[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> on your screen this sunday morning, a current radar image of hurricane irene courtesy of the national weather service. you can still see a very large storm churning through the sthrim headed up through new england. here is the projected path as we've become familiar with

category 1 storm headed way up into canada there. it's going to be with us in this country for the next couple of days at least 10 people are dead, countless folks without power on the eastern seaboard. untold damage. and fema will be holding a new briefing this morning at 11:30 eastern time. there is a fema-related headline in the hill today and it says that the hurricane is set to bleed fema, costing a lot of money. and it will inflame the budget scrap in congress. we want to get your thoughts on any federal spending that's happening or will happen on irene. how should bit paid for? here are the numbers to call. if you are a republican democrats. and independents. federal spending on irene. how should it be paid for? here ts headline.

the problem with this, he writes there's a lot more here. we'll get to that in a couple

of moments plus your calls. at a time like this pictures and video tell so much of the story. this is the front page of the richmond times dispatch this morning. they say that 75% of the richmond area losing power. here as tree, a man walking under the tree while walking a friend's dog in richmond. just a small taste there of the damage. this is the front page of the richmond times dispatched today. the "new york times" of course doing a lot of reporting on this sunday morning. they have a story that talks about the fact that 8:00 a.m. is a key period in new york city today.

so we've looched at the richmond area points to the south of washington, north of washington. here is the boston sunday globe this morning. this is heavy surf stirred by the hurricane which made landfall. you can see folks boarding up their house back in new england near cape cod there. and then they have a shot from new york city shuthing down the mass transit. you can see the chambers street station there shut for business. first call this morning san antonio texas, john,

republican. federal spending on irene. what do you think? where should it be coming from? >> there's a lot of programs that we have had in place for years. i think it's time even though nobody wants to believe it, the government is not that necessary per se. ok? we don't need a federal government to take care of housing. we don't need a federal government to take care of education. and all this other kind of junk that they've been putting on this last hundred years or so. it's time that we stop having all these programs. they need to be cut right now today. not wait ten years from now. because if this irene is going to cost us a vast amount of money that everybody is talking about it's going to cost, well, it's just like your home per se if you get short you've got to do without something. well, it's time the federal government learned to do without.

cut the pay. why should they get so much money? we get nothing per se. ok? it's time right now. not tomorrow. right now today. >> that was john? san antonio, texas. let's hear from jay now in the democrat's line. welcome to the program, jane. caller: good morning to you. i'm wondering how we are going to pay for it. just wondering. host: where do you think it should be coming from? folks are talking about offsetting spending elsewhere, supplemental appropriations, emergency appropriations which they might typically do. what do you think? caller: don't people have home owners insurance and business insurance to build, have them bill themselves. host: of course that's part of the equation as well. here's the front page of the "washington post" today.

storm slams east coast talking here about 115 mile an hour winds. at least seven dead. old news already. we're reading that number is ten or higher headed toward new york. and they've got another shot here of that boat in nor fome. rescue workers helped bring two people after they became stranded in the roiling waters of the chesapeake bay. ed is "washington post" federal government reporter and blogger and he joins us on the phone this morning to talk about irene and the federal response. give us a large sense of the scope of the federal response thus far and where it's headed. host: it really began a week, ten days ago as federal officials began to realize that there was a significant storm churning through the caribbean and they initially expected it to hit florida. of course early last week mid week they began to realize this

thing was headed up the east coast and really began almost immediately to mobilize dozens of agencies across the government for the various tasks that they are responsible for. of course they got a little bump in the road almost literally with that earthquake mid week. but officials pointed to that why this country has to be prepared for multiple disasters at one time. but at this point the agency has dozens of liaisons and they stayed in offices across the east coast. they are deploying community liaison teams chr essentially a civilian corps of people who are hired on contract to head into these neighborhoods to help explain to them as your last caller was asking, how do i pay for this? they also in a sense provide emotional support to some extent but serve as the front lines of the federal response as people begin to sort out

what exactly is needed not only in their own homes but what communities might need to help rebuild schools or police stations, roads, and bridges. beyond fema you have several other agencies involved, obviously the defense department which pushed out many of its vessels in the nor folk area they're coming back and are prepared to provide support if necessary to state and local leaders, the national oceanic and atmospheric administration runs the national weather service has been very busy throughout this entire situation. and more than ever really using the internet to get the word out and to show people the extent of this storm in ways they never have before. they've been boosting a lot of the satellite imagery and video to show people the size of the storm which as an example of

incompetence in washington. and he vowed that if he became president that his administration would do a much bter job. it has been a real emphasis throughout the obama plrks whether hurricanes, tornadoes to prepare in advance to go big and go fast and really just, if you have to, spend a little extra money to get the supplies and people in place. better to over prepare and potentially overspend a little bit in the event of these situations than to have to make it up later. his fema administrator is a veteran of these situations, used to be the florida state director, very experienced when it comes to hurricanes and this will be their first big test when this hurricanes makes landful in an area that's not used to having them. >> what's their biggest

challenges in terms of coordination? you laid out a lot of aid and structure but what are the big eths challenges? >> one of the things they've been pushing is to get your federal emergency declaration requests in in advance. and as of this morning, ten states, d.c. and puerto rico now have them and many of them had it before the storm hit. and that is now by design. the idea being that if you get that request in knowing that there's going to be a serious situation, that buys you as much as a day, maybe even 12 hours in advance for the state to begin making very quick requests to the federal government. and it puts fema personnel on the ground with those local and state officials as they begin driving around today or flying around today to get an assessment of what exactly they need. north carolina for example state management officials will drive around today and realize we've got significant tree damage, beach erosion and flooding and it looks like it destroyed x number of police

stations, y number of bridges, and the power lines are down. well, if a federal official is sitting at them washington has that information that much more quickly and can begin estimating exactly how much money north carolina is going to need. and then as you deploy your community liaison teams they're called into these states in advance at least they're there so there's no delay in getting them there a few days after as you have residents and victims of these storms sitting there waiting for assistance. so conceiveably in the eastern states today later in the day or first thing tomorrow morning if fema has deployed them properly you will have people there already ready to answer questions right after these local and state officials have made their assessments of what it is they're going to need. >> one more quick question before we let you go. in terms of the money. we're talking about fema and money this morning. put this headline in

perspective. this hurricane is set to bleed fema. we read that they just may not have a lot of money. can you explain how this works? ? guest: well, they have $900 million in the federal disaster fund. that could be gone by tuesday conceiveably or by the end of the week. they're going to need billions. as that caller said a few moments ago yes in many cases for private home owners for landlords, private insurance will cover some of these damages. but in many other situations because of the extensive and unique storm damage the federal government might be needed tostep in. so they're going to have to go to congress and ask for more money, probably billions more. the question will be as it has been all year, if you spend federal dollars, where do you cut? and republicans have said that and republicans have said that they're going to do that. republicans including eric cantor, the house majority leader whose district was very much impact bid this storm also impacted eeredier by the

earthquake, republicans have said if you're going to spend said if you're going to spend you have to find cuts and so we'll see, considering the widespread unique damage that this storm has done, whether they hold to that and how much of a fight there might be in the midst of all the spending decisions that are being made. it could be a pretty ugly fight for east coast states fighting with lawmakers from the rest of the country. many of whom have also suffered from natural disasters this year. there have been several tornadoes, other hurricanes that have been wild fires and droughts and fema has been assisting those locations as well. this will bleed fema. the question is how quickly will it be bandaged up by congress and the white house and will they be able to eyer agree on the size of the bandage. host: thanks for spending ten minutes with us. very helpful information. thank you. back to your calls on federal spending on irene. how should bit paid for? we look at the baltimore sun's

front page, maryland, especially the shore, ocean city very much hard hit. pennsylvania, chester, independent. caller: no. but jane still is. host: go ahead. where are you calling from? caller: cincinnati, ohio. i'm wondering don't the federal i'm wondering don't the federal government and whoever else you said that has money set aside for things like this, don't they have insurance on this stuff, too? or what? host: thanks for adding your voice another time there warrenton, pennsylvania there. caller: ok. i remember it was a flood in pennsylvania when we had hurricane hazel and they used that to start the state tax and they got their foot in the door and after that it's gone up.

they can get rid of the czars that they have. they can get rid of the department of education and the president can take less vacations. and the rest can be paid for by insurance. host: all right. let's hear from rick now in dayton, florida. republican line. caller: that would be day tonea. dayton's in ohio. host: go ahead, please. caller: my view is on self-reliance. we don't save enough in our country, save our own money. with savings accounts. and when something like this happens, you should be responsible for yourself. you should have insurance to cover your own losses and it shouldn't be the federal government's responsibility to make up for people's own short comings. we had a hurricane roll through and i got 1800 from fema that probably should not have gotten. they came and pretty much handed it to me and said here you go. so i think the federal

government should cut back on its spending. it's crazy. self-reliance is the way to go. host: c-span wj is our twitter address. here is one of the messages coming in. let's hear from judy now on the line for democrats. caller: i just want to say that i watched the reports yesterday and i was really impressed with fema and how the federal government works so well with the states, the counties, local governments. what i would say is the red states who only pay a small amount in taxes, the percentage of taxes that they pay that's how much money they should get from fema. and i also would say that when america has big problems like that, we do need to come together and work together to

get things done. and i think what mr. oh keef said was right on the money. i just think that america needs to work together. and another thing, we're focused a lot on how this is going to be paid and this is something that the republicans can use to get away from jobs but i just want to tell americans to stay focused on americans to stay focused on jobs to help president obama to get passed his policies that he wants to put in place for september for jobs. don't allow the republicans to do what they did with the debt limit debate because that was a bunch of foolishness, a bunch of nonsense. let's stay focused on jobs. the unemployed americans everywhere and juss with people as far as the unions are concerned and just the fight that's going on in america. don't get sidetracked. and that's what i think people ought to stay focused on. host: well do this for about 25

more minutes. federal spending on irene. how should it be paid for? a lots of debate in washington. the hill is writing on this morning. hurricane set to bleed fema and inflame the budget scrap in congress.

mark, independent. how have you been handling the storm? mark, are you there? caller: yeah. caller: yeah. the storm's not so bad. the way we pay for this is real simple. we take the ben bernanke and geithner and we try them for treason. we take the machine trillions given to european banks and put it back in our own economy. we take the port authority in new jersey and take the waste and put it back in our economy and that's how we deal with this. host: ok. republican hi there, sue. caller: good morning. it's good to see you. my comment is we're the first to respond to everyone else's disasters in the world. and i don't have a problem with that. and but there's no question that we should take care of

americans during disasters. however congress has to come up with the money. and by the way, the last thing i would like to know is how much do we receive from other nations that we have helped during our distress? and if they don't volunteer to help us maybe we should start calling on them to ask for assistance and repaying some of the money that we have paid for. we've got -- we're stationed all over the world helping other countries in south korea and germany and other places and we helped them. they should be willing to help us. and if they don't, then that should tell us something. thank you very much again. host: front page of the "new york times" there. this is at nags head north carolina. here's the lead headline.

they're looking at closing bridges. they're not bringing mass transit back until after tomorrow's workday from what we understand up in new york city. and they're warning of lots of power outages possibly in the city and then up to new england. so we'll continue to track it. the times talks about fema here still seeking to redeem itself from its spotty performance after katrina. had 18 disaster response teams in place along the east coast with stock piles of food, water, and mobile communications equipment ready to go. the coast guard more than 20 rescue choppers and reconnaissance planes ready to take off. the devens department. the national guard about 101,000 members available to respond. the american red cross more than 200 emergency response vehicles and tens of thousands of ready to eat males due to be hit by the storm. fema has also moved on to the

internet and social media in a big way with craig fuge gate posting updates on twitter. next call, new jersey. good morning. caller: good morning. host: how about your situation? jersey? caller: a few. but not as bad as it appeared to be a lot of flooding. a lot of streets and things are closed. but i think back to the fema thing. i think what obama, this is an i think what obama, this is an opportunity like they say never let a disaster go to waste. he's making everyone buy health care. he could just put an addendum to the health care bill and make everyone buy insurance. and if fema's going to pay for it then they need to get the 51% of the americans to pay no

taxes get rid of the earned income tax and have them pay taxes too and we could all do a group hug together. host: now, sheldon. good morning. caller: let me tell you the solution to how we pay for this. it's so easy. it is so easy. number one, we stop these two useless wars that we have in iraq and afghanistan. stop building their infrastructure for them. and invest the money here. and if those people want to kill each other in those countries, let them do that. also, as far as military spending, why do we still need troops in japan and germany? 60 years or so after the wars there? and we have i understand like 170 bases around the world where we have soldiers.

let's bring these people back and build this country with all the money that we are spending on military and personnel infrastructure and wars. the wars are costing approximately $10 billion a month and think of what that money can do here. thanks a lot. host: thanks for your comments. here's the fema website. fema.gov. they say they have lots of different sections. are you prepared? are you a survivor? activities. and you can see fema administrator fugeyate's updates on the screen here. and he's mentioning that he is putting them out by twitter as well. so lots of information there about fema. next call from baltimore, maryland. here's more pictures from the baltimore sun.

three of them we can take a look at as we take this call from shawn. a democrat. high. caller: good morning. i just wanted to say that we definitely should fund the anybody that has a problem under distress or whatever but i think it should be like we need to monitor the funding that we give to them. maybe like a week's worth of funding or whatever at a time so it's not a lot of unnecessary spending. but i think we definitely should fund fema. but we just need to not spend so much money doing it. and that's all. host: here's a caller from new orleans now charles republican. go ahead. caller: you know, america's not prepared for a disaster. here in new orleans should have been a real example of what you

should do preparing. because i was a victim in katrina, i almost drowned. but we're not prepared because we've been living so comfortable that we feel like we could overcome everything that's really bad. and america, i don't know what road we're going on but we should have a better preparation or we're going to really suffer. host: we're asking folks about federal spending on irene, how it should be paid for. this next one from chicago. charlie, independent. caller: i think it's most interesting. we should share i'm sure part of my home owners insurance helps cover catastrophes. and i thought the most interesting comment of your show was from the fellow at the "washington post." what will the leaders of the

republican party do when it's in their back yard? and they need help. this country was founded on fair and balanced. and we've gotten little off of dead center here but i think people are thinking through it and we'll get back into the center. after every war we've had huge inflation, we've pushed that forward and every country in the world they paid it off with cheaper devalued currency. but we've all gotten along and progressed. i think it's going to be most interesting how the party that doesn't want to spend money handles this situation. thank you. host: thanks. facebook of course you can weigh in during the show and you can continue the conversation after the show. a couple of comments here on

all of this, ideas on how federal spending should be paid for. host: good morning, mike. caller: good morning. just a short comment. i think we'll have plenty of money to pay for the cost of this hurricane if we would withdraw our funding from the international monetary fund, planned parenthood and national public radio. the probable with what we're hearing is a lot of people are still trying to make the obama plrks look good and prop it up. host: bill on the pipeline for democrats.

caller: good morning. i think the greatest disaster we have other than katrina was andrew under george bush's father was lost something like 50,000 people. we've got plenty of money to pay for this. just take the money back from the theeving bankers on wall street. you know they never should have been bailed out. they should have been allowed to fail and then should have been thrown in jail for the been thrown in jail for the corrupt way that they did the american people as far as the mortgage bailout. i don't think there should be any problem. this is the federal government's job. is to protect the american people. not to go around bombing people all over the world. taking their resources. i mean, i still don't know why we're killing libyans. i still don't understand what we're doing there. in iraq or in afghanistan. it seems to me our federal government has just lost its mind. host: thanks for calling there.

to that facebook posting about red states here's a twit rear sponse. one of the pages inside the "washington post". we have a call from alabama now . hi. caller: good morning. let's just say there were four men that had four identical cab yins side by side on the beach. the first one was owned by independently wealthy man, the second one by an entrepreneur who started with nothing and made himself self-made man. the third one inherited from a rich relative. and the fourth one was just a poor guy who had worked and worked and got a mortgage and

was paying for it, paying it off. now, all four cabance were now, all four cabance were destroyed but only one has insurance. let's say that was the poor guy who was paying it off monthly on his mortgage. which one should the government come in and replace? host: keep going. host: keep going. caller: well, i'm saying that the government should not have any responsibility replacing any of them. they all through their own circumstances were in the same boat. so to speak. they suffered the same disaster. but the rich man could have had insurance if he wanted it, the entrepreneur could have had insurance, the guy that inherited it could or could not maybe have had insurance. but the poor guy with the mortgage had to have insurance on it. host: thanks for calling.

new york now joe democrat good morning. caller: thanks for c-span. i'm just amazed at the republican responses every man for himself. there is no thought of promoting the general welfare or providing for people who need help under the circumstance. you know. they say they want to, let's tax the poor people. most people who don't pay income tax or almost half are seniors who are living on social security. should we give them social security and then take it back in taxes? is that what the g.o.p. is recommending? all they want to do is defund the government and crash the economy in hopes of

discrediting obama and getting power back so they can keep up with their agenda of robbing the rest of the american people. to line their own pockets. the response has been awful from the republicans. they're saying any money to go for hurricane relief has to be cut from education, food stamps, you know, things like that that actually help people. so we'll give it to them with one hand and take it back with the other and we'll pay for those rich mansions on the coast to rebuild them while we take away, and kick a few more thousand people off of head start or chips. thank you. host: again, a fema briefing at 11:30 eastern time here in washington. they'll probably continue to track the path of the storm on the video screen like they've been doing and then the homeland security secretary and orntsdzes likely to be out there again. 11:30 live here on c-span. some of the big insurers

putting out ads in the papers today. making it clear they are ready to act on claims. they put their numbers here and zwroust the right here on the "washington post" state farm has its ad here on getting life back to normal after the severe weather. barefoot bay florida rose mary, republican, good morning. caller: i get a chance to say something. the gentleman who just spoke about people who have and then the have nots. you know, we're pretty well off, we're in our mid to late 70s. no one helped us when we were in the young years and it was really hard. and i know from experience this is not a racist remark, but there were three to four months back in the late 70s where we needed he desperately and i stood in line with other people one lady in front of me had three little ones bing bing bing one in her belly never married. they were paying her rent, her

food, h.r. shelter, everything. and you know what they gave me? and i needed it and took it a $75 food voucher. and i had my heels on i was dressed nicely. and they offered me a food voucher. and i took it. but getting back to rich people and being taxed. you know, 350 grand today is not a lot of money. that's not rich. if you're going to tax someone 36 to 39% like barnie i call him barnie oh field from massachusetts as well as that percentage they're not going to miss it. what is 39% of 350 grand? i mean you're left about what 126? that's not a lot of money today. it's not a lot of money at any time really. it's nowhere near a quarter of a million. and these people are still raising kids? making house payments? we do not let inn in this country starve. and i really don't like the insinuation of these democrats.

that we should host: finish up. caller: well, i think america are givers. we're all givers. we give million it hurts. and i think as far as savoring money i disagree with the gentleman who spoke about not giving the military any money our paying for this war. i'll tell you what, we had the greatest military, the greatest law enforcement this world has ever known. host: got to let you go. but gave you a good chunk of time there. i want to take about five more minutes of calls. but remind you that frank fort kentucky will be featured this weekend on book tv. and american history television. we are going to visit various, numerous locations, show casing the history and literary culture of kentucky state capital and the surrounding region. here is frankfort historian talking about the city and fort hill during the civil war. >> so here in town you had people inside the fort waiting

on june 10th, a friday, at about 6:30, 7:00 or so the screaming rebel yell was heard from down in this draw about 200 rebels came right up alongside this rock wall and they didn't expect at all to see inn in the forts. they -- anyone in the fort. they thought they were going to be able to take over this spot, station their men here and then take over the town, the idea being to destroy the arsenal, to destroy the courthouse and to destroy the old capital building. if they were successful in doing that, they might have caused a real problem for the city of frank frt, kentucky. host: so frank frt kentucky feetrd this weekend on book history show casing the various sites the literary culture on the kentucky state capital. for more information visit our website. of course the book tv part of

this is on c-span 2 and the history part is on c-span 3. new jersey, tom, democrat thank you for waiting. how should this federal spending on irene be paid for? caller: thanks for taking my call. i'm in the western part of the state so woo we just have a lot of wind and rape. i just want to make a congressmen -- rain. i grew up in new jersey, spend we staid at wild wood. they were just bunglos at the store. new jersey has become this wealthy state all along the ocean front. these people move there we do have these hurricanes every ten or feen years. i just certainly home their insurance pays for it and doesn't come out of taxpayers' pockets. and i just want to say, i'll be a little partisan here for all those tea party people who love our governor, i wonder if they'll be criticizing him when he has his hand out taking all the federal money that may roll

into new jersey because it's going to be considered a natural disaster. i think we the residents should pay for this, we shouldn't ask the rest of the country to help us out obthis one. host: all right. thomas from mason town. are you there? caller: i'll tell you what, it has been disgraceful the calls that have come in from your republican callers primarily. it's just idiotic to think that we have to go out and cut all the other programs the government is involved in if the people have told their representatives to pass the law and pay for this thing which is by the way a very minor storm. but at any rate, here's ni point if you want to pay for this thing the answer is do it get rid of the bush tax cuts. i mean, that's what caused me to be an independent when obama abandoned the democrats and last december and signed them back into law. the bush tax cuts are what's ruining this country broke. bring us back to the clinton year rates and we'll pay for

these silly little storms easily and education and food stamps and by the way that lady that went to get food stamps wearing her pearls and heels is doing just fine now and i'm happy to hear for her but that lady that was stabbeding in front of her that she told us she knew every single thing about how she ate, how she paid for rent that was absolute nonsense when you're standing in line getting food stamps all you know is the person in front of you is in just as bad as shape as your. by the way. thank you for c-span. c-span is a more valuable service to the united states than the united states marine corps is it does more to protect our interest than our military does. thank you once again for take mig call. host: done griff yin is on the phone with us vice president of the property casualty insurers association of america. caller: good morning. host: give us a sense of what the insurance industry is going through now and what can it expect following the storm?

caller: well, as we looked at the reports that i've seen so far, what i'm seeing is this is more of a rain and flooding event more than a wind damage event, although there is some significant wind damage along the coast obviously. but the slow churning of this storm and this pace at which it's moving is causing to a lot of rain to be dumped on these areas. and that's what's probably what i'm seeing is causing more problems than anything else. that will be also key for insurance that looks to be more of a flooding event and flood insurance is a separate policy that most people buy through their agent or their company. but it's underwritten by the national flood insurance program which is a federal program. host: for those who haven't dealt with this before, what should they know about filing of claims and that type of thing? i imagine there's a lot of angst out there. caller: i'm sure there is. this is something we've been preparing for as an industry

for quite a while. we our companies have teams that are standing by just outside the areas that will be impacted and as soon as it's safe to go in there and they're allowed to they will go in and meet with all the people that are in the area. there are 800 numbers that individuals can use to call. i think the thing to urge them is a little bit of pasheance because this is such a massive storm and affect sod many areas of our country up and down the east coast that it will take a little bit of time for people to get in touch with their company or have someone come out and look at their damage. host: aside from deductibles and such, are claims like these that are about to be filed generally mostly covered? caller: as i mentioned earlier the biggest difference will be whether it's flood or wind damage event. it looks to be a lot of flooding. that would be covered by flood policy. the wind storm coverage

obviously on the home owners policy would pick up any wind damage and so yes it mostly would be a covered event unless they don't have the flood insurance and that sometimes is a problem. host: we had an earthquake in this part of the country earlier this week. now this hurricane we read mr. griffth about further storms. can you speak to us about the condition of the industry overall and what people should know? caller: yes. the industry is very well capitalized even better in many cases than most other financial institutions. and we are prepared for this. in fact insurers have insurance for themselves for these kind of catastrophic events called reinsurance but irrespective of that we've already paid out about $27 billion in catastrophe losses this year. and yes unfortunately you folks are being hit kind of double whammy the earthquake and now the hurricane. but we are financially as an

industry very prepared for this and in very good shape financially. host: done griffin vice president of the property casualty insurers association of america. one last call on federal spending and irene. how should it be paid for? chris from virginia. caller: hi. we're getting double whammy up here in our county. i think with the policies is where our major problems is. there is no transparency with these policies. everyone that i've talked to in our county they had home owners insurance, they had what they call the cadillac plabs of insurance. but unless you ask for particularly what you want, they don't have it. it's just one little blanket little thing and they call them cadillac policies. and then everything on there

has code numbers but they don't match anything. so all of us up here in our county thinking we're ok because of the way our policies were told to us and the legalees and the codings and everything else that's in these policies, they don't make any sense to the average person. touf have a law degree and insurance degree to try to figure these things out. and i paid close to $30,000 in home owners insurance since i've had my home. and now i have nothing. and i have all these damage to my home and now i have water in my home. so it's been a have very, very bad week. and that's what i would ask congress. please make these insurance policies transparent. and simple to read for the

average person. i have some college but i'm not a genius. and i don't think a genius could have figured out these policies any way. host: chris from virginia. our last call here. if you didn't get in during this segment you can continue the conversation on our facebook page but certainly there will be plenty more time this comic week on different aspects of this hurricane a little later we'll have a roundtable discussion on race relations in the united states. and after this break we'll take a look at the future of nato following its operation in libya. here in the meantime is some news from c-span radio. >> we'll hear all about the news beginning this afternoon at noon when c-span radio reairs the five network tv talk shows. topics on the programs today include hurricane irene, the 2012 presidential race and the anniversary of martin luther

king's i have a dream speech. we begin at noon with nbc meet the press host david gregory welcomes federal emergency management administrator craig fuge at and john huntsman. at 1:00 eastern it's abc's this week and another appearance by fema administrator fuge ate also democratic congressman john lewis on the new memorial. fox news sunday reairs at 2:00 p.m. eastern. chris wallace welcomes presidenttial candidate ron paul of texas and fema administrator craig fuge gate. cnn's state of the union candy crowelly also talks with administrator fuge ate and finally at 4:00 face the nation. host bob schafer talks with craig fuge at and former secretary of state colin powell on the 48th anniversary of martin luther king's i have a dream speech. the five network tv talk shows are brought to you as a public

service by the networks and c-span. those begin at noon eastern time with meet the press, this week fox news sunday, cnn state of the union, and face the nation. you can listen to them all at c-span radio on i fobe ap, listen to your blackberryor or go on line.

>> joining us now damon wilson. a former deputy direct tor the secretary general of nato. good morning. guest: good morning. host: thanks for coming. we're here to talk about the future of nato after libya the mission is still going on but wanted to start the conversation with a recent high pressure. could nato's libya mission be its last hura? for all this talk about the strength of nato, whether it's necessary or not. could this be its last hura? guest: i think that's a premature headline. the impetus is right that

there's some real lessons learned from this operation that the alliance needs to draw. the christian science monitor hits at the point that these european allies that led the bulk of the fighting in libya, while they were launching in operation they were also drastically spending their defense budgets such that if you project out, two, five years from now, it's very unlikely that the same allies that fought this war in libya now would be able to repeat that. so there's some reason to talk about a last rura for the alliance. i'm hoping that rather than being, this is a bit more of a wakeup call for many of our european allies realizing they need many of the assets invested in and to reconsider some of their decisions. >> we'll put the phone numbers on the bottom of our screen. our guest will be with us for about 40 minutes or so to talk about the future of nato. republicans, democrats,

independents all have separate lines. an imperfect triumph in libya. read just a passage of this for you. guest: i think that's exactly right. this is a success for the alliance. if you step back and think about what nato jist accomplished in libya, first avoided an imminent humanitarian catass if he as gaddafi forces were rolling into ben gazzie.

his regime has collapsed. he's on the run. not yet captured but he certainly will be. third, it's really put libyans in control of their nest destiny. as you saw, this is not u.s. marines or british or french forces. these were libyans moving into lib tripoli to reclaim their country. that's an astounding success. it took six months yes. but that said, this type of victory and in the midst of an arab awakening is significant for if alliance. so they do have important lessons to draw from it because one hand was tied behind their back. there is no denying that was a success story. >> host: again we're talking about the future of nato following

the libya operation. our guest, executive vp of the atlantic council, former deputy director to the nato secretary general from 2001-2004. host: what was that experience like for you? guest: he was a fantastic leader. he was a scottish politician that took over and had a view about not just helping to manage where the consensus was but trying to lead the alliance and push it forward so played a very strong role in kosovo and pushing the alliance into its first military alliance but led into afghanistan where it assumed a much more important role so i think he's one of the great secretary generals. host: back to libya for a second. from libya, colonel gaddafi is offering talks on a power transfer this according to his spokesman. he told a news agency that the discussions would be led by his

son and wanted to get your take on this headline and where you think it's coming from. >> guest: this is classic gaddafi as we've seen throughout this crisis. but now that he has been driven from power to offer talks about transferring power there's a bit of irony there. so i think that the situation has changed dramatically since the rebels took hold of tripoli and most of his forces have crumbled. there's still scope and space for getting figuring out to move forward whether it's going to be capturing and going through judicial process, whether he still flees, whether he's killed in combat. but the time to negotiate with gaddafi on a transfer of power is gone. host: plus back who has done most of the front work on this? give us a sense of the whole operation. guest: this happened because of the french and the brits. this was intervention in libya was not something that washington was particularly keen on at the beginning of

this crisis. similarly many of the other allies weren't quite poised or in that position to really push forward. this is president sarcoseie of france, prime minister cameron said they weren't going to stand by during this cat taff if i that brought the u.n. on board to push for this resolution and the french and british carrying the bulk of the fighting. the united states played an important role but even after that nerms of the facilitating, the unique capability that is we could contribute. if you look beyond the french and the brits, this is a success story for many of our allies. it's easy to scoff at the contribution of some of the smaller allies. but 25% of combat sortees were being run by the norweigians and the dains. if you look at belgium, norway,

denmark what they contributed to this alliance, it's a good news story for some of these smaller allies of ours as well. host: the first call for our guest regarding nato, arizona, robert republican. good morning. caller: good morning. i was just wondering why the concentration was on libya and most of the rest of the -- most of the rest of the jasmine spring as you might call it has gone off the radar scope. the people in syria, the people in bahrain. and who know what is countries we haven't been hearing about unless we happen to be watching al-jazeera news. and i'm just curious why was it libya and none of the other countries that nato became involved with? host: damon. guest: that's an excellent question. that's the right question. because if you step back strategically and you look at what's unfolding in the middle eastern north africa how the

transitions played out in egypt and what happened in syria, that really is at the top of the agenda in terms of the impact on u.s. national security interests, the way it's going to reverberate throughout the region. so why libya. libya i think was a pretty unique circumstance. if you think about why the alliance took up arms in libya, first there was this particularly imminent humanitarian catastrophe focused on benghazi as gaddafi's forces were moving into the second largest city in libya. his rhetoric and actions made it quite likely that we were about to witness a very significant humanitarian catastrophe. second, we had extraordinary leadership on this issue in that the french president and british prime minister stepped up and exerted a political leadership that galvanized people in europe and washington to act. what distinguishes libya is the scale of international leagetssy for nato's

intervention. much to everyone's surprise the arab legal stepped forward and backed -- put forward a request for international support to enforce the no fly zone over libya, something that you would not expect the arab league to do. but remember gaddafi had tried to assis nat the king of saudi arabia. so when push came to shove they abandoned him and called for intervention against him. . .

caller: hi, hello, thank you for taking my call. i'm just curious. it was the caller before me, i don't care whether you're republican, democrat, or independent. i think we're all puzzled as to why, six months ago, no one was even talking about libya. six months ago, no one was even talking about it, and this gentleman is talking as if gaddafi was murdering people

right and left. there are many more regimes worse than this man, gaddafi. as i recall earlier, after the start of this conflict, gaddafi asked to talk, to concede, and they still refused, as if they wanted to physically destroy this country. now look at all the people who are dead. host: the earlier part of her comment is the same as an earlier caller. anything you want to add? guest: there was a debate here. was the intervention in libya really in u.s. national interests given the priority we pout egypt? i think there are really divided opinions here. you just watch how the congressional debate played out. the re is the is this action was led by our european allies, and the united states played a supporting role. this was president obama's first choice in terms of an intervention. he stood by and backed up our

european allies as they decided it was important for them. but i understand the question, terry. guest: it's from 48 different countries. 10,000 troops in the balkans, 150 advisors from the war in iraq, dating back to 2003. they also have at-sea counter piracy patrols happening off the horn of africa. 22% of the budget comes from the u.s. i mean, not a surprise there. 60% from germany, 12% from france, 2% from the u.k., 9% from italy. moving forward, damon wilson, the percentages, do you see those changing much? >> the nato budget, the 22% figure that you cite, it's actually not a huge centralized budget for the alliance, the

core structure for nato is pretty small. what has changed and what's become a problem is that in terms of defense spending, the united states' share has gone, within the alliance, from about 50% of the overall defense spending, to about 75%. that's a worrying trend. i'm less concerned about how much we pay into the direct nato budget, because it's a pretty small, centralized budget. what's more disconcerting is the amount americans spend viss asuccess european allies. guest: steve in hartford, connecticut, good morning. caller: good morning. wouldn't it be true that the best use of resources for nato's military spending would be to get us off the use of oil , because every dollar we spend on oil eventually gets recycled to mideast countries and used for weapons and terrorism.

guest: that's a sail weren't point. part -- that's a sail can't point. if you think about this from a european perspective, the natural gas, the oil that comes from libya, it doesn't come to u.s. markets. it comes to european markets so. this was a more significant factor if you are a european thinking about the future of your economy and your energy needs. efforts to push greater energy diversity, energy efficiency, there are certain ways to decrease dependency on the region, and i think that's a critical part of the strategy going forward. >> robert gates, in one of his last speeches, made news talking in brussels about concerns over europe's defense capabilities. here's a short piece from that, and then we'll be back with our guest. >> if current trends in the decline of european defense capabilities are not halted and reversed, future u.s. political leaders, the cold war was not

the formative experience it was for me, may not consider the return on america's investment in nato worth the cost. what i've sketched out is the real possibility for a dim, if not dismal future for the transatlantic alliance. such a future is possible, but it is not inevitable. the good news is members of nato, individually and collectively, have it well within their means to halt and reverse these trends, and instead, produce a very different future. guest: damon wilson, any guests? guest: that was his farewell speech, his last speech in europe, was a very significant speech, one from the heart that he's wanted to deliver for a long time. it delivered a tough message to our european allies, that not giving up on nato now -- he wasn't saying nature 10 broken today. he was saying that, left unchecked, nato has a dim and dismal future. trying to underscore the importance of europeans

recommitting to investment, this is a tough conversation to have in the midst of a euro zone crisis, a sovereign debt crisis, but he was right to force the conversation. that said, those who have been following the alliance throughout its history, the alliance has always been faced with a storyline of whether it's broken, whether it's divided, the end of nato. i think each time the alliance has demonstrated its resilience, to adapt and rise to the challenge, and while it has problems, it's been the best tool, the best vehicle we've had to address a lot of security challenges, and i think that's going to remain. host: our guest has worked with the state department, also at the u.s. embassy in baghdad, has always been with the national security council in a couple of different stints there. he is currently executive v.p. at the council and at the nato secretary general, 2001 to 2004. the next call is from maryland.

caller: hi there. it just seems a little silly to me that we should even be involved with libya and feel that we're responsible every time human rights are affronted upon. if that is the concern, how come we didn't step in in iran when they wanted freedom and they were beating their people in the streets? there's problems with these aggressive nations like north korea and iran that are blatantly aggressive towards us and our allies that need to be dealt with, i believe personally. host: thanks for calling. guest: you couldn't be more right in what's happening in iran has a longer term strategic impact on american interests. again, to be crass, one of the things about libya was that we could. the alliance could intervene and do so in a way that enjoyed international legitimacy and support, particularly in the arab world, and had the

capability to be effective in this situation. neither of those conditions exist in a country like syria, particularly a country like iran. we wouldn't enjoy and have international backing or support and the capability to support and the capability to affect an outcome is far from the question. guest: cary, north carolina, democrat. caller: i love c-span, and i would cast no aspersions on your guest. however, we never get the real back story behind these kind of conflicts. i think the story has to do with what relationship great britain and france had with libya prior to this outbreak. now, we know that there's oil in libya and i know that france was involved in cutting all kinds of new deals, so if we can get some money on c-span that will actually talk to those issues that would be displayed or exposed by

wikileaks, then we'd be getting information that's available to the american public. this kind of a discussion doesn't tell us really what's going on. thank you very much. bye. host: any insight? guest: i think our caller sixage rating, the commercial interests that drove the conflict there. it is very much true that the french in particular will be focused on commercial contracts in a post-gaddafi libya. there's no doubt about that. to say that was the driving factor, i don't think that stands up to scrutiny. host: samuel, new jersey. hello. go ahead, sir. caller: hi. hi, mr. wilson. hell snow host: you're on the air. caller: thank you very much for you info. i think this was really history repeated again and again and again. that will never change.

they never change to respect of a human being. they just want people to live away, and it's just no fair. i'm from africa, there's a bunch of people that live in africa from west to east and people living every day, and nobody -- if you look at somalia, it is unbelievable, unbelievable, nobody -- we don't see every day. if you look from nigeria, it's a very democratic country. but besides, there is no change in different countries. i think we just create always, i don't know, too much mess based on more than, money, money. don't even tally up humanity.

we should change that area. that is honest to you. we just benefit something. host: samuel, you said you're from africa. which country? caller: ethiopia, east africa. i love america so much, you understand? but don't tell people the whole history, like how can i explain? this much pain in africa, you understand. host: thank you, samuel. damon wilson? guest: first of all, i think it's a misnomer. the europeans didn't choose libya. in many resist, it was libyans and the rebel council, the arab league that requested international support to back -- it was a u.n. security council resolution passed against a no-fly zone and a right to protect civilians in libya. so the europeans didn't go looking for libya, and i think

important to point that out in this circumstance. also, i think it's a mishomer to say the french, british, eye tailenians destroyed this country. if you look at what just happened, the destruction came from gaddafi and their forces in terms of their attack on attack centers, on civilians themselves. the nato air campaign, which was coordinated with the rebels, was probably one of the most targeted, precise bombing campaigns in military history designed to minimize civilian casualties and destruction of civilian assets. i think that's a pretty remarkable feat. but again, the impetus came from libyans requesting assistance themselves. host: pictures from al-jazeera tv. the next caller is paula from new york, republican line. caller: hi, good morning. i have two questions. first of all, i'm a little confused as to why all the confused as to why all the sudden this country is taking

orders or requests from the arab league, which is not -- since when are they our allies? since when are we doing their business? and to speak to the last caller, i totally agree. the christians in sudan, the christians in ethiopia, the christians in somalia are being massacred and tortured by muslims and the arab league. i don't understand. why are we setting a precedent that the arab league asked america to go in and do its bloody war and all the sudden we're saying yes to a group that is against israel, which is our strongest ally, and this is the reason i left the democrat party, this anti-israeli rhetoric sentiment action from it the obama

administration is absolutely unprecedented, and it's wrong. host: mr. wilson? guest: i can't characterize it the united states doing the bidding of the arab league at all. if you talk to many in the arab league right now, they're quite upset believing the nato operation has gone too far, has extended it beyond the mandate. what the arab league did is it paved the way for u.n. security council resolution that provided sort of international backing to this operation. so it wasn't our european allies. remember, the united states wasn't pushing to go into this conflict at the beginning t. meant that our european allies weren't going into a conflict against the will of the neighbors, the international community t. provided a degree of legitimacy and support to the military operation. i don't think anything played out in the libya policy that can be construed as anti-israel. if there had not been an

intervention, gaddafi would have crushed the uprising, and i think it would have brought into a lot of questioning whether this arab awakening would have even continued. just as gaddafi's demise is a shot in the arm to the protesters in syria and yemen, gaddafi's ability to crush the rebels would have produced the reverse and really provided a bit of a boost to the president. host: here is a question via twitter. when our the arabs overrunning them? we don't know who these people are, yet we reward them with funds. guest: that was one of the key questions at the beginning of this conflict. who are the rebels in libya? because we hadn't had an active presence in libya, we had limited knowledge about who these actors were. i think what's played out over time is we've been able to have quite a few dim macts and special forces interact with this transitional national council in libya. it's gained a fair degree of

credibility. it's adopted principles to outline a constitution which guarantee individual liberties, which have adopted the sack lawyerists tone to it, rather than islamist militant tones. we've gotten to know and see these folks in action governing eastern libya, been ghazi. and frankly, they've done a respectable job in a society where there haven't the civil society. they've managed to create the new state. so i think they've earned some trust, earned some respect t. doesn't mean that we don't know all the actors and we still have more to learn. but i think in libya, there's a particular case to be made that we're dealing with some responsible actors on the rebel side. host: from libya to syria, wanted to get your take. in the "new york times," it says that iran calls on syria to meet "legitimate demands." a story out of beirut, it says that iran, syria's closest

ally, called on the government in damascus to recognize its people's legitimate demands on saturday in the first such remarks to come from the persian country since the five already month-old uprising against president assad started. what do you make of that? guest: i can't help but take away a little bit of irony from the headlines of tehran and the iranian leadership calling on syria to meet the legitimate demands of its people. this is clearly not the approach that the ayatollah and leadership in iran took during the green revolution which protesters were on the streets of tehran. so it's with irony that iran is syria's biggest backer. iran has supported assad in syria with funds, with weapons. so i think this is probably a little bit more of political and p.r. work rather than a change in iranian policy. host: have about 10 minutes left with our guest. bolling brook, illinois, is up.

good morning. caller: good morning. mr. wilson, with all due respect, you're spewing propaganda just like the rest of the u.s. media. it has to do with oil, but more so with currency. it's the same reason that the u.s. avoided iraq. the u.s. has colonialism. the british and the americans have a history of clonism and taking what doesn't belong to them. this is more of the same. you look at what's happening in somalia. the arabs are starving africans there. no one is doing anything about it, but you're going invade libya? it's about oil. if it has nothing to do with oil, the u.s. is not interested. and as far as israel is concerned, israel has been oppressing the palestinians. it's time for them to share

that land. that land does not only belong to them. this has nothing to do with biblical. this has everything to do with money and power. host: all about oil in libya, she says. guest: with all due respect, i disagree. i think that the situation in libya, for the united states, is not about oil. the united states actually is not a great importer of libyan oil whatsoever. libya has a relatively small share of global oil production. it exists. it contributes to that. but most of libyan oil and gas goes to europe. almost none tv comes to the united states. i just don't think that was a compelling rationale behind any u.s. decision making in this front. and again, i spent some time this week with libyans who was not part of the leble group, not part of the regime. but basically, who said that, at the end of the day, most libyans recognize that this was their revolution, their their

protest, their uprising against gaddafi, yet they know they would have failed, it would have been crushed. and many of them would be dead today if it hadn't been for the willingness of nato allies to intervene, not for themselves, but nato allies to intervene on behalf of the rebels. and knowing by doing so, we actually see a libya today that has a chance to have a dramatically different future, that may become a real partner of the united states down the road, because it may actually become a functioning, free arkt democracy. we still have to see. there's still a long road to haul. but i don't think the u.s. engagement was driven by this to start. host: back to nato itself. what's your sense of the future of it? will they reflect on what they've done together? pretty significant action when you take everybody at the same time. guest: i think so. when alliance leaders last met

in november 2010 in portugal when president barack obama was there with other leaders, they were struggling with the mission in afghanistan no. one could quite imagine that they'd be involved in another military operation so soon thereafter. to have it come out successfully is a key boost to the alliance. but that said, i think what matters now is that alliance leaders go away and they think about the lessons that they can draw from the libya operation. they couldn't sustain this operation. one, it underscores, you've got to be prepared for strategic surprises. no one anticipated this. i think it also says something about how the alliance can operate with the united states. is it playing the leading role or not? there are implications to that. nato doesn't really work historically with the united states is engaged in a leadership role, yet libya did demonstrate the europeans can carry a heavy burden. if they don't begin to really

reconcile sort of their political aims with their budget, they won't have these options in the future. host: 28 countries total in nato right now? guest: that's right. host: will that continue to grow? guest: i think it will, but very slowly. i think with the collapse of the soviet union, we've now had three rounds of enlargement, the first in poland, hungary, czech republic, then the rest of central and eastern europe. so there's still a process underway of integrating some of the new democracies into nato, whole and free. montenegro is next. georgia is knocking at the door. i think it's a much slower process. host: what do you see as a mission, a purpose? we knew what the purpose was during the gulf war. what about moving forward? guest: that's one of the key issues that alliance leaders are struggling with, how to define the alliance today. they've gone back and tried to say article five, an attack on one is an attack on all, it

remains the bedrock of the alliance. that means collective defense. that means nato's first priority is protecting its members' defense. i think it's only secondary with the alliance willing to consider does it want to become engaged outside of europe, and that will continue to be a case-by-case discussion. host: alexandria, virginia, zeek, democrat. thank you for waiting. caller: no problem. now, i agree with the last coupler. i hear nothing but propaganda and hypocrisy. let me explain why. nato is quick to claim victory in libya. but to hide its failures elsewhere, it wouldn't interfere in yemen, and then it would steal the revolution from the true heroes and libyan fighters who died and claimed credit for the revolution and

overthrow of gaddafi. i think c-span should have true rebel leaders being interviewed, not a playstation warrior, thank you. host: want to respond to that? guest: nato is not trying to claim credit here or victory here. nato went out of its way to ensure each step of the way, those forces that moved into another libyan town, they were libyans, and in fact, they wanted to make sure they had fighters to underscore this is local libyans determining their own future, grabbing their own destiny. so i don't think this is an evident of the alliance to try to steal the victory away from the libyans. not at all. i think the alliance has actually been willing to stay in the background as this has unfolded. host: i wanted to get your reaction, mr. wilson, to this headline, news breaking yesterday, this is "the

washington post", al qaeda's number two apparently killed in pakistan as a u.s. drone strike. they call it another pivotal blow against the terrorist group. guest: this is a big deal. i think leon panetta, both when he was at the c.i.a., now secretary of defense, has been out front saying that the squeeze has been on for al qaeda in the wake of osama bin laden's demise. i think that's right. i think this air strike, what it demonstrates is that the u.s. government hasn't let up on the war on terror, hasn't let up the pressure on al qaeda, is keeping it on the run, keeping it under pressure. and despite all the tensions we've had with pakistan in the wake of the u.s. effort to move into pakistan and capture bin laden, we haven't backed away. the u.s. is still continuing strikes in pakistan. host: independent, greensboro, go ahead, please. caller: i keep listening to

these americans calling in, especially those that are black americans, no revolution is ever won unless the people, which are the people that are being oppressed, are willing to get up and fight their leaders, that is what the libyans have done. and i wanted to thank the u.n. and all the other people who came in to help the people who asked for the help. black americans and white americans, they were all part of the united states civil rights movement. remember the history, know the history, and say hurrah to the libyans for wanting to not be believe -- -- for not wanting to be oppressed. guest: i think this is about human dignity. this isn't about the west or nato or the united states going in and trying to provoke regime

change in egypt or tunisia or syria. not at all. our country hasn't been in that posture whatsoever. this has been about an upricer that began, setting himself ablaze because he was frustrated and angry at the lack of responsiveness of a government bureaucracy. and it's triggered protests across the region that first and foremost are being human dignity, about arabing saying enough is enough. we're sick and tired of having corrupt leadership that denies us our rights. with the internet, international media, many populations, even if they're not sort of uneducated or poor classes in cairo, they still have a sense behalf the rest of the world is like. and they're saying, we want to shape and determine our future. that's what began in libya. that's exactly how this started as an uprising of students and

intellectuals spreading throughout the country. the west didn't pick libya, the libyan people picked the fact they are going to move forward on trying to get rid of gaddafi. host: eden prairie, minnesota, go ahead. caller: thank you for taking my call. i am an arab american. as an a arab, i have my deepest thanks for the government. but some of the history does not -- we want to set the record straight. they did not do it for the love of the libyans or for any other reason. the only reason was that we were taking leadership. it's not because of the oil. we benefited from some of the oil, that's for sure. that's my first note.

second note is i wish the nato would wisen up and know that there are far more countries than libya that are more powerful, more aggressive toward the united states, like saudi arabia, for instance. it's the mother of all evils, it they are killing american soldiers. i think the nato know that, but we have politics. we don't want to risk relationship with them. but it would be benefit in the long run. i remember a caller from -- i forgot which state, but saying, why didn't the nato go to iran or to other countries you mentioned because they are

aggressive toward the united states? the average naivete, it's what they hear from the media. film that region. everybody the region knows for sure it is saudi arabia the ones that have killed soldiers in iraq and afghanistan. everybody from the politicians at least know that. host: thanks, khalid. that was our final call. guest: the caller is right in france played a pivotal role here. but i don't think the united states became involved out of jealousy. we were somewhat reluctant to get involved. it was french leadership that encouraged us to play a supporting role in this. france was outside of the alliance until recently. it kept its military outside of the nato military structure.

president sarkozy brought france back into the fold, back into nato on military's command, and this is the first time we've seen france pursue its own national objective working through the alliance in partnership with the united states. i think that's significant in terms of our alliance. and on the second part, this is, again, -- nato is not looking for intervention. it's not looking to take military action. what's unfolding across the region is happening because of people in individual cities and towns, and that's a powerful thing. the question is, what type of supporting role can the atlantic community, can the united states and europe play? we aren't looking to drive that agenda. we aren't looking -- we aren't trying to look for other places to use military forces, that's for sure. host: damon wilson is a former deputy director to the secretary general of nato, 2001 to 2004.

thank you for your insight. we have about an hour and a half left in this sunday edition of the washington journal. coming up next, a discussion on race relations in the united states. in recent days, the martin luther king jr. national memorial project foundation held a series of events around town to democrat rate the men and women who strive for social equality. martin luther king junior's daughter, bernice, spoke about the role of women, including her mother, who was unsung heroes in their view in the civil rights movement. here's about a four-minute piece, and then we'll be back with our roundtable. >> so, i wonder where we would be today if it were not for the courageous and the strong women who stood by their men who were just as much devoted to this movement as the men whose names we call over and over again. where would we be today in this nation if it were not for that

group of women, courageous, resilient, determined, sacrificial, and selfless women? some whose names we know and some who we don't. those names contributed so much to that movement. i just got a note earlier from one of the ones who's here today by the name of dorothy koch, sitting right here over at this table, who worked in the southern christian leadership conference with the citizenship education program. we had training going on behind the scenes. you see the marches and the water hoses and the demonstrations, but this was a movement that was filled with discipline and training and teaching and simulation. they dent just turn another cheek to do it.

they were doing it because they had it modeled by people who showed them how to turn the other cheek. and so we thank god for the women who were teaching and training in the field and in the churches. these devote's to nonviolent social change, there's another woman here by the name of doris crenshaw, who was only 12 years old when the montgomery bus protest started. she was a part of the youth council of the naacp at that time and worked closely with miss rosa parks and was a part of the team of young people who helped to pass out leaflets and has been a lifelong dwoletee to the movement of struggle, of freedom, justice, and righteousness. and right now is raising up another generation of young people in montgomery, alabama,

through her organization, and i want to you give her a hand along with mrs. dorothy koch. there's another lady, i'm not sure she's here because the storm had to turn some people around by the name of clio orange, who stood side by side with her husband, james orange, who was a master mobilizer and organizer, and we really miss his gift and his talent, but this is continuing his legacy in atlanta, georgia, along with their children, and we thank god for them. there are so many other women. i just want to go on to say, a question was once raised with my father by a gentleman by the name michael. he asked, did you educate mrs. king to become equal to you in terms of sharing this burden, or did you research her before your marriage to see if she had the potential for this?

how did it come about? and my father said, well, it may have been the other way. i think at many points she educated me. when i met her, she was very concerned with the same issues as i was. i never will forget the first time that we met. we discussed the whole question of racial injustice and economic injustice, and the question of peace. in her college days, she had been actively engaged in movements dealing with these problems. so i must admit, i distinguish i could say to satisfy my masculine ego that i led her down this path, but i must say, we went down this path together. >> "washington journal" continues. host: now for the next hour and 25 minutes or so, we'll have a

roundtable discussion on race relations here in the u.s. our two guests are michelle bernard, president and c.e.o. of the bernard center for women, politics, and public policy. thanks for being here in this weather this morning. and we say good morning to leonard stinehorn, co-author of "by the color of our skin." we appreciate you being here. we invite your questions and comments on race relations in the u.s. as well. we'll get the phone numbers rights up on the screen right here. but the history of race relations up to present day in the u.s., separate lines for the eastern and central time zones. and then the mountain and pacific time zones, so two separate lines for you to call on. we've got plenty of time to hear your voices on this 48th anniversary of dr. martin luther king's famous speech. it's too bad the weather has got known the way of the monument event, but here we are to have this chat anyway. michelle bernard, assess race relations in the u.s.

guest: after the election in 2008, i was one of the people that was triumphantly yelling, we live in a post-racial america, we have finally gotten past race. and since 2008, it appears to me that race relations may have become even worse. you know, some people ask, for example, what the advent of the tea party is. is it because a black man was elected president of the united states? maybe, maybe not. but for example, the member of congress who yelled out during the state of the union address to president obama, "you lie," you can't help but ask yourself, would anyone have dared do that to any other president of the united states but for the fact he was black? it seems people are agitated, angry. things are much better than they were, for example, in the 1960's and prior to that time. but there still seem to be quite a bit of agitation now that we have our first black president of the united states. host: there was a recent poll done by gallup and "usa today,"

here's the headlines. in all, 35% of americans say they think race relations have gotten better, down from 41% back in 2009. how come? guest: i think there's the tension that michelle speaks of, but i think we have to look at the story in a larger historical context. one of them is that things are far better in so many fundamental ways. this new generation coming through, it's the most inclusive generation in our nation's history. the glass really has to be half full in that sense, but it's also half empty, because you still look statistics. blacks are way far behind. you still look at subtle forms of jim crow that happened in our politics. that still exists. you still look at the fact that we have desegregated largely, but have failed to integrate and reach the promised land that dr. king had talked about. so i think to a great extent we have seen progress over this last generation. this next generation is going

to be better than anything we've ever seen in terms of having a cross-racial, cross-ethnic dialogue, and interaction and experience, but we still have the problems that continue to drag us down. host: michelle bernard? guest: there is a lot of hope when you look at young children. they don't see race at all, and i have two young kids myself, and that really makes me very, very excited and very happy for the possibilities for the future. put if you look at, for example, different polls, different studies that have come out in terms of what some people will call economic injustice, education injustice, the black-white divide, for example, in terms of income, in terms of education status, in terms of health, there are still enormous disparity that is we can segregate by race. if we look at our education system, the education system is still at the public, k-12 level, still fundamentally separate, unequal. where you fare, what type of education you get largely depends on what zip code you

live in. for the most part, we see people that live in low-income, rural areas that are fundamentally quite often african-american and hispanic getting horrible educations, and what we do know is in the 21st century, if you don't get a good education, this whole question of the american dream is really a nightmare. host: before we get to calls, michelle bernard, how about this monument that was to have been dedicated today? we don't have a date now, but what does it mean that that is there now? depoip it's beautiful. i think to have this monument, you know, so close to all the other monuments and the beautiful place in washington, d.c., we've got, i believe, it's called the stone of hope, mountain of despair. you see dr. king sort of emerging from the mountain of despair, i think it's a beautiful tribute to dr. king, to his theology, as well as to his politics, the politics of social justice. i think it is an enormous tribute to all the

african-americans whose shoulders i stand on today who actually were able to mix theology, christian belief with politics and say this is what we need to do to make our country better. host: to the title of your book, "by the color of our skin: the illusion of integration and the reality of race." guest: it's to some extent what michelle is talking about. we want to have the ideal of integration. we want barack obama to symbolize what america is all about, and yet, blacks and whites continue to live in separate neighborhoods, continue to socialize in many ways in sort of different contexts. that's why die have some hope for this younger generation, because we want to break this down. we'll see if they ultimately end up in the same patterns. but we still intersect a lot, but we don't integrate. we are desegregating, but we haven't fully come together. the question is when america is going to take the next step that barack obama did symbolize of an inclusive, whole america

in which people working together, locking arms together, doing what dr. king talked about throughout his life. that's where we're not at yet. but we have the ideal to get there, but it's a long leap from the reality to the ideal. host: first call comes from david in eugene, record record. welcome to the program. cape thank you. i really appreciate this discussion. mr. steinhorn is correct in hope of the new generation. but i've been an advocate for racial equality absolutely almost all my life, because out of six kids, i'm the only one that acknowledges that we're biracial. when mr. obama was elected, i got calls from all of my brothers and sisters and my mother, very sarcastically saying, well, we hope you're happy now. and that kind of attitude still permeates, even out on the streets.

when i was working for the democratic party during that election, people would wake up to me on the streets and just be very mean-spirited. i literally had a couple of 80-plus year old women walk up to me and almost want to thump their bible in my face while they spouted hate at me for supporting democrats and mr. obama. host: let's hear from our guests. guest: i think we can't mistake partisanship for racial animosity. bill clinton faced enormous partisanship in his time. my hunch if hillary clinton were the democratic nominee, she would face that as well. i don't think race is absent from that partisanship. in fact, one can argue that ever since richard nixon created the southern strategy in the late 1960's and early 1970's that the racialization of politics, particularly of sort of the way the southern part in particular, the

republican party, has looked at politics, has been very careful and has brought on some of those attitudes. in fact, given the ok to some of those attitudes, that it's ok to be angry based on the sense of white victimization over "black advancements" in society. so i think there's some of that, but we can't get away from the fact that it's partisanship. people disagree f. you're a democrat and republican, you know, your oil and water might not mix. guest: i didn't understand if the caller was saying his siblings self-identify as being white, and he self-identifies as being black because they're biracial. i would love if the caller is still with us just to hear more about his family background and the partisanship he's seen within the family. but i think what he's telling is the larger story behalf we see in america at large today. people are still very, very much splintered on the question of race and on the question of equality and on the question of who deserves a piece of the american pie.

host: san diego, priscilla, good morning. caller: yes, good morning. thank you for the opportunity to share. i just want to speak about the racial point in our history, that it appears that the division is growing even wider, especially with the leadership in congress. our senators are feeding into this division of i hear you often talk about the partisanship with clinton. there's no comparison what he went through or any other president compared to president obama. this is the first time in history with an african-american president. to see how the flames of racial hate has risen -- guest: what do you see or hear? caller: when i see united states senators feeding the fuel of hatred of not working with this president on

anything, if he says the sun is shining, they will disagree with him. and that's purely based on hate and racism. we know -- i mean, the news try make it just partisanship between republicans and democrats. i mean, anyone with common sense know that the u.s. senators, for them to be put in the position of leadership in this nation, to divide the nation as they have been doing through the tea party is just outrageous to me. host: give and take with this current president, police ale is alluding to. leonard steinhorn? guest: again, i think part may be race, but i also think part of is he was elected as a very popular president and the republicans have been determined to block him in every way. he had 60 votes in the senate, and he couldn't get things through because of the threat of filibuster. pretty much mitch mcconnell, the republican leadership has

come out with a strategy to block him, to make him seem feckless as a president, in effect, also undermine the democratic party ideology, which is the democrats say government can be on your side. well, if you can make washington seem like a mess, then effectively you are making government out to be ineffective, bottled up, and something that people can't support, which would then move them toward a republican ideology that, you know, we got to get government out of here. so i think there's far more than racist. i think it's pure out and out power on capitol hill, and the very fact that he happens to be an african-american, i think in this case is more incidental than influential in terms of the political gamesmanship going on. host: michelle bernard, plug the economic part of all of this into this, unemployment. guest: unemployment nationwide is hovering at about 9%. in the african-american community, the unemployment rate is 16% in certain pockets of the nation, where it can go high as 50%.

so the job problem and the economic problem is going to be very, very difficult for president obama going into 2012. but i want to get back to a point that leonard made. if you look at intent versus what it feels like from the perspective -- from an african-american perspective, and i will say that most people that i know that are african-american do not see race as the boogeyman around every corner, but this feels and looks like something very, very different than what we saw, for example, when president clinton was president of the united states. if you look at the nation, sort of take a step backwards and look, and you have to ask yourself if you are a person of color, kwlfs it, for example, when we were asking the debt ceiling negotiations, why was it so important to almost bring the president to his knees and risk the debt -- you know, risk the economic standing of our nation as a way to bring him down? is there notch anger that the leader of the free world is a

black man that many members of congress would rather watch the nation fail economically i think that's what many, many people feel. >> i think there's something larger at stake. he represents a new america, a changed america, a more urbane and cosmopolitan america, an america that's not divided, sort of only according to race. that's very threatening to people who want to dial back america to the 1950's, such as the tea party folks. insofar as he happens to be african-american is incidental to what he represents as an emerging political culture in our country. which reject the new way he represents. i think there's a larger cultural shift going on. to some extent you did see

these things. but the tea party really does represent this very partisan side of the republican party. they're very angry their country is changing, and they don't to want let it change. guest: if you look at rush limbaugh, who we want on his radio show and said he doesn't want the president to succeed. we all have a mobile obligation . it's how you say i don't want this president to succeed, it's beyond explanation. host: we have ken on the line. caller: thank you for c-span. i want to get the comment on martin luther king being one of the greatest americans for using -- for doing what did he in bringing about change and being nonviolent at the same being nonviolent at the same time.

they're going to suffer with their voting rights because of the partisan engineery mannedering since the republicans took over here in texas 15 years ago. my final question is are we going to ask rick perry, mitt romney, and michele balkman to see their birth certificates? thank you for having my call. guest: i have to say to the caller thank you very much. again, i know for many people who are not people of color, you probably get tired of the same question over and over and over again. but turn things around and put yourself in the position of a person of color who hears that large swath of the american public want to return to the 1950's. what does that mean if you are a black man or a black woman? you're a housekeeper? you live in a racially divided

country, separate but equal? different bathrooms, water faucettes, everything. when you see people so adamant in saying i want to you prove that you are an american citizen and that you deserve to be in the office that you inhabit, you have to ask yourself, does not a large part of this have to do with the fact that people are so angry that we have somebody black who's leading the nation? guest: well, i can't deny that. the birth certificate thing is absurd. but most americans rejected it. i almost felt very sad for president obama having to dignify those objections. guest: i agree with you. guest: he should have said, you know, go stew in your own anger and obsession. guest: absolutely. guest: the caller brought up the voting issue. i think this is a really serious issue, something we all ought to be speaking about. it is a new form of subtle jim crow that is breaking through in terms of laws that are being passed predominantly in

republican-driven, governed states for voter i.d., photo i.d. cards. according to a statistic that i have seen, approximately a quarter of all blacks of voting age do not have government-issued photo i.d.'s, and therefore, that would prohibit them from voting in those states. some of those have had voter drives, reach hispanics and black voters, ok? you put all this together, and in effect, you're seeing the potential for a suppression of the minority vote on behalf of the republican party which does not want minorities and young people voting in such large numbers that they voted in 2008. if this is not stopped or fought, that could have serious consequences in our american politics. host: is it being fought strongly? what's being done? guest: some people are trying guest: some people are trying to fight it, but what we

actually see is that is this issue is not raised a critical level of public awareness so that people understand exactly what's happening. we're beginning to see the voices emerge but we need a critical mass of americans, particularly people of color, around the nation to explain. there's a t-shirt you see come out during election time that people wear that says black folk must volt. the increase in black turnout for president obama put him over the edge, particularly in a lot of states that went from red to blue. if you see any voter suppression, it's going to be very difficult for president obama to get re-elect. guest: alabama is one state to pay attention to every four years. i've seen a statistic that said more than half of the black voters in florida voted early, yet the new law wants to limit the number of hours available

in early voting. that really tells me that what they're trying to do is to limit the turnout of the african-american vote. these laws are being passed. it's not getting news. you don't hear it a lot on the talking heads on capable tv, but this stuff is important because it goes to the heart of our democracy and everything that dr. martin luther king stood for. guest: absolutely. host: we have more time with our guests, just under an hour, with michelle bernard, president and c.e.o. of the bernard center for women, politics, and public policy, also a political analyst for msnbc and a member of the women's forum. we're also joined by leonard steinhorn, author. leonard steinhorn is also author of the "greater generation" and is a professor of communication at american university here in the nation's capital. next call, willie, dayton, ohio. thank you for waiting. caller: yes, good morning.

i've got two quick points. the race issue, it kind of leads african-americans, and what i mean is, as we keep focusing on blacks and whites, i watched africans, asians, i watched indians come into the country to integrate, get the skill sets, they either get advanced degrees, and they're competitors. we're stuck in 2011 still discussing issues that were prevalent when i was born in 1968. second topic, or second point, if you can complete a request for public assistance, you can also complete an application for a state i.d. to allow you to complete an application for a voter registration. and two, you're able to be empowered by the vote, your voice is not going to be heard, and i will leave the balance of my time for the panel.

thank you. host: michelle, first to that first point, he thinks we're talking about the same issues as in 1968, but there's a little bit of perspective at the table earlier in the chat. you want to add more? you want to add more? .

>> two things. one we should continue to talk throughout our nation's history hundreds of years from now about relations because it was the original sin of our country. we should never forget what people can do to each other and how people with power can enslave or segregate other people and abuse that power. so i think these are things we should never stop talking about even if we are close to that promised land. but i do think if we do reach the promised land it's going to be at a point where race becomes descriptive and but not defining. it becomes incidental but not

influential in the way we deal with each other. it means that my kids can describe my skin color or your skin color or your skin color and it would have no value attached other than this is just how somebody looks because they are of equal value in society. but we're not going to reach that point of equality until we do begin to deal with some of the economic disparities that have been brought on by those hundreds of years of enslayment and segregation. you just look at the wealth statistics and a typical house. the average black wealth in this country right now is 5,677 and one third have negative wealth. >> how has that changed in recent years? >> it's gone down a little bit. wealth numbers have gone down with the decline this housing and the people who got hit the most are the most recent home owners in the most vulnerable areas where home prices collapse add great deal.

insofar as a lot of americans have their wealth in homes or inherited money from parents during that great time of housing inflation blacks have fallen behind once again because of that leg sigssy of segregation and race relations. so we are living with that every day and it reaches into the very bank accounts of the american people. >> we have frank on the line from long beach, california. good morning to you. caller: good morning to you, sir. i am a 70-year-old white former marine and i was going to talk to my peers and they seemed the main problem they have with barack obama is the color of his skin. no matter how else you phrase it. and no matter how else you put it. but i still don't think that's the major problem. some of the problems we have people are going around using the n word are things of the past. but the discrimination on a higher level, on a company

level. take washington journal identify been keeping track since the first of november. you have 90 guests a month approximately every month on your show but uff never exceeded more than six african american guests in any one month in black history month you only had three. now, i think that's an issue that we dealt with because that's institutional racism. and as long as we continue to have that kind of a racism we're going to continue to have these kind of problems. and i would like to listen to your comments on that. thank you very much. and have a plessnt day. host: anything either want to say? guest: a very interesting comment and you go back between comments of institutional racism versus on an individual basis versus what the previous caller talked about which is a little bit of personal responsibility and self-reliance. one of the things that i can lie to do when i'm talking to people particularly

impoverished or people of color before you get to the issue of institutional racism is the issue of what you can do and what you will do for yourself. and you will hear me continually harp on the same thing over and over again. education, education, education. the previous caller talked about people that come here as immigrants from other countries for example and they all know that the key to achieving the american dream is education and they will get educated and they will work one, two, three, four, five, six, seven no matter how many jobs they have to work in order to make it to the next level. and fur the best in anything you do the barriers that we call institutional racism have to break down. host: give us some more perspective. we do read that college, admitance and college taundance and graduation is up. is that true? guest: true. and we're still dealing with racial separation in schools.

and when your caller brings up the issue of the number of people in washington journal, it's sort of a metaphor for what goes on in the rest of society. which is that if you're surrounded by sort of white people in your schools and in your communities because we don't necessarily have integrated communities, the people you're going to call up for jobs and sort of say hey this is open or why don't you apply for this are going to be people in your network. and so it may be the same reason why people in a particular network get called on for particular shows and the media and all the rest. and if you can't break sort of that network and find something to counter act chits really what affirmative acks was designed to do, then you're going to perpwut the continual hiring of people based on the network of people they know and who they seem comfortable with and who they say is a good fit for their organization. this is why integration really has to lean because if people don't begin to see the humanity

of their neighbors, irrespective of the color of their skin, they're going to sort of continue to use that as a block to how they create their networks and who they hire. one other point that your caller gid mention. he said he's over 70. the older generation is really the most conservative a and has the most racial issues on all of this. and it's the older generation that votes in the highest numbers. if you look at the 2010 vote which brought the tea party in, the under 30 voters represent about 22% of the population. but only 11% of the voting public. the over 65 voters represented i think 17% of the population but 23% of the voters. so if people at the younger end don't go out and vote they will be disenfranchised their values will be disenfranchised and the olders values will continue to dominate our society for a far longer period. guest: every four years we

continue to see what we call a gender gap in voting. it's not just older people. i think probably the most effective voting block in the nation quite frankly is women voters. whether we call them mortgage moms, soccer moms or whatever the term will be in 2012, women by and large vote in the highest numbers in the country. whether they are young women, or middle-age or older. and it is women quite frankly who put george bush back into office for a second time and largely put barack obama into office in 2008 and so it will be quite interesting to see what concerns women going into 2012. i believe it will be the economy and quite frankly regardless of what we see in the republican party right now the candidate who can most effectively say to women voters that we understand your pain, we understand that large numbers of your husbands are unemployed and that the economic crisis has reeked havoc on your household, that is the person who is going to get the women's vote and win

the next election. host: resounded around the globe from northern ireland to south africa to teen men square. that's today's editorial in the baltimore sun. georgia now on the line, david. go ahead, please. caller: yes. on one point i was going to make was when you said number one when obama said his grandmother was a typical white

pesh, what is that? is that racism? also, if there's a black woman, a black man recently represent ed west from florida he becomes a nonblack person, women become nonwomen when they're conservative or republican. national organization of women, any of these organization of women, your organization you don't speak up. and another point when the representative stood up and said you lie, obama said all the health care was going to be posted on the internet and everything was going to be hunky dory and you can read it and of course that wasn't true. it was all done in the back room. whenever you have any kind of representative giffords when she was shot saying you've got to cut this rhetoric out you conservatives, you're tea party you're making this happen. and when the tea party spoke their mind on the road for the

debt ceiling they became terrorists, gun to the head, holding hostage all the these. and every single one. it was probably put down in an obama e-mail because everybody is using hostage, gun to the head, terrorist, so there you go. i mean, what is that? what are those? my points? host: thanks for your contribution. guest: interesting point that the caller makes and i'll hit on a couple of them. with the a vent of sara palin for example and michele bachmann i remember in 2008 when sara palin announced that she was a feminist and talked about what made her a feminist we did see a lot of traditional women's groups that absolutely went applectic and all of a sudden we saw the rise of what many people called the red state feminist or women and to many groups those women could not possibly be feminists because there seems to be a check list of what it is to be or not be a feminist and to

many people if you don't meet all the criteria on the check list you are no longer truthfully a feminist or truthfully a woman. and i think there is a problem with that. in the african american community we see many republicans, many african american republicans who have quite a difficult time with their left of center brothers and sistwhorse are involved with politics, involved with policy and it's unfair. it is wrong. we are not a monolithic voting we are not a monolithic voting group whatever the case may be. people have different values and views. and i am someone who firmly believes in the african american community until republicans and democrats both feel that they have to court you and have to fight for your vote we will continue to see the status quo. guest: your guests are pushing the racial divide. we are all individuals they

write. guest: well, i honesf honestly don't want to push any racial divide. i would much prefer an integrated society in which sort of race becomes descriptive and not defining and it does, we are all individuals treating each other. but it's not us pushing the racial divide. the constitution when it was first written pushed a racial divide. the first settlers when they brought african americans here in chains pushed a racial divide. the laws of segregation and jim crow pushed a racial divide. we are living with the consequences of that racial divide and the continuing fallout of that racial divide and so how one processes that in terms of the values of equality and freedom under our society is what we're trying to discuss here. i don't think there's anybody except sort of the outliars in society who would like to have that racial divide. but it's a historical fact. host: that tweet, pushing the

individual. guest: i agree. i wish that the tweeter could understand what is actually i believe in both of our minds one group does not have and should not have more rights than another group. and i think when we talk about race it is that, it is not pushing the racial divide. it is having a conversation about the state of america today because ultimately that's what we want to see. we want to see a nation where all people are equal. where someone who is white does not have more rights than someone as black and where a man doesn't have more rights than a woman. we're not there yet. we are close but we are not there yet. and that's not pushing something negative. it is frankly just an anest assessment of where we are as a nation. guest: if we didn't have this history sort of random distribution of wealth and blacks would have equal all the of whites and black unemployment would be the same as white and educational lels would be the same if we didn't have that history.

but no country can erase its history. how you deal with that is one of the continuing challenges. host: comment now from tracy. caller: a hundred years from now. host: you're on the air. caller: good morning to you. host: i'm going to ask you to turn the sound down on your set. caller: i'm turning my tv down. all right. ok. it's down now. host: perfect. go ahead. guest: i want to talk about the immigrants who come over to the country and settle in and they really don't settle in and integrate well. they might come over here and be successful but what they do, hispanics that's why you have a little china town or haiti or have na. they have not been stripped of their language or religion. they come here with a language. when you have a language you are united. they don't have to deal with

americans because they go integrate with other hispanics otheration. host: besides language what else are you expecting? guest: when you have a language you are united as a race. that's why you have little china town. they don't have to go to american stores and buy american products. i don't see in asians working at mcdonalds or too many indians working at mcdonalds. they have their own stores and products in their stores where people like them who speak their language do that. host: integration further expact panding this chat. any thoughts? guest: i'm frankly a little perplexed at the caller's point in this. i don't know if the point is that when you brought black africans to this nation in slaves and slave with people speaking different tribal languages that somehow that is why we are still in the state that we are in today and still talking about the same issues or fs if it's a complaint.

i am a child of immigrants and i will tell you that most immigrants that you look at from whatever nation that they come to to the united states, they come here because they believe that this is the greatest nation on earth and they understand that you must ekate yourself and you have to work hard if you are to get ahead. and some of the values that some people look at disparagingly guest: that more people that are quote/unquote home grown americans or people who don't come from other countries need to look at in terms of our own cultures, opening our own stores, having our families stay together, stay intact and move forward and move towards that american dream is something that should be replicated and should be honored as what makes us such a wonderful country. guest: two issues. one is that when people make a comparison between immigrants and african americans, look, there's no comparison. but blacks are not -- and for the most part, never have been immigrants, came to this

country nout out of choice but as slaste in chains. but the question about immigrants has to again look at the larger historical context. you dial back a hundred or so years and people if there were such a thing as c-span and people could call in those days they would have been talking about the italian stores in new york city or thidish newspapers or the russian communities or the polish communities that speak their own language. what happens is the first generation comes to america tends to hunker down win their own framework and then the next generation starts to acquire the language. and in fact one of the unique things about our country is that young people have always been so dominant and one of the reasons is that it's been the young people, the children of immigrants who have taught the parents their customs of this country, the language of this country who adopt it had language far earlier than their parents did. so what happens is that each generation of immigrants comes through they become more and more integrated and assimilated

into the sort of emerging melting pot that we call the mainstream. so we can't look at the snapshot of today's immigrants and suggest they're going to be stuck in that old first generation mode. their kids, their grandkids will widen the definition of what it means to be american and fully join that mainstream. host: california on the line, good morning to you, mike. caller: good morning. and thanks a lot for a very thoughtful discussion this morning. i have a libertarian perspective on dr. king's dream speech. it strikes me that as a libertarian that his dream was not 50% increase in the size of the social welfare state. his dream was freedom. and in fact, if you read the speech he use that is word more than 20 times and just in case there isn't, there's still doubt he includes the speech -- concludes the speech with a declaration that all people are free at last. and in the context of ending

the legacy of slavery which we're still suffering, i think this is especially an important point. that freedom actually has a meaning. if legacy slavery as we see is shown up in the huge incarceration rates of young black men and the terrible state of public education for young black children, freedom means, it strikes me, that you own your own body. it's not a public private partnership and therefore if you see it that way then you can see how all these drug laws produces huge incarcerate rate among black men and parents have the power have the school for their own children. so vouchers i believe would empower the adults, the parents who are the customers of the education service to be able to choose a school that really

works. and by the way, the scholarship program for d.c. school children was working and the results of reading scores actually produced that. one of the first things that the democrats produced out of their taking the house in 2006 was the repeal of the d.c. scholarship program. may i have your comment, please? host: thanks for weighing in. guest: well, a couple of issues on this. one is that dr. king is often misinterpreted and what he did believe in was actually in his book why we can't wait if you read it he talks about the function equivalent of a bill of rights that government does have to serve as a partner to rectify all of those years of injustice and i wrote quote him in here.

the if a man is entered at the starting line 30 o years after and what he was really saying is that you can only ask the individual to perform that fete. that society does have an obligation to rectify the injustices of the past to deal with this. now the question is what's the balance? how much? what types of programs? and how you do that. and i think that's where the political system really needs to engage. i mean, there are certainly arguments for and against the voucher system that are equally legitimate. there are certainly arguments in favor of pouring a lot more money into school systems and community support programs and community centers that will provide sort of the middle class trappings that a lot of people in inner cities don't have. so i think that's something for the legislatures to figure out what is the is in the best interest. but we don't want to leave government out of this.

now let's see how government can help us mid wife the good values. >> i want to thank the caller for calling in. i pretty much agree with everything the caller said. there are many people that believe that comprehensive education reform is the civil rights movement of our times. it is the extension of drsm king's work. i personally have not seen any good arguments as to why a voucher system or a school system of school choice around the nation is a bad option if you are poor if you are underprivileged in a poor urban area or rural area every parent i believe should have the option to put their child in any school that they want to and any school that they believe works for them. and i think quite interesting the question i would love to pose to americans across the country today if we look at the state of our squelf education system and how separate and unequal it still is and what is the largest problemsd with qufl

system and we look at the approach to doing things which is sort of marrying theel logical belief to public policy what would dr. king today actually say about the role that teachers unions have from a theel logical perspective on a public education system and the ability of all children to move forward? host: if you look in the "washington post" here is a photo of leaders on the march on washington august 28, 1963. so 48 years ago today. and one of the pictures is of a very young john lewis here on the right currently congressman from georgia. he writes a piece in the outlook section. what would king say to obama? we'll read just a little bit from that and drop in a couple of passages from this piece. john lewis writes that he, meaning dr. king, wow say that the president has the capacity to unify america, to bring us together as one people, one family, one house. he would say that a leader has the ability to inspire people to greatness but that to do so

he must be daring, courageous, and unafraid to demonstrate what he is made of. missouri, mike. caller: just a quick background i'm a marine corps vietnam veteran. when i was in the corps there is no white black green yellow whatever. everybody was green. here's my issue. i find this discussion this i find this discussion this morning and your two guests so rearblely biased and skewed it just defies imagination. host: let me jump in. what was the one thing or two things that you heard that got you going? caller: i could go for hours but go to the statue. first of all, 30 feet? lincoln, washington, jefferson, they aren't exactly -- they did a little bit more in my opinion. martin luther king was never elected to an office. then this thing is sculpted by

a chinese guy and shipped here to the states. are you telling me that there's no black sculptors that could have done this? host: michelle start with the 30 feet that got him going. caller: guest: you know there are rules and regulations it was made to scale that congress would not have let this be built or sculpted in the way that it was done unless it was appropriate to do so. i don't find anything wrong with it. he was a towering subject. the sculptur was taken from parts of elements of his speech where he talked about a mountain of despair and a stone of hope. i've never seen a short mountain. there's a reason mountains are called mountains. they are high, they are statuesque. i find nothing wrong with it or nothing wrong with the fact nothing wrong with the fact that the sculptor was chinese. again, we are talking about equal opportunity in the greatest nation in the world. and frankly it doesn't matter. host: madison, wisconsin, give

us your name please. caller: good morning my name is [inaudible] i just want to know this is about rod any king's day and this is a true story that just imagine what happened rodney king happened ten times worse to a man of me knowing the to a man of me knowing the circumstances police brutality and misconduct of law enforcement officers and the department of the jail county and being transferred through collier county and lee county and fort myers. they literally tried to kill me to stop me testifying against my arresting officers through discrimination, through my spiritual belief as a christian. i mean, the circumstances i mean, i've been through so much i finally have been released back home to my mother's hometown madison wisconsin to arrival back home here. i want to know how it would be a situation for me to handle this and knowing the circumstances through the state of florida and now arriving back home in the state of wisconsin.

host: sentiment there about relations with the police. guest: the previous caller talked about the military. and in the military i think it is one of the most racially progressive institutions in this country and one of the reasons why is they don't let any biased or bigotted attitudes stand. it's questioned. it's turned inside out. people's assumptions are washed out in front of everyone else and people are expected to deal with their own inner demons on this. and i think that type of work would be really quite helpful. and one of those institutions certainly are in police departments around the country that deal with these issues because you can have police officers who -- just see black and assume bad trouble or criminal. and if those attitudes do exist those have to be dealt with, washed out and changed. guest: i absolutely agree. and i remember rodney king saying can't we all just get along? and it's the same thing i

immediately thought to myself when this last caller phoned in. i thing it's important to also bring about the fact and make sure people understand that it's not always just white for example police officers who see somebody black and automatically assume that they are engaged in criminal conduct. sometimes we see that with african american police officers as well. so it's a real, it is a real problem within police forces and we have to find a way to deal with that. but it's not just a matter of whites always being the aggressors. it happens with black police officers as well. >> and to how much of our country has internalized. guest: and the stereo types. guest: there was a study done about 15, 20 years ago in which they showed a television report of a crime happening and there wasn't a perpetrator shown. ok? and afterwards they asked people what their memory of that tv story was and i think it was two thirds of the whites who did see a perpetrator thought that that perpetrator

was black and half of the blacks who did see or remember a perpetrator thought that that perpetrator was brack. so there wasn't even a perpetrator in the story. people assumed there was and most people assumed that the perpetrator was black. so people have internalized those oottudes and thoots why our educational system has to do more. that's why we have to do more in each of our families to try to root out those issues and prejudices and those subtle saumples -- assumptions that people make. host: let's get a couple more from calls in here. caller: good morning. it was a long time ago when we start having slaves on this continent and it's only been 150 years since it was abolished. and usually it takes centuries and centuries two groups of people to finally start getting along. how much progress can we really expect to make in only a

century and a half? host: san jose california. john on the line. caller: i just wanted to comment. it's kind of easy to see the political association just by the expression of the guests on your show this morning but i want to go back on the race that i think it's really evident to see that the democratic party has courted gays to put clinton in office, courted blacks to put obama in office, and i thoroughly expect them to court latinos to get the 2012 vote. just my comment. thank you. host: any thoughts from the table? ifrpblts i think quite frankly the caller is correct. but quite frankly in the system of politics we have a representative government in the united states and all of our politicians, republican and democratic, have an obligation to go out and seek to represent all of us.

black, whites, hispanics, asians, women, men, you know, that is what a part of our political system is all based upon. and quite frankly i personally would be very happy to see republicans working as hard as democrats to open the republican party and do everything they can to bring in as many voters as possible. guest: let's face it. it's again not all people who are african american think or vote the same way and not all hispanics not all white southerners do. but if there's a preponderance of sort of values among certain groups that are consistent with the base of a political party, that political party is going to try and go and cultivate those voters because you know that if you don't turn out your base you're not going to win. so if democrats go try and attract african americans and latinos and gay voters and jewish voters well the republican party tries to go get white southerners and sort of rural white rural voters and

fundamentalist christians and evangelicals to go because they believe each party believes that those groups provide the base of the votes that's going to build their support. so yeah we would prefer that everyone treats each other as an individual but the reality of politics you try to cultivate the base and if the base happens to be racialized that's part of our history. we can't do anything about that. guest: if you are fundamentally disenfranchised, it seems to me as an observer that whether we have a republican in the white house or a democrat, things fundamentally do not change. you are still disenfranchised. you are still fighting for the american dream. so my question would be for the truly disenfrance chiesed, why not put yourself in the position we begin to see over the last few years of making sure that both parties really have to fight for your vote and have to appeal to you? i think it is a reason why we

are seeing many, many more americans particularly african americans who are now self-identifying as independents because they said a pox on the houses of both parties. neither are doing what you want to do and touf fight to get me to vote for you. guest: and of course you deal with the big structural issue which is the elect torl college which basically puts 10 or 12 or 13 states in play. so people in watts in los angeles politicians really don't go out there because they know that california in general is going to go democratic or they're not going to go into new york city and speak to people in harlem because they know that new york in general is going to go to the democratic part yifment and i think if there were a way to change up this system where politicians had to go into different parts of the this country. if republican candidates had to go and peel and pry away 5% of the vote ners harlem because finally they're going to reach them and we have an opportunity to speak to them that might change up our politics.

host: more of the words in the congressman john lewis, what would king say to obama? mr. lewis writes visit the people where they live. he would urge them to meet the coal miners of west virginia to shake the hands of the working poor in our large urban centers juggling multiple jobs to try to make ends meet next call louisiana lucy thank you for waiting you're on with michelle and leonard. what do you have to say?

caller: thank you so much for taking my call. my name is lucy and i'm an immigrant from nigeria. and it was beautiful to come to the united states and i was taken aback when i came to the united states to see that there is such a racial segregation system in the united states of america because we don't know that in africa. we don't know that there is such thing. and what bothers me a lot about this is why? why do you promote the idea of black and white? why do you actually have that? why do we promote this? because you look at social settings you see that there is a promotion of ideologies. look at indonesia they don't

promotion any of that. and promoting interrelation relationships is integration. you cannot in any society, the you cannot in any society, the minorities are always going to be oppressed. you can go to africa. but in a country as beautiful as the united states that knows that humanely humans are supposed to integrate, we are natural integrators because we are social wings. animals are not social beings. so my question is why do we promote black and white? very -- you promote it in the media all the time. host: thank you for taking the time. guest: in a sense the caller is correct we should not be promoting if i understand her correctly black and white. i believe our motto here is out of many one. and that is the kind of nation that we are. we are trying to build we are a

nation of immigrants. i don't think it's the media that is promote this idea of separateness and black or white or each race being the ideal. i think what you see by and large in the media and in commentaries is people discussing and reflecting what we see out in the country. guest: sometimes if you want to reach the ideal of color blindness touf have a certain degree of color consciousness because it's through color consciousness that we can begin to address a history that did bring us enslavement and segregation. but integration would have been a wonderful idea. we had some opportunities in this country and we lost them. for example, after world war ii, when the suburbs were created. you go and listen to what william levity the great creator said, if i open these houses to black people, you know, nobody white would want to come and live here. we had housing policies that kept integration from taking

place. so in the rise of the sort of great suburben america that we had right in the beginning of it you had segregation being enforced. that was a powerful fact. had we been able to block that, had we been able to allow the g.i.s coming out of world war ii to integrate those neighborhoods we could have written a very different history but we didn't. so we're living with that legacy and how we live with that legacy is how we create a road map to integration. host: there's a tweet here. guest: i have absolutely no idea. i don't look at whites as being the boogie man by any sense, by any stretch of the imagination. i think that all human beings regardless of race or gender or ethnic background have the ability and the propensity to be good and some have the

ability and propensity to be evil. and i don't think that your race determines that. it's your own personal ideology. host: good morning. caller: thank you for taking my call. i disagree with boats both of your guests and the reason i do i don't like the fact that michelle is using black education or black working hard or the lack thereof as the justification for racism. i think that's 100% wrong. we should not be making excuse force racism, white supremacy or black self-hatred. i disagree with the concept of integration. it's a solution to the race relation problem is to eliminate the black race by having the black race absorbed by the white race then that's racist too. why can't the white race accept the black race? why do we have to be eliminated or destroyed in order for some kind of equality or race relations to improve? we should be able to exist as a separate but equal race.

guest: i don't understand how he drew some of the conclusions he drew. for example in no way say that education excuses racism and i think but fundamentally to the last point that the caller made, i believe leonard and i both agree we want people po be equal. you should be able to be black and be equal you should be able to be white and be equal. the bottom libe line is we are looking for equal opportunity, for all americans to achieve the american dream. and my fundamental point is in order to do that you have to have a superior education. bottom line. there is no excuse for racism. guest: i think you end up with very dangerous territory in separate but equal. that is what brown versus board of education overturned. guest: i want to make sure nobody miscontrues what i say. because you are black you are equal. that is the only point i'm trying to make. nobody should look at you as being infearier because you are

not white. guest: because we are people we're equal. and whether it's because of my hair or your hair or my skin sclor or your skin color those are descriptive factors of our individual wult. but we're equal. guest: exactly. guest: so again we need to move from to a culture in which race becomes descriptive and not defining. but i think the key thing with that gentleman is that people ought to be able to live together and not have restrictions on where they can move. there's the typical example of what happens with integration and some people say integration is the time between when you have an all-white neighborhood and an all-black neighborhood. and what they found is in some white neighborhoods the minute black people start to move in, when more black people move in it becomes a tipping point and white people move out that's unfortunate because it denies that humanity that personhood of that individual wult of neighbor and assumes your

neighborhood is going to be all one way or the other. host: one writes guest: there are discussions over and over again about the disparities for example in how people are sentenced for doing crack versus cocaine. my philosophy on this is a little bit different. there is a racial disparity in terms of the sentencing guidelines but personally i believe don't do the crime. period. using drugs or illegal drugs is a crime. punishable by in different ways depending on the state that you live in. don't engage in it and then there would never be an issue as to who is getting unequal treatment in terms of sentencing. guest: but i think drug abuse is an equal opportunity thipping. it hits rural america. the whole methamphetamine

epidemic is so thoroughly tragic. if that were taking place in the inner cities people would be talking once again about the dysfunction of the black community when in fact this is a white rural and often suburben thing. so it happens i think law enforcement has tended to focus more on drug crimes in urban areas and therefore have incarcerated and imprisoned and put through the criminal justice system more african americans when really this thing is pervasive all throughout america. so i think in some ways again this goes back to how these crimes are identified and who is ending up in jail for them. host: john calling in from florida. good morning. caller: good morning. i've got to agree with the couple previous callers i think both of your guests are out on the left. obama was supposed to be the great uniter and he is curning out to be i think the great divider which is evidenced by the so-called department of justice led by eric holder who

refused to prosecute the black panthers for voter intimidation. a d.o.j. lawyer who became a whibblor said they have a slam dunk case against him but hey weren't going to prosecute black on white crime. so how is this supposed to foster any racial harmony? this is only going to foster resentment. and you talk wage disparity because we have a welfare system that was created for the black community and it destroys their incentive to get an education and a job or to start a business. why bother when they can get a check from the government each month? host: a little about president obama's approach currently. guest: look, let's be clear one of the greatest success stories has been the rise of the black middle class. so stop talking about this welfare system and diminishing african desire for education. guest: or ignoring the number of white people on welfare also. guest: it's substantial.

these are sort of mends that go out in politics that are really unfortunate and people need to go against them. and in terms of barack obama being a great divider look i think we're living in a very partisan era and again i go back to bill clinton. he was impeached and he wasn't convicted but impeached. the divisiveness the partisanship exists. so barack obama walked into it. he i believe sincerely tried to bridge it and was blocked in every possible way. he came wup a health care plan that was probably more republican than it tended toward the republican version of what was being offered in the 1990s when bill clinton tried to move health care along and that was rejected out of hand. so i think people have to see the larger dynamics of partisanship and how that's affecting barack obama's presidency. host: a little more from john lewis.

jack on the phone from new orleans. glad to have you. caller: listen, i don't know where this sister lives she must be on mars. she is most educated black women men once you go to harvard, pribston they lose it they start thinking about what it could and should have. let's talk about what it is. there's nothing wrong with welfare. the legacy of slavery is not over. and we're all affected. the black race is affected. there's no way that the japanese would hire black man to make a statue of their hero.

it does not work. and the reason why we're in a weakened position economically. that's what's really happening for the black man. integration did not help black folks. it destroyed the communities because it took them out. the busing was a trip. all they had to do was rebuild the schools and build the communities the way it was not bus them across the town to say that mix them with white people. white people have superior, white people have superior, even obama on the street if he's white he really thinks he's black. so these are some of the thing that is the common folks are facing. so sist gert your head together. host: anybody want to respond? guest: you know, as one black person on the panel today and the caller talking about black people wanting to go to harvard and prince ton i did want to point out that i am a very proud graduate of howard which is a historically black university and probably one of

the great ufertes in the country. in terms of what is afflicting african americans that are really faring very poorly during this economic downturn again we have to be realistic about where our country stands today. we live in an era of globalization. we live in an era where the jobs that the nation produced in the 1950s is very different than what we see in 2011. and it is going to be very, very different five, 10, 1520 years from now if we are not educated to be able to compete in the global economy, nothing will change. it will be the status quo. that is not a matter of me coming from mars or inn else coming from a different planet. it's the bottom line. you have to be able to compete in a 21st century economy. guest: i agree. education is one of the greatest gifts we can give our society. but i do think there are other issues involved. for example, the creation of wealth in our society and the disparities of wealth.

we have seen such an increase in the amount that the rich have versus the poor have and the middle have. the rich really truly have gotten richer over the last two or three decades. that wealth has to start moving its way down to the rest of society because if it doesn't it leaves people without a sense that they're making progress, it leaves people making feeling as if they're treading water, as if they can't make progress to move ahead. so if the jobs aren't there, if the good paying jobs aren't there if the communities aren't supported in terms of their schools and the quality of their schools and if we end up with this sort of third world approach to a very wealthy small corner of people and then the rest of americans we're going to be in trouble. so look at the wealth statistics in america. that's one of the keys, toward one of the issues that we do have to address. host: a couple mourcals for our -- more calls for our guests. maryland, richard, good morning. caller: good morning. look, i just want to say that the commentary that we've heard

so far is excellent and thanks for taking my call. but i think the media, the television and radio media has a lot to do with the problem of separation of the races today. that is at the level that it is today. freedom means being able to speak your mind but i don't believe freedom means being able to collaborate to put out half truths and untruths. and what i'm hearing a lot today is a number of sound bites that skew a particular instance, situation, et cetera. host: is there one thing you heard in the last couple of days, couple of weeks that struck you? caller: not necessarily in the last couple of days but i can give you a situation where a person on the radio said that the number one thing that they

wanted to do was not let barack obama get anywhere near the white house. and then start explaining why. and i think that the reason that he gave for enticing people to think a certain way, which of course you have your freedom to speak what's on your mind but a lot of the information that was given is not true. so doesn't the media have a responsibility to speak the truth when they're speaking to so many different people around the country? host: thank you. and we know the media is a very big thing. obviously the difference between what's reported and what's other people are allowed to say in this world that we have. but any thoughts on media in general? guest: i was listening to the caller and i was thinking about that great black and white movie mr. smith goes to washington. and you think about the vast majority of the american public

that watches television, radio, reporting listens or watches to quote/unquote opinion journalism and i think all americans are sit back and they look at the media and they say can't we just get the truth? or could you at least report just report the facts and let me draw my own conclusion. i think all members of the media actually try to do their best but we're living in very interesting times with 24 hour a day cable television, radio, and the mass growth of opinion journalism today. host: we have a professor of communications with us. let's hear from him. guest: it would be nice if much of the media would be able to replicate conversations like this and have that on all day. but unfortunately most of the media is a profit-making business that depends on viewers and how do you attract viewers? often through conflict, controversy, drama and anger. and sometimes it's those angriest voices that get rewarded with a platform in the media because it makes for good

television. so that can tend to distort what people are thinking and people tend to think that the extremes are more prevalent and more pervasive than they really are. a lot of people in america just want to sit down, break bread and have a conversation and scuts thing in a way that rational americans can sort of talk with each other. i don't think most of the media afford those opportunities. host: if we were sitting here five, ten, 20 years from now having these same kmbingses, what do you suspect at this point we would be talking about? guest: i think we would be talking about all of this in a historical context. i gratly believe that we will see more african americans as president of the united states, president of the united states, we will see more women, we will see women as president of the united states. we will be probably very close to being able color blind society and will probably be looking back and saying how did we ever live the way that we did? i think america will still be the greatest nation on earth and all of this will be behind

us. guest: i would hope so. but i think we will see significant progress. as i said earlier i think this next generation is the most inclusive generation our nation's history and i think as they move through and as they exercise their own voting rights, as they help to shape institutions, families, schools and communities, we will see us moving much more toward that promised land that dr. king spoke about. but i don't think we'll ever be free of our history at least in the next 20 or 30 years. the next 20 or 30 years. we still live with sort of a legacy that can be manifested in unemployment and wealth statistics, in scoot, in some angry voices in the media. i don't think we'll be free of that but we need to continue to have these discussions because again this was our original sin race and slavery. and as a nation we always have to be conscious of it constantly talk about it and constantly hold ourselves accountable to the ideals that were undermined by that original sin. host: our guests, leonard stine

horn coaudsor of by the color of our skin. also professor of communication at american university here in washington. also michelle bernard, bernrd center for women and a political analyst at msnbc. thanks to both of you for this interesting conversation. we appreciate all your calls this morning. we'll be back at 7:00 tomorrow as we are every day with "washington journal." our guests tomorrow include janice courthouse of concerned women for america. our guests will discuss our our guests will discuss our group's jeandavepa on social issues heading into the 2012 presidential campaign. david ark yush will be with us as well, a punl citizen seven months after receiving executive order to cut red tape released plans for cutting regulations. and gardener harris will be along. public health reporter for the "new york times." according to the f.d.a. close to 180 important drugs are in

short supply. here in the country. our guest will explain why and what might be done about it. "washington journal" 7:00 eastern time. enjoy the rest of your day and we'll see you tomorrow. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2011] >> obscure people with little known storeafments american university professor clarence will you sane reveals who they were as well as many other black men and women who left their imprint forever on the

white house. >> coming up this morning on c-span, "newsmakers" is live with democratic representative emanual cleaver. chairman of the congressional black caucus. then wednesday's dinner commemorating martin luther king junior with remarks from trade representative ron kirk and former secretary of state madeline albright. before we get to "newsmakers," a quick look at comments from a recent town hall meeting hosted by the congressional black caucus.

>> i think that we have reached the point in the history of this country that may be a defining political moment for all of us. this moment in history may be a challenge to our political maturity. i believe the time has arrived when we must eliminate any fear and discomfort we may have about raising difficult questions and creating challenge even when we feel a need even an obligation to protect the first african american president of the united states of america. [applause] make no mistake about it, i support president barack obama. i would like to see the president reelected. however, my niece who supports my need to support the president does not trump my