how we got this way, so i will just throw out one possible cause. a theory coming for a long time not only from the right but some democrats is that hardly means there's something wrong with your character, that you have got bad habits. you have added that lifestyle. you have made the wrong choices. -- you have a bad life style. you have made the wrong choices. are like to present an alternative theory which is that poverty is not a character flaw. poverty is a shortage of money. [applause] the biggest reason for that shortage of money is that most working people are not paid enough for their work. [applause] >> how much of the drama that poor people are entering now you think has to do with the demonization, a criminalization

of poor people? >> yes, absolutely. if you go out now to get a job, a low-wage job, $8 or $9 an hour, you will be drug tested, personality tested. all the questions will be whether you like to steal, with the like to sell cocaine in the break room, things like that. -- whether you like to sell cocaine in the break room, things like that. there is an assumption that if you are poor, you are a criminal, which the public sector does its best to make come true. police harassment. some of it is very racially charged, too. [applause] there is the idea that if you are poor, there is something wrong with you, and you should probably end up incarcerated. >> dr. west, i want to come to your next because i want to build on what barbara has laid out for us, at least in terms of

how it got to be this way. indiana university this week released a white paper called "at risk" which details what this great recession has done to the american public. there is a lot we will pick apart, but let me start with this -- it is pretty clear from this report that the new poor in this country are the former middleclass. typically, politicians love -- i'd guess there poles must encourage them to speak to the banks of the middle-class voter, but how do you talk to the middle-class in ways similar to the past if the new poor in this country have enough to be the former middle-class? >> first, i want to salute you in your leadership. give rather tavis -- brother tavis a hand. very important. i was blessed to go to 18 cities

in seven days with him on the poverty tour that he came up with and his team facilitated. we were able to see the middle class brothers and sisters of all colors, all cultures, all civilizations, and sexual orientations. there were also immigrants. our brown brothers and sisters. they were black, brown, white. we started on the indian reservation. it is always fascinating to look at america through the lens of the original people. very important starting point. the original people. [applause] we began with the notion that poor people are priceless and precious. each individual has the dignity that ought to be affirmed. and what did we see? we saw the results of a system in place that has been driven by corporate greed at the top with

oligarchs ruling and politicians rotating with money coming from the big bank, big corporations pushing working people to the margins and rendering poor people superfluous, which is to say either unnecessary, or in the great metaphor of ralph ellison, invisible. anytime you talk about poor people, you have to talk about the larger systemic context. how could it be that the top 400 individuals have wells equivalent to the bottom 150 million fellow citizens -- well -- wealth equivalent to the bottom 150 million a fellow citizens? there is something sick about that. people said that it is because they deserve it because they are so smart. i know some smart people that are broke as the 10 commandments. they just cannot get a job. if 1% of the population owns 40%

of the wealth and 56% of our precious children of all colors live in or near poverty, something is deeply wrong. it is morally obscene. how could it be that poverty has not become the major moral issue of our time? because our leaders lack courage and independence. they are too tied to big money. [applause] how could it be that the presidential complex has been expanding and $300 billion has gone into jails and prisons in the criminal-justice system, but when it comes for money for schools, money for housing, money for jobs with a living wage, it is a warped system. we're here because martin luther king, jr., and others said america is a sick society. america does not always have to be sick that americans rise up the way the occupy move that has been talking about and talk about these issues seriously.

this is what the issue of poverty as it affects -- the middle class is now declining. if it were just a matter of black, brown, and red, we would be voices in the wilderness. [applause] as long as there is a black face or a brown face on poverty, we overlook it. as long as there is a brown face, we overlooked it pure white, middle-class base, we have a problem now. we have to deal with it. [laughter] and that is fine because we believe what brothers and sisters have the same values as red and brown and black and yellow -- we believe white brothers and sisters have the same values. that is why i am is so excited about the manifesto we wrote, brother, and we had a good time writing that thing. we did. >> let me go to roger clay on the other in because i think he can speak to something that dr. west raises.

let's play with it. dr. west suggest -- if i could put it in this way -- that party in this country for too many of us is color coded. how much of -- let's tease out what dr. west has given us to work with -- how much of our lack of will to address, here to for at least, the poverty question has to do with the fact that poverty is so color coded? >> a huge amount. let me throw out an interesting statistic. right now, the unemployment rate is around 8%. 7.9? then at 8.5%. -- >> 8.5%. >> i went back and looked over the last 40 years to see what the unemployment rate was for blacks. only in one year has it been lower than what it is now. to support what you are saying,

black folks have been in it for a long, long time, but no one paid attention because they look at the unemployment rate for everybody and not the various populations. i think it is a good example of what happens in looking at a lot of problems over a lot of different racial minorities. if it does not hit the white community, it did not happen. it did not exist. what is happening now is there are a lot of white folks who have fallen out of the middle class or are in danger of it, so now, it is a problem, but it was not a problem before, and black folks have been there for that entire time, the last 40 or 50 years, since we have been keeping statistics, and of course, much longer before that. >> one of the arguments you are hearing, michael -- it is hard to ask michael a loaded question because it is just more fun that way. part of what we are hearing from some of those white folks,

michael, is that what this conversation represents its class a and b -- class envy. people are jealous, hitting on other people. we are a bunch of haters on all the folks who have money. up to me about the issue. that is the argument -- i literally saw it on the news tonight. mitt romney used that phrase, that it is envy on the part of many americans against those who happen to be well-off. >> it is war. it is a class war that has been perpetrated by the rich on to everybody else. that is a class war. it is one they started. the mistake they made, to deal with the racial card of this, is there but has been on the next of people of color -- their boot has been on the necks of

people of color since we began. this was a nation founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves. [applause] we started with a racial problem. we tried to actually eliminate one entire race, and then we used another to build this country actually quite quickly into a world power. this country never would have had the wealth that it had had it not had slavery for a couple of hundred years. [applause] if it had had to pay people -- if they had actually had to pay people to build america, we might just be at that point in utah where we are joining the two rails together may be at this point right now. [laughter] here is what i find really interesting -- corporate america and wall street -- they are always thinking about -- "what is in it for us? how is it going to work for

us?" they actually need party. they need poor people. the system does not work unless there is a good chunk of poor people. -- they actually need poverty. they had a permanent port class, mostly people of color -- they had a permanent class of poor that they could use as essentially a threat to the middle class. "if you ask for too much, if you ask for higher wages, if you expect health benefits, it you want a day off, you could very quickly be over there with those people -- if you want a day off. they knew how to use this group to manipulate this group. the huge catastrophic tactical mistake that they have made, because of their incredible greed -- and they came up with it essentially because of the housing thing. after they used the poor, they

thought they were not making enough money, so what could they get off of the middle class. well, wait a minute, they all own homes. let's do the mortgage thing. this was before they went into the inner city to connive and scam poor people. they have been doing that for a long time. the idea over the 1990's and as part of the last decade was to figure out how to make the call middle-class -- essentially put the one thing they had some investments in -- their home -- up to either get a second mortgage or to get a better home or whatever, and they figured out -- this is what is really amazing to me, just thinking about this, because president obama just appointed jack lew as his new chief of staff. if you do not know who he is, he ran the operation of citibank a few years ago.

he ran the particular department at citibank -- the hedge fund department that was assigned to take out bets against the housing industry, that it would collapse. he ran the department to bet on the housing mortgage industry collapsing. that is now the white house chief of staff. >> boo! >> the mistake the wealthy have made and why we have this whole occupy wall street movement, a poll of 76 percent of americans believing taxes should be raised on the rich -- you have never seen that number because they have always convinced the middle-class that they could be there. they could be rich someday. "we will not because in america, anybody can make it. i might be used someday." [laughter]

hooray for welfare, right? they made the huge mistake of taking that away from the white middle class. they went after them. they went after their homes. they moved their jobs overseas. they took their health care away. they made it so their children would be the first generation in the history of this country who would be worse off than their parents' generation. i remember saying this on your show a decade ago, tavis, that when this thing -- you have always asked me when it is going to happen, when people are going to stand up. you show a clip of me on your show. i am down there wrapping crime scene tape around the stock exchange on the back of a brinks truck up to goldman sachs to get our money back, and i am all by myself. [applause] you kept asking me when the revolution was going to happen,

and i said that it would happen -- it is when they will, and they will, go after the people who have things and try to take them away from them. it is one thing you have always been poor and you have never owned that nice house, never been able to take that european vacation. you wished that you could, but you really do not know really what it is like. but if you have been in the middle class and you have had that nice home and that vacation, and you have been able to send your children to the university, and now, the system says, "we are taking that away from you," now there is hell to pay, and that is what is happening. the final thing i want to say is that what i do not understand is that wall street and the banks -- they have so overplayed their hand here. they should have just east of a year or two ago, you know?

they should have just backed off, and they could have had their larger class of permanent war, but i think it works in their benefit. why would we have poverty -- if wall street and the rich got poverty was bad, they could erase it. if they really thought it was not good for them, right? they have the means to get rid of it. they would get rid of it. but they do not. they need it. they need this large -- half the country -- living in anxiety and fear and the other half over here are the ones that they will sell their goods to. that is really actually messed up economics because they have been going for the short-term gain. sooner or later, they are not going to make their money on that. sooner or later, the chinese are not going to be in poverty. people are going to rise up in other countries. you will not be able to go over there and do this for 10 cents

an hour. people eventually what was good for themselves and for their kids, and i think they have made a colossal mistake. i think you're going to see -- you are seeing it now -- this large group of the american public -- 150 million -- rising up. [applause] >> this conversation out here at george washington is made possible thanks to the general -- generous support of the kellogg foundation, so thank the kellogg foundation for making this possible. there's a particular question submitted from the kellogg website that i wanted to get to tonight. it is a great segue to you, suze. michael just referenced the number of americans who have always been poor. i call them the perennially

poor. all too often, children who grow up in poverty tend to stay in poverty. what factors do you really contribute to this lifelong trajectory among american families? that phrase got me -- this lifelong trajectory amongst too many american families? we know suze orman as the most regarded financial expert in this country, to my mind. you might not know that white suze grew up on the black side, the south side of chicago. [applause] in a whole lot of poverty. obviously, she has made her way out of that, but she has a unique perspective on the perennially poor in this country that might -- again, not seem plausible at first glance. talk to me again about what keeps people in poverty. >> what is interesting is this

-- and i will take a little different approach if i can -- >> you certainly can. >> years ago, i have told people, "people, be careful. the rich are getting richer. the poor are getting poorer, and sooner than later, the middle class will not exist." the people that call into the show now used to be middle- class. i am here to tell you, they are all now in poverty. the face of poverty has changed. the face of poverty is the person sitting next to you. it is every single color. what keeps us in poverty is that there is a highway into poverty, and it is no longer even a sidewalk out. to get out of poverty, you have to have a source of income. you have to have the ability to generate money so that you are not poor. it is not brain science, but you cannot make money if there is

not a job for you to have. even if you do make money, you cannot afford to pay things, especially when you see the prices of food out there and what it costs. everything is set up, as michael has said, that once you are poor, they have you exactly where they want you. i do not give them as much credit as you do in that i do not think they are smart enough to know what they did, purposely. [applause] i do not. i think they go after money, and we do not know what to do because we are educated. we are not educated on monday. when someone says to, "signed here, you can have your american dream," you believe them, and you believe them because you want more for yourself, and why would they lie to you? well, they did, everybody. the one thing i can tell you -- people always say to me when i'm on the shows, "they knew what they were doing. they knew how to sign those

papers. do not tell me that they did not get themselves in poverty." i will never forget it was in 2008, oprah asked me, "how is this all happening?" my answer is very simple -- the lies, deceit, and the greed of the corporations and wall street and the banking institutions. it was just that simple. all of you fell for their scams. so you stay in poverty. when nobody can teach you how to get out of it because there are no tools for you to dig your way out of this whole. there is no tools that they are providing for you, but i am convinced that with the right type of education and with some new tools that could aid the people in poverty, that they can get themselves out, but if you

are counting on the administration to get you out, if you are counting on the economy to get you out, if you are counting on any other country to get you out, i am here to tell you, you are fooling yourself. there is you have got to give power to your voice and settle for last -- and not settle for less. what changes is when people start to boys how unhappy they are. if you are simply stopped from the corporations that are keeping me down. >> i'm going to come back to susie. i mention that she may gain

major announcement. i want to come back to that in a second. i want to ask majora a question about poverty, alleviation, and environmental remediation. i want to ask that, majora, andause poorr people not just that in poverty. so often they are stuck in certain pockets, a certain neighborhoods. they cannot get out. often there is no transportation. there is an varmint to racism. there is a link between poverty and environment.

>> thank you. my work has been based that it could be used as a toll to create economic -- tool to treat economic stability. i am known for transforming dumps into parks. what they did was provide a visual reminder that because they look that way they do not have to be there always. no community should have to bear the brunt. we know that race and class is both. it will determine where you find a good step. it is not just that those are

not nice things to be around. they also produce some others. whether it is because of fossiltory problems or fuels causing learning disabilities. it adds to the complex. it has the fabric of our communities. it stabilizes families. it does not provide the different type of development. it can provide different jobs. it may seem very excited. we have seen in countries.

we have seen in inner-city ghettos. there is hope in opportunity that we have missed a lot of. the fact that we can create a new economic opportunities around things like how do we adapt our country, in particular our coastal areas? we can use environmentally sound ways to support things like storm water management and energy conservation while creating real jobs that provide opportunities for people who have been left behind by our education system for so long. whether it is urban forestry management, things of that nature that provide municipal services as well. it aspires to really help and do the unintended consequences.

it made it so that we are more racially segregated. once we have integration, those that have more money were able to leave. if we can use real-estate development to creaturely mixed income communities, bring back the resources so poor people are not always so poor, burning things like manufacturing and other commercial opportunities while keeping an eye toward the environment li-sao things that do not continue to destroy the fabric of our community. we can do that. we can do it. we can do more of it. >> i want to get vicki involved. there has been for a few years,

i think about the number of times i have asked of this of use and others of my programs. it is about the notion of bringing -- greening the ghetto and the way to let people out of poverty was to do just that, to find a green jobs for those persons. has that turned out to be a bunch a rhetoric? can you point any of us to a place where we have seen green jobs come on line? >> we have not seen the kind of green job creation that i was hoping would happen in the south bronx. it really was looking at how you create markets for the kind of jobs that need to be done at in our economy and make sure their training people to do that work.

they make sure there are jobs on the other end of it. that type of work was something that was needed in our city. we knew it. it was helping. we know those type of things actually helped reduce -- improve air quality. you want to do things of that nature. the problem that i have seen is that some of my most well- meaning peers have put the cart before the horse. we could either chain people to the market ripe enough? we did not do that work.

>> i appreciate your patience. >> i love that modesty. it is perfect timing. what she was talking about in these pockets of poverty are the people get stuck with these conditions. one of the things you know better than anybody is that in these pockets of poverty people have access to less food, fruit, meat, vegetables, etc. they are exposed to less. when most americans think about hunger and food and security, they do not think of it as an american problem. they think about the infomercial's we see on late- night television. the african babies with big bellies. talk to me about what the

numbers are saying about hunger in america right now. >> the numbers are huge. there are 50 million americans that are hungry. they do not know when their next meal will come. they're worrying about how they will speak to their children. they come in on monday morning with not enough to eat. they are fidgety and not learning. we know this. they are senior citizens that are living on a fixed income. they are too modest an embarrassed to ask for help. we have seen the numbers doubled since the last recession, 150 million people? that is a crisis. we have a crisis in front of us.

the interesting thing is it is up until now it has been hit in. i read that over 62% of americans really believe there is a divide around it. they are concerned about it. there is the intersection about hunger and poverty and education. it is the ability to get out of the bottom of the wrong. they are worried about it. how do people react and work as far as those that are hungry? they look like all of us. we all know somebody that is struggling. the work that we do, we do the biggest research around hunger in america. it shows that it has doubled since the nerecession.

the people that are coming to our food banks and into food stamp offices for the first time has grown by 30%. that 30% are people that are visiting that have never been there. it is the middle class. i was thinking about this as your getting ready for the panel. it is solving some really big issues. this is an issue of leadership. this is half of our country. if we do not do this now, we never will. >> i want to have some fun.

vicki offers me a wonderful segue. she said what many are leaders. we need leadership. we're sitting in washington right now. i know five under 35 people who think they are leaders. i know a another guy i could definitely thinks he is a leader. there are some folks in this town who regard themselves as leaders. what we are lacking is leadership. why is it that there seems to be a bipartisan consensus and this town that the poor do not matter? >> i hope you all noticed the tears in the ski -- in vicki's eyes. it has to do with someone who cares.

the tears have to do with recognizing the condition of poor people in america. it is a matter of national security like iraq and afghanistan, like whatever foreign-policy we know. part of the problem is we do not have elected leaders who understand the tears. >> i want to jump in quickly. you say that poverty is an issue of national security. >> namely that if we do not come to terms, there is not the external threat. it will lead toward a collapse of american democracy. it is an oligarchy of hypocrisy. poor people are at each other's throats. america goes under as we know it. am i right about your tears?

>> i am right. >> i feel it. one reason why we do not have a leadership among the 536 is that they are not leading in a way that they make working people a priority. when investment bankers are in trouble, and they lead. they saw the problem. when the banking is a problem, if they lead. we need to go to war. >> you're not going to pay for it. that is the kind of leadership. it is narrow. it leads to a catastrophe. what we need is a courageous, progressive leadership. his starkly in america, it has been primarily black folk -- historical in america, it has been primarily the black people

that have shown the leadership. it taught the country how to love. this is what they look like in public. the top is about love. right now the bac folk -- black folks the tradition is weak and feeble. you do not have to be black to be part of that tradition. you have to be connected with it and used to be a part of it. it is not a matter of stereotype. it is tradition that has taught american the best about itself on how to love others even when

you are hated and revenge is coming in. it is not just a political question. we have 536 leaders that are so obsessed with power and money. how are we going to get the lobbyists satisfy? how we get money for the next election? when it comes to the condition of our precious children, it is an afterthought. they talk about it during the election. we're going to go under. >> it is so brilliant what you just said. let's redefined the term.

>> the five under 37 are not leaders. their followers. they follow the money. they do what they are told. as long as we have money in politics, is still be so hard to do any of these things we want to do. they are just a servant to wall street. wall street says do this. "park my car. ."p me some more supe that is why the movement is not called occupy washington. it is god occupy wall street. that is where you go. they are the puppets.

>> it raises a fundamental question. if michael is right, both parties are beholden to wall street. we are now in a presidential race. mr. obama is raising money respectively. if they are both beholden to the wall street money, no matter what they say, what do we do? >> i do not want to break into the panel. i want to push michael and cornel on this. he is like my leader. he has been tell me what to do. i've been following him around and trying to do it. you are a good leader.

you are. however, i want to see the discussions move past leaders. whether we're talking about the ones in congress, a so-called leaders, or whoever we are talking about. we took a huge leap in the last few months. we had for the first time a liter less movement. a proud and leaderless movement. was a crazy? was in not so -- was it nuts? no. everybody became a leader. by ourselves, we will not do much. you're saying anybody can get out of poverty if they have the right knowledge and skills.

i am not going to argue with that. we have discovered something in the last few months that is bigger than the power of any individual. that is the power of solidarity, people working together. defend youroing to house against the share of one for closure time comes. -- against the sheriff when foreclosure time comes. that is our strength. it is a very strong part of the american position. it has been kind of a race for a culture that says you can get yours all by yourself. don't hang out with losers. it to be a leader yourself. we're going together.

we're going to do this together. we have the strength of "we." >> of want to come back to suze now. i bought this -- i brought this up because when you say people can let them out of poverty if they have the tools, what kind of tools are missing? >> to come out of poverty you also need help. you need to believe that you can come out of poverty. it only takes one. if one person can make a move toward it, then you start to get the solidarity. if you all keep thinking there's nothing i can do and there is no

hope, then there is no hope. i was at the national press corps today. somebody came up. i said "what is your name." she said "just another one of those unemployed people." that is how she introduced herself. it means she has no hope. if you have no hope, we have nothing. it takes one person to just have hope and the people around them to get the spark that true change come about. to the one thing that the tool that i think is important that i am trying to work on, i do not know by will be successful, it seems that many people do not want me to be successful with this, but the main thing i want to change in the united states of america are fico scores.

[applause] the way that fico score is used to be calculated was a lot different than we are in now. to no fault of your own, you lost your home, you lost your car, you lost everything. you lost your ability to pay. a of taken everything. they're even taking your fico score. so now you are really fico-ed. without a good score, if you happen to own a good car, no matter what kind, your premiums are high. landlords will not reach you. employers are starting not to hire you. if you want to do anything to change the situation, good luck getting a loan at all. if you happen to get a loan, it will be at the highest interest

rates possible. the main thing i am trying to do is that get people who pay in cash or bond debt that to change. if you pay in cash are on a debit card, it does not report to a credit bureau. there for you do not have a score. therefore you are a non entity. you do not exist in the financial system at all, people. if you want to just pay your way in cash, you do not count. if you count the time if you run up your credit cards and have a minimum paid do every month. then you really count. you are paying their way with 20's arm and 30% interest. -- 20% and 30% interest.

i am trying to change things of that a debit card create a fico store so we can get rid all together.ards when you are tempted to do something when it comes to money, you tended to. i want to get that temptation out. i want to go back to america and build up your fico score so one day he can have a car or a home. the you can one day get that job or rent an apartment. you are now an entity because you have paid with what you have obverses with what you -- versus with what you wish you

had. all i can tell you is that i and many people who do not want me to succeed. there is serious money and credit cards. there is serious money in prepaid cards that charge exorbitant fees. i am trying to do something that is a little out of the ordinary. nobody wants me to do it. and they want to keep everybody down so people that take advantage continue to do so. i am going to continue to fight for you. [applause] in two years time from this date, if this works, you will be able to get a credit score simply if you have a debit cards. that is my goal. >> i want to come back to you. i want to ask something that is

a bit elephant in the room. since to open the door to it, i want to come back. i'm not asking this to beyond the spot. to many americans are suffering from poverty right now. the group that is being hurt the most and being hit the hardest, and the numbers they clearly are african americans. you lived in oakland. it is an pedometer african- american city. there are other pockets across this country. black people right now are catching the most hell.

to my mind, they lovingly and respectfully are the most [inaudible] about the they are catching. it it is about our love and supports of barack obama as president and the effort to get him elected. i get that. i do want to put this out there. i am curious as to whether or not the historical power in the black prophetic tradition, if the people catching the most hell are not saying anything and giving the president cover, and then how did the other folks who are trying to find the courage to raise their own voices to keep themselves from being invisible, we have done this historically. what happens if we continue to

be as silent as we are? i am not saying that the president has to be demonized. i am saying when they are doing that in silence, it raises the question as to what the paying the threshold -- pain threshold really is for black folks. >> we talked about what you're going to ask. i was hoping to give it to somebody else. let me first tell you about how i feel about how i become president. i am extremely disappointed, more so than i ever thought i could be. i think part of the reason i am disappointed is because i had hoped for a light.

the disparity between what he has done and what i hoped, some of my hope was based on unrealistic expectations. [applause] and so even though i am very disappointed, i was born when roosevelt was president. i do not think that there has been a better president for our people since i have been alive. i am very mixed. because he is black, i still have very high expectations. some things are well done. i think he has done some things that are well done that they did not say much about. my biggest disappointment is that i do not see a leadership on the issue. i do not think you go around

talking about race. you do have to go around talking but issues that affect black people. not just black people, because we are just a canary. it is everybody. everybody is experiencing now is something what we have been expressing for a long time. what do we do about that? one of the difficulties now is looking at the alternatives. you really do not know. would you rather have him are one of the others? i am clear on the republican side what i would rather have a. i would rather have barack obama. my hope is that he does get

reelected. but that because it will be his last term, at least the first two years he will turn out to be a great president. right now he is a social president. i do think that we have to keep the pressure on. i am glad there are people that can go out and say it. that is not what all of our roles are. i do not think if he gets reelected and there is not substantial change that people will be quiet. we're going to lose because of that, people are not going to be supportive of the democratic party. >> let's take a step further. black people are catching the most heall among -- hell among the president's space and they're the most loyal constituency.

there is a larger problem year, which is democrats more broadly -- how do you lovingly and respectably push the leader of the free world to say and to do more about poverty? i have never asked. i'm never asked the president to walk around talking about black, black, black. but when americans of all color and race and ethnicity and gender, etc., when all americans are now falling into poverty, it does raise a question as to what they do more broadly to respectively push them to use the pulpit during this campaign year to say and do more about the poor and about making poverty a priority. do you have any magical way, and

a great idea, about how we go about doing that ta? >> yes. i have an optimistic answer. bac in election day dump the 2008, everybody remember going into the voting booth. i looked down at the ballot. i saw this man's name. i never thought in my lifetime that i would ever have a chance to do what i was about to do and vote for him. i cheered up. did anyone else have that experience? [applause] up.terally teared i was literally moved. in mich., weak color a circle with a felt pen. smeared the tears ballot. >> a you voted have for mccain? >> no.

my wife was outside asking what the is going on in theire? it was such an emotional day. we had just under eight years of our country being driven down the toilet. [applause] we had gone through 8 years of after the world feeling our pain and being on our side turning against us after we became a country that invaded other countries. to finally have someone that was going to stand up to this, and yes you're right about the expectations and the rose colored glasses that maybe we wanted. we also knew that goldman sachs was his number one contributor. we thought it did not matter. we know the man had a good heart. we know that. he still has a good heart. we know his conscience. we know that. we know his wives conscience --

wife's conscience. we know his family. i am profoundly disappointed. those tears on election day have continued through these past three years. here is what i would like to say. we are live on c-span. we are just a few blocks from the white house. it just in case he is watching, which camera would he be on? president obama, here is the deal. the republicans have done as a huge favor. they have run the circus. i do not understand why wall street did not put up somebody to remove you because they are not really entirely happy with you. yet they have not run anybody

who is going to be you. [applause] therefore, without chasing the election, without providing clips for fox news to run the day after the election, let me just say i think there is a pretty good chance you're going to win this election. [cheers and applause] therefore, let's not lose another year before addressing the issues that we're discussing. you do not have to worry. you are going to have another four years. you have the opportunity to be the roosevelt of the 21st century. if you remember throughout and to brought this

country to the place we should be, even though it was genocide and slavery, that somehow it took this african american to bring us to be place where we always knew we could be and to help treat the american dream for every person that suze is talking about. if i put an eight hour day, i can try my own car and semi kids to college. that is all they're asking for -- and send my kids to college. that is all they're asking for. [applause] >> the irony is just overwhelming for me that you get a white brother from michigan expressing the best of the black

prophetic tradition to a black brother in the white house. [applause] who's the head of the american empire. it is not about stereotypes. it is about what type of human being you're going to be when you move from your mom is going to the tune. i do have -- when you move from your mother's womb to the tomb. i do it to say this. even when we knew the mean- spirited republicans pushed as to the brink of catastrophe, we also knew that the system itself was broken. just like when the black mayors took over cities that were in the process of breaking down, you get a black president in the white house and the process of a national system that is breaking down.

we got to keep our focus on the system and the bodies and souls that come together and mobilize. in the end, and this is what elected martin luther king making an indispensable, that it is not about one person or president. it is about a fundamental transformation. we need a transfer of power from unaccountable oligarchies to everyday people. that is what we're talking about. if you know enough about the future that you're willing to take a risk and live and maybe die. my first prayer for barack obama is the safety of this family.

his precious two little ones and his wife. white supremacy is a real. it is very real. all of those who have lived under those threats, and they know exactly what their getting into. most of your friends aren't dead. they're willing to sacrifice. most people do not want to die. they would rather sell out then die. what we're talking about is not just one individual. we are talking about what kind of people we are. if we do not have enough ordinary citizens of all colors to fight for your democracy just like a fight for it in afghanistan under leadership formulations, then we're going to lose the democracy and poor people will still be caught. that is the challenge is seems to me.

people were willing to fight for the british monarchy. they pushed up the imperialists. the second was slavery. they pushed out slavery. it is just another form of slavery. that challenge in america is in the oligarchy. we have to have leadership that says we love oligarchs. they are human beings and make choices and they can change their minds. they can choose to be white supremacists or fight white supremacy. you have to make a choice. >> i want to ask barbara. to those watching right now see your passion but would suggest it is a bit hyperbolic

to say that you have overstated the case by suggesting that the future of our democracy is at stake, that sounds anti-american and you do not believe in the idea of american exception listen. are you overstating the case that our democracy is at stake? >> i was a look at the elections. democracy is all but gone anyway. all you need to do is look at the super pac and the supreme court that is happening for the money flowing in. we have to somehow renew it. it is not hyperbolic in this sense. >> there is a threat that we're to left. you are correct. he was actually being kind in terms of how it is. >> the overwork him. >> are you building on my optimism?

the of the awful truth is that our democracy is hanging on by its last one or two threads. it is paid for a controlled by the banks and wall street by corporate america and by the 1% that rule this country. what are the water to threads that are left? -- one or two threads that are left? they still say it is one person and one votes. they can run ads aand keep suze from getting a good credit for, but she is talking about something so revolutionary. the current debt in student debt

have been fighting each other for number one. [applause] >> what i want to say to anybody watching or listening, and that one thread that is still there, the one person/ one vote, the one thing that they cannot do is come into that booth with me or you once we close the curtain. at their hand is not on our hands. it is our hand. we still get the choice. the problem is the lack of choice. the problem is that in a nation of 300 million people, we have only two choices. one is a nice choice, but they are both feeding at the same trough. 01 will appoint better justices but they are still feeding from the same corporate trough. until we remove money from

politics and have more choices on the ballot in go back to voting on paper ballots so there is a real count so we can see to be voted for, until we get rid of the electoral college -- [applause] until we moved election day to the weekends -- [applause] let's make it easy. the reason why the 1% are trying to get all the laws passed this year to repress the vote to make it more difficult, and the reason they are doing it which is kind of a positive thing is a why would they be doing that if they believed that the majority of america agreed with them and fox news tax if they honestly felt that the majority of america believed in wall street and the 1% and right wing, and

some of casting voter suppression laws, they would be passing laws put in voting booths in every aisle in walmart. they want as many people voting as possible if they thought they were the people supporting the values. the majority of americans are with us. the majority wants the rich to pay their fair share. the majority wants regulations put back on wall street. the majority what somebody arrested for the crap. that is what the majority wants. we're not going to get our third or fourth in this election. where not going to be able to take the money out before november. what we have to do, all of us, this great movement that is

taking place that had stem billion liters that has 10 million -- that has 10 million liters is they have to figuratively put their hands on the third of every leader running and say i want a promise that you will make your priority to remove money from politics and not the money from the banks. if they feel the heat from that. there's a desperate to be elected, that is more powerful than the money than they're getting. they cannot win without your vote. you have to let the democrats and barack obama played that card of where else are you going to go? they do not want to do that. they really do not want to do that. they saw what happened in 2000. there are enough penstock people

that will actually go somewhere else and can cause a huge ruckus. they do not have to go very far to think of an example of what happens when you pump on those that have left. imagine obama calling a press conference in going "i have decided that this year i am returning all the money i have received from wall street and i'm not taking one dime from wall street in this election right now." what you think would happen? think about the support he would have. how many in here went door to door and phone calls and everything in 20008? as, many people can wait to get back on the phone banks? it is not there. he could turn that around by not waiting until after the election

but changing it right now. the majority is already with him. >> for those watching right now you are saying that -- who are saying that we have tried to eradicate poverty and we have for more money at poverty, there are more poverty programs than there have ever been, we have done this since the johnson era, it ain't worked. for all of you guys on the stage, put down the crack pipe and get a life, if there has to be another way to do this. we have tried this, it has not worked. >> i would say, this is my own point of view, this is really not surprising that there are so many people in poverty when you consider wages and policies.

it is not even surprising in the way that we provide so little of a safety net to people who are falling. the disgusting and shocking thing is that not only do we not tell people who are having trouble but we kick them a little further. the whole system is rigged so that if you start to spiral down you're going to spiral faster. there is no latter going up -- ladder going up, ther eis re isa free shoot going down. employers not like to hire people with poor credit scores. most employers now check credit scores. what is that about? they do not want to hire people who need money? they don't like to hire people who are unemployed. that is so weird i have to say it again.

did they do not want to hire people who need jobs. go figure. once you start down, these are going faster and faster. your debts mount. it is the possibility of legal trouble. it is something i was looking into today. it is so horrifying. you apply for food stands in most states. your information enters the criminal justice system computers. if there is a warrant out for you caught red that is it. they found you, right --out for you, that is it. they found you, right? it is part of a dragnet to bring in more peo =-- poor

people, aka "criminals." when we see people who were down, we have a system in place that takes them down further. >> is it an overstatement to say that there is a war on the poor right now? >> no. you can say that. you can quote me. >> roger, i saw your hand earlier period's >> --i m your -- i saw your hands earlier. >> this conversation is seductive. we're talking about poverty. we ought to talking about people being economically secure, something much more positive. it sounds like we are also saying let's go back to the good old days. i do not remember any good old days. i do not want to go back to

anything. if i go to these 1970's, 1980's, 1940's, it was not good. not talk about that. let's talk about what we will do going forward. it may have been good for some people, but democracy has never worked for most of us. it is more visible now. the thing about occupy is that it is 99 as opposed to 50% or 40's there. american use the word hope earlier. americans are really good at hope. the way we do hope is that it is delusional. poll after poll says that most americans think they're going to

be rich. for that reason they protect the rich. it is changing now because it has gotten so bad and you have different people that are poor. people of color have always been in this situation. democracy is the other word. what we have to do is change the systems. the systems create war. the key people pour. we need a totally new system. i will say what i am optimistic about. things will get so bad that we will actual treaty different system.

that is what i am optimistic about. i think over the next tender 15 years we can do that. it is not going to happen anytime soon. we're talking about things used to be better. by so want to talk later about how we imagines that better america. how we imagined going forward and not having to think about the good old days. we will do that later in this conversation. >> no. wanted to go back to what barbara it said. there's a lot of programs that support people living in poverty and people that are poor, people that our food and secure. for most states to fill out a food stamp application, it is 30 pages. it is easier to get a gun. can you imagine being a single mother going into out reach

office what you are working and having to rest their filling out the food stamp application. we cannot even seem to organize around simplification of a simple form like a food stamp application. syndication of benefits is something that we can work on. another met bought a round these programs predict another man -- another myth around these programs is that we are spending too much money on these families. the reality is that food stamps for a family of three are making $22,000 a year. did they get a benefit of about $135 a month. think about the price of food today. we all know it is at record highs. that is a reality. how far do you think living in washington, d.c. or in new york

or washington, how far does that go? when you start hearing people talk about we're spending too much money on programs that are supporting people that are living in poverty and food insecurity, that is absolute nonsense. that is absolute nonsense. [applause] i am really concerned that many of these programs are really up for grabs. the reason they're up for grabs is because that politicians, especially new politicians, do not look at the individuals they are affecting. they did not look at the humans and the stories behind the people. they did not know the families. they do not know how hard people are trying to work. they look at the numbers. they think "we can cut 5% our or

a box of food to a senior citizen that is making $9,000 a year." you try going to a senior citizen in michigan and saying "cannot give you a food box." that is reality. >> i want to ask suze the first part of this question. i want to ask a question specifically about students. michael raise this point early, suze, about student loan debt. i want to do this real quick. it seems to me you get into college, which is what everybody tells you to do. that is if you want any chance in making it in america. you have to get a college education at a great school like george washington.

you come out of school and you have that coming out of your ears. then you cannot find a job in this economy on top of that. you are supposed to somehow still believe that you can achieve, that you can have, that the american dream is still for you. talk about this issue of student loans and how that is setting another generation of americans so far behind in pushing them so much the for it and -- deeper into poverty. >> here is what makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. student loan debts is the only debt that in 99.9999% of the cases cannot be discharged in bankruptcy.

the federal loan debt that can occur from the stafford loan, usually does not pay for the cost of a university education, so you end up getting private student loan debt from banks. banks are not regulated like the federal government, were the m.a.c. chairman -- with a maximum interest rate is 6.8%. on a plus loan, you are looking at 7.9%. bank loans have the ability to go to 15, 18, 19%, and the u.s. government bankruptcy laws protect those banks. so the banks can screw you with the interest rates that are charging you, and you do not have any rights whatsoever to say i cannot afford this. then the system allows you to defer your student loans, up to

do forbearance on your student loans. what does that mean? it simply means that you don't have to pay it right away, but the interest continues to accumulate. listen to me closely here. there are not a lot of safe places to make money today, and they know that. many of these banks and institutions by them at 0% and they are lending to you at 6% or 8%. when you don't pay it back, they are thrilled, because it starts to compound and compound, and $40,000 turns into $80,000 turns into $150,000. in you think you have been getting away with something because you haven't been able to pay it, and then they contact you and you have got to pay back that $150,000. you cannot.

what did they do? they will garnish your wages, they will garnish your social security check. so when you are taking out student loans -- parents out there, when you are cosigning a private student loan, you better be very, very careful, because some of the private student loans state that if the person you cosign for dies, they don't care. you are stuck paying the student loan for as long as it is going to take, even if the student is no longer here. all the rides are going to the institution. if you think expensive education is going to get you a job when there are no jobs out there to be gotten. [applause]

>> this is the best thing i have heard up here tonight. this is going to continue. even if we stop them on this scam, the beast will come up with the next scam. the monster has to be fed. until we change the system, and we are talking about capitalism. not the old kind of capitalism, work hard, do well, everybody benefits. we are talking about capitalism as defined in the 21st century. set it up so that just a few succeed, and everybody else suffers and service them. this ultimately has to change. the way we structure this economy, this has to change. this has to be a democratic economy where you and i control it, not wall street you have

done these symposiums for so many years. . won't have this hair if we don't thing that we did change the thing that is at the core of this evil -- >> until it changes, we have to be educated not to make the mistakes they want you to make. >> this is very important. that is why you have this the first panel appear. we also need to talk the larger thing that has to change, which is an economic system that is unjust, unfair, and not democratic. until that changes, we are screwed. >> is a global affairs, not just

a national affair. you cannot really look forward until you look back. what you look back at are the great, courageous, loving, sacrificial people who shake to, like my mother and father and your mother and father and grandparents. what the black tradition has taught you is that if you don't have a sense of history, if you don't put yourself in a narrative that is rooted in something deeper than just money and fame and quick success and instant gratification, then the very capitalism we are talking about has produced such shallow people that they are never going to straighten up their backs and take a stand against anything because they are up for sale.

>> i totally agree that history is very important. i am very proud of my history. native american history -- i don't understand how they are not crazy in terms of what happened to them. all i am trying to say is, we don't want to go back there. we want to learn from there, but we don't want to go back. we have to go forward. the world is very different than it used to be. it calls for a term elite -- totally different method, totally different tools. in this country, with the changing demographics, it changes everything. race cannot play quite the same role that it played before. >> love, courage, integrity, willingness to serve and sacrifice, that is rostov, and we don't want to lose any of

that. -- the at israw stuff. >> i am says the about the students, but i don't want to leave out the babies, these children -- i asked susie about the students. the data is abundantly clear account. simply put, the younger you are in america, the more likely you are to be in poverty. it is just that simple. the younger you are in america, the more likely you are to be in poverty. the indiana university white paper _ is that as well. --underscores that as well. what we say in this present moment in america about and to a nation that allows that statistic to be the reality? >> is one of the major indictments, they are more

likely to be in the worst social conditions. what kind of people are we, when we examine ourselves and acknowledge that reality? that is not just that, that is pathological. it really is. i am anti-in justice in america. that is not the same as anti- american. the question becomes, if we are really serious about being poverty abolitionists and calling for the eradication and abolition of poverty, we got to target the young people from birth to five years old. all the evidence talks about the shaping of their minds and hearts and souls. this cannot just a matter of programs. it is a matter of civic society. what kind of discourse -- does this kind of discourse take

place in churches and synagogues? no. there are other priorities at work. what is going on? the renaissance of compassion and the nonviolent, democratic revolution we are calling for against oligarchy is across the board in every sphere of our society. that is part of the consciousness raising that needs to take place. >> this has been interesting. what struck me, i want to go back earlier to susie's point, because this will be revolutionary. let's look at what is, working within the system which is the capitalist system. maybe -- i don't think i am one of the only people who embraced

their inner capitalist. we all participate in some way, shape, or form. the question is, what can we do in the interim before somebody abolishes it and comes up with something else. in the meantime, what are we going to do right now? i come from one of the poorest congressional districts in this country. people are not having this conversation. they are having conversations about what is really impacting them. that is what i am hoping we can actually get to the root of right now. how do we make poor people less poor? jesus said there'll always be the poor among us. that't think he ever said have to stay that way. that is where we start thinking about within the confines of the system we are in right now, what can we do to actually help our leaders have vision?

how do we be the leaders with vision ourselves and show that there is another way of doing things? that is what we really need to be talking about, in ways that are practical. with all the vision i have, i am practical. i want to make sure that people are doing accessible jobs that allow them to move up and out of poverty in ways that are real, meaningful, and have lasting impact or their families and communities. i struggleddon't -- with the idea of gentrification and displacement in a bunch of different ways. when people talk about it in so many ways, it is like, you are going to push the poor people out. poor people don't like living in poor places. can we talk very seriously about that? [applause]

when we think about what happened with integration, i don't think dr. king was thinking that when people have the ability to live wherever they want, they should not leave the other people behind. i don't believe that was on his mind, but that basically is what happened. why is that happening? what have we lost? what have we not done? what did you say, for 40 years we have not had black unemployment any better than it was? that is a scary, scary thought. really? really? >> yes, really. >> why are we not thinking about

different ways of saying -- we can come up with ways to create new opportunities in our inner cities, in their rural and poor areas, the kind of places that need the economic development to support or people and move them out of poverty, so we are not talking about them like a thing that is demonized and criminalize, but allowing them to actually move that experienced the american dream. [applause] >> in the tradition of the black church, i would say amen to everything you just said. i have heard seven or eight practical things, a very real things on this stage in this conversation tonight that can be done and ought to be done to make the poor less pork. -- make the poor less poor.

dr. west a moment ago used the term poverty abolitionist. juxtaposed those of us on the stage who are, but there are also poverty deniers in this country. there are poverty deniers and poverty apologists. i wonder what we say to them tonight. with all the data that is out there, how can people still deny that poverty is real and is as real as it is, and yet you see them on television and in the media all the time, as if this is some sort of fantasy. >> let me say something about that. you cannot do anything about the people that are so clueless. if they are denying this fact,

we are in the country. that poll that said that 21% of republicans believe that "barack obama maybe the antichrist." 21% of them actually believe that. there is nothing you can do about that. you just have to say we are a big country. there are 30 million people that are just don't cold crazy. but there are 270 million that are not. [laughter] you just made such an excellent point. while some of us are trying to abolish capitalism, or if it is a more comfortable work for you, agreed -- that is just another word for it. the practical things right now, if they do have cable and are able to watch this.

[applause] if not, it is on pbs next monday, tuesday, and wednesday. [applause] >> you ask about all these party programs and people complain about poverty. here is a poverty program that everyone should get behind, jobs. isn't that really at the core of what everybody has been saying? if you have a job and you are paid a decent wage, a livable wage, isn't that really the eradication of this poverty, if you are paid a wage so that you are not in poverty? how do we create those jobs? corporate america, 4500, are sitting on $2 trillion cash in their bank accounts. in the past, that has never

happened. " corporations do when they make money is they then spend that money to create more jobs. factory andanother we can make more of that, and employ more people. that is how we used to work, kind of. now what they are doing is, they are making record profits and putting money in their bank account, and doing it in part because it is their rainy day fund. they know the other shoe has not dropped ticket they are still doing credit defaults swaps and derivatives and all this crazy stuff on wall street. they know another crash could happen. any of a number of things could happen. they want to make sure they are protected. if we force them, if congress

could force them to say, you have to release that money, you cannot afford it money, if i live in a town in northern michigan where it is very cold in the winter and there is no natural gas, you use heating oil to heat your home. if the heating oil company down the road was hoarding all the oil and not selling it to people so they could heat their homes in the winter, what would those people do? rise up. if that heating oil company doesn't want to sell your their oil, they don't have to. well, that has to change. that $2 trillion has been taken out of circulation. it has to be put back into circulation. we need a roosevelt-style jobs program right now. we need real jobs with real wages.

we need to start the eradication of poverty. >> let me challenge that. i don't know in this era, i don't know a single corporate co who gets rewarded for hiring anybody that he or she does not have to have. take that argument to its logical extension. one could argue that this economy is never going to come back, because as long as ceo's know that they can do the same with less and they get rewarded for squeezing more out of the shareholder, nobody gets rewarded for hiring more people. you don't get rewarded for putting more people back to work. >> the whole discussion about a jobs creation and who is going to create jobs is so silly. all the rewards of our form of capitalism have been for the

people at the top who can reduce the number of employees they have. that is all they know how to do. romney is not an exception. the idea is to get lean and mean. that is all they know how to do. really thatk it is we want to destroy capitalism. it is destroying itself. this cannot work. you cannot have an economic system where your and your people can participate as either workers or consumers. clay don't earn enough or they don't have jobs. that is one of the reasons we had the crash of 2007-2008. there was so much poverty that was behind the mortgage crisis. you cannot run things like this. you cannot have an economy just based on the 1% plus their -- i

don't know how it would work. it is not a matter of if we like capitalism or not. fiscal matter of how we survived when it isn't working any more -- it is a matter of how we survive when it isn't working any more. >> you can either have all the wealth concentrated with a small number of people, or you can have democracy, but you cannot have both. >> part of what we are talking about is that we move from a state of monopoly and industrial capitalism to monopoly finance capitalism. 40 years ago, the banks only had 9% or 10% of the corporate profits in the whole economy. today they have 43% of the corporate profit. when you have banks that are not primarily interested in lending any more, but rather trading on

casino like operations in which they make big money but they don't produce any products, they are making billions of dollars. general motors was making big money in producing products and providing jobs. now they are just a collective. that is what finance capitalism is globally. we have to be honest about that and then say we have to be practical in terms of how we preserve our dignity and integrity. you have to tell people the painful truth of the kind of system we are living in. unfortunately, it is very rare that they even get a chance to hear that kind of truth about capitalism. people are debating about bain. that is the tip of the icebergs. bain is not some isolated unit time to private equity. this has been happening across the board.

in that sense, it does look rather bleak at times, but this is another reason why the black traditions are important. if you have been under slavery for thousands of years, it looks kind of bleak. if you have been jim crow for over a hundred years and the land of liberty, it looks bleak. here comes the people telling you how to blow the struggle for justice with your head high in the middle of darkness. >> this is what i want to say. we have been sitting here now for a few hours, talking about poverty and the system and getting out the truth about it. but i am also looking at 1500 people in this room, and i have to ask you, each one of you

individually, what are you doing to stay out of poverty? how knowledgeable are you about the money that you are making? do you have the documents in place today to protect your tomorrow so that if something were to happen to you, the little amount of money may have does not go to some lawyer to probate what you have. what steps are you taking to keep yourself out of poverty? the more people that go into poverty, the harder it is going to be for everybody to get out. have you ever been on an airplane and you hear them say when the oxygen mask falls, put it on your face first before your child? that is because if you cannot take care of yourself, you cannot take care of your children. tavis, you asked me about student loans. he asked everyone about children. we are passing a silent message

of debt down to our children. we don't talk about money. i am talking about your family money. what you do that, where you put it, how you get more out of what you already have. if you don't learn about money, if you don't learn about -- i am just talking about personal finance now. then you are setting yourself up to be a victim to a system that wants you to fail. so i hope all of you leave tonight not only thinking about what we do for the entire system and how we change the world, but i hope you go home and have a good sit-down with yourself and say, what am i doing in my life right here and right now to stay out of poverty? that you can still do, so you better start doing it now, people. i could be looking at 1500 people in poverty sooner than later if you don't get powerful

over the money that you do have. how you think and feel about it and what you do. i am asking you to turn toward yourself to solve that problem in your own family, because nobody else is going to solve it for you. [applause] >> we would like all of you to take your credit cards out now. ushers are bringing scissors down the aisle. [laughter] >> i totally agree with everything you said. it is just not sufficient. i don't think we are disagreeing. i want to go back to what my good friend roger said about jobs. you are absolutely right, in the short term, the think we need to do is get as many people to work as possible, but they have to be good jobs.

that have to play -- have to pay well and have benefits and mobility. if we do that, we still have not done a damn thing, frankly, because the system is still the same. we are staying in a nice hotel, and i talked yesterday to the person who was cleaning my room. i could tell she was in poverty. when barr wrote her book -- win barber wrote barbara 10 years ago, our unemployment rate was pretty good. the topic was not jobs. if she found a bunch of different occupations and different people who clearly were in poverty. so merely getting down our unemployment rate to 5%, that is

totally insufficient. again, we have to figure out how to change the system. i am assuming we'll have time to talk about what we would do that is very different to change the system. >> i had a question for you and for dr. west. having just finished the tour, what was your sense of what you are seeing, feeling, hearing from americans around how frustrated are they a round of the issues we are talking about? how focused are they on really creating a movement to change the system? what is the outcome of the tour? >> one was that the resilience among poor brothers and sisters of all colors was profoundly inspiring. we went in knowing they weren't

sophisticated, so, inadequate, magnificent, and fall like anybody else, but their resiliency came through strong. mainly in local forms, in very practical forms of expression. in madison, wisconsin, people wake up in different ways, different times, and so on. i came away tremendously fired up, not just because of the occupy movement. this was three months before -- about a month and a half before. i also get a sense that poor people know that the system is so deeply --, and it will take a fundamental system change, and

how that will come about, nobody really knows. >> how do we mobilize those people to vote? how do we get them motivated to see the other side and again in practice the want right they have, around voting? >> i guess what michael said earlier a, it comes down to choices. a lot of people don't see the kind of choice they really want to make to help lift them up out of poverty. that is one reason why this conversation is so important, to put poverty front and center in this political season. >> the 1%, of want them to vote and have a political party that represents their interests. they are americans. but the fact is, we have two

parties -- the 1% gets to parties. the 99% have no parties. the 1% have the two--- have the two parties. the 1% should have their own party, and the 99% should have two or three or four parties that represent the broad spectrum of political thought within the 99%. >> stop yelling and being rude. >> i want to go back to something that roger said. i don't think anyone answered it or maybe heard what he said. when he said i don't want to go back to the good old days, because the good old days for african-americans, latinos, or native americans, there are no good old days.

when so much of the discussion talks about getting at home in the suburbs and the way used to be, and my dad was a factory worker at gm -- that is a bad example because the uaw is one of the few unions that integrated back in the 1940's and insisted that blacks and whites did the same jobs. generally, my question to and to anyone of pure who is african-american is, if we are able to succeed and find that these fixes in the present and future, the system itself, do you worry that that new system, which is going to put people back to work and create a middle-class again, is that you

are going to find yourselves still out there in that group that is not allowed in to the new party, to the new system? what is your fear of that taking place? >> it depends on the time you are talking about. in the short term, probably in my lifetime, i don't think it is going to get a lot better. in a longer life time, i think it is. the way i tend to approach our work is to look to what can we do today to have a good society for the kids today when they are grown? i would start with young kids and ask ourselves the question, what do we want this country to look like in 20 or 30 years? i start at birth and then move

up. . probably won't be around one of the things that is optimistic -- i am optimistic about the 99. things have gotten so bad for so many more people, it is not blacks and latinos crying in the wind. i think other people are beginning to understand. it is not going to turn around quickly. i think tavis was saying people are thinking about going back to the old labor market. our economy has changed. the longer people are hard work, the more it is changing. we are going to have to come up with a different work force system. >> i think it will be better for the next generation. the young people sitting here tonight. >> we have more mixed race

people, and a lot of them are influential. they are married and to families that have more power and money. they are not as racist. >> the only white age group that president obama one was a 18-29 year-old. he lost every other white age group. the young people are going to fix this. our kids are not bigots. they are not homophobes'. they don't look at this the weather grandparents and great grandparents -- that don't look at it the way the grandparents and great grandparents did. >> i want to ask a question about labor.

a want to ask about how the attack on collective bargaining and unions and what some see as a diminishing of unions and labor in this country does for poverty in the long term, beyond today. since i happen to be an african- american -- >> it happen to be that god made you a black man. >> and i am glad he did. [laughter] shout hallelujah. [laughter] >> it is wonderful thing. did you sing that song in church ♪ i am glad, glad, glad, that

me. made nik i am glad roger made that point about optimism and hope. optimism suggested that there is a particular set of facts, circumstances, or conditions, something you can see, feel, and touch, they give you reason to believe that things are going to get better. so you say i am optimistic. that has never been the case for negro in america. hope, on the other hand, sestet craig is the substance of things hoped for -- said that faith is the substance of things hoped for. i cannot look at the condition and the state of black people ellay catching the most h

in this economy. i cannot find any reason to be optimistic. what i can find reason to be is hopeful. when hope got to us, it was already stillborn, and yet we are the most hopeful people in this country. optimism and hope are two very different things. i don't have reason to be optimistic, but i am hopeful. since you ask, i am going to be frank. it troubles me -- it almost the presses me at times when some folks don't understand the critique of obama from those of us who happen to be free, black men who want a more progressive view of this country. the reason i am on this is

because i think in many ways, this is the last, best chance that my people have, and if the numbers continue to petworth and we keep thinking in falling hole, there isis whol a chance we may never come out of this. and i love black folks too much to sit and watch this happen to them. [applause] >> the history plays an important role. under slaver, it was a crime for black people to love you love your child, but you either go crazy or get some spiritual fortitude. it was also a crime to hope. we could not worship god without what supervision so you would steal away to the creek.

that was a crime. in the land of religious liberty, no matter how dark it is, even in the present, it is hard to conceive of what my great great grandmother and great great grandfather had to wrestle with in the abyss of american slavery. i cannot conceive of it even being worse, as bad as it is, but with this proviso. i have learned a lot from young people. all will say this about young falcon a critical way. -- about your own fault in a critical way. i don't know of a wave of young people who are commensurate to the grandmothers and grandfathers and those ancestors that shaped me in terms of who i

am. i just don't. the reason is because young people have been so penetrated with that capitalist culture of instant gratification, overnight success. in that sense, there is a shift from the john coltrane and sarah vaughn and curtis mayfield and aretha franklin into the bubble gum music that is dominant. that is a shift. when we talk about the young people who are going to make this fundamental social change, you are going to get bought out. you are going to sellout quick. you will not be a long-distance runner. you'll be so obsessed with instant success and superficial status that you will make your grandmother week from the grave. she will want you to have earned great as, not quick success.

she doesn't care about what your position is or how big your crib is. this.e still agreeing on desk >> i worry that whatever fixes we come up wit, that is part of it will not get fixed, because as you said, there is nothing to prove or justify any optimism that black america is not going to be left behind again. >> there is symbolism, and that is what obama represents. as yet, there has not been a substance that can fuel that

hope. a lot of symbolism, and i celebrate symbols. barbara, i wanted to ask you about labor. there are many of us who are concerned about the attack on labour, on collective bargaining. there are those who think the labor movement is dead. your assessment of what ever the condition of labour is and how it parallels where this poverty conversation in america is or is not going to go. >> it was the unions that brought my family up. the butte miners union. they were not paid well. they had union and they began to do better. finally getting into home ownership and things like that. that is the only thing i know about the upward mobility.

it is true. i don't even pay any attention to my personal finances. that is another area. [laughter] but the one thing i did grow up with was the idea that people could get ahead by sticking together. in fact, and my family was very prejudiced in a way, i guess. they said there are two things you could never do in your life. one is vote republican, and the other is cross a union picket line. you can do either of those things are you go straight to hell. michael mentioned there is a class war. one of the first targets was unions, because they did

represent so-called little people or working people and everything. and the have been terribly weak and -- they have been terribly weakened. maybe they have been institutionally weakened, but we still have to take the lesson from them that people standing together in solidarity can take on that 1%. can make changes. [applause] >> i am watching the clock and we have about 15 minutes left of the conversation. let me start by saying there have been all kinds of suggestions of what needs to be done right now. we have had some short-term suggestions, short-term solutions, that is. we have had some long term solutions. we have in title this

conversation "reawaken in america from poverty to prosperity." since you put this question now about if we don't replace, have certainly fix a broken system. your thoughts about how we do that or what? >> the media is jobs in the public sector, jobs in the private sector, supporting business, especially small and micro businesses. then we have to start working on our systems that create poverty and keep people in poverty like our educational system, the criminal justice system. but the bigger idea is trying to figure out how to spread the wealth of this country throughout all of its people. one of the ways i think he can

do that is something like a well account where things that we all own, such as oil, and i will use alaska as an example. they get money it serves people that has lived there for a year. when sarah palin was governor, it was more than $3,000 a person. the idea there is that they all -- they all on the oil, so they all get it. there are natural resources like that, but there are other things like patents. if you want to invent something and put on the market, that is fine, but if you want the government to protect your for 50 years passed your death, then you have to pay for that. the way i would have it paid 4 is essentially give an ownership interest in every patent to people in this country, and i

would distribute the money to everybody, no means test, no nothing. if we did that, so that everybody would get another $10,000 or $50,000 a year automatically, we could get rid of food stamps and other government programs that are a safety net, because we would get rid of the need for part of the safety net. i think that would be a fundamental change. i also think it is possible, and i think we could still call it capitalism and democracy. but we would be fundamentally changing the way the resources get distributed to everybody. >> i like the way you think. [applause] >> if you were going to be imagined america, you would read imagine it in what way?

>> while we are working on the longer-term, and as we think about poverty and all the things that affect and are part of poverty, hunger is the one issue that we can solve in this country. there is enough food produced in america not only to feed every person in this country, but most of the developed world. what i would do is find a way to work on the food system so that we can get what farmers grow to the plates of people that need food. it is criminal that we live in this country and that there are 17 million kids that don't eat and cannot learn and cannot be educated. it is actually giving dollars back to people to try to get on their feet. if you don't have to worry about groceries, you can get back on your feet. a perfect world to me, and this

is a big stretch because these programs are under fire on either side of the aisle, a big stretch -- would be to seek children and families have enough food to eat in the united states of america. [applause] >> suze orman. >> there are so many things, but i concentrate on personal finance. my job is rebuilding america, one wallet at a time [applause] . i really believe in my heart that if you all want to stay out of poverty, you have to really get involved with the money that you have today. you have got to learn how to make more out of less. you have to really turn toward your money than away from.

so many of you will get jobs, you have jobs, and you take this hard-earned money and you turn it over to wall street. you turn it over to the banks. you turn it over to the people that are helping keep you in this situation of not getting ahead. so you need to know what to do with money, who to give it to, how to invest it in your retirement plan, and how to be able to take care of yourself in the future. my biggest fear is that they are just going to keep pushing all of this down the road. you are not going to have medicare, social security the way you think is going to be. you are not going to have pensions from the companies you are working with. they will be taking the 401k they have and you will have to work until you are 75 or 80, just to be able to possibly

retire. i am asking you, and the america i see is one where people really deal with their own money. they are powerful over their own money. then when you are powerful over yourself, you can help others around you so that you can pick everybody uppe. the only other thing i would love to see happen is because until the housing market comes back, it is going to be very difficult for america to come back. the housing market is not going to come back until the job market comes back. everything is contingent on one another. however, i do not understand why all the people who hold the mortgages, what we just don't reduced every single mortgage out there on every single home in america to the fair market value of that home today, so the

people that have homes and want to stay in their homes, they cannot help but they are under water. it is no fault of your own. why can they not take a $750,000 home in tampa and make it a $100,000 mortgage because that is what it can be sold for today. i don't understand why they are willing to not do that. that is my vision. >> let me say right quick, suze was gracious enough tonight not to raise this issue because she did not want to come across as proselytizing, and i appreciate that. the announcement she made today in washington at the national press club is called the approved card. just go online, you can find it under her name. it is being talked about everywhere. the story broke today.

go online and read more about the proof card and what -- the approved card. >> and don't believe the naysayers and what they say i am doing, because that is not what i am doing. >> i have five minutes left and c-span is going to turn the cameras off. >> i want to read imagine america in a way that allows every single person in it to see their own value, to see their dignity, and understand that there are ways that we can create economic opportunities to move people up and out of poverty. in particular, using the tools that we already have. real estate development, idea create communities that meet the needs of everybody.

opportunities to not degrade our a -- environment. we have those tools out there. we could be growing food in our cities in using technology in a way that helps redefine what are regional food system actually looks like. we can do these things right here and right now. i am also very interested in the idea that we know our climate is changing. doesn't make any difference whether man did it or not. people know there are problems out there. we have to address the fact that we do have a class of people that are under educated and have been left behind, and we have to create jobs for those people. we absolutely can do it. the best social service dollar spent is actually a job. >> we have been talking about

eliminating poverty. my final thought is, a lot of us in this room at one point have been poor, war in the future are going to be poor. sari, that is just how is. my final thought is, the poor and proud -- be poor and proud. we represent something. we have prided ourselves that has nothing to do with our network or credit score. >> make poverty a priority in the national house and in the world house, so that everyone's humanity is accepted, abilities are accepted in such a way you

can see theirself development and self realization, their voices are heard at the highest level. righteous indignation, anger channeled through love and justice. there will never be changed if you don't get mad with love and courage and be willing to live and die for something bigger than yourself. >> thank you, cornel west. final word, michael moore. >> tax the rich and end the war. take the money out of politics. corporations are not people. let me say this to the 1% who might be watching. how many gated communities can you build? you have made 150 million

americans poor or nearly four. i am a nonviolent passive this person. you have the communities across this country who are full of love and wanting to work together to make this a better country. how much more are you going to make them suffer, because some day they are not going to take it anymore. q. are going to wish you had dealt with that now could find the courage to deal with it now with peace and nonviolence. that is what we prefer. that is what we all prefer. [applause] >> let me ask you, in the 30 seconds i have left, i want to thank george washington university for having us. number two, let me ask you to

thank c-span for carrying this conversation live around the world. thank you, c-span. no.and stand on your feet and tk this entire panel for being here tonight. c-span, thank you very much. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [indistinct chatter]

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>> you know, economics is called the dismal science, because a lot of what we do is point out a problem and not solve them. i've mentioned it's not a balancing act. on the one hand, a key cause of high cost for health care is hospital readmission. on the other hand there are people that legitimately be --

need to be readmitted. it lowers the cost of readmission. that is the kind of thing we need to study and see. the bill may go too far. how do you reimburse readmissions per patient's health. but we are doing too much readmission and spending too much money. in 1983, medicare went to a brand-new reimbursement system. we used to pay a fee per service and there was a fixed amount per person regardless of what was under patient. there was an enormous the average stay fell by 20% almost overnight. enormous reduction with no reduction for elder health.

we were just treating them too excessively. we have to try these things and see if they are going work. >> there was a piece in the new england journal i think today or recently about one of the challenges in the supreme court. not in the individual mandate but the challenge out of florida that the federal government couldn't force the state to trays number of people who are covered by medicaid, and even though this was rejected at a lower level, the supreme court said they needed to hear it geven. what are the the chances this didn't matter and the supreme court is just going to the organization? >> well there's scary one when

the federal government can compel states to you are a medicaid. the state reimburses the state for 100% after several years and 0% after the several years but if the federal government can't compel the states, that's a huge and broad invitation for many programs of how we do our health insurance in the united states. i was distressed only one supported this. a judge who went out of his way to site the boston tea party in his decision. i'm very confident they will not find the as unconstitutional. because if they do, this will be just a radical type of social insurance system. >> tutch >> u spoken quite a bit about the question for the woman who tried get health insurance and group health and was trying to

compare the costs and you spoke about how massachusetts has really made the transparency system greater for the market in insurance. i'm a practicing physician and one thing i've struggled with is the lack of transparency and what i will do that costs patients. and for that matter what my outcomes are. i'm still unclear sadly how this bill if it does short of the a.t.o. model and things like in it how it increases the feedback to providers of health care so they can actually make better decisions for patients. >> you know, the bill does not do things through the notion of setting up -- but for explicit dback -- so a great example would be to have discussions about end of life care.

what sarah palin does from the death panels and pulls the deal. so the amazing physician decision support got labeled as rationing and got pulled from the bill. the hope? the input some of that will happen and the fact that there's going to be a break in physician interest and use that information more effectively. we're seeing it in some of these new organizations. they have a cool, new patient medical home care model where primary physicians will see the costs and bear some financial risks to those costs and say you should care of this because weaver going to -- because

we're going to send this if you extend them to expense i specialists. >> a fair amount of us here are residents right now. and i think in training we hear a lot about how you need order this toast cover yourself and tchumet to cover yourself. is there anything in the bill that will have some changes in medical/legal so you change your reasoning a little bit more about why you're ordering so it's not always just covering yourself which inevitably raises costs of health care? >> well, thank god, because i've never talked to cancers and have not gotten talked about, about mall practice. according to doctor's groups i talk to, mall practice is responsible for 100% of our problems in group health care. but in all seriousness, it's

all coverage of mall practice. it's .3% of health care spending. the issues defensive medicine that might be caused about mall practice regulations, but that comes from a specialist from the condition did school and estimates it's about 3% defense of medicine due to mall practice. but the truth he pulled that out of a hat. we just don't really know. >> that's what the bill does it to adjudicating practices. trying alternative ways of doing that. but it's hard. some people they a apply of blunt will -- if you have a really tiff killed by a doctor, it's not clear that it can be

dealt with by 100,000. and we don't really know how the get there yet, but my instinct is it's not as big a problem as doctors think. doctors would still worry about doing the right thing and the community norm, but certainly we'd like to try to work with mall practice and see if that will help. >> stage right. >> there have been some editorials in the medical community about actually the success of medicine is that more and more people are living into old age and then we will actually have more dementia, the worldwide incidents of dementia is actually increasing. and with end of life care being so expensive, will the bill support ideas for helping with managing those costs? >> well, long-term care costs

are a growing share of our health care bill. and that is an important is that you is dealt with partially in the bill. one feature was introduce insurance, that was decided it wasn't admitted appropriately. so the strufmentes admitting that program. there are other features of kill castes care. and it makes you a little happier than being in nursing home but to be honest that is something we need to keep working on and thinking of the ever rising lists of health care tail and the paint as to go will be the worst parent. >> and if we have the access if we have a bill bringing

previously uninsured careed folks and i hear about the shortages of primary care physicians and if we're going to have 50 million new people coming into our officers? and how are we going to head that off at the pass? it's the concern about a lot of people, one thing about mast past, we have a shortage before and after and that hasn't really changed. about 32 million people have the insurance role. you can't add that many people without putting a strain on the system. that's why the bill has a number of features to try to prove a number of primary care doctors. but it's not enough. you go to med school right now. here's your choice. you can be a community doctor and make 120,000 or $150,000 every weekend or make a

$400,000 and work we dismissed about the out of whack fundamental reimbursement for different place is putting it in right with the primary care shortage in america. >> stage right. >> i want to ask you a question about basic health, and i'm hoping you'll make an argument for it. i know you've written something about how it moves from $138% to 120% of the heat property. it's going to be hard to talk because -- is a little bit too high and the the problem of reconciliation translated tribal members going to be really mad when i talked people into buying -- buying however a better companies.

>> my beb is sill three quick. we're going run without comics. but the question was about something called the basic health care plan. flexibility. the way the bill works is we stamp medicaid up to 133% of the poverty line, so about 30,000 dollars per four times pagseton company there's nuggets just on the flight expand and the government picks up the rest of the cost of insurance. one option perceives from the range of 30 to 45,000 a year for a family of six. in that range, eighth can say look, we're going to continue to put people on public freens and feel lucky because we think it's unbelievable. so we'll have people pay less

and we'll pay doctors less. can you imagine doctors are not a huge fan of this necessary styling making punishment more affordable. any view it doesn't keep insurances churning and it puts -- we just had the question about primary care doctors. they are already strained to see our option and reimburse so little puts more state-by-state decision that make helps need toe benear washington state. i believe is the sort of genesis through item passes. other states which haven't had a system like that will have to consider it. i really don't think it's that there's a right or wrong answer. it's just a state-by-state answer. >> shifting back to politics, one of the ways mitt romney has

tried to go a different direction. any reason why the massachusetts approach wouldn't detail nation inside >> no. [applause] >> i mean, basically, you know, mitt romney had a choice. there were three things he could have done. he could have done like what newt gingrich did with the marriages and said i made a mistake. it's in the past. whatever. the second thing he could have said it was the right thing to do and it's a great idea for massachusetts, not for everyone else. to do so he sort of told a couple, he said we will not have to raise taxes but the feds pay for our bill so it's keep this try to argue that then he said it's not right for

the rest of the country but never said why. never. just said it worked for massachusetts. may not work for the rest of the country. in fact it does except for the fact that you have to pay for it, and that's the big difference with the federal bill >> our last question, stage right. >> in seattle tonight we estimate there are probably about 8,000 people who are homeless, some of them for reasons of their own refuse to apply for medicaid. well, under p-pack what will happen to these people who refuse to get access to health insurance? >> you know, as you can tell i'm a big fan of the port table health act. a remaining problem remains low income people in the margins of society. so in massachusetts we maintain a 98% insured rate. the 2% are people who get free

health insurance today and they just don't take it. these are people who don't understand or comprehend. maybe a language barrier. and there's a huge role for the community access and other organizations do and a huge role to continue to explain to people that the system is there for them and if they get in now, it will be so much better than if they wait until they are sick. >> we still need from health to make it -- >> i would like to thank the audience. i have a quick comment to make. we've actually got public education, 120 years ago and we've been fighting about it every since. i think we're going to do the same thing with health care. we're going to get a structure

in place and then argue about it. i think a lot of questions you were pointing out holes in the system, it's a strkture. we base some decisions in the country and i'd like to see us try to make them better. so thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you very much thank you for having me. >> thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> coming up on c-span, former middle east envoy mitchell talks about the program and on "washington journal", it include membership. "washington journal" each morning at 7:00 eastern here on c-span. republican presidential candidate mitt romney will meet with veterans today in hilton head, south carolina and be joined by john mccain and south carolina governor, niki haley. you can watch live coverage at just after 5:00 eastern. and at 6:20 eastern, on the other side of the state, local republicans in greenville.

so far newt gingrich and rick santorum have said they will be duncan. here on c-span. >> it's easy to follow the presidential candidates through social media. go to c-span's campaign 2012 website and find out what the candidates are posting in real time. read what viewers like you are saying on facebook, twitter and more. and access the most recent video from a candidate. >> in this episode of chat voorks we're going to look at rick perry's surprising claims behind the research. >> i think there's a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data. >> i rate different comments by politicians on a one-to-four scale.

if you say something completely outrageous you're going get four pinocchios. >> in his "washington post" column, glenn kessler rates the answers by politicians. >> i think if a politician stays same thing over and over again even when it's been pointed out that it's untrue that they know they are saying something untrue, they are going to say it anyway. >> the "washington post" glenn kessler on c-span's "q&a." >> it's easy to follow the presidential candidates through social media. go to espn's 2012 website and fool what the candidates are posting in real time. read the latest from ploil recorders. so campaign, 2012.

>> former senate majority leader george mitchell spoke earlier about the middle east peace process and iran's nuclear program. he's president obama's former middle east envoy. this event is hosted by the atlantic. >> ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us. i'm ed minor large and the series a new product that we're trying to draw together. tonight we're partners with the center or middle east paste and

hosting something called "is peace possible?" . it's an important look on ongoing affairs in february affairs. so nice here he knows about baseball, disney, but he also knows a lot about a complicated region, and it's terrific to have him with us. we're going to get rid of the tie and jackets in this and eventually make them jeans and t-shirts because this room gets hot, if it does, take off your jacket. en joy. and my colleague, national correspondent for the atlantic a wonderful exchange for the two after general mitchell offers the framing marks. danny, wave to the crowd here. [applause] >> he is -- real honored to have him with us and my

colleague james bennett behind the c-span camera. and i also want to pay respect to my colleague john gould. he basically runs the show and our chief guy atlantic.com gets all the presents. he came to me and said we have to have this series and it's important and we'd like to raise awareness. why don't we have something together on this? i then proceeded with robert wagner's excellent team. he could commesht all of them and put together a robert, whom so many of you know a seven-term congressman from florida and deeply involved in the questions about middle east peace and is recognized as one of the 50 most n.g.o.

directors, too, and of course he's the new president of the abraham pet so this is a defining challenge for him, as i think it is in my view for the united states. jeff goldburg who has written so much on these issues and he covers all the terrain. many of you are writers, n.g.o. activists, participants in the media. there's hardly an issue that draws out more of an energetic vibe and sometimes a toxic vibe than this issue tonight. and i think we're going to handle it incrobet but with seriousness and drive down some of the issues we think are important but need to be looked at as far as the continuing our future. weaver going show you the is peace possible series. >> yes? >> you come up and say whatever

you want and they eels start the clip whenever you say. >> thank you very much. to steve and to everyone at the atlantic. it's truly a privilege and honor for all of us at the abraham center for middle east peace to be associated with the atlantics. i left the job i truly did love, actually, in the united states congress. and i did so to join an extraordinary man, a man who is in his heart and in every known his body an american patriot. but on top of being an american patriot, he is also a zionist. tapped two combinations together caused him to focus much of his life on one core mission. which is reflected in the mission of the outstand for that is to resolve the

conflict. and to do so in terms of respect for both sides and have a dignified apprehension in terms of the narrative of both peoples. when i joined the center, our team, and i want to thank tony for standing on saraer minute and josh kohn. madeline center. and dan. i smell want to burn -- what all of us at the center desire to do was to fill a vacuum that we thought existed here in washington and quite frankly throughout our country. and that vacuum is a space where the israeli-palestinian conflict can be presented in an objective fashion where thal positions of both the israelis and palestinians can be

outlined from a honest, factual point of view, and then on top of the presentation, in an objective passion, offer the bridging proposal that so many well-intentioned people have laid out over the years. and now we're a multimedia presentation that focuses on those four core issues. border, security, refugees and jerusalem. and to sum it up, and this is my own personal view, we're going to go to universities we've set up i think already nine or 10 starting with princeton and dan in february. we will go through the northeast, down the west coast and ultimately we hope all over the country. we will go to congress and we will set up meetings with sfaff people and go into organizations that represent the variety of opinion sand american jewish community we will talk to community impress

groups, of all different ideological backgrounds. but when all is said and done, my own personal goal is this -- the next time an american president dares to make a speech on the middle east and include the israeli-palestinian conflict and that president dares to suggest that the basis of knee,s will be the 1967 linings with the green territorial swamp. i want an consensus for the american people conflict. and i don't want that president whomever he or she may be there's does just not reflect reality having said that. i want to, from danny's perspective and from all of us at the center for middle east peace, offer just a quick observation with respect to tonight's honored guest, senator george mitchell. in this town today there's a

voice. a void. a void of men and women who have the dignity and integrity that all of us expect from our public servants whether they be democrats or republicans or anything in between. but there truly is a fact that had one eye had every teenage of his public and private career. it's been a kind of character that we all expect. whether you agree with him 100% or 0% or no one could reflect less than 80%. but his very purposefulness and his nation he provides wand that we are truly indebted to senator mitchell before and

thank you for having us. [applause] >> a two-minute clip. it just happened? wow. ♪ ♪

>> there we go. [applause]

i think next with the question is surround sound and one of those giant screens. but thank you very much. when you go to the website it really is a terrific expo save when you look at the four pods that go into the ref gee, and i also want to thank moment in recognize my colleague liz beth baker events for it. so thank you elizabeth for joining us. now as robert weather conditionsler mentioned, one of the key participants in this administration and i think generally is dealing in conflict resolution and stretched out circumstances whether they be in baseball or in if he remembers. but of course the middle east peace the opening act was george mitchell to serve at his envoy for this issue. dealing with middle east peace. so he is going to offer some

framing contents, and jeffrey gold during the going to take it winsal and we will have a good time with that. so without further adieu let me invite and introduce to you senator george mitchell. [applause] >> thank you very much. steve, thank you. thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presence. my thanks to the atlantic. and to danny abraham and bob weather conditionsler for organizing this event. danny has been a friend for many, many areas. and one of the most ardent and persistent advocates for peace in the middle east. and i commend him for that. and i encourage him to continue and was pleased with some reservations when i'll describe in a moment to accept his invitation to join you here

this evening, and bob weather conditionsler from whom you've already heard, a great distinction of the member of the house of representatives for many years and i know danny is glad to have him as we all are. i was at first reluctant to accept danny's invitation to come here. i thought the atlantic abraham center for middle east peace, people who spend their lives and swho all or most of the members know more about the subject when i do. but then i reflected on my firth days with the u.s. senate. i sbherd the senate under unusual circumstances, and i was sorting -- when one of

maine's senators was i'm pointed secretary of state. it was a lot of speculation in the press about who they would apoint complete the senator's term. my name was not among one of those mentioned. there was a former governor and senator all very qualified. but i had been appointed a federal judge just the year before, and so no one thought i was going to be apparently, neither did i. the night before the governor said he was going to have press conference at the state capital. it was still speculation, so i got everyone else in maine going to bed wondering what the congress was going to do the next day. the governor called me the i'd like you to come down to the state capital tomorrow at noon

so i can announce i'm going to eye a point you to the united states senate. said gee, governor. this is a really big decision. i've only been a federal judge for less than a year. i need time to think about it. i've got to talk to my family and consult with others. he said i'll give you one hour. [laughter] >> when i protested that the time was inadequate, he insisted, no, i got to find out if at least to be in so i immediately called my three older brothers. i grew up in a very small town in maine and i had three older brothers who were very famous athletes, extremely well known our small town and later and i was not in school as an athlete as my brothers were. in fact, i was not as good as

anybody else's brother. [laughter] >> and so very early in my life i became known in our small town as johnny mitchell's kid brother, the one who isn't very good. >> was you might expect, i and so many years later, now we're grown, i called my brothers ostensibly to seek their advice. [laughter] >> but i confess that there was a note of triumphfulism in my voice. when i informed them that the governor had called and wanted to appoint me to the united states senate. said what do you guys think about that? [laughter] >> the ponces were responsibility negative. my brother said look, everybody

knows you're a born loser. no one can understand how you got a tatewide champion so you've got state where you are. my older brother who is somewhat more mature said let's look at this from the point of view of the people of maine, usually in the method, he said aren't they entitled to have qualified person representing them in the senate? and after a few minutes of the world, i i've already gotten all the reassurance i need and the governor announced the appointment and i got on a plane and flew weembt i went up to the senate. i was sworn in. ceremony took about 10 seconds.

if you turned aside, you missed it. and as soon as i was sworn in a young man came up to me and introduced himself as senator muskie's former he has son his own things that he wants to do and the remainder of that day, then he said we've got an very interesting invitation for you. said what's it? he said there are 3,045 certified public accounts and they asked if you can come down and to the washington hold and speak at their convention and deliver the keynote address tonight. i said amazing until yesterday i myself different know i would be here. how these guys had the foresight to hold this position open for me, i -- obviously it was nothing like that but four

last-minute cancellations. they said they heard you had a swearing in and thought you might be the only member of congress that didn't have anything to do tonight. >> i said ok what do they want me to talk about? i said what? >> they said the tax code. >> i said you want me to tell all that middle age i can saying cardi sention said you are now a united states senator. you will regularly be called upon to speak on subjects of which you know nothing about. so if you want to be a good senator, you better get started now. so get down there tonight and tell them what's in the tax code. >> so i went down and told them what's in the tax code and here i am tonight. to tell all of you experts on the middle east what's going on

there. [applause] >> well, undoubtedly enjoyed it until i get some questions here from people who really know, but i did want to make a few remarks. and i was told i'm limited to 10 minutes. these kind of tough for a former u.s. senator. the senate has a rule of unlimited debate, and as a consequence i have, after many years including the senate majorityer leader developed the dubious antibiotic and skill to be able to speak at indefinite linux on any subject, with no prior notice, usually possessing nor conveying any knowledge, but i've been able to fill in the blanks i have no speech that's been existing in washington for years. i'm going to try to stick to

the time limit, though, that has been imposed on me. but of necessity 4 therefore, i can only speak briefly on the subject and in a general way. there will be many subjects that will be of interest to you that i won't be able to cover in these comments but i will take questions later from you and from the moderators. but there are few thoughts that i have that i want to express directly. and that's the reason why i asked if you were not at the outset. as we all know, the conflict is deeply rooted in history. it involves highly-emotional issues religion, national identity. territorial competition. right now pessimism is widespread. there are many, many reasons for all of us to be scapet --

the conflict has gone on for so long and has had such destructive effects. the level of mistrust and hostility on both sides is so high that many and perhaps most many here in our country and elsewhere regarded as unsolveible. but i believe that the pursuit of peace is so important that it demands our maximum effort to matter -- the key to success is really easy to state but exceptionally difficult to achieve. it is the mutual commitment of israel and the palace -- and the palestinians and the active participates of the united states government with the support of other governments and institutions who can and want to help.

and they must towards task which is to reconcile the palestinian goal and toward a sovereign state based on the 1967 lines. with the greek swaps, and the israeli goal of a jewish state with a secure, recognized and defenseible borders. that should not be beyond the ability of political leaders if they have the will to do it. in january of 2009, just before leaving office, president bush spoke in jerusalem. and he said, and a part of which he said i will quote. the point of departure of status negotiation sincere clear. there should be an end to the occupation that began in 1967.

the agreement must establish palestine as a homeland for the palestinian people just as israel is a homeland further yureb people. and these negotiations must ensure we must recognize and defenseible orders and ensure that the state of palestinian is borderible and sovereign and independent. it is vital that each side understands that satisfying the others fundamental objectives is key to a successful agreement. security for israel and vy billty for a palestinian state is are in the mutual interest of both parties. end of quote. stated another way, either israel -- neither israel nor

the palestinians can achieve their principle objective by denying to the other its principle objective. the palestinians are not going to get a state until the people of israel have a reasonable and a sustainable degree of security. but i don't believe they can get a unless and until the palestinians get a state. there are risks to all courses of action. there is no course which either side can take which is so the question is one of measuring risk.

in 2009 president obama publicly reaffirmed the policy that president bush had set forth. it seemed then, in early 2009, that the culture of peace, which has been -- which had been so carefully nursed during the oslo process was all but dissipated replaced by dispair and the inevitable -- inevitability of conflict. the fighting in gaza had just ended and the palestinians were deeply divided, and the uncertainty of the elections lay just ahead. few then believed that there was any chance of restarting peace negotiations, let alone achieving a peaceful answer to the conflict. unfortunately, three years later, that remains largely -- a solution cannot be imposed

external. the parties themselves must negotiate directly. with the active and sustained support of the united states. this will require of them compromise and flexibility. and most of all, it will require leadership. the court is now trying to get israel and the palestinian authority back to the negotiating table. the recent meetings in jordan sponsored by that government represent a step in the right direction. the parties should be encouraged to continue those meetings and we in the united states should do all we can to facilitate the directly for distinctive views between the parties. as difficult as it seems, and i'm not responding to the question raised in the video. i still believe that this

conflict can be ended. i believe that in part because while i recognize that there will be enormous political pain on both sides from negotiating an agreement. but that pain will in fact be much less than what they will endure if they do not negotiate an agreement. it's a long mile, which has created a false sense of comfort and security. but if history is any guide, that won't last. and if the conflict resumes and continues, both israelis and palestinians could face a eff that includes, of course what we hope and pray will not occur, but we must consider it, and that -- there are other

dangers. let me mention just a few of them. for the israelis, democracy. there are now between 5 million and 375 million jues living in the -- in the same space there are about 5.5 million arabs including israeli arabs and palestinians living in the west bank and raja. overall the birth rate is much higher and in a few richardson so, democrat predictions published just yesterday suggest the potchlations will be about equal in 2015 and by the year 2020 there will be nearly a half million more arabs than jues in that region.

israel will then have to choose between being a jewish state and a democratic state. it cannot be both once the two-state solution is lost. that is a painful choice, but the people of israel should not have to make. >> the second challenge is still only chatroom. the barrier was built and large live succeeded but now the real threat comes from rockets. hamas has thousands and they are crude and lacking in precision but they do create fear and anxiety and some damage. and no one can doubt that over time, without any change, they will have more and better rockets. on israel's northern border, hezbollah has tens of thousands

of them. they are more effective, though also limited in range. but they ever chosen to upgrade their systems to chief greater accuracy and more destructive power. and perhaps most dangerously iran now has rockets that can say per se. but they don't yet have the precision to strike specific military targets, but they could cause enormous destructions of kid pay dirt. if that scommiment firm and unshakeable will go on whatever kind of been drinking. to honor him, we have provided enormous financial support to israel and most recently we insisted in the development of an anti-mistal system.

the u.s. announced the largest joint exercises focused on missile defense. but it is unknown, and will be never known until the event itself, whether that or any system could interdreamt potentially lamp number of missiles that could be launched in an all-out conflict. 24rr iran would have to dis mace and face the possibility of real damage. the third is in isolation. it's true the united states's support is very strong. but it's declining elsewhere. just a short time ago israel had good relations with the two major powers in the region, turkey and egypt. but the relationship with turkey has deteriorated and with each day it's threatened and we all know what has

happened in international quorums . so let me conclude with a few comments about the palestinians who also face very serious problems. not the least of which is the indefinite continuation of the occupation under which they have not had the right to govern themselves for many, many decades. in 1948 the united nations proposed a plan to petition the area and create two states. israel accepted it. the arabs rejected it, and the first of several wars began. all out of them won by an increasingly strong israel. every sensible would gladly accept that 1948 plan if it were still available. but it is not still veilible.

and never again will be. since then, the plans offered to the palestinians have been less attractive. and they have been reject >> both president abbas directly that there is no evidence, none whatsoever to suggest the offers are going to get any better in the future. to the contrary, all of the evidence points in exactly the opposite direction. they have got to sit down and participate in direct negotiations and get the best deal they can even though it's not 100%. of what they want. and get their own state and then build on it.

as israel has done since it -- palestinians have demonstrated that they can do it. by laying the foundation and building the institutions needed for a viable, independent state. unfortunately, while that state-building effort must continue, it cannot be sustained in the absence of any progress on the political side. they are inexpsychiatricably linked. and in order for there to be progress on one, there must be progress on both. it's a daunting challenge to rebuild trust not only between the political leaders but between the two peoples with the long and bitter history of conflict. but they must find a way to do it, to renew hope and continue the search for peace, and we must persevere in helping them. thank you very much. i'll be pleased now to respond

to questions. thank you. [applause] >> now we're going to have a little bit of -- my colleague, national correspondent. and i think we have our friend from c-span here.

[no audio] [no audio] >> he is an all-purpose sort of guy. thank you for helping to convene this. james bennett, of course and steve clemens. he is one of the only people in washington who can get apac and the center for american progress in the same room. mazel tov. let's jump right in. i want to start somewhat narrowly and broaden out that narrowly and broaden out that was too -- as we