associated with it. humans are naturally concerned with taxes. -- status. your held as related to your status -- health is directly related to your status. you can do experiments were you move them around.

showing strength is what it is all about. therefore, the problem is that societies, particularly the elite, feel they must appear to be strong. lbj, someone asked him why we were in vietnam. he told his biographer he had dreams of people shouting at him, "weak, weakling, cal word." that is in part a natural phenomenon, but it is also a cultural one. culturally, the way to eliminate war is to disassociate our

strength and war fighting. i do not know how to do that. democracy seems to promote people who care about war. a psychologist said that the one thing we all have in common is a desire to explore. capitalism and free markets and wealth create avenues in which you can satisfy this and a desire. -- innate desire. >> what does the rest of the panel have to say about that? >> i think that often at war is

caused by the elite and by the leadership. it is interesting how often countries will say they do not have anything against the united states, they just hate president bush. the thing that distinguishes us from the animal kingdom is that we have symptoms of regret. this is something we are starting to build up so that we have a mechanism to deter and make war less likely. we have seen in the last 20 years the proliferation of a tribunal -- the cambodia it tribunal, the rwanda tribunal.

the idea is that the -- that they create a permanent record. if we do not remember the lessons of the past and the mistakes of the past, we will continue to be making those mistakes in the future. that is a terrible paraphrase, but you get the idea. they avoid collective guilt so that you do not have, for example -- a nazi germany rose up because of a punishment instituted on and germany after world war ii and. -- world war i. there is evidence of growing that there is a reasonable likelihood that people will be prosecuted for these kinds of crime. there is a deterrent.

famously, adolf hitler set in 1939 on the eve of the invasion of poland, "we are not sure we want to do that. we are afraid we will be held accountable." look get world war i. nobody has ever been held accountable for that. "due to remembers the fate of the armenians?" those days are gone. we are in an era where you see inseminate kinds of trials and discussion of criminal liability, you are seeing it in television shows. last week, "the simpsons" had an episode where crusty the clown was hauled before a

criminal court. this may be one of the ingredients that fights against the human instinct and the human compulsion to always go to war. >> in might clash of cultures, education is really the best hope that's a bullish -- that civilization has. i encourage all of the young people to consider that one of the great things about military life is i have been able to do that. i was in civilian clothes with a bunch of army cadets who were doing an exchange program. i have travelled to the ukraine and evaluated their training system so they could have a chance to join nato, which they have not done. not yet. i did something similar in

poland and they did join. doing those things open your eyes to other cultures in a way that reading or talking about it does not do. if you have an exchange student visiting you, i would encourage you to get to know them. ask them if you can crash on their floor. even if this -- even if it is a culture that is like ours. i did that with my swedish exchange student. it is not that much different from the united states, but it was enough difference to make me want to see more cultures. i think that is very important to the future of ending conflict. in the end of history example, when you have the last man, the person left outside of the democratic system has lost their honor. i believe that is very important. you must have a society with a system that generates the

economic possibilities, political possibilities, the norm that people had the chance to have dignity and honor. in some civilizations and cultures that are out there, they are very limited compared to ours. but we should not compare ours. maybe they need something different. they have a limited sense of how you can honorably, with dignity advance your position and your status. some people believe that is very important. the military is not the way -- a war against a culture that has no chance to establish dignity may be counterproductive. their only chance for honor is to win the war. the war will go on forever. that may be what we see in the global war on terror. it is one possibility that we consider. there needs to be other organizations. there are ways to combat conflict. the best ways are probably not

military. i recognize that as a soldier. there is nothing more i would white than the department of state to go to iraq and afghanistan and and those conflicts in a way that makes those people able to join the community of nations in a way where they can have dignity and honor. maybe they will not have expansion teams in the nfl and open a mcdonald's on every corner, but some other organization besides the military could probably negotiate that path better. i encourage you to think about that as well. >> that is beautiful. i am reminded about the middle east. humility. element of i am sympathetic to what you are saying. i would like to have a few comments from dr. teixeira.

he teaches policy and arab- american relations. he works with people in the middle east. i think that is the perspective of a locked-in perspective. >> i agree with a lot of what professor scharf said. we are moving towards solutions on the international level that i think we all need to support. the world needs to put more effort into it. i would argue that hatreds are constructed. hatred are used and manipulated. education is one of the crucial

tools to underlining the other. there are ways in which one can come out through education -- one can, through education, opened minds to more pluralistic perspectives on the world. simply because you are different than i am does not mean that you are better than me. how do you get those values? it is difficult. since you mentioned, there is an interesting controversy going on in israel right now. it is related to the use of a textbook -- a textbook i provided support for over the last 10 years. it is a palestinian-israeli

textbook created by palestinian and israeli teachers. it is meant to look at history the last century. they initially tried to create a common narrative. they could not do it. there were so many differences between the palestinian and israeli perspectives. they wrote a textbook that had on the left margin be palestinian narrative and all the right margin the israeli perspective. for the last 10 years they have been trying to get the respective ministries of education to adopt the textbook. the palestinian ministry announced that it was adopting it, but changed its mind because of political pressure. there is a high school in the

community closest to gaza. it has been under ongoing rocket attacks from palestinians from gaza. they live with the conflict probably more than any other is really community on an ongoing basis. a teacher decided to use this book in the classroom. the israeli administered -- the israeli minister of education has now forbidden that. the teacher and principal were and wereo tell th aviv taken to task. one thing that is interesting, the students are asking what they are afraid of.

they think they will be brainwashed for adopting the palestinian narrative. it is an us versus them a dynamic. the person who conceived and developed this said that from the israeli standpoint, they were not concerned about the textbook being adopted. it has somehow become overly sympathetic to the palestinian narrative of history. their concern was that is rarely used wood -- israeli youth would begin to challenge the israeli narrative. history is something to be controlled, constructed,

manipulated. we all have narrative is and we all have myths. they are used to demonize the other, to glorify ourselves. therefore, to allow the challenge of our own narrative, our own myth weakens us versus them. education is an often times overlooked aspect of how we can't reduce conflict and build up piece. there is one other thing i would also say. there is a scholar at the university of illinois. the i was originally from india. he did a number of studies on indian-muslim communities in india. he wanted to find out why some of them devolve into ethnic

violence while others did not. his conclusion was that it was not enough simply to have muslim-indian enter action -- playing soccer together or having dialogue together -- but, in fact, it was necessary for the committees to come together over a common problem they had to solve collectively and collaborative lead. a common problem of building something, reconstructing something, bill -- dealing with environmental issues, etc. where they worked together and solve problems together, they were always going to have in place relationships and mechanisms of working together that help them in almost all cases prevent violence from erupting even though in the larger political arena there may

be increased tension that led to rioting. those communities where these patterns existed, that did not happen. when people work with each other and their identities are no longer can do-muslim, but their identities bridget their identities as a community, they can come together as a common community. vacancy themselves connect. where people work together as teachers across ethnic lines or if they work together, as has been the case in israel and palestine, environmentalists, hydrologist who have come together with some common solutions to deal with water issues, environmental threats,

etc., in which they can work across communities and not be prevented from finding interesting solutions to common problems because of political dynamics. more and more, we can find ways of creating or breaking down those identities that, in a sense, fuel violence and lead to the exploitation of differences and find ways people can work together and develop patterns of cooperation and collaboration. that can often transcend the narrative, the myth, the hatred exploited by conflict of entrepreneurs. -- conflict of entrepreneurs.

>> i would call it fear. the fear we bring inside of us. i think this fear is fed by our insecurity feelings. i am sure we can control that. we control it by education, by talking, by working together in our communities of people, states, and nations. we can do it if you wish. we must do it beginning with our children. i am reminded of a ceremony that was held here before.

that is why the children were here. they are our future. we must invest in them -- we must invest them with these ideas and ideals. we must remind ourselves that this beast is, of course, a horrible thing. we must control it. again, i believe that education is a very strong attachment to do this. if we -- a very strong instrument to do this. for the forgiveness of the other

and for ourselves -- we are human and we make mistakes, but we can't always try to forgive -- we can always try to forgive and look to be forgiven. >> we are a little bit over time. we could possibly work it into some of the answers. is that all right? i apologize for cutting you off. we only have about half an hour to entertain some questions. i would like to encourage anybody who wants to query the panel to form a civilized line for the microphone. please address them.

>> thank you very much for a very interesting discussion. i wanted to raise two points that i would like to hear your response about. first of all, i worked closely with cleveland peace action. we recently had a speaker i wonder if you have heard about. his name escapis paul chappel. he graduated from west point and has been an active soldier. he makes the point that we can overcome using war as a

mechanism for resolving conflicts if we make a change in how we view this like we did with slavery. for hundreds and thousands of years it was felt that slavery was a natural thing. it took a great change in the world's view to change that. he feels that that can be done. he has a lot of examples of how cooperation and other positive traits built into human society. i wonder if you have heard about his work. the other thing i wanted to raise is that -- i will call it the "elephant in the bidding "-- it has to deal

with the national power and resources that often underlies governments and groups making war and conflict. the other part of that that is very disturbing to me is the u.s. role. in the last 20 years there has been a concerted effort by the neo-cons to change american significantly and successfully to that we should be the world's superpower. we should use military force much more often and aggressively in response to issues around the world and that we should use it preemptively.

now there is a sort of american exceptional was some that our values and ways of doing things should prevail. to me and for many of us, this is a huge conflict that has been going on, whether it is democratic or republican. thank you. >> thank you for that question. five minutes or less. >> how do we change the view of war like slavery? the international community try to do that at nirenberg by indicting the germans with a war of aggression charge. -- nirenberg by indicting the germans with a war of aggression charge.

we can prosecute people for war crimes and genocide, but not for white teen aggressive war, not for protecting another country when you do not have the right to do so. the international criminal court, which is the new international criminal court, has been debating whether to add this to the statute. all of the countries in the world gathered. at the end of a two-week session, they decided to ask the international criminal court statute the crime of aggression. we have to make what we tried to do at nirenberg for the future. we have to turn up war into something that is so despise, it is like slavery. there is a movement towards that. we will cross our fingers.

>> [inaudible] >> the bush administration opposed the international criminal court. that changed at the end of the bush administration. they started to embrace the court at that point. there were 32 people from the state department, justice department, and defense department. they're very engaged in these negotiations. instead of picking up their marbles and walking away like they did in 1998, they gave a press statement where they said they could live with what has risen from this. we feel comfortable with this. we see ourselves having a better relationship with the international criminal court going forward. >> i would strongly support

criminalizing the waging of aggressive war. i think it is the worst of all war crimes. if i could put your questions together, the acceptability of war and u.s. exception alyssum, it is not the neo-cons. you have it wrong. about -- it is an acceptable way of doing it. it is deeply entrenched within the entire defense security committee in the united states, france, and other countries.

people say iraq was a disaster. almost no one opposes it on those grounds or on moral grounds. he speak to the american security or the american intelligence people. they are realists. there is something inherently wrong about this. it is not something they accept at all. i would recommend reading books by andrew baker. he gives critiques about this. it is something that is a deeply entrenched within the form policy committee. i do not know how you can change that instead of -- except by protesting and hoping that people will eventually learn. it could take a very long time. where you could build up trust.

>> my time at the staff college as the only american student there representing the entire history of the u.s. armed forces -- at the time it was abu graib -- i did think about the same questions. we approach the problems from very different sides. the germans had learned that having an army would eventually lead to using it in an improper way. using get outside your borders was inherently wrong. the americans thought if you do not have a army that is too ready to defend your country, you end up with pearl harbor, 9/11, or some other situation that is unacceptable. that is not every american's view of it, but the people who were charged kind of fell into those categories.

these products of history, they are hard to change. it would probably take a new dynamic and another situation where we are united in a different way. my danish friend stood up and surprise me with the comment, "america is looking for security and exceptional was and is not the way to do it. you are making yourself a target." what about giving away your strategy to gain some security? i do not believe those americans who are in charge can't agree on who to give that -- can agree on who to give that to. there are people out there who do not agree with us. should we give it to the chinese? should we give it to the russians? they have their own problems.

do we give it to the germans? they have their own problems. they are trying to give it away, too. everyone is trying to give it to someone else and someone has to act. because of our history going back to the american revolution and manifest destiny, whether it was right or wrong, there is this trend of thinking that america needs to be able to defend itself and that it will not give up sovereignty, hell or high water. this is a trend, not just the most of the elite, but it is a very populist idea. it may not be among the elite educated. it may not be there idea. but it is probably 50% of the people who vote. it needs to be a paradigm shift. something outrageous. godzilla meets to attack the earth. will give up our sovereignty to the un so they can develop a

weapon to destroy the alien invaders. this kind of thing. something that bizarre would have to be required. >> i think this question is one that could be addressed at length. i would like to devote the attention to it. i want to apologize that we are limited in the amount of time we can spend on these questions. please accept our forgiveness for having to address other people's questions. i think this is very important. thank you. >> if we are able to reach a point where violence is no longer an issue, what do we really accomplished by destroying human nature? [laughter]

>> we learn. we must be able to learn from it. if we do these things, it is because we have made a choice. by making mistakes, we can learn a lot. i think this moment is a moment for learning. i do not believe that we want to reduce any kind of absolute interest. but we can learn from ourselves much that will compose us to do the right choices next time. i think it is a bit of a system.

we must be responsible for our choices. we must be educated so that we can make the right choice. we are responsible for that. >> i am not sure i fully understand the application -- the implication. there is a difference between dealing with violence and conflict. conflict is not necessarily a bad thing. it is how you manage those conflicts that challenge you. if you think about political, economic, or social change in most cases of non-violent ways of achieving change have been more productive and have lasted longer than attempts to do so

violently. if you accept that violence this an inherent, a positive part of the human condition, then maybe your question makes sense, but in my way of thinking, pilots in peace soc -- violents impedes social, political, and economic change. violence can be reduced and eliminated in a way that people can continue to develop and create positive change. question.ake the next >> you talked about capitalism

as a way for men to channel their masculinity into achieving things. to me, it seems that is still a form of aggression to exploit the lower classes. why do you think that is a less detrimental alternative to war for the united states? >> i think it depends on your attitude towards the competition. on the whole, it works better than other economic systems. i was a student in the soviet union. it stank.

it is not a very good system, to be honest. ultimately, the channeling your desire and to building a new company and getting rich is ultimately -- it does not have to be capitalism. you can channel it into your local sports team. whatever. the more choices you get people anymore avenues in which to end that there naturally competitive instincts, the more people will fulfill that side of their nature. that is my basic point. >> i think a capitalist society generates more of those choices. >> a number of people on the panel seemed to suggest that there are a number of ways to

replace violence into very banal activities. it is a sublimation of cruelty. we could talk about the banality of evil and the east to which we could inflate -- and the ease to which we could inflict -- he makes the case that we have this predilection to discourse our own psychological narrative and to inflate our pilots on them. we need to be excruciatingly aggressive course our own predilections to violence. we need to stop inflicting ourselves on them.

that is my two-cents. >> my name is nina. i come from mumbai. i appreciate the comments about political causes. i wish to bring up the kashmir issue that is going on. i find in my own country the military is egregious. why are the governments of these nation-states not interested in peace? [unintelligible] when hatred is constructed either through education or other systems, i think people in

power are required -- can we ever achieve this? the topic of the discussion ends with challenges to peace. >> i will take a shot at that. we had a conference about a week ago looking back at the irish good friday peace accords that are now 10-years old. that was something nobody thought the two factions could sit down at the peace table and have a sustainable pace. they exhausted themselves over time. there was mediation from the outside from the united states. ultimately, they used a power-

sharing equation that seems to not only have worked for them, but is now being exported around the world and injected into other peace negotiations. the idea that if you can come up with a mathematical formula that can conceal the lack of fear so that they can fill secure and that they have representation through this power-sharing equation, that may be an ingredient for a long peace. that is a model. i do not know whether it would work for kashmir. there are a lot of people around the world right now that are on the brink of war. i want to bring to the attention to the audience what is going on between the north of sudan and south sudan. both armies are armed to the hilt. there will be a referendum on independence. there was an arbitration that

decided the south sudan against the oil fields around the border. everything is right for major terrorist violence there. this is a place where the world community has to do much more to head it off or we will be remembering sudan as any thing -- as worse than anything we've seen in years, where stem what ns going on in -- worse tha what is going on in darfur. >> kashmir suffers from the fact that there are other agendas involved. in some cases, the conflicts may be exacerbated by the specific neighborhood one is in. what is happening, not just in

kashmir, but the pakistani, afghan, and u.s. agenda with respect to that border spills over ander creates -- and creates a situation. because there are other agendas, they oftentimes get shunted aside. therefore, the international community -- and i would say in terms of the united states -- what we do not see is a very strong global leadership. we do not see a global leadership as a function of cooperation and collaboration among all parties and countries that have the capacity to emphasize the agenda of others. one of the speakers previously

talked about the american exceptionally some and america becoming the world's superpower. some would argue that the united states attempts to do so is long past. it met its waterloo in iraq. it is not because the united states could not show that it was a military superpower, but it was what came after. the inability of the u.s. and international community to help other robust tools that could have helped create opportunities for peaceful change or political change. that is what the international community lacks today. even though we may be making incremental progress on international law, the and

ability to actually kill less of around those tools and use them -- coalesce is a real problem. china is becoming a significant superpower, but not diplomatically, but economically. the united states has a military capacity, but its economic and diplomatic power is weakening. that is a recipe for a weaker international community, not a stronger international community. look at the context in all of these things. northern ireland is an interesting example because the outside powers also came together to help facilitate that process. we do not have that -- when we do not have that in combination

with the powers inside the conflict, it is difficult to seek a discernible peace. -- to see a discernible peace. >> if you look at global statistics on conflict, you see that it is massively lower than it was 20 years ago. it is substantially more peaceful than it was. we are moving there. it will take time, but i am something of an optimist. prosperity spreads and violence will become more and more isolated. >> i agree with what you said. the trends are getting better, believe it or not. >> i think there is a shift to a kind of leadership among

nations. i think it will take some time, but we will arrive much more stable and peaceful. we will learn how to cooperate. each nation can achieve a sustainable peace. if we cannot do so, we will not be prepared for peace. >> things are getting better. i was worried about the hundreds of thousands of civilians killed in iraq. [applause] i appreciate that.

>> i am and academic, but i will take all my academic hat. academics are not really humans are they? that is what i have been hearing. i am an optimist. i think war is inevitable as long as we believe is inevitable. i think you have been talking about the proclivity for violence and conflict. i think humans also have a proclivity for peace. i travel the world promoting the fight in competitions. -- promoting fightin competitions. before the competition's, we meet up with all sorts of people. there is a cultural politeness

in the air. within a couple of days, the ultures collapse. as year you what's the cultures -- you watch the cultures nearly collapsed. that is, to me, very interesting. i think there is another beast within. beast is probably the wrong word, but i think that everybody has humanity inside them. everybody has this love for spirituality and inhumanity of deep down inside of them. rather than try to suppress these proclivities, we should support them. that is just my opinion. [applause]

>> i wanted to ask a question that goes back to what he was just saying. we did discuss how the humanity has its proclivity to conflict. i was wondering if we have a proclivity to conflict, but not for violence. you all think that inclination towards violence enters the picture. we have been talking about sigmund freud and other old school psychology. i would like to say, maybe from the perspective of more developmental psychology, identity in crisis proposes that at adolescence the crisis identity forms opportunity for youth to become violent towards other cultures.

i was wondering where you all thought that violence enters the picture and how we can improve that. >> i agree with your speech. maybe we are seeing a kind of shift. we are getting to a very mature society. we have to overcome some theories. maybe we are just trying to grow our way out of these -- out of this identity. i remember a moment when someone said we had a great possibility of choices.

with the previous speech, i agree that we were talking all lot about death, but if there is such a thing, it is because there is life. life must be pleasurable. we must always remember every day that the eros side of energy must be praised everyday when we wake up, when we meet our friends, wives, and children.

any culture will have the right to have displeasure. they are not different from us. they can seem a little bit different. we must educate our sons and daughters about diversity. that will be the key to achieving peace. there will be problems. there will be developments to solve these problems. our institutions need our support. we must also participate with its as we vote, as we make our

choices. >> i think the choice is really important. the idea of the beast inside of us, that is only one perspective. as professor scharf said, you have humanity in you. the most out to state human -- and altruistic human -- i would encourage everyone, the youth especially, be assured that you can make a difference. it is not that you are just an actor waiting for the newspaper to come out to tell you we are going to war or something terrible has happened. it may be something small that you do. go home and help your little brother with his homework. something that simple.

you'll move someone from the beast towards the altruist ideal -- alturistic ideal. you can have an impact. reading books, and traveling the world -- those things are great, but it is the interaction with other children that will make you a better person and make this kind of thing plausible in the future. it will probably not be my generation and i doubt it will be the u.s. army that solves the problem of the sustainable beast -- the sustainable peace. we can control the oceans with our aircraft carriers, but we cannot stop someone from another country painhating us. there is a pirate loading his boat right now and we cannot

get to him fast enough. [applause] >> i think this was an excellent question. my concern is how do we cultivate this eros that you are talking about especially since what you are saying is that violence can be encoded in the process. that is what you have theorists who are talking about the neurobiology of attachment and held violence can be encoded into the brain. -- and how violence can be encoded into the brain. i hope you can take what they said and apply it toward the development of the psychology we are cultivating. i am sorry to interrupt you. >> i thought i would share one

piece of research i found very interesting. a sociologists study of violence patterns in children. over a 20-year period, the parents had to log every violent action baseball. teen-agers were thought to be the most violent. children are the most but between the ages of -- are the most violent between the ages of two and four. they found that it does bridget -- they found if it does not drop by age 4, it never does. a lot of educational efforts that are going into teenagers and so on, but you have to nip it in the bud by ages three or four.

>> we talk about healthier and other emotions can be encoded into the brain. that has some drastic implications if we are talking about violence that is biologically ingrained. i do not want to preclude the possibility of the cultivation of proclivity. i have to apologize for not being able to take every question. i know people are coming up to ask questions, but our panelists have to run to the airport. we do not want them to miss their planes because of the discussion. my apologies to you. i encourage you to ask your questions to the remaining panelists afterwards. you can communicate by e-mail. i am afraid we have run out of time.

again, my apologies. i would like to thank the distinguished panelists from coming from great distances to join us. i think this has been fantastic. thank you for coming. [applause] [captioning performed by

national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> activists on both tv this sunday did the former journalist is the author of eight books, including calling the shots, and before and after, and ending the u.s. war in afghanistan. join our 3 our conversation with your phone calls, e-mail's and tweets. sunday, and noon eastern on c- span2. you can also find the entire weekend schedule and on. next, columbia university post a national leadership meeting for the no labels organization. the group is in new grass-roots

movement that brings together leaders from many organizations. the official launch date occurred at this meeting and the group plans to expand into more districts in 2011. in this session speakers include newark, new jersey mayor corey booker, walker. this is one hour. david walker. this is one hour. >> i am started a movement with seven women and a tax machine -- and a fax machine. i amere, of course, because we are focusing on getting women into leadership in america.

we would be able to do a lot more of the things we have been talking about if we have women who can work across these labels. that is why they are here. [applause] we have paid a lot of attention to this political area. in the last five years, we have been focused on that. we have been able to get 10,000 women to get into politics. they are out there and ready to go. this is the generation that could change this culture. half of this women are women of -- half of these women are women of different racial groups.

the young women of america are out there. they are excited. they want to lead. i want to tell you some other stuff about them. if you want to change the culture, yet to build a culture. if we do not dance at this level, we do not dance. we have been using the film "fairame" to train women about the new s.t.a.r.t. treaty. where are you out there "no labels" leaders? we want to be able to speak in this movement. we are a nonpartisan organization.

this is the way we are going to move our agenda forward. we have lisa burroughs on the board of "no labels." you did not dance as well as thought you could. this is going to be interesting to see what happens next year because, as i see it, i was a very fortunate woman. i got into politics at a different time. i got into politics when there was a lot of work across all parties. we went to political caucuses together. we made policy changes together.

it was phenomenal. it was a very different kind. i am very lucky because i had a mentor like mary louise smith. she and i lobbiedhe legislature. why in the world are we joining different parties? i have not heard that question since 1978. now we are in a very different place. we are now at 17% of congressional leaders and 24% of congressional leaders are women. you saw one of them over here.

lisa west has organized across parties. i will tell you the question these women are now asking. am i going to sacrifice my life and my family and it going to be able to make a difference? this is a realuestion. i take it is something all our sons and daughters want to know about politics right now. that is why we are here with " no labels." when i started doing this work, i went back and read a little bit of john wesley's work. he said when he looked at the past -- some of you probably remember his book -- the world of business fails.

they did not know they were in the transportation business, so their whole business failed. i have thought about that whole thing. i think to myself, even though we are gting the first women into leadership, not to take the place of men, but to leave beside them what he said has rung true with me. right now we are not trying to get women in four equity's sake. we are in the transformation business. the business we are in it with " no labels" is the transformation business.

i anticipate a great relationship. one where everyone will actually know how to dance. we'll have women in leading side-by-side with men. we thank you for your participation. [applause] >> please welcome the mayor of newark, new jersey, mayor corey booker. [applause] >> i feel like i need to do a howard dean yell to wake you all up. where are the housewive let's see each other. we have a choice here if this is goin to be a moment or a start of a movement. this is the time to move.

i want you to see each other. no one thinks baseball -- a small group of people can change the world. i write history. i studied it going back to the very foundg of ouration. we will either hang out together or we will surely hang out together. -- we will either hang together, or we will surely hang together. we are not hanging together around ourommon principles and our common ideals. i talk about history. there is a a wonderful moment where the city of jerusalem was under attack by the romans.

the romans were told to lessen their seats and they could take the city. inside jerusalem, divisns started breaking out. they staed burning different quarters of the city. before you knew it, the roman army came back and took the city with ease, clinging to a historical truth. if there is no enemy within, the enemy without can do you no harm. we as a nation must fess up to the fact that the enemy we face is our inability of pragmatic ople to come together to advance this nation forward. this is the frustration of our day and age. i see it in your all the time. therere simple solutions to many of our complex problems if

we could just come togethe you heard mayor bloomberg up here on the e. he gave me the best political allies of all my life. before you become a mayor, become a billionaire. [laughter] brilliant adce. but he actually told a bunch of -- pulled a bunch of neighbors together around the country to talk about violence. we have the virginia tech every day in america. i remember when the decision came down the said b.c. could not ban handguns. all my friends said, "there will be blood running to the streets of washington, d.c." i found out there was only one in shooting in my first term that was done with someone who shot eight -- who had a gun

legally. he was a correctional officer who used his sidearm to shoot himself. i listened to my friends on the other side of the political aisle that think that any kind of gun resolution is an assault on the second amendment. mayor bloomberg d his team of mayors around the country, we pulled to find out about this issue. mayor bloomberg paid for it. [laughter] we found al that over 90% of gun owners support senble leslation that could curtail illegal guns getting into the hands of criminals. simple things. we have done shows where a criminal could show up with a temporary restraining orders taken out on them, they may be on a terrorist no-fly list. but they can't walk into a gun

show and fill tir trot up with -- but they can walk into a gun show and fill their trucnk up with weapons. now we stand in a precarious place in our nation's history. we look around the globe and from brazil to china we see countries outpacing us in education, in economic growth. democracies are born not to fit in, but to stand at out. we should be a light unto other nations. we are falling behind on so many different measures. that is not the american way. we are a country where impossible dreams are made real. [applause]

we have choices to make. we should change our dialogue. compromise is seen as treason. we are reaching across -- reaching across the aisle should be applauded and not denigrated. the future of education in america will be minorities. we as a country have come so far that we haven't healed the racial achievement gap. educion retain that can be measured in the church against of dollars in terms -- in terms of gdp. yet, we fail to do it. i reached out to a republican governor. we could write a dissertation on our disagreements. the man is a meat eater. i am a vegetarian for crying out loud.

he loves the jets. i lov the giants. thank you very much. we have to find a way to end the war of injustice. we have to find common ground so we can advance ourselves forward. this will be the test. a friend of mine at a party yell at me when i gave a speech las year in new york. now they have become my greatest partner. in newark, we have dropped the recidivism rate. jack -- dies like jack kemp who either came to admire who thought about enterprise zones that are creating wealth in urban areas all across the world. no political party has a monopoly on great ideas. this nation can only go as far as we are willing to take each other. there is no democratic destiny

or republican destiny. there is an american destiny. [applause] we know from all our traditions , christian, muslim, jewish -- the ideal of community. people love their favorite three word phrase, a hallmark of this nation -- e. pluibus unum. we have a choice to make. we can answer the call of our cotry. we can claim the truth of our nation. if we can realize that america is a nation, but is also a destination. we as a nation must be willing to make the sacrifice. democracy cannot be a spectator

sport. you cannot get joy after sitting at home on our couch looking at msnbc or fox. if we not get off of that callous every make our nation -- this is the test we have before us. we must realize that we as a people in this nation drank deeply from the wells of freedom. we have an obligation to make a choice to accept reality as it is or take responsibility for change. i visit schools all the time. that is where our future is. i stopped for a moment and i get chills. i listen to our kids. our children, every single day, up from oakland, calif. to newark, new jerse -- all of our

children join in a common course calling to our consciousness, not that we will be a nation of disurse, but we will live up to our means and be the united states. our children say in unison, speaking truth to our resistant years -- they say that we are one nation under god, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. may we claim this truth in our lifetime and make it real once and for all. thank you. [applause] >> please welcome u.s. representative joe sestak from the seventh congressional district of pennsylvania. >> gracias. [applause]

i was asked to say a few words this afternoon. there are two items i would like to talk briefly about. one is accountability. i joined during the vietnam war. i never wanted to be in politics. someone once told me i was a crappy politician. i am. i just want to be a district -- a decent public servant. i got married very late in life. that was my first personal challenge, getting someone to marry me. [laughter] at the age of 47 i did get married. then i had my daughter. she is now going on 22. she suffered with a brain tumor.

i got out of the navy and then i did a payback tour. i ran for congress and work on the health care bill that has caused consternation across the nation. i can remember when i got out and we to the local county where i was born and raised and talk to the local chairman. i said i was going to run for congress. c.c.c.not know what d. was. i called them and they told me not to get into the race. i called back the next day and ey repeated they did not want me to get into the race. this was my first exposure,

having changed from being an independent. it park and to john. kennedy's words. by serendipity we won. two years later we ran again. the first time we spent $3.50 million. the second time it was $28.5000. somehow we were able to get -- i remember walking out of the pentagon. it was the day 9/11 happened 20 minutes later, a plane slammed into the building. the men and women i had worked with never came out. the chief of naval operations

called and said, "joe, i want you to set up the anti-terrorism command for the navy." that night we call together everybody. we put everything on the table. two months later, i was on the ground in afghanistan. we do not breed liberals or conservatives in the navy. we breed problem solvers. we put all our years on the table and try to come up with a pragmatic solution. then, as some issues -- as some of you know, i was asked to run against the republican senator in my district. i said i wanted to spend time with my daughter. the republican then became a democrat. the party then said, "no, joe.

we do not what you." i was about to go back to my affiliation as an independent. i went around the 67 counties to try to decide ether to get in when the party sd they had changed their mind. i was reallyaken by how angry and how upset everyone was. that was just the democrats. they wanted to hold someone accountable. i decided to still run as a democrat. the last tory i would like to tell you is about accountability. it is a value our label speaks to. i think there has to be a dose

of accountability within the pragmatic leadership. i believe in compromise, principled compromise. that term, accountability, was taught to me on it -- by a 19- year-old kid on an aircraft carrier i commended. there are 5000 sailors on an aircraft carrier. the average age is 19.5. my mother used to come aboard. she was a high-school math teacher. just like cory said, they are tremendous. on an aircraft carrier when they launch and airplane, it throws you into the air. when the push that button, it is

the right of your life. but sometimes as you are just about to launch, they say stop, shut down the engines, and get out. no pilot worth their salt will ever shut down their engines until they know they have been unhooked from the catapult. is underneath them and they cannot see it. these kids are great, but they can make a mistake. when they push that button, off you go, and you are not coming out. all the sudden, thisoung 19- year-old kid watch out to the flight deck under the belly of that plane. the pilot cannot see. he detaches the plane from the catapult. en a young man or woman walks

into up -- in front of that plane. that kid does not move. not until the pilot shut of his or her engines and are safely on deck. that kid has done everything, which i would argue, in addition to a possible compromise -- that kid said, "trust me." i am responsible for having unhooked you from the catapult. but i am also willing to be accountable. if i make a mistake and you start to go overboard to your ath, i will go overboard to mind. heaven forbid that men and women

in what she did, d.c., are willing to do a principled compromise. be willing to do the right thing again and accountable way. we came pretty close in pennsylvania. our constituents are angry and upset. they want to hold someone acuntable. even more than that, they want to believe again. they want to trust again. i do not care if this is someone with a nra sticker on their car or a student from philadelphia. they are waiting for some very practical leaders who will just

do their job for this nati. even more than a principled compromise is part of the dialogue. thank you very much. [applause] >> please welcome, the state treasurer of pennsylvania, robert mccord. >> i am been warned that there is a need for speed. having -- we are at the time where one more speaker could be 10 more speakers than you need to hear from. i will try to be quick and interesting. i am the highest status speaker of anyone u.s. come before you today. [laughte

let me remind you that many of you are among the smartest people in the country thinking about politics, trying to organize this kind of free- floating sense that something is wrong with america's political conversation. the work you do is invaluable. part of my what to do is urge you to recruit people who are not already famous. this is not just about senators and members of congress is -- congress -- i am a huge bloomberg fan and think what he is doing is invaluable -- but it is important to start recruiting officers. it is important to talk about issues that seem dull, but are crucial. 15 years from now -- we still listen to rock and roll and call each other brother and so forth.

send we will be in our retirement years. the problem will still be there. you can't listen to good talking points out there. -- you can listen to good talking points out there. here is one for you. do not work. the average person has $67,000. i do not think there are many people in this room who want to hit 65 and live on social security. 5% of $67,000 for 30 years. we have a pension program and he will not get all the way there. the lesser branded elected officials will care if you care. i want to give a confessn, a

brief war story, and a reiteration of bills. when my favorite members of congress in history used to say we have gotten to the time in the evening where everything has been said, but not everybody has had a chance to say it. the confession is i did not think this movement would be this successful at this point. am one of those characters who said, "if i do not raise my hand to get involved, nobody will." are really believe in this goal, so i would give it a try. i had no clue it would be a license to meet people like corey booker who has been a hero of mine for decades. that i would have a chance personally to thank these

congressmen for decades of public service and for doing the right thing. when you go back out there, say there was this skeptical former venture capitalist turd treasurer who said there was no way this would work, but we will give it a try. i am shot to see how many insightful people there are and how many -- and how much media attention this is getting. this could be a robust and valuable response to all of the name calling out there. give yourself a round of applause. [applause] on the war stories front, one is about a republican president, one is a republican state senator, and on is from the private sector. i just met with a gentleman who had the third page of find in america. i wonder how old he was. he was 87-years old.

the sets aside money to send 400 african americans to college every year. he said there are kids out there who mean well, work hard, but ey are not at the top academically. the top tier from the ghettos get scholarships. it is that kind of thought leadership, looking at real problems, and courageously providing real solutions. some of you young people in this room will get that wealthy. i want you to remember this moment. i want you to do something for other people when you get to that level. [applause] the next story is one involving a senator. we were hanging out a couple of weeks ago. he said, "the every -- the greatest president i have ever

had a chance to work with was george bush of the father." 1, he did the right thing by the deficit and did it in the right way and at the right time. he did it in a way that did not cool down the economy. 2, he is the only bidding american that could have put together that alliance to go into iraq the right way and take a lot of political heat for not going in all the way. he said it was exciting for him was to watch him pulling together that consensus and see that he knew these people for 30 years. when they took the phone call around the world, they reminded me that an important piece of this is not just seeing teleprompter as an speeches or showing up and raising a lot of money, it is about doing the work for decades. we are carbon-based life forms.

every business i give to says not to forget invest in relationships of trust. we are building relationships for all four people. do not need to agree with them on every front to say let's work on something we can work together on. i was giving a speech saturday morning. we were celebrating the greatness of pennsylvania by spending a lot of money in new york. [laughter] i am doing my fiscal do the by saying, please, come spend some time in pennsylvania tels or go skiing or go to pittsburgh. we just get a lot of money in this town. we at the pennsylvania manufacturers association. they had arlen specter and governor rendell and so forth.

it is 9% -- it is a 9% republican audience. i am all against the taxes. it will cool economic activity. we are the only state in the country that does not tax these resources. i am sitting here biking might bet -- biting my bit. was all for the consensus just cut in washington because i think we are moving forward. we have been making hundreds of millions of dollars in

pennsylvania because of various moves by the treasury. i am going to mention the tuition account program. it is 92% funded. i have enjoyed working with the young, recently elected republicans. i had nodea he was in that audience. he said, "i am just point to do it. let's hold a press conference. you tell them why it is such a good idea." it is just an example in the last 48 hours of help finding a way of reaching across the aisle can be invaluable. it reminds us why we are here. we are here to put aside labels more often. it makes it safer to reach across the aisle. let's be dogmatic. if somebody reaches across the aisle and they are not a member of your party, maybe you find a way to fund raise for them in

the next election cycle. we are seeking common-sense solutions. we have said that 15 times so far today. we are offering uncommon sense solutions. we talk about enterprise zones. that was not a common-sense solution when it was invented. not everybody was thinking about giving scholarships to african- americans. even more important than and common sense solutions, which have to do with price elasticity and demands -- taxing cigarettes is a good idea because you want to make peopl smoke less. taxing so that is a good idea when you have a four-fold increase in the level of diabes in america. that is an uncommon conversation because people do not understand

the notion of externalized cost. we need some common sense. we also need uncommon courage, the kind of courage that the congressman demonstrated when they voted for the stimulus package. the kind of physical courage that corey booker demonrated when he wentn a hunger strike. i will end with this. as we sit in one of the finest and intellectual aestheticians in the world, we need to remind people that evidence, fax, and ideas matter. they matter. [applause] too often, especially in government, we set our hair on fire and we put it out with a hammer. it is important to focus on deficit, but it is not the right time to shut off unemployment benefits.

if you are going to stimulate the economy, it is a hard debate. we say we are going to attack wage. this is an important time to be thinking about how to balance this. nobody i have ever heard of has done better than david walker. you hear him in a couple of minutes. he would tell you about his next initiative. we have a delicate balance of competing concerns. when we go out there, we have to talk to these people. politics at its worst is about deceit. it is about education and consensus. you will make that possible. i salute all of you for the time you are taking. thank you for your time and

attention. [applause] >> please welcome, douglas palmer who served as mayor of trenton, new jersey for two decades. [applause] >> good afternoon. i know you are tired. everybody stand up and stretch your legs for a second. my mama is a teacher. i learned that trip from her. there you go. i listened to a lot of people. i just want to say a few things. first of all, i have been blessed to be an elected official for 30 years. i know what you are thinking. i was five out when i got elected. i understand that. [laughter] i was fortunate to be known as a "free holder." i was mayor of my hotel for 30

years. as mayors, we do not have the luxury of being partisan as other people in congress and other places. use all my ear bloomberg, my hero -- by the way, you heard what mayor booker said. blumberg told them to become a billionaire first. when mayor booker ask me what to do first, i tell him to shave his head first. it will work for you. [laughter] as i look at what "no labels" is about, it takes me back home. you do not work on this is what the republican mayors want to

do, this is what the democratic mayors want to do. we are in the problem solving business. we work on solutions. this is a very important time in our nation's history. quite frankly, "no labels" could not have happened at a more opportune time. it is more than just an election. it is a movement. it continues to move. it continues to move people. we continue to move people by common sense things. i have a colleague who is a republican. i am a democrat. we grew up in the city of trenton. he served as a republican on the board. because we wand to help the city of trenton, even thoug we

talked about different ways, we came together for the good of our community. as a result, we have the trenton devils, a aa hockey franchise. we worked together. it takes courage. i can remember going to the suburban areas in our town and people would tell him, because he became a county executive and i became a mayor, they said they were for building a baseball stadium, but not in trenton. we would never get out of there alive. here is a republican whose own party was telling them this and he had the courage and conviction to see what it would mean for the economy and businesses. he said, "it is not not in

trenton." that is what it is all about. common sense solutions. i understand people are mad. people have lost their jobs and their pensions, they are losing their homes, they need college tuition for their children. people are taking it vantage in very partisan ways. it is time for yoand i to sit at the table. if you do not have a seat at the table, you'll be on the menu. for too long, the things that we want to say and do for this country have been on theenu. it is time to act. i just want to say this last thing. one of the reporter said, "do you think this will make a difference?" you, i, and many other americans

can make a difference. one person can make a difference. as a mayor, i know this all well and good. we are at the grass-roots level. we are on the front lines. when you are a mayor, you go to the beauty parlors, the barber shops, the grocery stores, the churches, the bars -- you go everywhere. one day i was going into the supermarkets. sometimes they feel like i am sticking around when i am buying certain things. heaven forbid i was buying black flag at enrich killer. people will look in your basket and see what you are buying. one day i was ready to jack l.

add another beautiful, black, baldheaded i came behind me and looked into my basket and look at the razors i bought. the asked ithey were any good. i told them they work for me. he goes back and exchanged his blades and got the kind of place i used. i said, that is really something. obviously, if i can influence what goes on in a man's had, -- what goes on on top of a man's head, i can influence what goes on in it. we have to have a dialogue going. we have to get it into people's heads. that is where it will be successful.

dealing with the people on the grass-roots level up. thank you, good luck, and let's be friends. [applause] please join me in welcoming the former comptroller general of the university and the founder of the take back america movement, the hon. david walker. >> thank you. it is ashley comptroller general of the united states. it is a pressure to be here with you today. this is a historic moment. all of us have gathered here today in order to create a new movement for "we the people." our country is at a critical crossroads and our political system is broken. 221 years ago the american republic was founded. our nation was based on a few fundamental and timeless principles and values.

these included ones like limited government, individual liberty, opportunity, personal responsibility. at the beginning of the republic, we were governed by citizen legislators to let their occupations for a temporary period of time to do public service and focus on the greater good. they understood and acted to make the concept of the united states, all life. where the art -- where do we stand today? we are the superpower with the largest economy and most mighty military honors. as a nation and a people, we have strayed from the values that made us great. we also face a range of sustainability challenges that literally threatened our country and our family's future.

today we are also increasingly governed by career politicians who may or may not have had a meaningful job in the world before they were elected to office, but once they get to washington, they definitely are not in the real world. too many focus on the short-term interest of their political careers, their party's, or their individual states and communities most of us here today and most of the american people are not pleased with the status quo. we want to hp change the nation's course in order to create a better future. we are the mainstream of america. we represent the sensible center and the majority in the middle. our displeasure is not based on a particular party. there is plenty of blame to pass around. our concern is based upon a

system that focuses too much on politics and not enough on progress. what about our nation's finances? the plain d simple truth is that our country's financial condition is worse than advertised. we are headed for a fiscal abyss at breakneck speed. we must change course before we go over a cliff. changing course is also essential if we want to keep america great and the american dream alive. let me briefly review a few fiscal facts. at the old set of our republican 90 -- and 1879, the federal government was less than 2% of the economy. today, the federal government is 24% of the economy. total debt is rapidly approaching 100% of raw economy. if y look at the true data, and you'll find out that the total debt is already worse than

ireland, at the united kingdom, spain, portugal, and we are not that many years away from greece. we are almost -- for almost 200 years, the united states did not accumulate a significant debt burden, as we were at war. today, all too many politicians say that it is ok to run deficits. even that peacetime. even when the enomy is strong. this is not a sustainable philosophy. we have more than double the nation's debt in the past 10 years and we're on the track to double it again in the next 10 years. we have gone to the wor's largest debtor nation. we have gone from no foreign debt to half of our debt is owned by foreign lenders.

this has literally serve to compromise the future for young people. to their credit, the american people about -- know that we are living beyond our means. they are the leading indicator. the politicians a the lagging indicator. the results of the risk -- of the recent fiscal commission are illustrative. less than one week after we voted for tough choices on spending, taxes, and budget controls, there was a so-called deal done by the leadership in washington up whereby this so- called compromise involved no tough choices whatsoever with regard to fiscal matters, charging over $900 billion to the credit card, all the tax cuts that people wanted, not a dime of spending cuts, and

nothing to do with the structural deficit. pele call this a compromise? what kind of compromise is that? what kind of planet are these people on? it is important that the commission's good work of be put to use. it is important that we, the people, make sure that the disparate -- make sure that it is. the people can handle the truth. they deserve the truth. they also do not deserve rhetoric. given the importance of the fiscal responsibility issue, it needs to receive priority attention. the choices that we make or fail to make in the next three-five years ll largely determine whether our future is better than our past. everything must be on the table. budget controls, spending cuts,

ta reform with additional revenue is. those rigid be -- they do not have a credible plan to address the deficit. those on the right to say that we can solve our problem without raising taxes are wrong. they, too, did not have a credible plan. it is time for our elected leaders to develop a plan that can be implemented in phases over time where the math works. all of us need to encourage our elected officials to address this issue sooner rather than later. we want to do it before we have a crisis of confidence in the market. in order to make that happen, we need to encourage people to work together and across the aisle spurted 22 help people understand the difference between elected officials want to solve the problem and the

officials who are part of the problem. [applause] as we look to the future, we must not forget her past. america was founded by individuals who pledge their life liberty, and property to create what has become the greatest country in the history of mankind. they had a dream and they were successful beyond their wildest imagination. however, today, we are mortgaging the future of our future at record rates. this is immoral. it must not be allowed to continue. [applause] in closing, our future is threatened by a range of unsustainable policies and a

broken political system. we are here today -- we must remember the no labels model. not left, not right, for words. we must recognize that the concepts of fiscal responsibility and social justice are not mutually exclusive. we must pursue both. working together, we will make a difference that we will all be proud of. after all, wheat, the people, have the ability to do anything we set our minds to it. our nation's founders and families deserve no less. not left, not right, forward. thank you. [applause] >> that ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming no

labels founding leader. >> you know who is the most popular speaker? the last one. [laughter] i came here today with a lot of really good friends. my best friend, my husband, was here. i'm going home tonight with a whole lot of new friends. i'm a texan. we like to take credit for some things. most of them we have heard. some of them have not. we would like to say, we on the great victory. but lyndon johnson did not bound

by himself. -- did not allow it to b himself. -- own it by himself. 25 years ago, when i got into politics, i did it because i had an agenda. i stildo i got in it because i was competitive. the reason i do today is for my two kids. our job is to see their future. after today, i know we will see their future. i know i can count on you to go home and make a difference in a way that is going to help me. we cannot do it alone. it will take all of us. i am so proud to be part of a movement that is going to make a

better life for my kids. thank you for being here. it said travels to your homes. >> now, the co-founders of the no labels movement top about the goals of their organization. from "washington journal,", this is about an hour.

host: joining us, two familiar faces, david frum, former assistant to president bush, and william galston, former assistant to president client on domestic policy. how would you frame no labels in a sentence of what you're trying to do? guest: an effort to change the tone and content of our nation's politics so that the big problems that we have can be addressed successfully despite division of power between the political parties. host: mr. frum, why this effort as opped to others that took on this calls over the years? guest: people say it is worse now than the last in ministration and during the last of mintration people say it's worse than ever -- they are all right. it is worse each time. we are arriving at a point of institutional breakdown, the inabily of american government to work. we had this happen before but never at the te economic

problems were so serious. the fact we cannot get a goveor of the federal reserve board confirmed, 1987 and was an annoyance, but it 2010 or 2011 a critical crisis. i will say one more tng. i worked for the bush administration. the things that were said abo president bush were so enraging an outrageous and unfair, and i know a l of my friends and colleagues of around that time say, we cannot wait to serve as we were served. our reaction was, i just want no part of this ever again. the way politics was done then, that should not be the template for ever. that should be a warning for how it must stop. host: as far as the template is concerned, mr. galston, what would you advisor that you're dealing with -- trying to get nsensus done? guest: number one, as the name of our organization suggests, no

labels, we are not asking people to forget about the fact that they are democrats, republicans, or independents, that they have views, commitments, o principles. we are asking them to do two things. number one, stop demonizing one other. understand we are all americans, we are all in this together and we will not get out of it until we all work together. number two, rather than focusing on the differences, which are there, whi are important, start with what we have in common and tried to build out. that would really change the tone and conduct of politics. if we ask that question and put that in the forefront. host: what is the main things all of these groups have in common? of the economy? guest: that is the vote we are all in and it is pretty leakey, right now. not only that, competitors are eating our lunch while we are squabbling over the seats at t table. it used to be time was on

america's side and we could afford to waste time. we were preeminent and unchallenged. that is simply not true and most americans understand we are in a tough new competitive world and if we are not moving ahead, we are falling behind. host: as far as getting folks to set aside labels and focus on issues that are more important, how do you work it practical? guest: i run a website a modestly named after myself, frumforum, and we talk about from a republican point of view how we have an effective system of government, how do we make things work, how do we think of the political decisions republicans have to wait with a view not to cause maximum have it to other side but also making improvements. can republicans think about ways within our political philosophy to strengthen environmental protections, with our philosophy to raise middle- class incomes, deal with inequality and poverty, to enhance and strengthen the power

of nation and individual liberty. we have an affirmative agenda that offers more than just anti- liberalism criticism of liberals, which is unfortunately what you get from all of the other so-called conservative sides. host: our guests are with us for an hour. if you want to ask questions about their effort and related issues -- u.n. to reach us by e-mail -- the efforts that were made in the lame-duck, and the accomplishments, is that a good example of guest: well, it was certainly a stt in the right direction.

i think a lot of people were surprised that the administration and congressional republicans were able to come together -- and many democrats, as well, in congress -- on the question of taxes. obviously that is not a permanent solution, the deal thatas worked out. but the fact that there could be that kind of agreement at all i think was an encouraging sign. let me give you another encouraging gn. the conventional wisdom about the president's deficit commission was that it would get absolutely nowhere. it did a lot better than that. because you have the very rare washington phenomenon of certified liberals like senator dick durbin of illinois and certified conservatives like senaor tom coburn from oklahoma, who was once known as dr. no, actually saying yes to the same thing. that is what we are looking for. they didn't leave their principals at the door when they sat down at the table to talk

about their fiscal future but they found a way forward together. host: but most of the folks, they even rejected the principals -- guest: not true. 18 cmissioners and 11 said yes. technically, 14 were required and you did not get 14 out of 18 people in washington setting gas on a joint plan for where to have lunch. the fact that you had the most of the senators from both political parties -- elected officials, not appointees -- signing on the plan was surprising and a career -- and it provides a foundation on which future fiscal discussions can be built. host: the mechanics of the no labels, where you go from the formal opening? guest: this is what i would like to see happening. this is a very loose group. i don't know if it has a lot of the traditional apparatus of executivcontrol and leadership, so i speak only for myself.

one, we need a change in expectations of americans as users and participants in politics. that every institution would build over the past 30 years -- i should not say every, but so many, and powered the angriest mirities. it is not a fact of nature. it did not used to be so. so, you can make institutional changes the way congress works, primaries work, in the culture of what is acceptable. it has always been true, for example, for as long as anyone can remember, by courtesy leaders of the senate woul allow an individual senator to block an appointment he or she would not like. senators would use it occasionally. it is happening more often. a cultural change. the weapon was there butt is being used more than more. you could either -- have a change where people say this is destructive, we will use it less or less or and institutional change where the weapons taken

away. it is not i the constitution, not in the law and not even the rules of the senate. host: wonder if i can add to that -- guest: wonder if i can add to that, pedro. no labels is grass roots. at our launch event, 1000 citizens paid their own way. we have a plan. and the plant is to organized citizen groups in all 435 congressional districts. those groups are there to monitor the behavior of elected officials, to hold them to account if they start demonizing each other and appear to be part the problem and not part of the solution. we will have town halls in the state to throw the country with the greatest density of independence. at is our plan for 2011. in 2012 we will start flex defense and muscles. host: working with independents?

guest: sta working with everyone. but focusing initially on stage with greatest density of independents bause they are a lot of under estimated voice in american politics. host: how do you ultimately gauge success in this effort? guest: how do you engage success for anything? do things get better? do you see a steady changes in improvement and allows you to look backward and say, things are a little better than before. it is very dangerous to imagine that change happens as a result of dramatic event, or even necessarily by changing the personalities in politics. you could have the same people behaving in better or worse ways. we have, i think, investment the past few years, a lot of hope to change the culture by changing the personality. but the culture ends up changing theersonality to suit itself.

guest: i think the american people will be the ultimate judges. right now trust in government is at historically low levels. trust in congress is hardly unmeasurable, it is so low. it is very bad for demoacy. if those numbers start to move back up then we will see something positive is happening. host: our guests are here forn hour. michigan republican line. caller: i am kind of curious -- maybe they cannswer when i get off the phone -- how they came up with the name no labels. it just seems ridiculous to me. i tend to lean more toward the tea party people. i think there are a lot of independenpeople and they are monitoring and having meetings. i think this isn't like the

coffee party which did not work out very well -- is something like a of a party which did not work out very well. there are groups inside the parties that tried to be stealt, and i think we probably all read david horowitz's book "radical son." we know what these people have done and change their names. glenn beck getting it out to the masses -- we need to identify people and labeled them who they are and not let them be stealthy, and that is my opinion. host: do you want to start? guest: let me start. you know, one of the changes that has come to the conservative world in my active life -- i have been involved in conservative politics since the election in 1980. when i started, conservatives have a coherent program of reform and change aimed at upgrading living standards, making the economy more competitive, deregulation of industry, reduction in taxes,

strengthening of national defense. we implemented a gat part of the program and yielded incredible results, and that was the great conservative achievement. i think our inventory is a little thin these days. the result, inste of offering a program, what we too often do and in the people the caller admires are examples -- excuses, explanations of the things that of gone wrong, theories aut how the assistant secretary of transportation for traffic when he was college studied with this professor, and that tells you everything you need to know about the direction of the obama administration. that is not the way people want to govern the country. when we look at the middle east and we see conspiracy theories prevalent, we understand that it is a product of the failure of those societies because of they were successful they would have programs offered and competitive

elections. that it is a way for me to join with others to change the rules of the game so that we can be more effective in the next 10 years than we were in the last few years. host: wisconsin, you are next. kurt on the line for independents. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. the question i have assembled. -- i have is simple. where were you in 2006 when nancy pelosi said, "we won. too bad." now all theudden, these groups come out. i've been to every tea party meeting that is held within 50

miles of my home. i inte to keep going. you will find democrats, republicans, libertarians, independents. everybody comes to them and they are all disgusted with exactly what is behind you in the building. thats what we're going to change. god bless you all. god bless america. have a great day. host: mr. galston? guest: first of all, my hat is off to the tea party movement. it's a genuine grass-roots movement. it has mobilized a lot of energy and a lot of discontent. americans who want to change the way things are going and to want to make things better have been the lifeblood of our country from the very beginning. no labels is no different. we are republicans and democratics and independents,

and trying to find a way forward in very difficult times. i would ask you and the people watching this program to suspend your disbelief. we're in very mistrustful times. david frum just talked about a conspiracy theories. the air is filled with them. let's try to cool the temperature a little bit and focus on the real problems that we confront. the real problems are not our political adversaries. they are tough economic problems, a tough educational problems, a tou foreign-policy problems, and a competitor see posture in the world that is slipping. the educational system is not performing up to world-class standards. that's the ball to keep o eye on, and not demonizing one another. host: will let you both respond to this. this is from twier, from

susan. guest: that's something you hear a lot. let me give you a concrete example of how that's not true. we're in the throes of this terrible economic downturn. beginning in the summer of 2009, there were some signs of hope that things were getting better. the economy did strengthen during that time. someme around 2010, the improvemes stopped and the economy slipped backward through the summer. why did that happen? there's a lot of debate. let me point to a powerful indicator. in april 2010, the federal reserve decided the economy had enough liquidity and it stopped making more. why did the federal reserve stop providing leadership at that time? at that time, the additional governors of the federal reserve could not be appointed. there was a majority in the senate to confirm them. individual senators said -- this

person is not going to have a vote. because that governor did not get a vote, the federal reserve stopped providing liquidity to the economy. the economy stopped growing in april. we fell into a summer of wasted time and discontent. the government has to function. the idea that you are better off by paying for this giant entity, which has a series of important functions to do, and then have them not to them, even thou you are paying for them, that's a costly and painful thing. i will agree with the implied view of that writer. the government undertakes to much. host: mr. galston, what would you add? guest: we have unemployment close to 10% still. underemployment is closer to a 20%. we have a federal budget deficit of more than $1 trillion each

year. the long-term projections are horrible. gridlock is not going to solve those problems. i'm sorry. obviously, no one is in favor of brash action. our political system was set up , designed by james madison and others, to not rely on brash action. we do need to act. host: springfield, va., thank you for waiting. barbara on the line for republicademocrats. caller: this is james from tennessee. host: i'm sorry. go ahead. caller: yes, i would like to say that the republican party, the tea party, and fox news networ are all one.

their sole purpose is to get barack obama out of office. thy will do everything theyan to hurt some people in the united state to get him out of office. thank you. hostguest: i will be voting agat barack obama, i assume, in 2010. i would also like to get him out of office. you have to have more than that. you have to have some plan of what you will do once you have the responsibility of governing yourself. in the last spell of republican governance, of which i voted for d participated in, what happens when you're right to power and you do not have a clear idea of what you want to do. a lot of what went wrong in the obama administration arises from the same problem. they did not adapt their program to the facts.

they inherited this terrible recession. clearly, dealing with the recession was a secondary concern to other agenda items that they made more primary. that's another cause of our general problems. we need parties that are more responsive to the general public. we can make changes in the late primaries work, the way campaign financing works, and the way districting wks. host: from mississippi, richard on the line for republicans. caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. we know why no labels came up. it came up because people are on to liberals. people are on to progressives.

people are onto the terms these career politicians have used. now they're down to no labels because they don't want you to know their true beliefs. i'm just a good old boy. i'm just an american. progressive, liberal, socialist -- i'm just one of these good old boys with no label. most of us know what you are doing. guest: i get called a lot of names. i do not know that people call me a liberal. i started my political work in 1980 giving out fliers for ronald reagan in a college town that was not very pro republican. we did not win the congressional seat that year. i was in the bush administration.

i spend my life and career in conservative politics. if no labels is a stalking horse for some kind of liberal agen, they've made a big mistake by including me. host: can i throw in the opinions of frank ric guest: i have written about them. host: he said -- host: what do you make of the intent, or the accusation? guest: well, as i have written,

i think it is an unfortunate accusation. it really does not pay attention to what this movement is about and why people are so interested in participating in it. why are people flocking to our facebook page? why did 1000 ordinary americans come to new york city from every state in the country at their own expense? why is spontaneous organizing cropping up in states around the country? this is not being done around some mysterious directive in washington, d.c. we have hardly any money. the people that got interested in this movement early on consider around this table. we do not have the power to do anything unless the people are interested in what we're trying to do. i agree with mr. rich that people are fed up. i don't think he is entirely

wrong to suggest that. a lot of people feel underrepresented or unrepresented in our nation's politics. can mr. rich and i agree on that proposition and move forward together now that we have gotten it out of our system? i certainly hope so. host: house the group wanted -- how is the group funded? guest: i've never seen any money spent in the group. i do not think there any actual funds. people pay their own way. some of the early founders have generously put money of their own into it. i do not think there are any corporate contributions or business contributions to the group. guest: i' not really sure, but i can tell you there's not any big contributions to the group. my understanding is that our total spending in the first year of our existence was less than

$1 million, which is revealed by the standards of modern organizations. -- which is trivial by the standards of modern organizations. volunteers are not kidding a dime. i have never gotten a penny for the hours i've contributed. i know that others are doing it on a volunteer basis. guest: i spoke at a no labels event in washington and i paid my own pay. host: jack on the line for independents. good morning. caller: the united states is looked upon as americans. we have an entire, just like the ottoman empire, but the romans, and that british.

and buyers are expensive and citizens are taxed heavily. -- empires are expensive and citizens are taxed heavily. it is not just the welfare state. we have an empire. we have to pay for it. guest: well, there's a big debate among scholars as to whether we have an empire or not. there are many who agreeith you, sir. for sure, we have global responsibilities. for example, the united states 's navy is the principal force guaranteeing freedom of the seas around the world. in so doing, we are facili facilitating the global commerce. nations around the world are eager for us to continue to play this role. the alternative is a return to anarchy.

yes, it is expensive. there are many americans who wish -- i think, correctly -- that more of the nations that are benefiting from what we're doing around the world would pay something closer to their fair share. this has been a major goal of american farm policy for decades. it's never made very much progress. as americans, i think we need to make a choice. are we wling to continue to pay for the position of coble leadership that we now occupy? would we like other powers, like the chinese, to stepp and do it in our place? i know what i think. there's room for legitimate debate. host: rick in fort wayne, indiana on the line for democrats. go morning. caller: good morning and thank you for c-span. i'm an optimistic person. i believe that a problem, given enough time and solutions, will

come into focus. i see a problemand i go into problem solving mode. our political leaders, some of them will look at the same problem and they see blood. they see what kind of harm they can do to the opposing party. they're in conflict mode. i do not think we can get there from here until there is a mind- set shift in our political leaders. i will give you an example. mitch mcconnell is seen as -- as soon as the political race was over, he said his number one priority was to get rid of barack obama. that was surprising to me. i thought the top priority was jobs. that is the mindset that they are in. i would like to know what the cost of the war is -- the war

that is happening on the hill. we've already had collateral damage from that. loss of homes, lossf jobs, the mother and my ear of the financial system -- mug and mire of the financial system. host: sator john mccain talked about the notion of compromise on the floor. having ltened to what he had to say, and get your response. >> ther's a lot of talk about compromise. do you think this bizarreo world that the majority leader has been carrying us in on cloture votes on this, both on various issues that are on the political agenda of the other side -- do you somehow think the beginning next january 5 we will all love one another?

i do not think so. host: a harbinger of the 112th? guest: here's what i found most encouraging from the lame- duck session. president obama, after this defeat, had a decision to make -- how would you respond to ? one response is to get very tactical and create traps for the opponents. give them things that they say they want, but connect them to other things. you can do a lot of damage to the other side, but you destroy your reputation. that also happen to the clinton administration. he managed to persuade republicans that he was so untrustworthy that there is no dealing with him. that is not what is happening this time. there is some temptation to do so. on, for example, the repeal of don't ask, don't tell. that was linked early on to the

abortion provisions that the democrats knew would be utterly unacceptable to the republicans. they gave a clean vote on don't ask, don't tell. we saw what happened. we will see if the president will connue to negotiate. he is in a more powerful position than bill clinton was in 1995. the country's problems are much mo serious than ey were in 1995. every day there are moments in washington to prove good faith or bad faith. host: before we go to the calls, let me play one more clip. this is from president obama. i believe it is from the press conference before he left f or vacation. >> i will be happy to see the republicans test whether or not

i'm itching for a fight on a range of issues. i suspect that they will find that i am. i think the american people will be on my side oa bunch of these fronts. host: the larger issue, getting people to work together, especially when you have issues that do come up when you talk about policy. guest: we will see, won't we? we will begin to see in earnest when president obama delivers his 2011 state of the union address. at will lay down the template, the path forward, as he sees it, for the next two years of the country and his admistration. my prediction is that after thinking for a strategy and tactics, he will decide that the path of cooperation is the best, both for the country and for him personally. if he is as smart as i think he is, he will come to the following conclusion.

if i get to the high ground and stretch out my hand and invite everyone else to in me here, if they grasp my hand, good for the country and good for me. if they spurn my aunt's ranch hand, then the country can see for itself where the real obstacle is. just to show that no labels is not without internal discord, as a former clintonian, i just have to say that i do not accept that account of what happened during the clinton administration. the record will show that in 96 and 1997, very important agreements were reached across party lines on issues ranging from welfare to our fiscal future. apparently, the majority of the republican party during that period reached a very different conclusion. namely, that bill clinton was

someone they could do business with, and they did. i think history will record that was not a bad time for our country. just to show you that we are not all on the same page -- [laughter] host: what about the state of the union? guest: i have an article coming up in the next issue of "esquire" magazine. it gs through what should the president do? host: is there a picture of you? guestyou or a famously well dred conservative. [laughter] guest: he will beighting an overwhelming temptation to strategy and traps. the president has the inherent advantage.

he is a single decision maker at the top. it's easy for him to coordinate than it is for the members of congre. i hope you'll resist that. host: john on the line for republicans. guest: first, the federal reserve is not responsible for growth. they are responsible for debt fueled inflationary baubles that eventually burst. the american public suffers the consequences we have not been telling you that we do not want gridlock. we do not want washington getting bigger and bigger and creeping furthernd further into our lives and spending more money. i welcome gridlock. on christmas eve, an omnibus bill was passed that gives the fda to regulate all food growing in the u.s. we do not want you people in our live anymore.

we want gridlock. thank you. guest: one of the real barriers -- conservatives do not understand how much they have won since the middle of the 1970's. if we look back to 1960, the year i was born, it was illegal to own a telephone. e government regulated everything in the country. it regulated telecommunitions services. it regulated what was said on the airwaves. the scope of the government is smaller in every way than it was in 1966. the conservatives could of georgia that, i think they would be less apocalyptic -- if the conservaves could absorb tha

i think it woulde less apocalyptic. i wish the caller would review the recent history of conservative accomplishments and feel that kind of optimism that makes him think there something better to do as a conservative in washington than simply stopping things from getting done. host: pam on the line for republicademocrat guestcaller: i think you have tt the money out. given the recent united decision, i do not think that's happening. i think americans would cheer any political group that got together and started pushing a limit on the times that elections take place. in england, they have six weeks or something like that. we love a shorter campaign

season. two, i think you should promote a turntable o cable off day. citizens are being thrown to the lions on a daily basis. as americans, we're sitting around with blood thirsty watching what you people do to each other. i think that promoting a hit to their ratings is one of the only ways to get it to stop. thank you for taking my call. host: mr. galston. guest: let me give you a no labels perspective. we do not begin in washington with a no labels agenda that we're asking people to sign up to. our hope is that through the citizens' groups that will be

organized in all 435 congressional districts -- i can tell you that having attended our launch event in new york', and having listened very carefully to what the citizens who came to the event said, is clear to me that the reform of the political system is high on their list, as it is on yours, and as it should be on the list of americans. there's no question about the fact that our institutional structure, starting as david frum said with the way we organize congressional districts, to the way that we organize campaigns, is not working correctly. it's certainly not increasing confidence in our government institutions. the confidence is near historical low levels. i share your hope that citizens across the country will develop a robust agenda of political and

institutional reform and carry that forward into our nation's politics. host: as far as your orgazation is concerned, is there a set of principles you're looking for as far as the end results of people coming together? guest: our principles are very simple. one, stop demonizing your opposition, whoever your opposition is. two, search for common groun 3, be in problem solving mode. four, put the country first. beyond that, it is up to the citizens to come together around solutions. that is why the local organizing will be the principal focus for 2011. we do not need one more washington center, washington driven agenda. we need a citizen-focused and citizen-generated agenda. that's what we will try to provide the arena for. guest: about what the caller

said about cable news, there's obviously a big food fight atmosphere to a lot of people. i worry a lot more, not about the 3 million people or 5 million people who watch a lot of cable tv and get too much slted political information -- i worry about the 125 million people who get much less politicalnformation than their parents and grandparents did. we are moving toward a world in which the best informed americans are so ch more informed than they were a generation ago, but many americans are much worse informed. it's that kind of information oligarchy that is one of the powerful and destructive forces in american politics. if you do not know what is going on, you will be taking advantage of. that's the backdrop to the financial crisis. all kinds of decisions were made that were too technical and too boring for people to follow.

trillions of dollars turned. the object should not be to get people to turn off cable tv, but to persuade the 125 million people who do not watchnough political information to watch more. host: how do you factor in political blogs and web sit? guest: i think that is the minority within the minority. there are pbably 500,000 people who also read a lot of blogs and are really informed. back to my parents' generation, they were very well-informed people. they're still well-informed. in 1970, you read a couple o daily papers, and consciously watched the evening news, and special reports on the weekend, not only were you doing your part, but you were getting as much information as it was possible to get. today, that would be baileybaren appetizer portion. it was almost impossible to

avoid the 6:30 p.m. news back then, because you had to get off the couch and turn it off, and do something before prime time began. today, it's easy to avoid and a lot of people are. host: richard on the line for independents. thank you for waiting. go ahead. caller: good morning. i'm concerned about the labeling stuff. if my memory correct, isn't mr. frum one of the speech writers for the bush administration? didn't you come up with the term, "axis of evil"? are we still live in the consequences of your labeling, essentially, and bankrupting this country? guest: as bill said, whave some internal disagreement. i'm not quite as peace-loving in temperament as some. i do believe, sometimes, if someone throws a punch at you, you throw a punch back. i would argue more about

inaccurate and irrational labeling then i would about labeling altogether. sometimes, yes, a lot of people say to me -- sometimes use a tough things. what are doing in this group? sometimes tough things have to be said. one of the real reasons behind a tendency toward extremism in our politics is that people who have -- too often, people who have moderate views on issues, it is naturaly linked to a moderate personality type. every once in awhile, if you're going to stand up for a broad points of views, you have to give as good as you get and not say, "gee, i'm too moderate to stand up for myself." guest: let me just add to that.

this is a widespread misinterpretation. no labels does not mean that people do not have political identities. no labels is not asking people to shed those political identities, if and when they choose to identify with our movement. it is asking them to think about a larger good that includ but also goes beyond the their invidual identities. in a lifelong democrat. i have been in sixth democratic presidential campaigns. i served for two and a half years in bill clinton's white house. i'm proud of every minute of it. having said that, i have never claimed that my party has a monopoly on either wisdom or virtue. i have never believed that people on the other side of the idaisle were evil.

sometimes i have thought they are misguided. i'm sure they've got the same about me. we are not asking people to forget about the fact that they are republicans, democratics, and independents, liberals, moderates, or conservatives, but we're asking them to think harder about what it means to be an american and what it means to practice politics and what it means to be an american citizen. that's all. guest: just before christmas, everyone was talking about the new york jets coach that tripped a player. people thought that was pretty reprehensible. was that man not a good coach? did that mean he was not committed to the new york jets? there are things we do not do in competition. it does not help the competition. it does not make you stronger. it destroys the possibility of

politics altogether. the analogy is, there's a difference between playing as well as you can when you're on the field and tripping the players. host: james on the phone from louisiana. caller: good morning. can we please stop calling mr. frum a conservative? a true conservative would never advise the republicans to support the democratic health care bill. after november 2, it does not look like the american people like it so much. take a look at all the waivers the administration has granted. the pre-existing conditions fiasco where 8000 people when they thought it was going to be 135,000 people signing up -- and now they sneak this end-of-life counseling io the bill in the dark of the night. do you still think republicans should support this? do you really consider yourself

a conservative with these types of policy decisions? guest: i'm sorry. i accept you. second, if you read the piece i wrote in spring of 2010, i'm amazed at how accurate it was. what i said then was this. republicans that everything on stopping the health care bill. they refused to try to introduce their ideas because they were so confident they could stop it. i said they would not be able to stop it, so you better try to fix it. republicans did not dohat. the result was the health care bill that passed into law. the idea is that the people rejected my advice were more opposed to the health care bill -- without pat toomy -- republicans rejected it and they

did not deft it. its here. it is here and all of its awfulness. do not tell me about the intensity of your etions when your methodology has led to this disaster. yes,ca,re -- it would be a much better bill from my point of view. now, passing a repeal through the house of representatives, passing a filibuster, winning a presidential election, and finding a president w will sign it. it is impossible. it is here. host: bingham, new york. kelly on the line for democrats. caller: good mning. mr. frum and mr. galston appeared to be the only --

people are attacking the idea. people are attacking mr. frum. when you have countries like china, india, singapore zooming past the united states. i just called american people can educate themselves -- i just hope the american people can educate themselves into the right thing for t country. host: what would you like to see? caller: i would like to see more people pay attention to it and stop cleaning themselves to the media that gives misinformation. there are millionaires spreading a bunch of misinformation. it is just misinformation. when are they going to pick up a book? when are they going to reach something from a different idea and stop what is going on?

host: mr. galston? guest: thank you very much. we have a movement for you movementsir. -- we have a movement for you, sir. ihink your last comment was really onto something. for good or ill, the change in the media and information landscape over the past three decades has made it more and more possible for people to live in a world of information and opinion that reinforces and hardens their own prejudices. that is making it harder and harder to have the kind of conversation that we need to have. david frum, a few minutes ago, referred to the now vanished era where the three networks and the nightly news shows dominated the information flow. that era was not all good, but

it did require people to participate in a common pool of information. it did make it possible for the country to have a more robust political the sessiodiscussion s more center seeking then what we have now. the problem with these niche markets is that they are echo chambers reinforcing rather than challenging the opinions that listeners and viewers bring to them. th is not a proem for which i have a solution because the change in the media landscape is a product of decades of technological development, decades of legal development that open up markets. the media, like the airlines, are much less regulated than they were thre30 years ago. there are many advantages to that. people were avid consumers of information have a lot mre available than they did 30 years

ago. ople who have a narrow view simply have those reinforced. guest: i try to counteract this game by joining it. i run a site. we try to offer something thaa little broader. host: nolabels.org. guest: i w actually promoting my own. [laughter] visit no labels, too. host: if they go to this website, what information can they find? guest: they find out what's no labels -- what no labels is about and how they can get involved. those of the two most critical things. they also have a steady flow of information and commentary from

different points of view. we're trying to build that up and make it more robus we do not have a lot in the way of resources. we do not have all the bells and whistles that people have become accustomed to, but the basics are there. it is like the old folk story with a pot of water bubbling in the middle of town square. the two stew will be as good as the meat and vegetableat the american peoplbring to it. host: the people identified with your group, is there a breakdown? guest: we do not have the demographics on that yet. obviously, before we get too far into 2011, we will start to have a better feel. i can tell you this. there's a very healthy mix in new york for our launch event in the seats and on the stage. host: there will not be any larger events?

guest: there will be state and local events. frankly, national events are not what we are about. if this is not a grass-roots movement, it is not a movement. if it's not a movement, it's just a few people sitting in washington hoping for something beer. host: allen, texas on the line for independents. caller: thank you. pedro, please do not cut me off before i have my points made. right now, the calls are -- well, there's a call for, one twitter for, and mine for seeing through what these people are all about. i commend my people from michigan, wisconsin, susan on the twitter, mississippi, and

the article for mr. rich. i did not count that. that is 11 now. host: your point, please. caller: my point is that these people are social engineering. host: we will leave it there. guest: i do not think i am social engineering. host: mr. galston? guest: i've been called a lot of things. social engineer? i do not think so. it is not social engineering. it is grass roots american politics. if i'm accused of participating in grass-roots american politics, i have to plead guilty. that's what i'm doing. i have said probably three or four times in this hour, d i

will say it again, this movement is what citizens who are not satisfied wi the concrete issuef our nati's politics are going to make of thait. i have my own ideas. i do not expect those ideas to be adopted. i hope they will be discussed. i hope a lot of ideas will be discussed, too. that is democracy. host: you had a chance to see the no labels national leadership meeting. that will be aired friday aired8:15 -- friday at 8:15. you can see more about it and what it is about. we invite you to view that