it goes both ways. i mean, it's not a silver bullet. it's definitely a tool. but it also goes both ways. the same tools that we have, the government has. so, you know, you have the iranian cyber-army which went in and crashed all these websites and say you've been hacked by, you know, the cyber-army.

so it definitely goes both ways. and one thing some folks shouldn't undermine the power of mouth-to-mouth. you know, giving news to each other that way. i know a lot of times when different signals will get jammed in iran, we would go take the steps of putting on five different satellites trying different ways to get around it. but even the folks in iran would actually -- those who would get access would put pressure programs onto cds and dvds and sell them on the streets to pass on the information just like in the 1979 revolution. you know, pamphlet-passing cassette-passing. it's a tool but it's not the only tool. it goes back to the whole thing of being multipurpose amongst all platforms. and know how to utilize it effectively. and to get your message across. >> so what's next for the iranian citizen media community? we've seen this incredible

movement. we've seen a recognition that's occurred around the world before its effects. about the potential for it? about what does that mean for the future of iran? what does it mean for the future of iranian public space? what are we going to see in the future with this kind of -- this kind of dynamic? >> well, i think it's more of the same. i think the only difference is that the journalists and the ma mouse as it were the government, the cat will continue to play the same game. they will do it with more skill and with higher sophistication. both technological and also i think there will be an increase in volume. the number of blogs that cover political unrest and the jailing of other journalists and other bloggers have skyrocketed since the june elections. so i think there's an upshot in

volume. but there's also an increase in sophistication by essentially both sides of the equation. but the dynamic is still the same one. people are trying to speak freely. and the government is trying to suppress that speech. and the fact that this has gone on for as long as it has really from the late '90s onward is proof that this is -- this is a long war. and these are merely battles in this war. i think the government and occasionally bloggers themselves have declared victory prematurely on both sides. there is no victory today or tomorrow or the next month. this is a long war. >> if i may, this cat and mouse thing -- sometimes even if the mouse is faster, the mouse might catch the cat. by its tail. so i think if we empower the mouse, this can happen. of course, i'm not talking about the wireless mouse or whatever.

but by creating citizen journalism platforms for volunteer we're, what we actually experienced in the past few months -- we started this platform called self-writing platform. and we have about 2,000 members. and most of them are from iran. and they're trying to give -- they have a voice right now. but they're trying to give choice to the choiceless. it's not just about voice to the voiceless. so they're talking. and they're questioning the authority. even questioning the leaders of the green movement. asking them questions. what were you doing in the 1980s? when people were being killed or tortured. so this is important. and we have to change the mindset as ms. nafisi said. if well-known bloggers can do it, others who are interested can get involved and continue. >> you know, another angle to look at is the mediums have

provided a sense of anonymity. people have gotten more courageous about putting their stories out. before, there was a worry about being persecuted and being caught. since the volume has gone so much higher, people are more apt. they've become more courageous. and wanting to have a stake in this movement. you know, even as long as i remember when i was in iran, you know, just like ms. nafisi would tell us, there was some banned books. we couldn't read certain books in school. and i could never understand that given that i grew up in the states. how could you not read a great piece of literature? it would be passed on from different people from folks to folks or poetry even for that matter. so this sort of has changed into another level now. where people are now becoming more open about sharing their thoughts about what they experienced. if they've been detained. if they have not. what they think of it. whether it's pro or against. i mean, it goes both ways. you might find folks, no i'm happy just the way i am.

it's hard to believe but they might exist there. now there is a medium now for them to actually put it out there. whether it is anonymously, whether it's not. what have you. but they now have the tools to actually speak out. and the fear factor of it has gone much less. >> i think we have time for a few questions from the audience. so if you'd like to speak, please come up to the mic. >> hi. i'm miriam. i'm part of a growing group of iranian-americans or iranians in the diaspora who are pushing hard for the u.s. government to break iran's firewall. the u.s. government has among its means the technologies that can do this, free gate tour and other antifiltering.

but the server capacity is limited. so the number of people being able to access the internet freely is very low compared to what it was just after the irania which was not very high then. so we're trying very hard then to get the obama administration to release funds that the u.s. codge has already appropriated to the state department for this use. we are encountering a lot resistance. we have a lot of allies in the u.s. congress. senator brownback is a big supporter. i would like to ask your opinions on the panel. what can the u.s. do to safely, securely help internet freedom in iran. promote internet freedom in iran and why do you think it isn't doing it so far? >> before we go to the panel, i think we have a quick -- >> no, we have a video from a

blogger which is on the same topic. he is a blogger. he was one of the few, the first blogger to blog from c-span from one of the most -- provinces in iran. now he is based in london and he talks about the same topic. if we could have that video. >> hello, i'm iranian blogger from london. citizen media and blogging have many problems in iran. but important problem are filtering sanctioned by american companies. and security of bloggers and citizen journalists. filtering is not working to stop blogging in iran. and iranian users are using

google, it's or some program to reach their website or blog. but sanctioned by american companies but it's very important. sanctioned by american companies such as google and microsoft cause us to -- cause us iranian user cannot have some software or tools. and it cause us big situation for iranian user. because insight of iran they are under pressure by filtering and outside of iran they are under pressure by sanction. and last item or thing is security of bloggers is very

sensitive. because there are many red line in iran for blogging or writing something in the website or web blog. and if someone cross those red lines, it cause us the web blog will be blocked by government. >> anybody would like to comment? >> i think the top thing one needs to do is education. i think -- you know, now the u.s. and other countries have -- are starting to understand what iran is all about and the repression and what the people are all about. and i think education is the number one thing and finding ways to get proxy servers. or to get ways to send out signals or spoofing mechanisms

if i'm using that correctly to get means for them to funnel into websites to put their views on. to put their blogs on. to get their news out. and to be able to break down these firewalls that exist around iran. it's a very hard task. it's something that millions of dollars is poured into it with all sorts of different companies to try to do. it's not just for iran but other places like china as well. but i think the number one thing is education. because a lot of times they don't know. they just don't know how many users are out there. and they don't know how many people -- or teaching them how to use it. that would be my number one thing. >> the main problem here is one must be very careful not to link the iranian blogosphere as a whole this is a very diverse group of people with the u.s. with the u.s. government.

it is a heterogeneous group of people that are -- and they're not all pro-american. they are not all pro-mahmoud ahmadinejad. they're too many people and they're too different. and i'm not certain that a u.s. government initiative funded by u.s. taxpayer money would be doing some of these courageous people who are putting their lives on the line a service. there are multiple mechanisms for people to use circumvention software and proxy service. is more of that needed? absolutely. is the u.s. government the best source for this kind of thing? probably not. >> just one thing to add. first of all, we have to know what are the capacities in iran? you have to study them. two, please avoid -- i should tell this to many lobbyists who

might want to make money for a few individuals or companies in the states as they've always done. please stop just selling crazy ideas. like one thing i heard that an individual is going from door to door in washington, d.c., promoting the idea of giving satellite internet connections to people inside iran. the government can detect any sender receiving tools in the country. they arrested many people in 2002 and 2003. they don't work then how can it work now. first of all, let's study. let's think. and then do something. not just do and then put a lot of people in trouble. >> i'm a writer and blogger and also am the secretary-general of iran students in the latest report of congressional research

service my organization is the biggest student organization that had the most influential organization in iran now. and you can find it easily on the state department's website. three years ago i was foreign five years in jail and because of for my student activity and writing. after i came here i had testimony with the u.s. senate and i said maybe the radio can be better. i didn't say they are bad. i said they can be better. testimony u.s. senate, homeland security. after that the voice of america persian department and and i could go to fox news, cnn, cbs and everywhere not in voice of america of persian services and -- maybe my farsi is not so good. but it's so good.

my question is directly to hidal and jeffery can help you a little bit about this one. why you are boycotting the people that you don't like it in persian services. the voice of america persian services acting as a part of opposition group. and you can find a lot of family members there, husband and wife and their children. and that's a family business with the american taxpayers money. and i think that's wrong. i don't know. it's part of journalism. but i'm sure it's not. if you want to give time to -- i don't know maybe you like it. but last week he was on voice of america for one hour. and the day after his best friend was there.

and the day after was trita parsi himself for one hour. in the week you gave a lot of time to them. why you boycotted us. [applause] >> thank you. >> first of all, we don't boycott anyone. that i stand by firmly. i always say if you're pissing both sides of the arena you're doing your job right. the pronii-nyack folks and the anti-nyack folks we are on both sides and giving equal playing ground. the media or the news is not something we generally like to cover. i mean, who likes to cover what happened just with the polish president yesterday? or so many other things and the things that are happening in iran all the time. there's so many voices out there that we are actively trying to pursue to bring on to the air.

to give the different sides. it's a very tricky thing. but firmly, there's no boycott. it wouldn't be right to boycott. if that's the case we wouldn't have many at times members of different other parties that were also on our air. and that we actively pursue to come on our air. yeah. the media is always about going straight down the middle. both the red and the blue both sides down the aisle wherever you are in the world to make sure you get both voices heard. >> the panelists have alluded to the blurring of line of citizen journalism and professional journalism and another line that's getting blurred and it's probably more important although it may be less visible is the

line between the public sphere and the private sphere. a most illustrative instance of that was the wife of the presidential candidate holding the hand of her husband almost all the time during the campaign. more recently, the wives and husbands of jailed journalists are writing love letters to their loved ones in jail. is this public or private? my question is, how does this all this blurring and going back to the game of cat and mouse it may be complicated enough. but in that, of course, the two sides are bringing different skills to bear on this game. but what does all of this portend for action or hopeful action in the future? i would like to also refer to mr. kowsar's cartoons are telling and there's another suspect. -- aspect.

the opposition in iran, the bloggers included, the cartoonists included seem to vent out more than what would want to vent out and complain than actually guide the way to some sort of action in iran. is this a remnant vestige of a shia mentality where victimization plays a big part. how can all this energy that you've all alluded to be channeled in ways that are more positive than we know we have a whole force. what is being accomplished? and what can be accomplished within reason? thank you. >> regarding the guiding question, i don't think journalists could be a leader. but journalists can just describe what's happening. if a journalist turns into an activist and becomes a leader in some way, yes. the journalists can actually

give a guideline especially cartoonists. i think what we usually do is making fun. but telling a story through making fun. and i'll pass it on. >> i think i have to respectfully disagree with you. i don't think there's a blurring between the personal and the professional. and obviously i'm not speaking for every single one of the 70,000 blogs i mentioned earlier. but i think in general terms, when the government detons -- detains a blogger or a journalist and this person is held in soltarily confinement and this person is tortured and he has his head is bashed into the wall and his family visits after 90 or 100 days without visits and they write a letter to a family or friend describing some of the things they witnessed the 3-minute supervised visit and that's then

carried on a blog or in an online news source, that is, in fact, news. it's maybe not the most traditional news. it's maybe not the news that we saw 10 or 15 years ago. but that's the news that the iranian government has created in acting the way it's acted. and so i personally don't view that as a subversion of news as it were or as a broadening of news to include the personal -- as opposed to the professional. i think those are legitimate news stories. and the iranian people above all more so than us need to know what their government is doing in their name. >> you know, i agree with you. i mean, the personal accounts that they're getting through these different letters or these three minute visits that people have been able to see a side of the dealings within the government and how they deal with things that become personal stories and memoirs of folks.

and it's just a layer or a slice of life of what they're actually going through. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like they say twitter.@ @ @ @ @ they would use these one-line accounts of things that would happen whether it was out in the street, different meetings, seeing whatever they saw they would put it out there for the world to see. it is a different forum. a different media. another way of getting sources and accounts that we didn't get before. >> it is interesting. there is a lot of discussion about whether there is a -- whether the blog atmosphere or the online space pushes a certain kind of political change. and there's an assumption of agency that might occur. i think a lot of the analysis that we see, though, is that successful online movements are

very closely linked to off-line movements. each one works in a different context, in a different way so what might work in the u.s. might not work in iran. and what works in moldova might not work incurred stan. -- in kurdistan. and when you look at online conversation and community morphs or doesn't morph into a functioning and successful activist movement, you have to analyze the space and the world in which it actually exists. and who the leaders are. it's own history. there's not an expectation that it's going to work in every case. it's not a determined relationship, if you will. >> can we have the iranian editor of global voices. and he's also the cofounder of the march 18 movement. this is a movement that was created after a blogger died in prison. and he has written a post for us. if we go to his -- and it's

about that -- let me read from this. this is no doubt the citizens protesting the results of the june presidential election have made efficient use of twitter, facebook, youtube and blogs to i immortalize their movement. it's not about the people. it's the people. as he also says that iranian citizen media is the extension of real people's activities. so a lot will depend on the people on the ground and not on twitter and facebook and blogs. >> and just on to follow up on what you were saying, eisen. -- ivan. this is a new medium and people are learning as they go along. and not every single blogger adheres to the same professional values. and we have to recognize that.

there isn't a body in place to sort of regulate and maintain some sort of uniformity. and that's only natural. it's not a big deal. i think the readers are the ones who decide what bloggers become popular and what bloggers will frankly stop writing because nobody is reading their stuff. the other thing i wanted to mention briefly is what works in tehran may not work in the provinces. i mean, this is really not a difference from between to country to country. this is a difference between the capital where there's -- people have certainly a lot more leeway than people in the provinces. some of the stuff that people write in tehran on a daily basis and don't get into trouble for would never be allowed in kurdistan or in other sort of less developed parts of the country where local administrators have far more power as individuals simply go and grab somebody and throw nem

in a dungeon somewhere and have them forgotten. there's a lot of variety. and readers and writers we have to recognize the variety. and frankly give bloggers and writers the benefit of the doubt. they are putting a lot on the line, professionally and personally to bring us news we wouldn't get. this is not stuff you can, you know, switch channels and see on your tv. very frequently this stuff only exists in this format. it's important that we -- we encourage it and it's important that it continues to grow. >> my name is jonathan cohen. i'm with the bush institute in dallas. next week we're having a conference on cyberdissent. featuring dissidents from countries around the world. my question is related to the

variety of dissidents who are bringing to our conference. and i'm prompted by the interesting phenomenon from the green movement protests of last where the chinese religious movement provided servers to iranian dissidents. to get their message out. and i'm curious to know from the panel to what extent is there cross-border cooperation between iranian bloggers and other cyberdissidents. and other fellows in other countries. >> actually there are many universities around the globe that are helping iranian bloggers or even iranian geeks. they are actually trying to provide iranians with proxies. you might have heard of siphon. of course, it doesn't work. that's the problem. it doesn't work properly. because the iranian government knows how to block it.

but many iranian bloggers who are also studying computer science are trying to get help from the universities to pass that help. to pass the torch actually to people inside the country. it's working. but absolutely. many people are actually even creating videos. i know of a few who are actually doing it right now. email, not even to post on youtube because many people inside the country have having watching youtube videos. they're sending the videos -- and these are guidelines that how people can cross the filters. >> a really quick comment on that. and that is about the network nature of online communication.

i think there's an incredible amount of diversity across different countries and different communities. that has to do with first translation. and second recontextualization of the people throughout the world. when i talked in the beginning about the dialog and the conversation that's occurring in the iranian blogosphere and some people would like to to have and whether it should be a voa platform. we should note that conversation is occurring all the time. and it's occurring on platforms that people make and build themselves. and what we should expect is that people will continue to figure out ways to build platforms to communicate with people that they want to. and those conversations will be diverse. and they'll be on different platforms as people build them. and they will be with people all around the world. in other words, it's not just an american-iranian dialog. it's not a polarized conversation. it's multinational and multipolar.

please. we have time for one more question. >> my name is about user brown. -- buster brown. i'm a student at school here. what's been talking about is about exposing truths and a lot of about it we hear in the american media is about the extremist movements throughout the middle east. and what a lot of things i've learned about here at school is that these movements are misinterpreting the koran. they are justifying murdering nonbelievers through religion. and so i was wondering if you guys thought that journalism -- that reporters should do more to expose these misconceptions? >> you know, there's a very fine line between what really -- the religion -- any religion is and the politicized form of the religion is.

and a lot of times, you know, those lines get blurred even in broadcasting. you know, the images that we see with all the different, you know, acts of terrorism around the world. whether it's in the name of allah or in the name of what happened in wako. -- waco. i do think the media does have to educate more. and get more backgrounders an understanding about what -- what the story is really about. and not what it's purported not to be. and sometimes in a news organization when you're fighting so hard to be first to get the story out, you forget the nuances in the back that give a bigger picture to those who don't know all the story, you know, all the stories in between. but, yes, it's something that it does need to be pointed out. it needs to be illuminated and put into context and what it really is about. and not, you know, the marketing

formula is about. >> well, you're the boss. you're the viewer/reader. and so if you don't like what you see, turn it off. and go read something else or watch something else. and that's -- at the end of the day, if you zoom out far enough, that's what makes a successful show or newspaper or a blog. and that's the difference essentially between a successful channel and a channel that nobody watches or a successful blog and a blog that nobody goes to. so it's really up to you. and up to everybody else. >> last comments? >> i think it's an interesting way to wrap. it points once again to the diversity of the iranian blogosphere. and indeed of all blogospheres. we have the presumption that there's extremist conversations out there but what we know about the iranian blogosphere it's not mostly about that. it's mostly not about politics in fact. and i think it's really a healthy reminder for us that we should be paying attention and

listening more. and reading more. and absorbing the kind of vast diversity that's out there for us. we're out of time. but i'd like everybody to please give a big round of applause to our panelists. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, ivan. we are going to get the second panel up and mic'd and all of that. if you would like some coffee real briefly. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] [captioning performed by national captioning institute]

>> in a few moments, treasury secretary timothy geithner on the economy and the financial regulation bill and in about 45 minutes, president obama's news conference on the nuclear security summit. on "washington journal" this morning, more about the administration's nuclear policy from republican representative trent franks, a member of the armed services committee. democratic senator mark begich and the chairman of the congressional tarp oversight panel elizabeth warren focuses on preventing home foreclosures and we'll be joined by rick blum. "washington journal" is on

c-span every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. a couple of live events to tell you about today on our companion network c-span 3. we'll hear from ben bernanke at 10:00 a.m. eastern. also on c-span radio and online at c-span.org and at 2:30 p.m. eastern the senate commerce committee looks into the national broadband plan. members will question fcc chairman about the plan and the role of the f.c.c. and the role on the internet. all this month see student cam competition. middle and high school students from 45 states submitted videos on one of the country's greatest strengths or greatest

challenges. at 8:30 during the program meet the students who made them and for a preview of all the winners visit studentcam.org. now treasury secretary timothy geithner at a conference of the american society of newspaper editors pism his comments on the economy, a financial regulations bill and other issues is about 40 minutes.

i would like to add my congratulations i think to what came before it. my predecessor len downey. a giant in the profession and someone i owe a great deal of gratitude and i'm incredibly fortunate to find myself working with him and i would also like to give a note of congratulationses to milton who i guess this week becomes president of asne. heff a top editor at the post and his deep knowledge of bureaucracies will serve asne well. i'm pleased to have the opportunity to introduce your

lunchtime entertainment. i've known tim geithner for about 20 years and i've had the privilege of working with steve since i came to the post two years ago. geithner. i don't, which is a self-indictment. tim was the assistant treasury attache when we met. i was at the "wall street journal" covering economics. and i did some reporting over the weekend and called a bunch of friends who worked with secretary geithner and the only thing anybody can remember about him was he had a laugh so loud some claimed that he had to shut their doors and his tennis game was so good and was used as a ringer when they played dignitaries. it was an assign minute -- assignment, there was a real

estate financial bubble that broke about a crash that resulted in some big institutions collapsing others being taken over by the government and liquidity being injected, followed by worries, temperature pid bank regulation. and there is an international parallel. in those days, g-2 referred to the u.s. and japan, the country that was buying up the u.s. treasuries was japan and the manufacturing sector was japan. americans were worried about asian currency. and i think that experience must have shaped the secretary's understanding of what has happened here in the u.s. and i could make the argument it was probably a good thing that he knew all that he knew from japan. i know when he was running the new york fed he was one of the few officials who was appropriately and deeply concerned about the dangers of

derivatives and exotic instruments. he knew how bad a financial crisis would be and that informationsight is what he shares with steve. when they said we didn't look at the financial signals, i refer to steve's work of the previous year which he won a pull its zer prize. steve declared it the worst mess since 1929 and described the real estate bubble, the stock market, failure of credit and risk controls, all of it a year before the implosion. his column in the "post" is a look into the realistic mind and moderates our sight about leadership. i will now hand it over to him for him to interview secretary geithner. [applause] >> good afternoon.

welcome. thank you for joining us. i want to start by talking about the geithner rally. if you were a a stock and the buyers of stock were limited to journalists, it's been quite a year for you. a year ago, the bailout was a disaster. the market was in the tank. deficit was going to explode. there was this little unpleasantness with a.i.g. you got a bit false start on regulatory reform and only with the intervention of rahm and larry summers that you were able to keep in your jobs. that's what we would have thought at the time reading the press. today, the bailout is a success.

make us money. the markets are at 11,000. the deficit we learned deficit is going to be less than everybody thought it was. reg reform is about to pass. larry and rahm are on their way out and you're the kingpin. >> just proves, steve, you guys are doing a heck of a job. [laughter] >> my question is, were we right then or are we right now? >> steve, i just try to focus, try to make sure we fix what is broken, doing the right thing, not to worry about the politics or the all the other stuff and we are in a much better position today. this was a terrible mess. still is a terrible mess. still really hard economy. we face really difficult challenge on the economic side. there are going to be risks for some time but in a much stronger position because the decisions the president made early on. a lot of what the president

decided was shaped by having watched a bunch of countries mismanage and go through similar crises and failed to get it right early. and by deciding as he did to do politically difficult, hard, forceful things early on, we have kind of growing faster and more quickly than people thought and the markets much more stable. it's very tough out there. and the memory of this crisis is going to long period of time and again, just to remind you of what was said, look what happened, look what happened to the u.s. economy in the 1990's, after that experience of looking at how the rest of the world was doing and acting to deal with it, fiscal problem, make sure we are investing. you had a long record of very strong plant investment growth, productivity growth, gains

shared much more broadly across the country, produced by a president making hard choices and i think we have a chance now to come out of this much stronger, much more resilient and a much stronger position because i think the president did some hard, early, tough things at the beginning of what was a terrible storm. >> senator mcconnell, the republican leader of the senate said today, somewhat surprisingly that he would ask republicans to vote against financial reform, this was against the new conventional wisdom, this week's conventional wisdom, that the bill is going to pass, republicans wouldn't dare be on the wrong side of this one and be perceived as defending wall street. what's your prognosis and what changed thingsf it has changed for the better politically?

>> well, you have to start with the following basic observation. look at the devastation caused by this financial crisis. look at the damage it did to the lives of millions and millions of americans. look at what it did to businesses. look at how much damage it cost to american credibility. i don't think there is a tenable position that says that we don't need to fix the former system. i don't believe it's a viable position and that's why i'm confident we will have congress enact a strong sweeping set of reforms, largely frankly on the model that we put out there, that we set out there initially and that the house has adopted and the senate is close to considering today. remember this system, think of what's at stake. this is a system in which people could take all the upside and be exposed to not so much of the downside. you had large swaggets operating

in the dark. institutions operating without any risk-taking. made it easy for people to shop and exempt themselves from basic protections that consumers rely on and you had the united states of america come into the worst financial crisis since the great depression. ben bernanke said larger financial stock and had basically no tools to unwind, to fail to put into bankruptcy large institution. the consumer is faced with the choice to let the system collapse or put hundreds of billions of taxpayer money at risk, completely untenable to say this is a system we can live with. and that recognition is going to drive us to a necessary, essential, very well designed sweeping set of reforms. and the work you have all done to bring a spotlight to the choices we face in this debate,

particularly on the consumer, so far has been very helpful. if you listen carefully, the debate is no longer are we going to have serious consumer protection. people aren't willing to contest that, partly because of the work you have done. the debate is about a much more complicated but equally important issue which is how to design a system where you are going to constrain risk taking, prevent crises from spreading and if a major institution goes to the edge of the abyss, that we are able to put them out of their misery and bankruptcy regime and dismember them without the taxpayer being exposed to a penny of risk of loss. it is a simple, basic choice and i believe we are going to decide as a country that it's time to fix what was broken and fix the stuff that makes us so vulnerable still. >> is the danger in this final phase of these negotiations that you will have got the consumer protection, but that in exchange

for that, they will be start to writing in the loopholes and exceptions that will be so complicated. it's a risk, but preventable risk, because again, the efforts ahead still that people are going to try and undertake to slow it down will be conspicuous , the loopholes will be conspicuous. and one of the great things about our country is that our process should make that difficult, because you can expose it to the light of day and hard for people to defend it. but i don't think, i'm much more optimistic in our cast it as a country and in this political system to deliver a strong set of reforms that is not vulnerable because how you can look the american people in the eye and say we are going to leave in place a system that caused so much damage. and as you said, steve, the initial strategy was toedly delay until -- memories are

going to fade eventually. that was an untenable strategy. the strategy will be to weaken it with exceptions that are hard to understand, hard to see. and great strength of our country that is hard to do and we'll expose it. >> last week, a former colleague and a mentor, robert ruben gave some testimony before the commission looking into the causes of the financial crisis. i don't want to oversimplify what his sort of response to questions was, basically, look, no one saw it coming. this was a perfect storm. not the rating agencies, not the regulators, not lots of people in the business who know a lot more than i, said mr. ruben. by the way, that's a common explanation. is that -- do you accept that explanation from those who were

in charge of these large institutions? should we accept that as an explanation? >> i think it is fair to say that not enough people saw this coming and certainly fair to say that people acted preempttively to prevent this from happening. you can't build a system that relies on either the self-interests of people running major financial institutions to save the economy from financial risk. you can't run a system that relies on the wisdom of regulators, frankly torks always act preempttively, and you can't build a system that depends on the ability of people in washington to act with perfect foresight, it's not tenable because we will never know with confidence what the next source of risk is, what the -- what new innovation will bring the system

to collapse. you have to build a system that recognizes the -- much more conservative shock absorbers because you won't be able to have people sitting in this town act with perfect foresight in the future. the basic theory of reform should be based on the skeptical view of what firms will do in their self-interests and what regulators will ultimately do with discretion in this case. the basic strategy that the president adopted is for the system to run more conservatively, so there are much thicker curb ons against risks in the future. >> can we change the culture of wall street or the culture of the regulatory agencies? >> >> oh, i think you can change the culture of the regulatory

agencies. i think can and should demand much higher standards. you need to give them more authority. there is going to be clearer accountability. i think you can demand higher standards over time and i think we should. i don't know what to what extent we can change what drives people who are attracted to the world of finance. i think you to frankly constrain the choices that they make and make sure the incentives are right but i wouldn't want to rone system that is bets on the hope that again people running private financial institutions and public institutions are going to do anything but act in what they perceive to be the interests of their employees but if you get the incentives better and the constraints better, it will be a safer system. >> as marcus mentioned in the beginning, of course you go back to our troubles when we had them with japan. now we have similar troubles

with a large trading partner that runs large surpluses and the view that also is running an undervalued currency. those things are all part of the same story. went through a long kabooki dance with the japanese on this. we don't want to push them hard. they can't lose face. we have to do this quietly. be patient. they have a different time horizon than we do. we never really g-8 right. now it looks like a rerun of the same movie with the chinese and again, you and the treasury a saying hey, let's not declare them manipulators. let's be patient. they are coming around but it looks like they are playing us again. different country is playing us again. what would you say to that criticism or concern? >> i don't agree with your

characterization of the strategy then or now and let me begin with the optimistic side of this basic debate. think about how that broad story turned out for the u.s. and japan. remember, at a similar moment of national concern, in the wake of a very deep recession, america confronted by what they saw happening had a moment of doubt and concern about whether our weaknesses were japan's strengths. and nobody would look at the economies today even with the challenges we have been through and say that that concern was -- it was just overstated. now, i think i believe we have an enormously productive beneficial economic relationship with china. it's hugely important to companies large and small across the country. and i think we benefit hugely from that relationship today. we have a bunch of challenges with china.

it is very important to us that they are changing the way they grow. so growth relies less on the u.s. consumer, financing unsustainable spending by borrowing, very important to us they are growing more from domestic command, ress reliance on exports. but that is in their interests, too. they don't want to be vulnerable to the kind of collapses they saw in global demand. it is important to u.s. companies. if there is a level playing field, it's basically fair rules of the game and we are going to be as always and you should expect any administration will be forceful and aggressive in making sure we are promoting changes that offer a level playing field in those markets. and of course, it's important, as everybody understands. it's very important that they move over time to a more flexible exchange system. it's in their interest to do it, china's choice to do it.

but i believe they will decide. it's in their interest to move. and one way to explain this, china wants to be a strong independent country and as a strong large independent growing economy. doesn't make sense for that country to run a monetary policy exchange regime that lets the reserve set interest rates. it's good for them over time, that's why i'm confident they will move. >> you just got back from china and even here you have spoken with the president of china. is there anything in those conversations that leads you to be confident that if we give them time and hold our tongues, that they will move in the direction that we would like them to move? >> our strategy is going to be guided by doing what is in our interests and it's in our interests to make it more likely that they decide it's in their interest to move and that's the strategy we are adopting in this

case. [laughter] >> ok. >> i think that was a yes. >> let's go on an equally obtuse issue and that is mortgage modification. the industry essentially has dragged its feet for actually before you became treasury secretary for two years on the issue of reducing principal of these mortgages. they tried everything other than reducing principal. it's not worked as effectively as anyone would like. and i'm wondering, is there any greater use of sticks and carrots to finally get them to do it? to reduce the principal on these loans permanently. >> this is a very difficult challenge. i think it's important to step

back and look at the basic strategy we adopted. we have been actually quite successful in bringing a measure of stability to a housing market that was still falling off the cliff when the president took office. a year ago, when you looked at broad expectations, most people thought house prices might fall 20%, 30% further. what you saw relatively quickly on average across the country, even with the enormous trauma, you saw a measure of stability. and that happened not just because of the broad actions we took in the recovery act in the financial sector, but because we act todd bring down mortgage interest rates to historic lows. that was a very important, very powerful, very broad-based strategy that benefited all american homeowners because it reduced the cost of home ownership in a very substantial, meaningful way. now, the program that we

embraced for loan modifications, it's important to recognize is reaching more than one million americans and they are benefiting on average from $500 to $600 billion a month. that is a substantial amount of direct financial relieve, financially financed by banks. >> $500 billion to $600 billion? >> right. this is a substantial powerful program. it is targeted, though, at people we think you can really justify trying to help. it won't reach the people who are speculating in housing. doesn't reach people who bought a second home. it doesn't reach people who already can afford their mortgage payments. it doesn't reach people -- you know, just by luck or choice, because they are unlucky or choice got themselves so far extended, they just couldn't

reasonably afford the house. so it won't reach a substantial number of americans who are caught up in this crisis, many of them victims, but it is a very powerful program. over the last several of weeks, we announced changes to the program to make it more likely to make sure that relief reaches more people and in principal reductions over time. you have to judge this by the alternative program. as you hinted at, we don't have the ability to compel generalized principal reduction across the american financial system. we don't have the ability to do it. and to try and achieve that without that authority would be enormously expensive and hard to justify on public policy grounds, because you have to explain to americans that it makes sense to take their money

on a scale of hundreds of billions of dollars potentially and devote it to releaving them of a substantial part of the principal and their house. and explaining that is a better use of their money. so, you know, like you, we have to make choices among the alternatives. and the housing market is still under a lot of stress. there are a lot of foreclosures still ahead and going to be a challenging process to work through, but this is the best mix of alternatives that we have been able to identify, given the limits on authority and given recognition that we don't have unlimited resources. >> one of the reasons i think, part of the main reasons that it hasn't gotten a lot worse is that freddie mac and fannie mae

which are essentially instruments of the treasury are buying 95% of the conforming mortgages in the united states. and also the federal reserve has been buying as well. >> you're right. the basic strategy we adopted alongside the fed was designed to bring down mortgage interest rates. that required stabilizing freddie mac and fannie mae and that was successful in bringing down interest rates. >> if they rise another percentage point, are we going to be ok? is that going to be accept tabble? >> what i would say generally on this, steve, i think what you see generally happening now is encouraging signs of more confidence in the strength of this recovery. i think you see that in many parts of the world. you see it now, too, and that is

good encouraging thing. it doesn't take away from the fact that this is still a tough economy, you know, most americans have never experienced anything like this in their lifetime, had no memory of it. this is a deeper, more damaging economic crisis than we have seen in generations and the effects of that are going to belonglasting. generally, i think you are seeing in most measures in confidence, a growl improvement in confidence that the american economy is starting to come back. >> rising interest rates is on balance a positive thing as long as it's not too much and not too fast. >> that is one of the things that happens when people get confident. >> going back to freddie mac and fannie mae, i know you are a determined position, we are studying this and not going to make our decision yet. could you step back from that a little bit and take a little bit of kennedy school type of thing and tell us the pluses and

minuses of going to be a public utility model, basically making fannie mae and freddie mac doing the same thing under a tougher regulatory regime in one of the things that are regulated. you like the utility model? >> i do. >> a simple basic proposition that we can agree on is you can't run a system where you have a mix with companies with private shareholders, boards responsible for maximizing shareholder profit, benefit from this mix of implicit-explicit from the government that allowed them to borrow at low rates and generate profit to the shareholders. it went to the shareholder and not the homeowner, not whose purpose it was to serve and support. we won't recommend that will

sustain that system. the other thing that went wrong, that mistake was magnified by the fact that we did not set a constraints on how much risk they took. and we allowed them to build up this huge portfolio of mortgage securities on the expectations they could earn a lot of money to their shareholders and left them with way too much risk relative to capital and caused the risk of catastrophic damage to our system. that is a preventable mistake as well. there are lots of utility models but if that's what you call it, i would be in a favor. and we are doing reform in two stages. i think it's the right strategy. first stage was a comprehensive set of reforms across the broad financial sector. we thought freddie mac and fannie mae would be good to do stage two because we are still in a challenging stage, and we

want to look at the broad mix of institutions and policies that the u.s. has built up over time. >> coming to the end of time. i want to get some questions. so i'll ask one last question. the latest data out from the hedge funds is that 25 top hedge fund managers earned $1 billion each. everyone didn't earn $1 billion, some earned $3 billion. some earned less. the poor ones. >> you're against this? >> no. what is your reaction about when you read that sort of thing and is that in your mind a signal that markets, i suppose you might call them labor markets, are working or financial markets, are they working