this can we remain hopeful about our future as a country? >> anyonea people, who has not lived with despair has never lived. we are wrestling with despair in the midnight hour. i wrestled with despair everyday when i look at people's situations. i do not hate these folks. i know they are doing all right. that last moment is one of love. that is what it looks like in public. i am just passing through. [applause]

>> >> please commit bank c-span for covering this -- thank c-span this.ver i thanks for being with us tongiht. let me ask you to thank you rselves for being a part of this. -- by thee in late way, thank george washington for having us -- and missed any part

of this, next week over three nights parts will repeat on pbs. 18, 19, and 20 of january. god bless you. have a safe ride home. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> still succumb, a discussion on an annual report -- still to come on c-span, a discussion on an annual report and then the detroit auto show. and it travis smiley and will

discuss america's next chapter. here is the washington center with hundreds of students at washington. they will discuss politics, government, in their future on c-span q&a. >> this weekend on american history tv, historians discuss the importance of their work and pop culture at a conference in boston. oral history will also take place. and they will look at creating currency. the discussion about succeeding from the union. this is all weekend on c-span3. you can see all of the information online.

>> next, a discussion on an annual report that looks at political rights and civil liberties from around the world. it is from this morning's "washington journal." it is 40 minutes. about tunisia and freedom in the world? guest: this is the first time an arab leader has been forced from power, and a huge development. the president, after the rise up in the middle of december, he felt he could no longer rule and he felt he had to flee the country. this happened with massive violence. there were estimates of several school were killed in protests -- several scores of people killed in protests. get a newovernment will

finally respect the two nation'' ability to express themselves freely to participate in the political process, for journalists to be able to report -- those things have been deprived from the people of tunisia. host: what specific events led up to what we saw last night? guest: it began in december when a young man set himself on fire, protesting the state of the economy. he was unemployed and being hassed by the authorities, triggering a whole number of protests and movements by the people of to nietzsche, who then went into the capital. we saw -- people of tunisia, who then went into the capital. about 60 people were killed. the president of tunisia made promises that he wld undertake certain reforms, that he would not stay in office beyond 2014. it reached a point yesterday

where he felt he had to leave. this will hopefully create new openings for the people and for the region. there was a person in cairo who tweeted about this yesterday. host: one of the things you do with the freedom house is to look at places in the world where there is a lack of freedom. talk a little bit about the recent reporton that. guest: the reporthat we issue was an annual survey started in 1972. we surveyed 192 countries and4 territories around the world. what we have found for the fifth consecutive year is that democracy is receding. there was a reduction in the number of democracies, from 89

down to 87. this is a record decline for our survey. welso see a reluctance among democracies to push back on authoritarian regimes that are trying to challenge the efforts to promote democraci around the world. so, this report that was unveiled this week reflects some warring trends. host: who you cited many untries stepping up measures. guest: not only within their own borders, but they are more aggressive beyond their borders and, and they are supporting other authoritarian regimes that cannot always get the news. providing economic assistance, financial assistance, to prop up these economic regimes.

russia supports belarus, and russia and congratulated them on their rigged election last month. iran tries to undermine other countries in the region and threatens the one democracy, is real. -- israel. ese countries and regimes rely on each other. they consult with each other. they actually you night and come together much more effectively, unfortunately, then democracies have in recent years. host: what does that mean for the recent treaty we signed with russia? we have relations with these

countries in question. guest: the united states has the obligation to stand for human rights around the world whether it is with china, russia, or any other country. the united states has interests in economic energy areas with countries, but the democracy interests should not be shortchanged. it is like a three-legged stool. democracy and human rights should not be the shortest leg of that stool. according to the washington post, president obam is planning to raise a number of human rights issues with china. secretary clinton delivered a speech yesterday, in which human rights was mentioned quite prominently in her speech. i hope this is a reflection that human rights will in fact be a

prominent issue during the visit when president obama went to china in november 2009, he was criticized for not raising human rights issues during that trip, for allowing the chinese to orchestrate his visit as a press conference. secretary clinton ifebruary 2009 when she was traveling in asia and on her way to china was quoted by saying we cannot let these human rights issues interfere. i hope it reflects a sustainable change wre human rights are going to get an adjustment. look at the reaction of the chinese government to the nobel peace prize committee's decision to grant the award. it pressured other governments to not attend the ceremony. president obama issued a good statement when the award was announced, but there was

precious little solidarity with norway. other democracies did not stand by norway. host: david kramer is the executive director of freedom house. if you want to ask him questions, here is how you can do so. do you find that it takes revolts to really make these changes have been? guest: in some cases. if we think back five years or ven years ago, -- the hope is you do not need of violence or an overthrow of the regime, that

regimes will come to understand that violating human rights, suppressing populations, going against minority groups -- that creates the very instability day are trying to prevent it. secretary clinton gave a speech a few days ago. she said those who cling to the status quo may be able to hold back the full impact of the country's problems for a little while, but not forever. others will fill the vacuum. we saw what happened in the tunisian. host: many of the people in the country are young people. guest: tunisia has a population of well educated people, a population of the " over 10 million. i think what we saw is that the population was driven by frustration with the economic situation, with unemployment,

but there were also very bothered about the corruption of the regime. from the wikileaks that were released, there was a cable exposing massive corruption by the president and his family. i think the people were already aware of that, but it had shown even more light on the situation. host: the report you put out for freedom house comes with a map with various colors. i would like to show the folks the map at home. what do the colors mean? guest: the corrine countries are the freeountries around the world -- the agreement countries are the free countries around the world -- the green and countries are the free countries are around the world. the purple countries, which you

can see russia and china, but also in the middle east, those are 47 countries with 35% of the population, half of that being the chinese population. host: what factors do you have to look at? guest: political rights and civil liberties. we do not necessarily evaluate countries based on what the government do. that all these factors into our assessment, but we do and on the ground assessment of the state of political rights and civil liberties. the freedom of expression, speech, association, civil liberties, and the ability of people to choose their leaders in a free and fair fashion, to have a representative of parliament, independent media. all those things come together. there were some 23 different factors in the assessment, a very rigorous process, that the

colleagues of mine under toque. i attended two of the review igor in the report. we make sure that we do the best job possible in rating countries based on polical rights and sed on this course they get, that determines the color that they get. host: how can youook at it from our perspective when we have a different perspective? guest: we base it on a universal values, not american values. these are universal values, as well as other bodies and organizations that countries belong to. where a number of these organizations have it charters

that lay out basic principles, and those are also guides for us when we undertake our study. host: david kramer is the minnet up, on our independent line. caller: i am calling to say with all due respect to the gentleman, world of freedom is , and that includes the great united states of america. i don't see how we have their rights to talk about civil liberties and freedom and all that junk when every single day they do something with the constitution to change the amendments on it. number two, we do torture and

all that and never hold ourselves accountable. our government is corrupt. how do we have the right to talk to the whole world -- to tell the whole world what is true and correct when we do not even follow the rules ourselves? that is my question. had a good day. guest: freedom house is not an arm of the u.s. government. we are a nonprofit organization headquartered in washington. we are bipartisan and been around since 1941. we are not representing the american government's position. no country is perfect, by any ans, in the united states is no exception to that. the united states has a corrective measures in place, where there are ways to stop with checks and balances built into the system, which are

lacking from many other systems. because the united states is not perfect, it does not mean that many pple around the world, human rights activists, do not look to the united states fo moral support and solidarity. they look to us to stand up to authoritarian regimes. i regardless of the ups and downs that we may have in our own country. host: this is from donna who asks -- why is it so? guest: mongolia has a checks and balance system in place. it is a huge country geographically and a small country in terms of population, but it does stand out in the region because it does have a system in place whereicials are elected, or the media are

independent and where activists are allowedo engage in whatever kind of activities and they want to without any pressure from authorities. host: sacramento, calif., our thank you fore. taking my call. i would like to ask you to questions. the first question is -- hello? the first question, we have a guy right now who lost an election. it has been more than a month. this guy is still in power. what we do to speed things up to get this guy outhe is creating e region. second, we have a country like ghana. the people of the country have

demonstrated they want to work, and yet do -- you do not see the west promoting the country. the west is [unintelligible] the same things you are preaching, you are not promoting. the west is not backing them up. you have to promote the country's so you can see that we are behind you. that is my question, please guest: great questions. on the ivory coast, you are absolutely right that is a bad situation, where the incumbent president refuses to recognize an election that led to his defeat, refuses to cede power to the victor in that election.

the countries of west africa have united and have been pressuring the incumbent president to leave. he has not left yet. the united nations has defended the elected president. i think there has been a strong stance taken by african leaders of the united nations, the united states and europe, where they recognize it is very important for african leaders who lose elections, they need to step down and turn over power. we have seen problems in zimbabwe and in kenya, where the incumbent leaders refuse to leave. i think african leaders will come to discover that is a huge problem, and if they do not take a stand, there will be further problems throughout the continent. the problem is not solved yet. there has been violence, but i think it is positive that there has been atrong stance taken

by african leaders. in ghana, it is incumbent upon democracies are around the world to help these fragile, new democracies that are developing. there arerograms, one launched in the bush administration that is continuing in the obama administration, that tries to provide support for democracies that are governing justly proud that is the criteria for receiving support. it is very important that the more experienced democracies in the world come to assistance, because if new democracies failed in delivering on the economic standar of living, economic improvements, then those new democracies could soon change colors on that map. host: you can check it out for yourself at freedomehouse.org. what kind of information have

you found? guest: freedom house has been around since 1941. we were founded by eleanor roosevelt. we are a bipartisan organization, which is to say our board of trustees are nonpartisan. we are headquartered in washington, and we also have an office in new york, as well as 10 offices overseas. we iss reports, such as the one we have been talking about this morning. we do programs that we undertake, supporting human- rights activists, journalists. we also engage in advocacy work, where there is in support of freedom of expression, working with congress, international organizations, foreign governments in trying to raise awareness about human-rights issues are around the world.

host: one of the things i read was about the use of social media. does that play a role in the future of these countries? guest: absolutely. we have seen it in a small country of -- we have seen it in a small country in 2009. people were text messaging each other. we have seen it in other places. we have seen it in china. i think the new communication has become an iortant tool for a human-rights activists and democracy supporters, to be in touch with each other and exchange best practices, whether it is blocking or tt messaging, facebook, all these things are terrific new features and tools to help advance the cause of human rights and democracy. host: detroit, michigan, you are next, on our democrats line. caller: good morning. mr. david kramer, i am very

concerned about american democracy, particularly given the resurgence of conservatism here in america. the republicans were just reinstated as the maturity in the house of representatives -- as the majority in the house of representatives. boosting businesses' ability to control voting in this country, by allowing them to donate as much money as they can to control our electoral process. i am concerned that suffrage being a major pillar of any democracy, the people's ability to get out and vote for their preferences is going to be controlled by big business, by conservative forces in this country, which actually want to

see a minority, a small group of people, control the majority. guest: i think the caller is registering concerns that a lot of people have in this country. there is a number of people who would disagree. we have a political process where people are able to go vote for local representatives, national leaders, and even an independent judicial system that acts as a check and balance. that is what we have elections, so if people do not like what happened in the previous election, they can try to change it. host: this message from twitter --

guest: there is no cookie cutter approach. i tend to think alike toro democracies are the best because they ensure leaders are accountable -- i tend to think that electoral democracies at are the best because they in short leaders are accountable. i would respectfully disagree. i think elected democracies are proven to be the best system. we hav seen the number of democracies around the world decline. it is down to 115. there was one drop in the past year alone. elect barack democracies, i think, -- the electoral democracies, i think, are the best. each country will develop its

own way, respecting its culture and history. we are now trying to impose a certain model on countries. we are trying to support indigenous movements in these countries fighting for a human rights, freedom, and democracy. host: why is there a shift in mexico? guest: its has been a source of controversy. it is because of the state of political rights and liberties. due to extensive violence, where we see journalists and murdered and law-enforcement officials murdered, as well as innocent civilians -- host: because of the drug trade. guest: because of the drug >> you create an environment o self-censorship where journalists out of understandable fear do not want to investigate and report on certain stores because they are afraid they will lose their lives.

it is not necessarily a certain action that the mexican government has taken. it is almost the inability of the mexican government to control the level of violence there. host: saint petersburg, fla., republican line, go ahead. caller: with all due respect, i find quite holes in the information you give. i am starting to think that this is pro-fiction. if you say in the u.s. that freedom is declining, i would agree. then you start talking about countries such as venezuela who is actually sponsoring authoritarian rule in other countries. that is completely false. as a matter of fact, if you compare venezuela to the u.s., you'll find that the u.s. has had intervention's every year of

a multitude of different countries. for the last 70-80 years. guest: i guess will have to respectfully disagree. on venezuela, you have president chavez who has shown no respect for the elections in the fall of last year that proced a very strong turnout for the opposition and after those elections, he used the old parliament to ram through emergency powers were the new parliament will not have the ability to block those powers. chavez has gone after critics and opponents and journalists and civil society activists. he supports the cuban government. he is in close ties with the russian leadership. he has traveled to belarus. the company he keeps would strongly suggest to me that hugo chavez is not a democrat by a long shot. host: washington, d.c., there

are democrat blind. caller: i would like to point out that you failed to mention the gude date of event that took place in honduras as well as one of the worst violators of human rights on the planet, saudi arabia. i would like to take onus with what you said at the beginning about a democracy called israel. human rights watch came out with their international respected report that called separate but unequal, israel's discriminatory treatment of palestinians in the occupied territory. i would like to point out that they said that palestinians face systematic discrimination merely because of their race, ethnicity, and national origin depriving them of electricity, water, schools, access to roads while nearby jewish settlers

enjoyed all of these state- provided benefits. while israelis sensettlements flourish, palestinians live in a time warp. not just separate, not just a cycle, but even pushed off their lands and out of their homes. host: what is the question for the guest? caller: how can you keep israel and saudi arabia off the radar and call israel a democracy when there are hundreds of thousands of israeli-palestinians who live side israel that are still equallyend democracas well as the glaring injustice of the occupied territories. guest: on egypt and saudi arabia, neither country is free. they are listed as not free. egypt has terrible parliamentary elections that were much worse than those in 2005.

i think we see continued disregard by the egyptian government for the will of the egyptian people. we also now see growing tensions between christians and muslims in egypt including a terrible terrorist attack on new year's eve of a christian church. israel is a real concern for many who are trying to see egypt moved in made more democratic agenda -- direction. saudi arabia's one of the worst as far as human rights oppression. there is no queion. the caller and i would agree on israel. there are problems in israel. i don't mean to suggest that israel is a plus democracy. it has a system in place were the leaders are elected by a population where there is a lively debate in israel and a lively parliament. those things are also very important for looking at the situation. i take the caller's point that the situation for palestinians

living in israel is not good at all. that is something we also try to way we do the assessment. host: david kramer is our guest with freedom house. our next call is from our republican line from lasegas. caller: good morning cspan and good morning my fellow americans and david, you are a very smart man and i know you can probably answer my question after i make a few comments. at the w our country is going. i believe we have been infiltrated all levels of government by the socialist- communists that id they would take over our coury eventually by never firing a shot at it looks like they have a lot of willing accomplices in the democrat and republican party. i call rhinos and republicrats. i became active in politics in

1992 when ross perot can on this date. he talked about the giant sucking sound of our industrial base and it turns out nobody gives him credit. he was absolutely right. host: what is your question to the topic? caller: president bush during that debate mentioned three words that i cannot shake from my mind. new world order. it looks like it is being pushed by the obama administration because he has all these czars in the white house. when you are number one, there is only one way to go and that is down. guest: i think the caller, when you contrast what he now just said to some earlier callers, reflex that the united states is full of different opinions and diversities. some people are huge fans and supporters of president obama d others like the caller we just had is the top -- are very critical of him. i think that is what makes the

united states a very vibrant country. we have elections of a people can determine their leadership and i think that is how this country has operated for many years. host: birmingham, alabama, independent line. caller: i believe that the guest is absurd. i have en to some of the countries he mentioned. for example, moldova has a gridlock situation with ethnic tension and they have more political parties than we do. when i watch the media there, i am always in formed. i can pick up bbc and cnn and i can pick up russian media and romanian media. people are more literate. russia has over 40 political parties. it has more independent news outlets. it has problems, for sure, but this guy has a right below

argentina. it is just absurd. i am calling you from a city in the united states where two of the last four mayors are in prison for corruption. i believe there is a bias that this is a relative cold war. this person is speaking nonsense. guest: the collar and i will have to agree to disagree. the fact that the officials where he lived have gone to jail for corruption suggests that the system works. in officials engaged inappropriate behavior, there is a system inlace that holds them accountable. in the case of moldova, a number of political clout -- party is a cotry as does not mean it is am vibrant democracyisoldova after events in 2009, has made

progress. they had elections at the end of november of last year and they seem to be ming forward in putting together a coalition government. e government thathey had before the latest elections was making great progress in moldova. i have been there many times and i used to work in the state department. i know the country well and i think moldova is moving in the right direction slowly but surely. russia is a place where the government shows no respect for human rights. we have seen this with the verdict in the recent case and with the arrest of an opposition fire, the sentencing of him going to jail, murders of journalists and opponents of the russian government, crackdown against opposition activits, journalists who are afraid to speak out and rept. there's no question that russia belongs the not-three

categories. host: go ahead. caller: i would like to get the focus back on the united states and torture. mr. kramer keeps saying that we haven't system of checks and balances and that we cannot fix our government through voting. we voted for mr. obama in 08. we voted for a constitutional lawyer because we thought he would engage in comprehensive civil liberties urade of the united states. we have recently had a president, mr. bush, who wrote a book and went arounthe united states bragging that he tortured people. he just doesn't care. show me how our checks and balances are working. mr. obama has continued it renditions. he has targeted an american

citizen. he has kept a bradley manning in solitary confinement which i view as torture. guest: let me be clear -- president bush has not gone around the united states to brag about torture. he has defended water boarding which he felt was not torture and many people do. there are different views on that. president obama, one of the first things he came out and said and did when he became president was to say that the united states would not engage in any torture including water board. he deemed water boarding to be tortured. what president obama has discovered including his promise to close down guantanamo bay where a number of detainees have been kept is that it is difficult to do. there have been a number of detainee's transferred to other countries. his task has been made more difficult by congressional

officials who do not want the detainee's to be tried in the united states or to be detained in the united states. president obama is trying to do the best he can on these issues. thisign in 2008 where he was arguing that he would change a number of the practices that the bush administration engaged in. in certain cases, he succeeded at other cases it has proven to be more difficult host: lafayette, indiana, republican line, go ahead. caller: i have this article in my scrapbook that said that 75% of the people in the united states should have medical marijuana another article i have says that marijuana is the numb-one selling illegal drug in the world. if it was legalized it would

hurt the mafia, the street gangs and the host: cartel's target how does that pertain to our discussion? caller: 75% of the people -- the senate doesn't do like we wt i have not taken a position nor has freedom house. host: as far as the matter, what do you expect as far as changes in the future? guest: obviously, we want to see more green on the map next year. it will be interesting to see what happens in tunisia in light of the events in the last 24 hours and the last few days. it would be interestingo see what happens with a number of key elections around the world. if elections are not the only criteria by which we determine and judge democracies. elections are a key part but so is independent judiciary settl

society which is strong and active and independent media. those are key elements for democracies around the world. they are universal features of democracies. it is important to understand that an organization like mine is not trying to advance the american model. we are trying to advance, and features, universal features of democracy and human rights and that is what everyone should want to >> sunday on "washington journal" democratic strategists here and fannie -- karen finlney will be a guest.

they will also discuss with richard solomon and carry harry holzerarry holste this is live tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. >> the best way to honor the work of marla the king jr., here is what we should do. >> use the c-span library. find a program, watch it, and share it. >> it is a new congress and a new way to use c-span. you can follow congress your way with these resources. fine video and text of all of these appearances.

congressional chronicles. at c-span.org. c-span so local content of vehicles travels the country. we now take you to detroit where the north american international auto show is in progress. we caught up with the senior adviser on the president's task force on the automated industry. >> we appreciate you coming in. president obama has helped us get to where we are now. also supporting the efforts that has allowed ford's efforts to be here. this plans to be an

extraordinary facility. what everyone here was impacted by the the jobs coming back from mexico to michigan. one of the things that we will be able to expand on in to give our suppliers the opportunity to use those as well. we are very excited about what ford is doing in innovation and between the 2 billion investment and manufacturing, we are the center. the investments in the retooling zones manufacturing, all of those things coupled with something else really shows what we are doing in manufacturing. >> this is about a partnership.

no question that the president stepped forward in a strong way into a leadership. these companies deliver -- dese. this is what the government is supposed to do. the government lends a hand when times are tough. the people getting the help need to exercise self help as well. i think that is what this story is about. ford was helped by the over all work that was done to save the industry. but they did not rest on these laurels. it worked with its workers, its creditors, extraordinary efforts by this company. we are hugely piled -- proud.

ford did this. we are very, very proud of what they have done and happy to be a part of it today. it is nice to be in detroit where we can talk about the car of the year and a selective market share increases and we can talk about ford adding 7000 jobs, we can talk about its position in consumer reports. these are the sorts of things we need to talk about. it is great for this car industry. >> i would like to add one thing. as we go forward, one of the things i am focused on is how we continue to support the electrification. we have a charging station and increasing activities. we want to make sure the 7 $500 credit works. we want to do other things that

are supportive helping major investments and a wonderful technology done by all of our companies. >> from the rest of the nation, how did they see what happens over the years, particularly for american manufacturers? what has the government learned about how to support rebuilding manufacturing chapters? >> the automobile industry has always been the center of the united states. it still remains the single most important industry. i think the lesson is about people working together. it is a limited goal. when you are in a crisis, there is a level of intervention. you have seen as do it with general motors as we backed up.

whether it is helping with the issues like the 136 or the credit, the government is there to provide a measure of help, but the private sector needs to be there. when you have private-sector companies like ford and they have terrific relationship with employees, did you have something that works. i think the car industry is a wonderful illustration -- industry. the car industry is going to require innovation ahead to be successful. this is a company that is innovative. the competition will make for a better company and its competitors better. that is what american manufacturing is all about. we are a leader of people coming together. i think this is a metaphor for the broader question of how we build a factory in america.

there is a level of intervention into decreases, but a broad level support that we look forward to continuing in the year ahead. >> where is this? ok. just off the road. >> no comments about the future. nothing on the future. >> we need to work on getting these things installed. [unintelligible]

♪ >> we are determined to exit as soon as practical. i think the ipo gives a good sense of the balance sheet. the remainder of our sales to complete the exits, we will strike something in this neighborhood. >> what do you think about the plans of chrysler? >> if they want to pay as back, we will keep the treasury open late to get their check. and earlier payment is good. we will have to see if they can make good on those plans.

it would be good news if you were in this location a year ago, i do not think anybody who is not using a controlled substance would have said on this day, chrysler would be talking about this. clearly they have a long way to go. we have no particular expectation. [unintelligible] i do not think we can predict whether it will be one or two. this is a very large transaction. capital markets in the united states -- whether that will be

the appropriate step now, i do not think we will speculate. i have no view on whether it is appropriately done. as a comes off, we will abide with our options. we will consult with financial records and underwriters and figure out what makes sense. no comments about my future. >> we note about the timing. he wanted to show the market you are serious. what could be driving this? taxpayer return? >> >> it is not a lot different. i want to exit this as soon as

practical. this demonstrated but we have demonstrated this with the car company. i hope we can put the foolish government motor stuff to bed once and for all. i think the complete idea is important for the broader economy. it is important for us to fulfill the mission that we set out. we have to balance that against getting a fair return. the practical watchword is still alive. we have a 500 million more shares than we wanted. we should be looking for a way to sell the shares.

gm's success for the stock market -- >> we are not day traders. i think people are a little bit more optimistic overall about the tax deal. but i am not one to sit here and look at two or three weeks of results. we have to look into the world as we find it. >> thank you. >> the local content of vehicles are traveling across the country visiting communities and cities looking at issues that impact the nation. for more information on our local content of vehicles, go to our web site. >> sunday on "newsmakers" kathleen sebelius talks about republican efforts to reach her

tail the house -- health-care law. watch this sunday at 10:00 a.m. in the 6:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span. and speaking of the health-care debate, the house comes back into session on tuesday at 2:00 p.m. eastern to begin a general debate on that piece of legislation. work was supposed to be completed last week, but it was postponed due to the shooting in tucson, arizona. it will have a couple of hours of debate followed by a final vote. majority leader harry reid says it will not be brought to the floor for consideration. follow the house live as they debate health care here on c- span. each year the washington center brings hundreds of students to washington to experience the workings of government. sunday, they will discuss politics, government, and their

future on "q and a." >> this weekend on the american history tv on a c-span3 work on pop culture a conference in boston. the first delegate for washington, d.c. -- they will talk about creating currency and a discussion about the the first state to secede from the union, south carolina. all weekend every weekend on c- span3. see the complete schedule online or you can press the alert button and have the schedule emailed to you. >> television and radio host tapis smiley has a form entitled "americas next chapter ." it is to focus on the current and future challenges in america such as job creation, and the

next year's presidential campaign. we will hear remarks from cornell west, former president bush speech writer david crumb. it was held at george washington university. this is three hours. [applause] >> good evening. i am tapas smiley. we will discuss wide-ranging issues affecting america. aamerica's next chapter" three-hour long conversation about where this country is in the first decade of the new century. let's thank c-span for covering this conversation. [applause] he is the chief political correspondent for cbs news, please welcome david brody. [applause]

she is the co-founder of voto latino, maria teresa kumar. [applause] political columnist for the "washington post" please welcome dana milbank. [applause] she is the creator of one of the best sites on the web, huffington post, please welcome arianna huffington. [applause] the anchor of "at the closing bell" maria bartiromo. [applause] he is the best-selling author, please welcome dr. cornel west. [applause] he is a best selling author and

former speech writer for george w. bush, please welcome david frum. [applause] the ceo of sybase and a committee of 100, our friend, john chen. [applause] i think want to start our conversation with dr. west. i do that because i was reading clips of some of your immedia appearances, one in particular, you were asked about this conversation. i thought we were friends. until i read this conversation -- we talked about how america can return to its greatness. i want to talk about -- we have three hours to drill down on this, but you took exception in the piece i read on a particular

media outlet on the notion of america returning to its greatness. i want to let you unpack we have to say about that, b talk to me philosophically, politically, socially, culturally, how you see this notion of america's grade is and whether it ever existed and whether we can never return to it if it ever existed. >> thank you for bringing us together. we need to have this conversation at this moment at this history of this experiment called the united states of america. what i meant is that the very notion of a great nation is ironic because i come out of a christian tradition as is the greatest among you will be the servant to the port. i don't know a nation that's treating its poor with the level of dignity and ought to. alexander the great was not great to me. he dominated in concord a lot of people. napoleon was not great, he

dominated unconquered a lot of people. the legacy of martin luther king, how are you doing with the prisoners, the orphans, widows, the fatherless, the motherless, the working-class -- military ght, america is unbelievable, technological innovation, america is unbelievable. rights and liberties, america is unbelievable. but greatness has to do with how you're poor and working people are doing. that is the vantage point to me. the legacy to me -- the future of america rests on how we respond to the legacy of martin king. when i look at our poor people are doing, not very well. downward mobility, the newport, chronic poor, locked into a prison industrial complex,

militarism, not just iraq and afghanistan, but the pentagon, the military budget being 50% of the u.s. bget which means there's no wiggle room to deal with the situation of working people and poor people in our debate about the budget. then there are the spiritual issues, the spiritualism, but narcissism, the spiritual malnutrition and moral constipation we see in the nation. the emptiness of the soul and the right and good being stuck in you can get out. that is morally constipated. the right and the good want flow. i'm not just talking about are wall street brothers and sisters. they are human beings like anyone else with two much greed. a military industrial complex of private contractors, too much monopoly. our debate about education, privatizing taking place and to teachers and teachers' unions being cast awelfare queens. teachers need to do the job, no

doubt about that, but $4 billion a month in afghanistan and -- for me, coming out of the legacy of martin, curtis mayfield, and other great freedom fighters, we are in very deep trouble. not returning to america's greatness, it is trying to make america greater with great courage, great love, great commitment to public interest and the common good. for me in the end, no nation is going to be great because every nation i know is going to be shot through with greed and domination, oppression, and the best we can do is try to gain some accountability for the poor and working people as the elites, oligarchs and others continue to dominate the government and economy. [applause] >> if dr. west is right if sedation is trying to become

greater, and trying to juxtapose that notion with your recent best-selling books, "third world america." you argue if we do not change a lot about the way we do business in this country, we may end up a third world america one day. get me from west talking about we need to become greater to your notion that we are slipping toward becoming a third world america. >> first of all, i want to say i would like to spend the next three hours listening to dr. west. [laughter] i was just completely spellbound and that at some point, i said he's going to come to me. i would so much rather sit here listening. one of the reasons we are all so starved of poetry in our public discourse. everything is so prosaic.

just listening to cornell riot -- reminds me of how not malnourished we are would become to that. i don't think there's any contradiction in between wet he said and what i wrote. we can never return to anything, even if the was such a thing as american absole greatness, including toward the poor and working people. my greek compatriots, the philosopher herodotu said you can never enter into the same river twice. everything flows, everything moves on and everything changes. having made the philosophical point, practically, as an immigrant to this country, this accent is for real. i am acutely aware ofow we are losing the american dream becae i lived it. as we are looking now at the possibility of upward mobility, the possibility of working hard and playing by the rules, doing well and your children doing

even better becoming impossible for millions of americans, we see that since the middle class is at the heart of any first world country, if we losour middle class as we are in danger of doing right now, we do become third world america. the statistics, i hate to cite statistics after dr. west, but we have 100 million people who are worse off than their parents were. when it comes to upward mobility, we are 10th, after france, after spain, after the scandinavian countries. to be behind france in upward mobility is -- i think france was behind us in [unintelligible] that is my concern and we have a lot of time to discuss that ultimately i am optimistic. i know you wanted to start with

the darkness and it's good to dwell in the darkness for a while, but ultimately, i believe and this incredible american character and compassion we see express dollar and the country in our small communities. lead to scale it, accelerated, and make it part of our everyday life. >> i want to pick up on something you said -- i'm trying to juxtapose docked suggesting what we are missing a focus on the poor. i hear you saying we have to save the middle-class. how do we focus on the middle- class if that is your suggestion, when doc says what we are missing is a focus on the poor? >> i don't think there's a contradiction at all. the middle-class are the new poor. [applause]

they are adding to the chronic poor. if you look at what is happening in our homeless shelters now, at the food banks around the country, there are more and more middle-class people who lost their jobs and lost their homes. about 2 million people, 2 million families have lost their homes in the last two years to foreclosures. stop and imagine that. last night, at the president eulogized in incredibly eloquent and moving terms, the nine year- old who died. our hearts were broken by the death, but what about all the 9- year-old around the country who haveo hope for the future, with talent and gets but cannot actualize them? the greatest way to honor christina is to focus on a 9- year-old from the country and all the other kids who are homeless, who cannot get a decent education and who cannot

live the american dream. and they are still alive, so we can do something about them. [applause] >> not so long ago, dana milbank, a report released called the rasmussen report and it find that almost half the american people think our best days as a nation are behind us. wrestle with that for a second. most half of us think the best days of this nation are behind us. whether you believe numbers like that or not, it's clear to me that -- i've been around the country and we all do, this feeling of tanks helplessness, hopelessness and concern about the future and whether or not their kids and grandkids are going to do as well as they have done, how do you move a country forward? how do you put a country on the

right track of half its citizen rethinks its best days are a behind it? >> it is a grim statistic. to the extent there is any good news here, a lot of the reason we're all feeling so bad is because of a short-term problem in the economy. we have two problems -- one is that we have just fallen off this economic cliff which has made all the statistics worse and has made the american public extraordinarily dour. 75% to 80% of the people think we are on the wrong track now. that gets at the statistic you are bringing out because that's overlaid with the sense that our problems are gater than the economic cycle. we probably have reached a point where improving living standards

are going to slow down for demographic reasons. we have reached a point where the rest of the world has caught up and america will no longer dominate the way it once did economically, militarily, but that does not mean we necessarily ll sufr lower living standards. we have these two things cing together now and our problems are large but not insurmountle. what's happening right now is they seem insurmountable because 15 million people are out of work, because so many people believe we can't come to grips with the short-term problems. >> john chen, dana says we have to recognize the fact that we as the united states can no longer dominate. if the 20th-century belonged to

the united states, does the 21st century belong to china? do we need to accept the fact that we won the 20th century, but it belongs to china in 21st century? we all know the lder of china is headed to this city in a matter of days to spend a few days with president obama at a summit. does the 21st century belong to china? >> i have a few comments before i enter your comments. i did n understand half of what dr. west said -- i run a around the world and unfortunate -- and i'm fortunate enough to do a lot of business around the world. we beat ourselves up pretty bad. there are a lot of countries out

there that would love to be america. they love americans. the fact of the matter we are all sitting here talking about this, very openly, a very diverse background, that's a good sign. there are a lot of cultural- political-factional power is out there that these kinds of discussions would have ever happened, nor would any thing happen as a result. [applause] we have to not be ourselves up. but now i will answer your question about china. it is the rate of growth. it's like companies. mature companies grow slower, met -- china, we have been telling them how to do things, do it this way, and eventually they do, when they did it, it

worked and the rate of growth is much faster. their attitude is very different. they are a lot hungrier than us. but they also have issues that attempted the to grow peacefully, and i'm sure we will talk about security somehow, if they don't continue to grow peacefully cut the political and social stability will be called into question. as such, right now, if you ask the chinese people, the majority of the 300 million in the middle-class -- a total of 1.3 billion, they still have a lot of challenges. but the middle-class and the other who aspire to be middle- class would rather have the current growth structure than some of the stuff we would like to impose on them. given that, they have big internal demands. everyone wants to put money

there, including us, to grow their market, and they are hungry. the next decade, we will see a lot of development over there. >> i want to come to the other side, david brody, you work for a network most people would think of as conservative in its beliefs and values, political that is, and when i listen to what john chen had to say, in the midterm elections, there was a lot of anti-china rhetoric in the campaign we heard from a lot of folks on the right. it is easy to beat up on china because china cannot respond in your specific district, and not suggesting there are not issues in china that don't need to be discussed, but there was a lot of anti-china rhetoric in this last election. it's one issue where there is a

big divide in this town. i was saying somebody -- alice saying to somebody this week that there's a lot of stability -- i was saying to some be this week that there is a lot of civility because congress is not in session. we are about to enter this age of a divided government in this town. whether the issue is china or a litany of other things i could rollout, what say you about what is or is not going to happen courtesy of this new divided government in washington? >> if we had nine hours or longer we could talk about it. it's a complicated issue. i think it starts with a moral factor in this country as it relates to god. as i travel around the country and talk to people like jim wallace on the left and ralph reed on the right, here is one thing they agree with -- there's a moral crisis in this country

as relates to everything from wall street to the housing market to what has happened across this nation, especially economically. i would suggest there is a lot of common ground that could be found in this area of economic catastrophe. i think that is an important part of it. as it relates to stability in government, what we need to see here, and this is pie in the sky, potentially, but as it relates to the tucson shooting and the divided government we are seeing, we need the elected leaders in this country and we need the influential commentators in this country, bill o'reilly and teeth -- andkeith olbermann, these guys need to come together -- >> did you say you think that th are going to do a psa

together? >> i don't think i was holding my breath what i said that, but the point is if you are going to get through the clutter and really make a diffence, there needs to be sent shock valley. if you are going to have shock value, you need to have people who would normally be in their own entrenched warfare's ounce to come out and start the dialogue. >> is that the problem, david frum? is this about a moral crisis? >> i would not say so. i think the people in the audience, the people at home, they know well what the problems are. i think about all the time that inside each of these problems, imbedded into the problem is the answer. we had a demonstration of this just this week with the terrible atrocityn tucson. that ishe horror of america -- a week mental health sysm,

easy access to deadly weapons, a breakdown in community structure. we know that. let's look at this -- this maniac did a terrible crime and the whole political system of the country snapped together. every loudmouth who had been pumping anger and rage into the country's bloodstream suddenly recoiled and look around at people blaming because the political stability of the united states is like a 100 inch ling-room sofa. you cannot budget. we had this tense debate in 2010 over the american health-care system and its extraordinary wastefulness and we spend more than anyone else and don't get good results. within that waste, if the u.s. spends as much as switzerland, there is four points of gdp will of wasted money line on the table. if we could get a henry ford- type personality and squeeze the

waste out, there are four points of national wealth. we have terrible unemployment, but that means we have able unskilled people ready to do the jobs the country needs doing. we have global security challenges, a hungry rival nipping at the country's heals, but that forces the countryo be more competitive. it competes in a world of states that are adverse and the country has to be disciplined and focused with its resources. is also a reminder that more countries look to be knighted states as a provider of security and most countries -- look to the united states as a provider of securities and other countries as providers of insecurity. i hope can talk about how we display -- how we deployed be institutions of the country in a way that makes the solutions effective. >> you said a lot and i want to come back to some of that quickly. but let me bring in late maria

into the conversation. what david just described sound too much like right. anything he can lay out that simple, that simply, if the answer to these challenges can be found in the problems themselves, housetop on stupak are we? we can't figure -- how stuck on the stupid are we? i'm not certain it's necessarily that simple. but we are obviously missing something here. what are we missing? >> i agree with much that has been said. what i have to push back on is my friend dr. west here because i think america is the greatest country in the rld. i think we were great and we are falling a bit now, for sure, but we will get back to greatness again. let's not underestimate the power of eedom. we talk about thehallenges and the rise of the east and a decline or bumping along the bottom of the west, but this is

a freeountry. the aspirational power is also amazing. the fact that you can come from nothing and work hard and get all lot and achieve success, that's not to say we are taking care of all of our people properly. we are not. we need to better care for all income levels, all areas of the country, and we have work to do there. i think the problem is clearly the jo picture, the unemployment story is persisting. i suspect it will continue to persist. we have challenges overseas with cha with a billion 0.3 people, india with 1.5 billion people. of course, china will at some point be the largest economy in

the world. america hato sell to those people. a billion people outside of america. american companies have to sell to those people. i think that's part of the story. >> i thinkt is clear that camera 3 ought to stay trained here the rest of the night. going to come back to you. camera 3, just get ready to stay trained right here. maria teresa kumar, i ran to her yesterday here in town -- >> where? >> none of your business. >> i thought i might make some news.

>> it was at npr if you must know. we were talking at npr yesterday and i heard maria make a point i agree wit -- when you look at the numbers, the negative numbers are hitting the hispanic community pretty hard. i'm part of the african american community in the picture here is in pretty to be sure, bu the numbers are really hitting the hispanic community really hard. she closed by saying and yet with all that, the hispanic community may be the most hopeful community in the country about their future. i added to that, i have mad love for the hispanic community right now because no community in this country last year flexed politically more than the hispanic community. they flexed last year. [applause] if you don't like things the way they're going, you have to flex and raise up. politics is not a spectator sport.

you have to get off the sidelines and get involved in the process. the hispanic community did that last year and yet there were a lot of victories. immigration went nowhere, the dream that did not go through, so before we start mixing this up, i don't want to leave your committee at this. what happens in 2011 for all of the energy and activism you generated as this campaign for the white house is about to kick up in the next couple of weeks. >> i think it started in december. how wa to talk about where we see our country going. i don't think america was great. i think what we see is a realignment that we saw during the great depression. we are seeing it now to the great recession where we have a completely new industry, a new type of immigrant american in this country and competing on a global scale once again. what happened and the lessons we

learned during the great depression is america learned to take care of our own, our poor, women, and children. now, it is the great recession, we have legislation that has asked us to step up to the plate through health care, financial reform, had asked the question are you going to take care of your poor and your children? i have to tell you we've done ok. part of it is because we do see increasing change within our country, a lot of folks in the middle class have forgotten how to be poor and the rich have forgotten how the middle class. that's a conversation we need to have. as we move forward as a country, one of the reasons the american latino communi is so optimistic despite the fact we have the highest foreclosure rates and highest dropout rates is because -- this is where i will bring it personally.

i remember my mother getting up every single morning going to clean houses and working 15 and 16 our jobs and still telling me that america was the greatest country in the wor. when you have that in your household, immigrant parents telling their kids i don't care if you are from asia or latin america, america is where we are going to make our dream, that's our identity. that is our challenge, how do we inc.? to trot to you're saying th china, india and -- to draw it to what you're saying about china and india, in the u.s., we have the third largest latin american population in the world. the third largest. when you start talking about a billion people, we have that, but how do we educate our american countryman, our brothers and sisters, so we celebrate our opportunities at

the doorstep? fundamentally what this country needs is not only to talk about resources for jobless this, but we need to make sure that the nine year-old is getting the best possible education. that is our challenge as a country. do we care? [applause] >> my first responsibility was to make sure everyone got a chance to say something and initially. now we can loosen up a littl bit. i'm going right back over here first. i want to let dr. west respond, but the backdrop is what maria teresa kumar just said. when i listen to you and maria, a difference on the notion of whether or not america is for somebody people around the

world, a beacon of light and hope, but this notion of american exceptional as an is what i hear the two of you having a disagreement about. talk to me about american exceptional as an. >> we have to draw the distinction between making the claim america is great and the america is the gray -- is america the place you want to live? a lot of other nations don't look so good either. choose to live in america primarily because my mom is here and my grandma is here and my granddaddy. wheat we have helped to make the nation democrat. but the question of want to raise to my dear system is how many poor people, unemployed people, how many poor children, how the uneducated people do there have to be befe you call into question the greatness of the nation? what is the line in the sand? that line has been drawn for me. when i look at the killing fields in these goods, when i look at the war zones, sister

christine taylor green, god bless her soul, and barack obama, he is a magnifint father, he talked about the magnificent american family and we talked about his two children -- that you have a 13 people in prince george's county that were just shot. you have folks buying all the time of all colors, all classis, disproportionately poor. i'm not sure what -- a measure we are fundamentally disagree, but my stresses on the underside. i know brother john chen, i'm speaking clearly for you. >> i've got it. [laughter] >> he is a distinguished graduate of hong kong university. i want to be listed. this is not beating american down 3 -- alan to be lucid.

when martin luther king gave his abilities, he is not anti- american, he was anti injustice in america. that is what we are talking about. [applause] for my canadian-born brother says he can see the answers in the problems, i'm not sure about that. i'm not sure about that. the reason is becse i did not hear in yo analysis and the talk about corporate power or wall street power, i didot hear any talk about mastering the political will from below and the ways in which it is suffocated, sometimes crushed by the powers that be. when we hear cry for her and help among poor people, we don't get a response. when we hear from investment bankers, we get corporate welfare. that's a big difference. [applause] >> i think it is about education. when you look at th

differences of education in this country as opposed to the rest of the world, we are failing. i don't think any of us would disagree. china, -- in the u.s., our kids let's talk a simple things. our kids go to school five days a week seven hours a day. in china, they go to school six days a week, 10 hours a day. of course this is going to be an increasingly competitive situation. we need to give people the opportunity to get educated, or ca and the of up the ladder -- worked hard and move up the ladder. >> dr. west has is different formulation -- but the thing you said thacaught my attention, your example of the answers being found in the problems with this issue of the shooting in tucson and this conversation the country is engaged in about stability. help me understand how is it that is the way forward if it

requires a heinous act like that to get us to even have a conversation about civility? i have heard members of cgress for the last week patting themselves on the back and sticking out their chest -- this tragedy has reminded us there are no republicans or democrats, we are all americans. everyone is saying that same line. we were americans in two weeks ago before that happened. we'll all be americans two weeks from our are not talking about it anymore. it can't take a heinous act like this for us to realize we're in this together. >> i don't mean to look at this black hole of suffering and say here i some sunlight comes out of it. i don't believe it is true. what i mean to say is this -- the reaction to this terrible

crime much has been a rediscovery of some things that were true all along. we have been through a two-year economic crisis on top of the 11 years of a series of failures of our political system from the .com bubble that left people feeling swindled, the stagnation of in come through the last decade culminating with this crisis, the inability of the government to please borders effectively, to act on the information, failure after failure after failure of governmental policy. but what we have discoved is these institutions really work. we have seen a lot of voices in the media and politics for their own selfish reasons hacking at

the basic stability of the united states, the inability of the system to solve pblems. these terrible events have cast a spotlight that has reminded lot of people to talk very loud that if the coury wants institutions work, the country watcd the assault -- a country wants results, if you are talking to niche markets who play this game, this country is politically stable, and when people worry about competition from china, i think that is very real. i had a chance to spend a fair amount of time and china and everyone in a position of leadership i bet is worried about the country exploding. they are worried about revolution for a lot of exceent reasons. that's not something we need to worry about. those who tamper with the stability do so at their peril. >> i have a lot to say now.

i think the point about education is right on. forget about the definition of greatness for a second. everybody wants to compete and the barrier of competi has been lowered. everybody knows that. mariette talked about the numbers and the mathematics of the people, but i shall think because we spend so much money person per child in this country educating them, but we are not getting the results. we need to go with that part first. [applause]

the only thing i think is it's in our attitude. people always tell me about in the garden through 12th grade and then they talk about universities. we have the best university system in the world, bar none. but we don't have a good kindergarten through 12th. the question is why? the why is simple. our attitude is we will not fail our child when they are from k through 12. but when they get to university, we will find them. -- we will flunk them. [laughter] think about this. the parents in this country will complain abo the teachers when their child gets flunked or failed. [applause] they don't take a lot of responsibility in my mind. but in university, everyone is in your grown up and can deal with that. in this culture -- i grew up in

hong kong and went to school in hong kong. failures option. [applause] -- failure is not an option. because there was british rule at that time and there are more kids than schools, we all had to fight into moving up. we studied 10 hours a day, six days a week. in addition we go to tutoring class is and tried to do math on our own and see how many math you could do per hour. the attitude in this cotry is very different. [applause] i asked my children sometimes, thanksgiving is coming, if you do your homework the first couple of days, you can really enjoy the rest of the weekend. and he says what homework? [laughter] my teacher says we ought to

relax. i'm not making that up. i'm not going to tell you the school district either. but it is an attitude we out to focus on if we want to compete, we have to tell our kids you have to learn and you have to excel because it's not about china, of south korea, it's not about singapore, taiwan, japan, it is sweden, its france, it is germany, is everybody. it's not just china. [applause] >> i agree with david that every problem has a solution in sight. we can sit here and talk exactly about how we can fix education. we can go to harlem and look at what geoffrey canada has done and know how to f things. we can go to a school in washington know how to fix

education. the problem is we have a completely dysfunctional political system. the way a bipartisan system fixes education is the leave no child behind act that has everyone behind it from george bush to ted kennedy. it did not fix the education. on the contrary, it's one of the reason people are turning on government. so many efforts like the effort to fix education, like the bailout of wall street, has ended betraying the american middle-class and the working poor. look at the deal warren buffett made with goldman sachs and look at the deal the american government on behalf of the american taxpayer made with goldman sachs. you'll b angry it whether you are left ring or white -- what you are left wing or right wing. i'm not saying they should not have bailed out wall street, they should have bailed out wall

street with strings attached. [applause] i have many friends of mine who are good capitalist to sleep with a copy of "founinhead" under their pillows. that's not how the capitalist system is supposed to operate. you take extensive risk, you may the wro -- to make the wrong decision, and you go bankrupt. if you are too big to fail and you will be salvaged by the hardworking american taxpayer, what are you giving back? [applause] point,ack to david's this is fundamentally a moral issue. the founder of capitalism, when i studied economics at cambridge, we studied adams smith. the first book he wrote before he wrote "the wealth of nations -- the wealth of nations" was the theory of moral sentiment. you cannot have a thriving

capitalist system without a moral foundation. that is what is missing right now and what needs to be recreated. >> there are a number of issues and jumping off here and it is getting fund. i want to put to issues out, dana, but i want to combine what john chen and arianna huffington said -- we are in need of an attitude adjustment as far as education. we need an attitude adjustment. i wonder if you think he is right that we need an attitude adjustment? and the suggestion that there are a lot of people turning on government. a lot of people turning on government is the attitude of turning on government these day a justifiable attitude to have? does that make sense? >> it does.

and i want to amplify that point. let's start by saying i think there is more agreement here that people realize. i don't think there is anyone on this stage who quarrels with the notion of american exceptional lissome, that this is the greatest country on earth, or in dr. west's case, the least terrible country on earth. [laughter] thi, right?e [applause] at the same time, we have a crisis of confidence. where is this coming from. we have some of the worst schools, worst education systems in the world. we also have some of the best, even at the k through 12 levels. we know how to do those things. we have the potential witness, but we are stuck, morally or otherwise constipated. why is that? i think that's the point that

was just hit -- there is a sense, correctly, that our government is broken. it is not worthy of the people it is serving right now. that's not a criticism of the 535 of them on capitol hill, but they deserve some of it. there is almost a panic that the system that was set up more than 200 years ago is no longer working. we cannot address the real problems. we, don't get that because given our american exceptional some, patriotism and nationalism for some o us, our arrogance and hubris, we are the ones talking about exporting democracy around a world. if our system is fundamentally broken, why do we keep suggesting everybody ought to be a democracy like us? [applause] >> because there is nothing better than that.

>> that are broken system? >> we have the best darn broken system in the entire world. >> part of the issue is the short-term mentality. we are so focused on i want to yesterday, i wanted tomorrow. we're focused on getting reelected. this is combining what is wrong with the political system. decisions are being made on will i get elected in two years, will i get reelected in four years. [applause] the chinese are thinking about the next 100 years, not the next two years. that is the crux of thissue. >> what we are seeing right now is a vehement discussion in this country as it relates to free- market principles as opposed to big government intrusions. this is the birth of the tea party, put on not just by the obama administration, but bush before him. if youre going to win the

argument of ideas, you have to ingate with people who don't agree with you. therefore, i go back to 2007 when you had your debate at morgan state university where john mccain was a no show, but rudy guiliani was a no show, mitt romney was a no show. if you're going to say free- market principles are the answer, you have to go in front of audiences that may not agree with that. that is part of the problem. [applause] >> this is where i disagree. one of the rsons we are where we are is because of the massive deregulation that happened since the 1980's. when government wasn't watching, we worked at our worst instincts, which is we got greedy. people who had no business getting one or two homes signed the dottedine not completely understanding that they weren't

paying their mortgage, they're just paying their interest. they're paying $2,000 a month, they had a nice little housend five years later, the a p r came up and they'reaying $5,000 a month. how they reconcile that? that has to do with regulation. when we talk about democracy and democracy building, what we forget is american democracy is evolving. we evolved with women's suffrage, we continued to climb what we did the civil-rights movement, and now our biggest challenge is how do we continue moving it forward? there is a place for government and it bothers me because the sea does not do it well, but when somne ploughs this no, public transportation, that they government function. but also why the lights turn on. there is a place for government

and it is important to make sure we recognize that and embrace it. >> there is a difference between the state government and the federal government and that is part of we're talking about. that debate has go forward. this is why the tea party was so successful, because a was a cauldron of everything they believe, a constitution, that wasn't being lived up to as far as the constitution. >> one thing about the two-party movement that is very important is at the heart of their anger is if you look at any survey, it was anger at the bailout. before the was a grad health- care, anchor anything else, anchor that in this country, we went from a country that makes things to a country that makes things up. [applause] credit defaults swaps, tax derivatives, when the house of cards collapses, the taxpayer,

the government bails them out. that is still at the heart of what was wrong. the fact that every day we get great news from wall street and bad days from maine street is feeling that very legitimate anchor. we cannot really go forward if we don't address with a sense of urgency that has been missing. when wall street was in danger, there was an unbelievable sense of urgency. everyone came together over that famous weekend, the financial establishment, the political establishment, and they said we don't know how we're going to prevent this from happening, but we cannot afford to let the financial system collapse. so we will throw everything against thwall and they save it and rightly so. we never had that sense of urgency about jobs. we never had that sense of urgency and that is what is missing. >> you have mentioned this

twice, david, and i know you have covered this group and these people a much asnybody else over the last year, the whole key party movement. from your perspective, i'm curious whether or not, whether we like or lows or disagree with the tea party, they made some noise and got people elected and got a lot of media time across the country. is there something to learn? is there any takeaway to wrestle with from the key party relative to writing the next chapter in america? >> absolutely. what you saw politically in 2010 was act one. act two is coming in 2012. these folks are serious and they have good hearts, no doubt abt, but they were starting to work the day after day the election of 2012. this is the beginning of the

process as relates to the tea party. one of the reasons marco rubio did so well in 2010 is because he articulate the message very well. christine o'donnell did not. both the party candidates, both with the same message, but marco was able to explain some common- sense items. for example, read the bill. read the congressional bill, cite the constitutional authority in the bill, term limits, balanced budget amendment, line 10 people up on the street, these a common- sense principles. the point is this -- the tea party message is one that can resonate, but it needs the bite messenger. we saw a couple of messengers -- needs the right messenger. we saw couple people to my people to convince independence

to come on to their side. >> we will come back to that. i want to comment on another point -- i have heard two or three references and nobody has said it and we're going to wrestle with that, i heard two or three references to policies or lack thereof we have been subjected to in the first two years of president obama's first term. one of the things that makes this conversatio prescience tonight is we are days away from the anniversary of the first -- of the halfway point of the first term of the president. there'll be a lot of analysis about how he has done at the halfway point and what these next two years are going to bring, how he's going to deal with this divided government,

and i expect a lot of this will be laid ouin his state of the in a few days from now. we have not said expressly, but let's talk about the fact we are at the halfway point of the president's first term. broadly speaking, you say what about that? >> i would say when we look at the major priorities of the president's first two years, we do not see a priority for working people. tim geithr, the regulator, larry summers, e regulator -- deregulator. they are recycled from the bush and clinton administrations. but this is not change again believe and. we cannot -- this is about poor

and working people. it meant then that it became very clear, you can get bailout, a trillion dollars, we could eliminate poverty with billions. pro-business, big business, not small business or of entrepreneurs who out there struggling, big business. the tea party comes along and they have a populist message. i think populism can be a good thing when it focuses on poor and working people. they have populist gestures, there is corruption in the gornment, they are right about that. the u.s. government is corrupt. there's no doubt about that. the lobbyists, the corporate influences are there. the private contractors for the military-industrial complex is there. the corruption is there. but they respond to government by being anti-government.

we say no, you have to clean it up to a degree to which poor people and working people have passes to governmental positions of power as the same way as the bankers or insurance companies do. it is a pseudo populist movement, but there's also an element of white backlash because of back obama, his wife and children. it's more like the national hockey league and the nba in terms of the racial composition. that doesn't mean it is all races, but there are racist elements there. most right-wing populist movements in america tend to be xenophobic. anti-semitic. we may have seen that with our sister sarah palin the other day. was that in ignorance or a subtle anti-semitic gesture? we don't need that. my jewish brothers and sisters.

we had a moment with barack obama's presidency. if he could bring in economists to focus on homeowners rather than just the bankers, that focus on working people rather than the elite, we would have had a very different, and maybe that tea party movement woul have been nipped in the bud. [applause] >> i would like to disagree with my brother here. [laughter] i don't see racism in the tea party movement any more than there is -- hold on a second. there is racism. racism in every part of american society. vestiges of racism everywhere what fuels the tea party movement is not racism. many of you believe that your wrong. what fuels the

>> if you are a member of the leads, you can do no wrong. if you are a poor or middle class person, you make one miste. even if that means you are going to get rates on your credit card of 30%. there will be hidden stuff in your mortgage contract. the game is rigged against you if you are a member of the middle class or the working class or the workg poor. it is important to have the correct diagnosis if we are going to proceed correctly and focus on what the racist elements are doing. that is not the heart of the problem. the anger is widespread across

america. it is significant that you address it. otherwise, it gets out of control. when it gets out of control, the stable system david is celebrating can stabilize. >> it is not fueled solely by racism. there is a racism element. >> i also feel that part of the boost -- >> i don't see a president obama coming out of the tea party movement and other movements. [applause] >> part of the fuel for the tea party is the idea that there is a movement that people want their freedom and do not want to feel like things are being forced upon them. with the health care passage. when you look at the polls and look at the feeling of america, there was a majority that did

not necessarily want that particular plan hatched. they said this is not health care, but health insurance. we are not necessarily dealing with the issues ofbesity. michelle certainly is, but we are not dealing with the crux of health care. there is this division. i think it is important t remember the business of wall street. wall street and main street, no matter how much we say wall street versus main street and they are connected, when you want a bridge built in your neighborhood, the financing comes from wall street. it is not just a bunch of guys. i am not saying there were greeted situations where there were guys walking home with hundreds of millions of dollars -- greedy situations where there were guys walking home with

hundreds of millions of dollars. wall street and main street are connected. >> wall street and main street may be connected, but one always gets the priority. why do the elite to get the priority over the others? >> it is a fair question. i think that there are all businesses. the story of entrepreneur islam is the story of america. -- entrepreneurialism is the story of america. getting a loan from a lender -- not all of the banks are the big five banks. there are banks and lenders who are catering to small business and entrepreneurs. that is what we need to protect. >> that is not we are talking about when we talk about wall

street. >> which should be talking about it. >> when launched a movement called move your money. we encourage people to move their money from the fiveig banks. credit unions and small banks are much more likely to reinvest in small businesses. i agree with you. the problem is there has been a decoupling between the financial sector and wall street -- financial sector and the main street. instead of enabling got creation, they have been running a casino. they have been running a casino where if you lose, the taxpayers will bail you out. ben bernanke says you can go to the windowt the fed and get 0% financing. stead of investing in small businesses, theyre continuing to invest in buying derivatives and doing all the stuff that was

happening before. it is still going on. we sti have to beg big to fail. we have not ended it -- to big to fail. >> politicians nd to do this. it is easy to give lip service to the power and the necessity of small business in this country. that is not the picture we have seen painted for the last couple of years. the big businesses got bailed out. the small ones did not. talk to me about this abandonment of small business by this country as we try to write this next chapter. >> you are talking about a large bank. some of the customers at the large bank are the state and the sovereigns. it is not just big customers or

the customers at big banks. >> first of all, we are a business that did not need to be bailed out. >> make that clear. >> i could see the passion on both ends while you were talking. i was thinking, we talk about giving the time. clearly, our system, only after 200 years, has some imperfection to it. this is the least imperfect system and therefore the greatest system. we all agree with that. i am not joking. it is true. it is at least the most free. there have been some consequences.

it is a lot of greed. the short-term nature of wall street, the short-term memory of the investors and the leveraging of everything that created the structural issues. becausof that, big does matter. size does matter and it has an advantage. we tend to not pay enough attention to the small and protect the small. we always preached free market inciples. we always preach that the market choose the winner. in a global environment like this, there needs to b some governing protection of the small business and nurturing of small business. we do not have that. it is inside our basic market principles. otherwise, we would be in there

trying to dictate who wins and who loses. if we want to do that, and we probably should, we need some policy changes from the government. >> but arianna huffington's point was if a bank is too big to fail, it is not subject to market discipline because government comes in. in 1996, bill clinton was playing the saxophone. he signed a scandalous welfare bill that ronald reagan would not sign. he did it for political purposes. it was opportunistic. two years later, we bail out a hee fund. poor folks having nothing were calling for help. hedge fund loss, fail, get

welfare. there is a hypocrisy here. too big to fail means robbery. it means so much political influence that they can get what they want. that is what that means. [applause] s i too harsh? [laughter] >> i do have to respectfully disagree. when i look at too big to fail today, it is because if we make them failed -- i am not suggesting who is right -- the structural damage is to our system hurts the little guy. i think the government here in this town may not be the most effective, but they are not stupid, i hope

>> you can downsize. >> i get that. you can be regulate it. or you could split it apart and make it smaller. who is to say that will not happen in the next couple of years? i am not in government? that may encourage smaller entrepreneurs. i am not advocating it or suggesting i know anything. i got killed by other people when i walked out last time. [laughter] >> let me ask one more question. our time is going faster than i thought. let me ask you while you were talking. hu jintao is on his w. what should the american people expect our government to get o

of those conversations? what should they be bringing back to us when this summit is over? >> open the markets over there. let us play evenly, fairly, and transparently. [applause] by the way, it goes both ways. you are a foreign entity and you want to invest in any company in the united states, if you are the chinese today, you feel unwelcome. is to our process. it ties to some level of -- i would not say discrimination -- fear, mistrust on our part and it goes into the core of the immigration and everything else surrounding that. our country needs to rethink how

to create jobs here. china is investing about $100 billion per year in the direct foreign investments. we are getting about 3% of that. this is totally not acceptable. >> he said quickly without hesitation, open the markets. maria bartiromo whispered in my ear, and possible. >> i said it sounds impossible. >> what he is saying is where the rubber meets the road. let's talk specifiexamples. recently, we had tires cing from thai -- coming from china. they were being sold cheaper than american companies were selling their tires. there was an outcry from

workers. why were americans buying those tires and not the tires we are making in this country? that are cheaper. so we put a higher tariffs on thtires coming onto this -- coming into this country. we are making money on it. the chinese say, if you are going to put tariffs on that, we will not have you selling products to our people. 1.3 billion people, 300 million people. our companies need to sell to those emerging middle-class. we need to come to an agreement here in order to prosper all of us. by the way, on the too big to fail, i do not think it is necessarily too big to fail, but too connected to fail. these companies are not necessarily evil. if you are connected all over the world, you knew that aig was insuring everything. when the lights wentut, the

financial system would try out. another conversation. i am sorry. >> let's be blunt about it. you have made this 0.3 times. how afraid, given the numbers, how skier should we be of china -- a freight should we be of china or india or japan? >> i do not think we should be afraid. we have to sell to those people. we need to manufacture products in this country and sell it all over the world. [applause] that is where policy comes in. we need a policy in place that keeps many factory and good jobs here. if a company can do something cheaper in india, it is going to do it and should do it to stay competitive. >> why should we be hopeful given this difficult proposition? why should the american people be hopeful that we can find a

level playing field with china? >> let me first answer -- this point has been bounced back and forth a couple of times. maria likes to use 1.3 billion and 300 billion. -- and 300 million. i am unfortunate i came from silicon valley. i could overwhelm that 300 million if we innovate. innovation get you the margin dollars. that ties to my earlier thing. we have to have an education system. we have to have an immigration system to grab the best. [applause] >> can i jump in briefly? >> one of the things we are

missing is that it is the american culture. what do we export that people want to emulate? hollywood and music. that is one of our strengths that nobody is talking about when we say are we going to get competitive with china? at the end of the day, our cultural differences and our strength is what we have useds soft power to change the hearts and minds. >> you are not suggesting we are going to act and then our way out of this, are you? [laughter] >> i do not dance so well. it is an industry that we have actually been able to sell as what it means to be rich. does that make sense? we have to play by the rules. >> if the good people at nationwide give you a grant to do a show on the next chter

and it that were allowed on chinese tv and the people who participated were not trapped by to discuss the truth, the answers would terrify the audience. we should be much more afraid fo china that afraid of them. compared to their problems, our problems are molehills. we should not lose sight. from there unfree press and their propagandistic media and their neglect of their countryside and the skyscrapers and high-speed trains, we should not forget there are 500 million people living in the chinese countryside who are poor. the problem is they are increasingly impatient. when you look at the history of this country and the great migration of black farmers from the united states -- i forget

how many people that was who moved. there are 500 million people in the chinese countryside. think of the social upheaval that migration created in the united states and how difficult it was to work out and how we are still not working it out and how cities collapsed underneath that transformation. imagine doing it times 100 or 150. that is their problem. we do not have their problems. we have our probms. i agree with those who said it is -- our problems are a dysfunctional political system that prevents a powerful economy and society from responding. i am personally haunted by something tip o'neill said when he left congress. at the end of his career he was asked how congress had change in his time. he said the people are better and the results are worse.

that is true again and again for much of the federal government. as compared to 50 years ago, they are more honest, more hard working, more sober. [laughter] ask around. they do not have their wives and girlfriends on the payroll anymore. but as i talk to them about this subjective experien about being a member of congress, they are constantly frustrated. they cannot get things done. they say let's give more power to the members. there are people who can prevent things from being done and the result is frustration. >> the problem is, and i have been trying to keep track of the things we have said on this panel. we're not done to this multiracial compensation, which we probably will not get to --

we have not got into the multi racial conversation, which we probably will not get to. our system of government is broken. we have a broken creek that somehow needs to be fixed. if that is the problem,ow do we fix it? >> the problem with the current elected officials is that there are 26 lobbyists for each member of congress. that means, on top of everything else, while we should be celebrating the passage of financial reform, they are undermining it. by the time financial reform is enacted, it will bear little relation to what we celebrate it. we saw it again and again. we saw in every disaster this year. we saw in the bp and mining disasters. it is impossible to have

regulator capture. we can have regulations up the wazoo, and they will not work. america has traditionally been amazing at using soft power. china is getting better at it. but at afghanistan. we are spending $100 bening -- $100 billion pursuing an unwinnable war. [applause] china is spending billions of dollars buying rawaterial for its industries. when have this kind of perverted priority across our system. this is completely beyond left and right. that is one of the most promising things.

there were people ming out against the afghanistan war. you have more and more republican members asking for oversight as to how this money is being spent take the important thing that came out of wikileaks was a clear chronicling of the collapse that is going on. taxpayer money is being wasted while we are lacking vital social services here at he. >> he has a lot to say and he has been thinking a lot. you can take your time. this point about our system being broken. you are the one person on this panel who lives here. the people in this audience read your stuff on "the washington post" every week. hodo you remain hopeful about

a system that is bron? at one to ask a question of out arianna huffington's point. answer the question first. >> i am a counter indicator. if this government were working well, i might be out of a job. [laughter] i point out what is wrong with our government. i would take the deal. i would find another line of work. maybe i could get something on wall street. i would take that deal. my job is to point out what is wrong and why things are going as badly as they are. i think we identified that fairly quickly here. there was a question to maria earlier. why does wall street get help before main street? the same thing that is expiring

day tea party -- our government has been sold to the highest bidder. this was a problem before the financial crisis. the tea party was so upset with the way the elites were governing the country that they forced a change. they have been had. 13 of the new republican freshmen in the house have hired lobbyists as their chiefs of staff. they have been having fund- raisers all over town raking in money from lobbyists. a lobbyist is john boehner's new policy director. a lobbyist is running health care on the commerce committee. they do not run for election every two years. they run for reelection perpetually. this is not a democratic thing. that gets at why the system is

broken. this is great business for me. i can watch all of this bad behavior and people breaking their principles to raise a dollar. that is the source of my enjoyment and the source of the problem. >> given the corruption and the politician's perennial fund raiser, and the financial influence on big gernment, greed, but concentrated agreed with consequences for them, who pays the cost? and visible. history is important. we can talk about america all we want. the u.s. constitution was in place for over 89 years.

but slavery was still in place. [applause] it was a pro-slavery document. there is no reference to slavery in the constitution. this is important for immigrants who just got here. you are not going to come into america with all of this robust opportunity and mobility without understanding the history and the degree to which this marvelous constitution, which was marvelous precisely because americans had the courage to make it more free and democratic by abolishing slavery and then jim crow. it was invisible. what is invisible today? have we seen the prison industrial complex? have you seen the children locked into school, but the quality of their souls?

who is paying the cost when we talk about all this corruption at the top. that is why i am has a dent -- i am has a tent in terms of the excessive celebration -- hesitant in terms of the excessive celebration. the will of the people is suppressed. [applause] >> i did not forget the second question i wanted to ask you. dr. west gave me a great jumping off point. u.s. set up was nice. i am go right back to dana. the second question i wanted to ask you,what is the price or cost that we ultimately pay been

tied to this war in afghanistan , being tied to this war in iraq? this is the longest military excursion this country has ever endure in iraq -- in afghanistan rather. what is the price we pay relative to write this next chapter if we cannot tear ourselves away from either of these wars long term? >> beyond the immediate cost is the problem that the spending on the wars have created a this me, too situation. people say, you can pay for this tax cut because we are able to afford so many hundreds of billions of dollars for wars in iraq and afghanistan. the problem is compounded. since we can run these wars without paying for them, we can do all kinds of other things without paying for them.

the corrosion has gone beyond the money in this case. one of t real problems with the wars is that we were not asked to sacrifice for them. a small sliver of america has anything to do with these wars. one of my pet projects has been some sense of national service, some sense of sacrifice, some sense that we are in this all together. you will not hear a thing about it in the congress right now or anywhere in town. there is a sense that that war is attached and there is no sense that there was during world war ii that we are all in this together. >> two quick point,

ideological, there is a lot of common ground on this issue. you have liberals and conservatives agree on wt to do in afghanistan. i think that is an interesting dynamic in all of this. you can put liberals and conservatives together and they will say, we need to get out. or you can get liberals and the service of saddam and they will say, we need to stay. -- liberals and conservatives together and they will say, we need to stay. the simple answer -- and i know it is simple -- if you going - if you are going to drink the potomac water, drink it quickly. you have got to get in and get out. i think that is a big part of what is going on here. in terms of fixing the problem,

this is what the tea party is about, getting the citizen legislators. there is a mission called, get out of our house. it is a bunch of community forums across this country. the affected 535 people to the house of representatives. it is going backo the grass roots. they want to put citizen legislators in their instead of politicians who have been drinking from the potomac too much. >> i want to ask this last question. just so i understand this, but teparty says we are going to takeur country back. from whom? [applause] [laughter] seriously.

we are going to take our country back from whom? what does that mean? >> it means we are going to take our country back to first principles and to constitutionally --a constitutional view of what they believe the constitution requires in this country. it is not take our country back in terms of attack and let's go. that is not what this is about. getting back to the point dr. west made earlier, i think there is a danger of using race as a word. you were saying there is an element of racism to the tea party. i can tell you inherent in that is the this is the attitude toward the tea party. it is basically trying to not justify its existence and power

in this coury. >> i am concerned about the truth. i am in love with everybody. >> i can tell you this, on the truth factor the media has gone out and try to tell this story. i have been to dozens of the party rallies across the country. the first thing i do when i go there, i listened. we record the audio. what i am looking for is i am looking around the corner. i am looking around the crowd. i have to tell you, it is not there. >> black folks are intelligent.

we get a sense of what is going on. [applause] >> there are people i talk to paid there is a -- there are people i talk to. >> the black die from south carolina. >> i attended one of a --tea party event --i attended one of his tea party events in south carolina. he was beloved there. >> i thought you said something else. >> my point is that if you actually go look at the story from an in-depth perspectives, a lot of these charges are

unfounded. >> can i jump in? part of it is --you mentioned scott. he is incredibly anti a letter read an entire latino. >> you have a new black -- he is incredibly anti-immigrant and anti latino. marco rubio was a tea party candidate. he was english only paper he realized his polls were ing soft. he started moving away from the tea party. all of the sudden, he started placing spanish-language ads. you cannot have it both ways. when you crack the surface, you can use sharron angle. she was a tea party candidate in nevada. every time she wanted to

demonstrate that she was pro american borders, she showed working-class immigrants basically been the next scary space --scary face in america. words do have consequences. a result has become the radicalized right. they have made it okay to become mainstream. i know when seone comes in and shows a picture of obama looking like the joker. we all know what they are saying this is not ok. i am not dismissing the tea party. the majority of the tea party we upper -- were upper-middle- cls white males. my father is a whiteale. the middle-class white male felt

disenfranchised. they had not marched during civil rights because they were old time veterans and they were fighting. they realize this was a movement for them to take their country back. america is changing. they won the america they grew up with [applause] . >> i would say this, i think we have come to the crux of the issue, one of the main ones, which is labels. i think there is a lot of validity in what you just have to say. when you said that, you said anti-immigrants. a lot of times, we put people in a box. that is extremely dangerous and is not part of the solution. >> you will can see that there is a distinct difference

between labels and facts. the facts are what they are. that is not labeling. >> there is a bigger picture. there are people like melf who have been across these -- across this country and have spoken to these people. we have a much better sense -- have a bigger picture than just anti-immigrant. those are strong words. i am not suggesting it wouldn't be a case just on your side. there is a case on the other side. the crux of the problem is putting people in a box. that is dangeroubecause it does not lead to a bitter conversation. >> you said there is a point on the anti-immigrants side. that point would be what?

>> all i am saying is that when you say you are anti-immigrant, there is an inherent philosophy that comes with that. in other you are basically saying you are racist paid then you are painting people a certain way and you have not talked to them. >>aria, this is informative and instructive. i hear the point loud and clear. a part of what is wrong with america is there is too much labeling. you can clap onhis. i know i am write about it. [applause] there is too much labeling. he may disagree with him on this

point, but there is too much labeling in this country. when you label someone on national tv and call them out by name and say anti-immigrant. , what do you mean by that? >> as a country, we are suffering from racial to take. we are afraid to talk about race. when we get too close, we do not want to bear that burden. when i say anti-immigrant, the young man in arizona who saved representative giffords' line , undersb-1070, he would have -- under sb-1070, he would have been ask for his papers.

it was a sad day in american a wind -- when sb-1070 past and there was not an outbreak -- an outcry from america. there are 22 other states introducing similar legislation where just by the fact that you may look like an undocumented individual where someone can ask for your papers, shame on us. [applause] >> at some risk to my safety, i want to partially defend david on this tea party point. i think there are two tea partiers. you mentioned allen west and the woman he tried to hire to be his chief of staff. she said she thinks if an

immigrant is caught committing a crime, they should be strung up from a telephone pole and the body should be sent back to wherever they came from. the defense is coming. >> before the defense, that does sound anti-immigrants. >> i think you can put anything you want on that and it would not be a bad enough label. is not comingshe to washington. he wishes he could have had her. there is that element. there are two tea partiers were 25% of the population and the small minority that come to the rallies. i think they are entirely separate groups. the ones who come to the rallies

are a tiny minority of a significant part of the population. there is a minority of those who are overtly racist. i have seen them there on the capitol grounds with the joker faces. >> it is coming. i am waiting. >> there is that element. that iwhat we in t media -- i go to a rally and i look around. if i see a photograph of the holocaust, i am going to focus on that and not on the 99% people who work, and reasonable. -- who re calm and reasonable. e vast majority of people in the tea party movement are angry about the economy and decent people.

there is no way around it. >> all of this conversation leads me to you,arianna specifically. we have been top about two african american republicans. republans now control the house. tell me why i should not believe that the strategy that president obama is going to employ is going to be clintonian to the core, which means more triangulation and more pages still lend out of their playbook, which means more compromise and -- pages torn out of their playbook, which means more compromise and more capitulation. >> before i disabuse you of that, i would like to respond to

this fascinating discussn. that is when we need dr. west. what we are talking about is something fundamental about human nature. we have seen it in every period of history. when there is an economic crisis that affects people's survival, the worst comes out in people. we have seen it again and again. we need to go to the source rather than assuming these are the racist people. these are the engines and scared people. these are the people who think they are a -- these are thean -- the anxious and scared people. when you have 27 million people unemployed or underemployed, multiplied by three or four, i did their immediate family or extended family who are worri that they are going to be affected. that creates something that we

are ignoring at our peril. in the 18 eighties, we were actually expelling chinese workers from the country. we were expelling hispanic people who are american citizens under hoover. this is not the first time people have been anti-immigrant. i have a foreign accent. i hear it. people say, hey, you speak english? i did not say, better than you. xenophobia is going to thrive when people are anxious, worried, out of work, or feeling better -- or feeling bad about themselves. but we have a mainstream media whose fundamental aim seems to

be to make money. packs a sensationalize the issue. there is a ->> th sensationalize the issue. there are people who are thoroughly and visible in the media. [applause] what comes at people is a narrow and truncated discussion that reinforces the worse in them and does not accent the best in them. there are citizens who are working hard who feel invisible. what happens? attached is the welcome. either you turn to the right. >> if the people who are

suffering continue to be invisible in the next two years, that is going to be the major legacy of the obama administration. when you bring in bill daley as the chief of staff -- >> i want to be clear. u said that you could not disabuse me of my formulation earlier. >> no, i could not disabuse you. there is this misconception at the white househat the way for the president to get me elected, which is increasingly prevalent in terms of how the white house is making decisions -- the way to get reelected is to go to some kind of medical medal -- mythical middle. i think all of these divisions

are lazy joualism. to have the right policies for wall street is not left wing. to say that you want to leave afghanistan -- you have pat buchanan and george will who are against the policy. the media is calling them left wing because they are reflexively lazy about categorizing. >> that is the media again. that goes to the point of labeling. labeling is a category of confronting chaos. labeling should be objects of our critical sensibilities. in the label we use is

provisional and never captures the complexity of reality. >> i think labels are important. labels are going to be there. the question is, are they well thought out in the genesis of the process. >> they should not be used to get people down. they should be a means to understand what people are going through and why they are opting the way they are opting. i believe all people are brothers andisters paid but i am suspicious of the tea party;s politics. i will fight for their right to be wrong. but we are still contesting. >> let me ask a follow-up. you said something i wanto come back to. i heard you put it this way to get to the point. i heard you ask a few days ago this question.

what can a blu nation lrned om a blues people? i raise that because i want to give you a chance to explain what you meant by that. you intimate it's somethg about what the country have to gain or a -- intimated something about what the country has to gain or learn from people of color. >> we have to begin with a definition of the blues. the blues ain't nothing but an audit by -- and autobiographical story about what happens catastrophically. black people have been dealing with the capacityf slavery,

the catastrophe of american --we have been dealing with the psychic catastrophe of being taught to hate ourselves, less beautiful, less intelligent. we have been dealing with spiritual catastrophe, which even in a country of liberty and opportunity, you work is late. you were redlined, you were locked--into -- you were enslaved. you were red light and you were locked into the ghettos. do we want to enslave white brothers? no, we want liberty for everybody. black people's struggled had been the leavening in the democratic loath. we respond with a smile.

not with hatred, but compassion. that is what a martin luther king is about. that is what curtis mason is about. that is what john coltrane is about. what happened in the reagan years is that the black freedom movement was consigned to be another special interest group. they tried to reduce our movement to our self interest as if the black struggle was just the negro. that has never been the case. we start with the negro. that is delayed -- that is the legacy of martin king. anytime you talk about the black agenda, they view it as just a special interest. it is like the corporate agenda. is thatust a corporation? in a democracy, was the label's

began to -- labels begin to ossify, we cannot communicate. rush limbaugh would say stability wants to police me. you can say what you want. we just want to be fruitful. be fruitful, ambitious, and try not to lie. [applause] they are so polarized. it is difficult for us to proceed. in a democracy, we do not have a high level of communication when it comes to public interest. it has to do with might and power. whoever has the power will define what is right. no society can survive based on that. did i answer that question?

>> yes. you more than swered it. the american people thank you. maria, this raises a fascinating fallout for me. if dr. west is right that in this moment when we are trying to move this country forward and trying to get past these divisions, everybody calling for stability, what is the country losing by the voices of people of color being marginalized in the conversation? this is one of my personal pet peeves of the black man on tv every night. i hate when i say -- when i see too many conversations that do not have ages in the compensation and do not have hispanics and women and african- americans in the conversation. burns me up.

i do what i can to address that on the regular. i think the coury is missing something in this critical moment when the voices of women and people of color i the media are marginalized. to that, you say what? >> this is where i tip my hat to arianna huffington. she has one of the most diverse online di platforms. [applause] wh her work demonstrates is that we are --the online platform tis the rest of us. we can have someone with a differing opinion or different boys in their rise writing and talking. in theiro- -- voice garage writing. it deals with the uomfortable about where bill so i today and

about where i am today, and i do not have anyone to talk to, it is easy for me to conclude that i am not at fault. there is a responsibility in the media. we need to hold people accountable. words do have consequences. >> i have some sympathy for what is being said here. >> as a white male, we appreciated. >> i was on a televisn show and we were talking about rick sanchez being fired. i look around the room and i realize there were four jews talking about it. i understand where you are coming [laughter] from.

-- i understand where you are coming from. i do not understand what the mainstream media we are talking about is. is's its -the washington -- it "the washingt post." i think it is this whole forum. the point is, there is no mainstream media. it is entirely fragmented. there really is nobody. >> i want to give you a chance to respond. let me give you two answers. the sunday morning talk shows exhibit a. i did not care with what u are talk, aboutcnn, fox, msnbc all

day, all night, all white. [applause] that is what i am talking about. >> it if you take the sunday morning audiences, i do not have the viewers here inront of me. that is not as large as the not of people glenn beck and rush limbaugh are reaching on the radio. it is not as large as morning edition or google or yarmuth. what we think the --as the -- asgle news or>> it is not so me the process and whether or not our democracy is missing something with these other rces are marginalized.

there really has been an explosion of media peter -- explosion of media. there is an enormous responsibility on the media today to ensure that the media is giving us a fax. unfortunately, over the last couple of years, things have gotten blurred. it is not just facts and is not just news, but it his opinion. today, given what arianna huffington is doing, it is very difficult to get away with it. immediately, on the internet, there is a correction. there is conversation. there are the