conference as a teacher. >> i am from france originally. u.s., i came to the learned a lot about americans, through school. the idea was more like economical, i would say. successful americans, a business owner. but i came to the u.s., that is what i started to do. create my own business and massage their the. -- in massage therapy. the main difference between french and americans is food. [laughter] guesscal point of view, i , lifestyle are pretty similar. in have a lot of people washington, d.c. that are really fighting for their political point of view, like in france. eating differently, that would be the main point i would say to become an american.

>> friday, starting at 10:00 a.m., -- georgia congressman john lewis talks about his the civils during rights movement. his experiences last month at the national archives. see that at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span. later, part of this year's cable show in washington, we will hear from education secretary arne duncan of the impact of technology on education, and remarks from entertainer tvnifer lopez and her new enterprise that targets latino americans. also friday afternoon, two journalists about the future of medicare and whether it is a solution for inflated medical industry prices. i spoke recently at an event hosted by the manhattan institute. that is at 5:15 p.m. eastern on c-span. the black okies thought

coming west, they would be behind the races. the sun did shine a little bit more benignly on them here. i remember a number -- the number of them telling me that it was even more cruel kind of racism. a smile in the face, but a dagger behind the back, that is how they describe california. to live inot allowed any of the cities, not even the small towns. they were locked out. the only land that was available to them were these patches of land. when you would write up on the land and you would look at it, it looks like it is so salty as if it snowed there. this was the land available to them. they built their wooden shacks here. no water. i had to go into town to fetch the water. no city sewers. they had outhouses. no police roamed this area. it was a no man's land. x on thefrom mark ara

black okies, integrators from the south to california. bakersfield on book tv and c-span 3 this weekend. discussion on how citizenship in america has changed over the decades. analysts talk about citizenship and how it relates to political engagement, immunity service, and self governance. -- community service, and self governance. this is about one hour. >> good afternoon, everybody. thank you so much for joining us in this wonderful space for this conversation. i am an author and founder of an organization called citizen university. i will be serving as our moderator. one of our panelists, mickey edwards, was not able to be with us. we will channel mickey the best we can.

i wanted to introduce the panelists here and frame up the issue. we will begin a conversation on the theme of imagining or reimagining citizenship and we want to allot a good chunk of time for conversation here throughout the room, and i really emphasize that. if you have questions, conversation is very much in the spirit of what we are talking about. let me introduce, sequentially, to my immediate left is heather smith, dear friend and collaborator who is the president of rock the vote. many of you know rock the vote began over 20 years ago in affiliation with mtv, and works today to mobilize young people of the millennial generation not only to vote, but to engage in civic activity across the board and become more cynically aware -- civically aware and

educated. we will talk a lot more about what rock the vote does. only in this context, to heather poss left -- -- heather's left [laughter] our friend mark meckler. he is one of the founders of the tea party patriots. he left the tea party patriots as an organization and found it citizens for self governance, which is working in interesting, cross-partisan ways to really reinvigorate the sense of actual citizen self-governance. next, i am delighted to have cristina jimenez, the founding director of united we dream, and one of the nations leading voices and activists for comprehensive immigration reform and also for the community of undocumented americans. she has been a champion, herself, as an undocumented member of our community, and i

believe as we all sat down here the immigration bill went to floor debate in the united states said, so we are right on the zeitgeist right here. last, but not least, needing no introduction to anyone who has ever been to aspen, listen to the radio or open a newspaper, particular "the washington post," e.j. dionne of "the washington post," npr and the brookings institution. i wanted to post a -- pose a question, and we will enter into more of an organic conversation. the opening question is, simply, giving the moment we are in -- we are in a remarkable moment, not just because the immigration bill is him before, but for a variety of reasons -- this week's supreme court decision, what has been going on in the debate over the nsa and government and its relationship

with citizens, the irs scandal -- all of these things that are forcing us and giving us opportunities and obligations to reflect on what it means to be a citizen. citizenship is a status under the law that some people have and some of -- some do not, but it is also a set of norms and values and a set of privileges and immunities to use the language of the constitution -- a bundle of rights. we do not talk about how citizenship is a under love responsibility. -- a bill of responsibility. that is a theme we will ring out. that word, which even five, 10 --ars ago, and a musty, 1950 1950s feel to it, now, it is hot. given this moment, this time that we are in, how would you

define or redefine citizenship in the united states? >> thank you. it is a good question and we started to get more and more about this recently in light of the immigration fight and in light of what the dreamers were doing around the country. if we said citizenship, most people in the world on legal status, but we thought it is more than that. if you call yourself an american, regardless of your status, if you call this place home, it is your role and obligation to make this country work for you, and as an organizer of young people 18-to- 29 years old, we have an opportunity to define what it means. i try to get young people fired up about all sorts of issues, and get them engaged, but the thing they have been most passionate about over the last handful of years was the arab spring, and it was seeing young people like themselves fighting, losing their lives in many

cases, to have a democracy. that really hit home, and we started to see incredible solidarity, people posting things, getting engaged and wanting to do things with our organization as a result. we have young people realizing democracy is something that you fight for -- this concept of self-rule. we have to expand the definition further to also include that it is something you have to keep working at current as one of our partners -- working at. as one of our partners says, it is not -- a mock us is not is not a.-- democracy noun, but a verb. it is not about status, but about making the country work for you. >> that is the same spirit that citizens for self governance are activated by. >> it is. i came out of the tea party movement, and that is what drove the tea party movement, a sense

of disconnect from our system of government. the statistics are different than what the media will tell you. roughly 27% of the tea party movement are democrat or independent. they are not there because they are right wingers were republicans. they felt that whoever they voted for, whether they participated with in voting and they were not getting what they voted for. as somebody on the right, although not a republican, i felt i was not getting who i voted for, and whether i am in front of a progressive, liberal, conservative or tea party audience i asked the same questions, like who in the room voted for continuing a $1 trillion deficit? i have not found that person in america yet. that begs the question, if you are not voting for it, i am not

voting for it, why our representatives continuing to do it? it shows a disconnect the between citizens and the government. what we see the -- is the closer the government gets, the greater the connection. congressional approval and rates are at an all-time low. if you look at local government, on average, approval ratings run 60% plus. that shows that when people feel they can engage with their governance system, self- government and participate, they are satisfied with the results. for us, redefining citizenship is not voting for your congressman, but being engaged at the local level. >> we will talk about how the local problem-solving on issues like criminal justice, for instance, allow you to build unlikely rise and left alliances -- right-left alliances and

coalitions. cristina jimenez, what does this mean to you? >> thank you for having -- having us here. i'm happy to represent dreamers in this conversation. for us, we have been doing that, in the past decade of organizing and sharing our story -- as someone who grew up undocumented in new york city, we are redefining citizenship and expanding the concept of citizenship because it is beyond the place you were born. i was born in ecuador, so i am executory and citizen, but all of the value -- ecuadorian citizen, but all of the values i embrace i learned here. i see myself as a citizen. i do not have a paper that says i am an american citizen, and many of the dreamers do not either, but what we have done is asked to keep -- exercising citizenship by holding people accountable even though we do not have the right to vote.

it comes down to a responsibility of contributing and a responsibility for the common good of not only immigrant communities but the rest of our community in america. i think it is about understanding citizenship is beyond having the right to vote. it is about engagement, being part of the political process, and what you have seen with the dreamers is it does not matter if we do not get to elect honest members or senators, we have gone to -- elect congress members or senators, we have gone to their offices and say this is my story. for us, we have been redefining citizenship and what it means to us, and we believe we are americans even though we do not have the papers to show that we are and we were not born in this country. as we think about the impact of potential immigration reform, we get into more interesting thinking about how we will

continue to redefine citizenship. >> this question right now, e.j. dionne, is front and center as we debate immigration reform -- the idea of a pathway to citizenship. we have spent a lot of time talking about that pathway, how long it should be, what you need to be to get on the pathway, we not talked about the destination, citizenship itself and what it takes to reinvigorate that. e.j. dionne was part of the franklin project, an initiative that grew out of last year's ideas festival, promoting an idea of national service, trying to spark a national movement around national service. for you, this question of citizenship might not be about redefining, but simply returning to an older sense of citizenship. >> right. just for the record, i did vote to add $1 trillion to the deficit because i think if we had not done that, we would not have ended an economic downturn. [indiscernible]

[laughter] we are not here to argue about that, although i would be happy to. you asked an interesting question and you talked to us about it before -- "what is to me it is to share in the joys and burdens of self government and to balance your own legitimate interest with the common good. that is what the credit citizenship or -- democratic citizenship or citizenship in a democratic republic is all about. my family -- favorite quote -- "one politics goes well, we can know a good income and that we cannot know alone." that speaks -- in common that we cannot know alone." that speaks to the things we do ogether. even when they are creative and

part of the things on our own. i want to put on the table the question, are we making it harder for people to be good itizens? in the phoenix new nationalism -- saying this new nationalism the speech that president obama likes to quote that teddy roosevelt gave he said "no man could be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living and hours short enough so that after his days work is done he will have time to bear his share in the management of the community to help in carrying the general load." he went onto say "we we keep countless men from being good citizens by the conditions of life in which we surround them." at some point, whenever you talk about citizenship, you sound preachy and you say people are not as good as they should be,

but i would be asking, if we want more people to vote, why are we making efforts to make it harder for them to vote? if we want people to serve, why do we make it harder for them to serve? there were more than a half-million young people that wanted to go into americorps for 82,000 spots. you could multiply that across service opportunities. if we want citizens to be better informed, why do we do such an inadequate job of teaching our kids citizenship and government in high school? my kids went to a great public high school and they were able to take the ap state and local government class. it is a great class. it should be available to all of our students. it is useful and civic. have a long list. if we want people to engage in the public debate, why do we

make it so unattractive question mark and imagine -- nattractive? imagine television ads like the ones we have in politics -- if you buy that burger, you will be poisoned, if you fly that airline, you will crash -- that is what we tell people about public life. politics is the only line of work that advertises against itself year after you -- year. the other thing i would say, to provoke you a little bit, if we want people to be citizens, something we do together, why do we wrap ourselves in the language of individual market choice? there is a place for market choice, market choice is not all of life, and the language we have surrounded ourselves with sometimes operate against this. >> i am not sure, mark, that you would disagree when it is market

above all else that we lose something in the way we govern ourselves, live our lives in community and family. if i were to connect the dots between the impetus for the tea party, self-governance and the teddy roosevelt speech -- part of what teddy roosevelt was talking about was inequality. when you have severe, structural inequality, it becomes as a simple fact harder for many more people to engage in civic life. the other dimension of inequality that your work speaks to his a sense that too many -- speaks to is a sense that too many decisions are made by a small elite, and this is across parties, across regions, in a sense rigging the game. >> i agree. to answer the market choice question, what is the alternative, and today it is choice by a small, ruling elite

that is mostly disconnected from the rest of the population. i have spent very little time in washington, d.c., and a lot of time in places like kalamazoo, michigan, and i find that people inis that the people in washington -- those places -- the people in those places look at people in washington like they are aliens and vice versa. i see more construction crane in washington, d.c., and i have ever seen in any city. lamborghini of north america put their headquarters there. the complaint is too many people want to pay cash. seven of the 10 wealthiest counties are around the beltway. right now, it is market choice against the choice of people that are enriching themselves at the expense of all of us. >> heather, when we were prepping for this conversation,

you describe how there were so many in the millennial generation that regardless of party are dubious and skeptical of politics but are still trying to find ways to do essentially politics by other means. what do you see happening with a young people you are working with at rock the vote? >> to build off of e.j. dionne's question, why are we doing all of these things if we do not want people to be good citizens? i think most young people pretty much believe that those in power do not want us to be better citizens and they are doing a lot of things really well to keep us away from the political system, and they are quite disgusted by the partisan bickering and the distrust of politicians to actually solve the problems that they face every single day. these are real problems. these are students, on average, graduating with $25,000 worth of debt to my yet we have on monday, -- that, yet we have on monday, the opportunity to

double the interest rate, and no action has been taken. what we have seen is them turning to themselves -- not that they do not care, but they are trying to find solutions on their own. i heard a great statistic the other day that more young people fund themselves through kickstart her and generated more money for the arts -- kickstarter and generated more money for the arts than the national endowment for the arts iveaway. >> that is free market. >> that is free market, but i fear that keeps them from ngaging in the government. >> cristina jimenez, you embody a fact of american history, american political history is a story of outsiders coming in to remind insiders what the creed was supposed to meet -- mean. that is the irish arriving, the civil rights movement, the

immigrant rights movement, for you, to be coming from the outside into the inside, you know this is about learning the machinery of governing, how policy is made, about markups of bills in committee and senate and so forth. a lot of things that many others in your generation are saying it is a waste of my time, you are doubling down on to get smart on. ow do you share a message to dreamers or native born americans that it matters you understand the rules of the ame? >> what has ruled -- worked for us is we have achieved victories by organizing, taking action and getting engaged. for us, the reason you want to get engaged, and why we want to share our stories and be engaged in the political process -- you

know, it has been a roller coaster to be part of the markups and the committees, understanding the inside games that happen in the beltway, but also understanding the power we have outside of the beltway in educating others and in powering young people to do that. after organizing over 10 years, the immigrant youth movement reached the most significant action, the deferred action that protected people from deportation. when that happened, young people felt that i am not a voter, not a citizen, but sharing my story, getting engaged, writing those letters, knocking on doors to get out latino voters in new mexico, florida, nevada -- all of that work. >> that -- all of that work. this is a discerning audience,

but let me define what we say -- what we mean when we stage -- dreamer. these are people that were brought here by their parents and are being granted a pathway to citizenship. that was the origin of the idea of dreamers. >> at is something we claim because otherwise, media and otherwise, when i was 19 i was given interviews, and i was cited as an illegal student, an illegal alien, so we needed to find a way to share a identity -- and identity with the immigrant youth that would not make you feel like the other and the alien. that is why dreamer came about as a term that we use. >> ej, one of the most formative books i read in political life is one of your earliest books, "why americans hate

politics." i think it was 1991 and it is still as fresh today. i urge you to get it because it describes the politics of false choice, which today is more amplified, and the most basic alse choice you are describing in that book is to be american, to be a citizen, is to understand there are these tensions all the time between federal and state, between individualism and collective action, between what we do in order to be free for ourselves, and what we do to plan for the future, and that to actually engage in civic life is to recognize that you cannot make a false choice between these things. 20-some years after this book, the you feel that our civic culture, when it comes to thinking about us as citizens, that we are worse off or better off?

>> first of all, my next book is going to be called "why i love eric liu." >> you have at least one buyer. >> i do not think we have gotten a lot better. i was hoping we were. i cannot resist constantly jumping to mark's provocations. i just want to mention on market choice, one of my favorite new york jokes is about a corrupt judge who gets $10,000 from one lawyer to fix the case, $5,000 from the other lawyer, and he has a conference, and he says if you give me another $5,000, we could have this trial on the level. there are certain things we do not want hot and sold. -- bought and sold. for example, i do not think you should i or sell how long someone lives. that is why i think is legitimate to have health insurance for people that cannot fford them -- afford it.

we know there are limits to market. i just wanted to put that n. this false choice concept, the last book i wrote was called "our divided political heart," and it was about the false choice between liberty and community. we have always valued individualism and liberty, but we have always also believe in -- believed in and questioned -- requested after community. that includes actions of government, but it is not limited to government. we did not see government as apart from community. if you believe that public action was only something invented by woodrow wilson or the new deal, then you have to leave out henry clay and abraham

lincoln and alexander hamilton nd a whole lot of other people in our history who believed that a prosperous, inventive, entrepreneurial economy depended on government and other collective forces doing a lot of things to make that possible. clay in particular used to talk about internal improvements, which in we -- in an ugly way we now call infrastructure. he acknowledged that it would bind us together and allow us to have commerce, and this involves doing things collectively that serve the interest of prosperity, and, i believe, in the long run, liberty. my argument with the my friends in the tea party is they view the founding and the constitution itself as almost entirely about individualism and liberty and forget, as i always like to say, that the very first word of the constitution is

we." t is not a i document. >> we talked about and work together on this project you got involved in called living room conversations. one of the cofounders of moveon.org, a progressive organization, has created a set of projects called simply living room conversations in which the format is very simple and, actually, i want to let you describe it because you and joan have participated, not in coming out and magically finding all the ways we have found consensus, but maybe getting to a little bit of what e.j. dionne is talking about, recognizing there is not an either or. there are tensions between liberty and community, tensions between a strong state and free eople.

>> it is an organization called living room conversations. you can find them on the web easy enough. i lisa, strange bedfellows, one of the founders of moveon.org, -- obviously, strange bedfellows -- one of the founders of moveon.org and one of the founders of the tea party movement. if you turn on television, what you will see is how you can be divided or how to talk at each other and not with each other. that is the life people model their behavior on. if you are a conservative and sit down with liberal friends, you are good at aching him angry pretty quickly. -- good at making them angry 80 quickly. -- pretty quickly area what we are trying to teach is how to have those conversations in a ivil way, and it starts with humanity -- what are you

passionate about, why are you here, what you hope to accomplish and what do you hope for in your own community? after that first hour, you think i like these people. you go into the room with a sense of trepidation. one of my friends said they're coming to my house. what do you feed liberals? >> arugula. >> poison. it is funny, but that is how we are divided. i live in the rurals of california. drive a huge f-50, and when i drove to joan's i asked if i needed to stop at the border and get a previous export. we find that we are concerned about the same things in our community.

we find that we do not believe our schools are operating well, that our prison system is appalling and we believe in justice system reform. we find the vast majority of americans believe the war on drugs is a complete and total failure, doing damage to our country generationally, but the powers that be keep doing the same thing. out of that grow projects that we can work on together, and we are working on criminal justice reform. plus, crony capitalism is another great one. none of us like the fact that all of this money in washington is trading and for favored constituencies and regular citizens are on the house side. everyone is frustrated by that except for the people in bc -- .c. getting greased. >> so much a political media teaches us to be divided, but i want to expand to the larger

frame of culture. so much of what rock the vote does is to enlist great voices from popular culture -- celebrities, movie stars, musicians, part acres of all -- art makers of all time -- all kinds. what have you learned about how culture makers can change citizenship and have this influence? >> what we try to do is take what you are doing one-on-one and monitor that behavior through a much larger audience. sing celebrities, musicians, artists in our work humbly as tw -- probably has two different benefits. i speak to rooms of young people. it is refreshing to look out and see a face that i am not twice the age of. when i talk, it is almost like their parents talking. i can tell them to vote, why it

matters, and they kind of rule their eyes. if i name dropped, "this morning i was having a conversation with the bass player in nirvana about the base -- about the vote right act" -- suddenly, there faces light up. t is true. they can grab the attention of an audience that is not naturally political, not inclined to think about these issues, and get them not only to pay attention, but to change how they think about the question. instead of getting their attention, it changes the norm around what it means to vote and be a citizen. it is like a giant marketing campaign. >> you can do something very powerful with inattention once you have it. >> it is true.

i will give you an interesting example. prop 8 yesterday was gay marriage. 10 years ago, this is not something that was favorable. we have been working with artist to talk about the issue, with television shows to write this off into their scripts, musicians writing about this in their lyrics, and 10 years later the number has flipped. as they were passing the supreme court thing yesterday, i went back to statistics where eight in 10 americans claim they know somebody who is gay, and when you are asking them who that is, the majority listed television character. >> that is either a hopeful sign or a very disturbing sign. >> yesterday, with the gay marriage thing, the number one

test around -- passed around thing on the internet was a uote from the love song. >> the thing that rock the vote is doing is converting that attention into the actual teaching of the actual skills of being a citizen. you created democracy school. >> democracy class, yes. we decided we cannot bring artists into every classroom, but we can put them on video. we have the videos about the history of voting, why it matters, power and all the things that are excited about his. teachers can sign up. it arrives in their classroom. it is the coolest day of the school year for the kids because there is this cool boxed with all these stamps on it. the teacher tells them to put

their pencils away, and it is people they see on television talking to them. they get to stand up and interact, and they learn how the world process works, why it -- you like poor old process works, why it matters -- electoral process works, and why it matters. >> when you talk about the future of democracy, we talk a lot about this millennial generation, a phrase that is sed over and over again. how do we make it possible for a million young people in the united states every year to me engage in a meaningful form of service? the thing that strikes me is one of the threads of that conversation, and the project began one year ago with general stanley mcchrystal.

stanley mcchrystal speaks a language that seems -- saying this for me because it is a language where we have to in his words creates a culture of esponsibility. not what i get to do, not do not tread on me, but what i am supposed to do, my part of things, and you alluded to how hat thread of conversation could get preachy. what is your instinct on how we catalyze the responsibility half of citizenship in a way that does not become here is somebody telling me to eat my vegetables r scolding me? >> i think the idea of emphasizing the joys of wielding power -- we did mean the world government, but self-government is a remarkable thing. when you talk about what is happening in the senate today,

the fact that the immigration bill is on the floor is the direct result of what latino voters chose to do in large numbers in the last election, and if latinos have not shifted their votes to send a message to the republican party in particular in this case, i do not think we would be in today. when somebody says politics never works, that is simply not true. the other thing is we almost always say that is really political. it is almost always a negative. what is politics? is the alternative to war. it is how we settle differences. we will have different interests and sense of values, and we could either work out how we live together, or we start doing serious damage to each other.

i salute what ui doing with these -- what you are doing with these sessions. a lot of times people disagree, but we do not have real rgument. we have counter-assertions, like that guy does not understand english, so i will say it ouder. christopher/, the great historian, said you put your own ideas at risk by entering into the ideas of your opponent, initially to convert them, but in the process you expressed, if only to yourself, a willingness to change your mind as you are listening. on the millennial's, i am a huge illennial plan -- fan. i did find broadly 18-to-35, they be a little older, when you look at this generation, they have done a lot more service.

some say they had to because high school had rules or they did it to get into college, but services help to transform hem. i think they get this liberty, community thing better than the rest of us do except for that greatest generation that has largely passed. on one hand, they are incredibly entrepreneurial, this crowd funding and that sort of thing, but they also understand public institutions. they have a strong sense of community. the form social networks. that is not an accident. i have a lot of genuine hope in this generation. i teach in college and i am genuinely impressed by the kids that come in class after class. >> cristina jimenez, i want to give you the last word before we open up the conversation more widely, but one of the things e.j. said was -- that was

important, imagining yourself in the shoes on the other side -- we came from another panel about citizen artist and the role of the arts in cultivating a capacity to be self-governing citizens. the key to that conversation boiled down to what e.j. just said, empathy, cultivating a capacity for empathy, imagining yourself in someone else's shoes. the dreamers, the immigrant rights movement more broadly, has been one of the most successful, emotionally moving exercises in activating empathy that we have seen in politics in a long time. at a personal level, not as an orchestrator of all this political action, but at a personal level how have you gone about trying to create that sense of empathy when you encounter people who come into

the conversation saying you are a legal or i have an idea, let's deport you? how do you create a bridge of empathy where they might still want to delay or defer forever the pathway to citizenship, but at least they will be able to imagine what it is like to be you? >> i tell my story had it comes all -- story. when you share your story, your passion, what do you do, how you are contributing to your community, you realize we have a lot of things in common and my dreams are your dreams and in so many ways i am you. i am you. when we get to that, it is really hard for someone -- and i ad many friends and colleagues in college who were republicans, identified themselves as republican, and they did not know i was undocumented.

i was not sharing had i had many friends -- sharing and i had -- many friends and when they found struggle.undocumented, i felt i coming out and feeling like people were going to reject me. it didn't happen. i realized, getting to know me and my story, i had dreams like that. that i wanted to pursue --ferent things will stop things. >> the power of your story is remarkable. one of the things i would like to do is open up this conversation. if you have questions for any of our panelists, we have people in either i'll with microphones will stop -- microphones. we truly want to hear from you. right here. if you can turn on the mic, so

everyone can hear you. ago, i was the chair of the americorps program in houston. we were able to raise more money than anyone else did and any other trinity. clinton wanted us to have -- as his major thing -- he wanted a million people to be in americorps. chuck grassley want to have zero people in americorps. >> let's compromise at a half a million. question i had was, i was at a meeting in d.c. where there were two senators and three representatives will stop there were people -- represented as. -- representatives. the one let's go over million.

>> they said, where are you going to get the money? that was the end of the process. clinton wanted really badly. he wanted to be one of the things that we would remember him for. we were only, paying about $7,500 to each of the volunteers. charles grassley did not call the volunteers. -- them volunteers. back on ourook session, it is a thing that needs to be worked out. how much more public money are willing to put in -- are we willing to put in? what will the source of the money be? are there state and local entities that will kick in?

compared to lots of other things, these are people doing very good work for very little money. the charlesflect on grassley and take army view, at dick armey view, at the time. there is an intensely leading question that said -- intentionally leading question was said that the notion that you're giving people a stipend and that makes them less volunteer-ish. come fromse kids to east l.a. you want all americans to serve, including americans of

these families who cannot support them while they are serving their country, you have to have money behind it. you need the will to try to create this. it will be at a time when budget crunches are a real challenge. it is worth paying for, for a variety of reasons will stop we might agree on that. there are a lot of people would need to be persuaded. >> let's go over here. you run a organization called s.e individual life corp there a conversation about faith or for elizabeth -- faith and pluralism in the united states. question talk about a number of fascinating things, from the arab spring to individual government. the great geniuses of

society was civic institutions. ymcas.s and the i want you to reflect on the trends. historically, religious community seven drivers of institutions. there is a decline in trust in all institutions. a sexiness to revolution, versus trying to build something over 30, 40, 50 years. are we going to have the same civic institutions of the united states that we do right now? quite a really good question -- >> a really good question. people are no longer identifying as immigrants are republicans. you are losing that and community, as

well. it will reshape what it looks like. they're continuing to gather collectived take action. right now, that is often online and through social networks. they're connected, not just locally, but in other states across the country. what that will turn into. that is an interesting question. >> i think that what we have seen, with the immigrant youth community, is that we have to build it and create a space for us. even within the immigrant advocacy can see -- community, at some point, a group of us decided that we need to create a space for young people to drive our agenda. it will organize and help make an impact. what we are experiencing, with immigrant youth, and our -- we have 52

affiliate organizations. and longing toer be part of a network. i'm not so down about his book and twitter. those are the tools that give us a sense of connection. even with the people in egypt. from my perspective, i see amersnnial's and the dre advancing in five and 10 years. if you think about immigration reform. the thing about 11 million --ple living in the shadows, if you are talking about 11 million people living in the shadows, young people can get those folks engaged. that is where we see the opportunity to do that. >> what we're talking about is

the largest of intermediary organizations in society. and more powerful government gets, the less organizations we have. the less powerful they are. necessary to the existence of those organizations is how her we're talking about the distribution of power throughout society. the more those organizations have power, the stronger they will be. feeling that, if they get a copy something and what they do makes a difference, that makes those organizations strong. separate structures for communication, people will not participate in them. i'm about to want to go into one of those living rooms. this is disproven by our history and the new deal. the g.i. bill and labor

organizations. it is a great question. we are a sports-obsessed country. i spent a lot of time on sports fields with my kids. whether things you you do not take into account enough is how much our civic infrastructure was built by women. with a long. of time that a long time frame where women were not given the opportunity to work where they should have been all stop -- ben. -- been. women decided that they wanted the same opportunities. we were leaning on them a lot more than we wanted to let on to. what i worry about is organizations that makes people. coaching together. the big sort.

we live apart from each other. we don't have enough of bridging social capital. we have to work on that. but i want to go to a woman whose head has been up right here was not let's go to the side of the room. here. let's go to this side of the room. -- >> irk in education work in education. i guess, the thing i am wondering about is the ethics of service to stop we do not talk about the ethical implications of white middle-class people going into low income minority communities and saying that they are serving them. that is a powerful message that we are sending to our middle class and are you will stop

certain people are deserving of service answerable are deserving to provide that service. how does that play out? , or potentially, as a follower? being a chance at a major rather than a follower. maker ratherhange- than a follower. >> the value of universal talk abouti'm not compulsory -- but, the idea that everyone should start is that the lowest person has the most to give as the highest income person in the country. it is not about better off kids going to help out less well off kids. even though, that is a good and decent thing to do.

it is about serving the country in the way that you can. we are all in this together, no matter how rich or how poor. whatever our original citizenship status was. that is why i like the idea of making it universal. >> let me get in on the question into the mix. -- yes?tion mark >> i struggle for the mike. >> i got a pay for it. >> shelley tor gas. somethinghighlight and asked you a question. what we're trying to help is a grassroots pac.

they have had very bad reputations for buying the people.from what we are doing is something very different will stop on june -- different. 30, you will see the thousands of people were stepping up to support hillary pack -- hillarypac. even if these national service need to be paid -- servants need to be paid. int is the role of pacs these initiatives to break through on new levels? but we are having a conversation, before we went live, about money in politics. doing withat you are your organization is phenomenal.

organizations are like people. some people do good. some people do bad. evil is that pacs are wrong. it depends under politics. if you you are anti-hillary, you probably do not like that pac. it depends on the ethics that you fill it with. i don't have a problem with money in politics. lastu look at the election, 7 billion spent in the , i want more money spent in politics. i want more people heard. you are to be commended. i appreciate it. >> i have a problem with money and politics and the role that it plays right now. my solution is to engage more people. out into arning president -- turning out for a presidential election.

and 2012, we heard it was the year of the youth vote. what would it look like if 60%, out?%, 80% of them turned empowering people to get invested in a campaign, to write a check, it is a powerful thing. it invests people in the political process. giving -- it is small giving. the answer is matching funds, vouchers, tax credits. i do not think you'll ever flood out the big money. perhaps, small money will be competitive with big money. in new york, you have a 5-1 match. think, putting small money is

the best bet that we have now. citizen united will not let's do something to answer the big money. close, as our time comes to an end, with a simple charge to all of you. this is been a great conversation. the question is, what are we going to do? what are we going to do to revitalize citizenship in the united states? and of course the of the last hour, several preconceptions -- conceptions. whether it is the working of government or service in the community. whether it is trying to mobilize money in new ways. whether it is about trying to reinvigorate the way we teach. the very nature of self- governance -- no matter what

your angle of entry is, everyone has a way. everyone has an obligation. we cannot come out of a conversation like this and say, i am going to go to the planetarium now. what am i going to do? what like what applies to myself and the person i came -- what am i going to pledge to myself and the person i came to this room with? if a room like this can make that commitment, we will set forth a social contagion that everyone is talking about. thank you for being part of this conversation. pass it on. [inaudible]

>> still to come, a look at the origin of instagram. two stanford graduates build the filter technology company in eight weeks and sold it to .acebook for $1 billion and then we have highlights from the lives of the first ladies. later, bill clinton and chris christie talk about planning for and persevering through natural disasters. >> to be an american is, i think , america is the land of opportunity. there are so may things you can accomplish in my lifetime.

ofdaughter has lots opportunities. that is the great thing about america. she can do whatever she wants. it does not matter her sex will stop and does not matter her nationality it does not matter race will stop i think, the opportunity that our forefathers fought for is present and available to me. i think it is great to use that and build a great life. being happy will stop that is what i think it means to be american. >> with a lot of history in america. of my culture.ry i am black and native american. i'm thankful for what i have. know that ifime, i i talk to my grandmother, it would be a different answer. you to play your part. you could do the right thing. to work.o you can't be relying on the government to pay for your living. ed is a big thing.

-- that is a big thing. a lot of people who have money try to use the system. that plays a big role. it affects people who really need money. you have to be honest and work hard. you have to be greater than we are to our. >> i am canadian. i have lived here for a few years. i am married to an american and have an american daughter will stop i should say that you should be in american because we live in a free country. north american testimony opportunities. so may opportunities to grow it do different things with your life. many opportunities to grow and do different things with your life. tend to be more relaxed. we do our best to move ahead.

something-- that is i've noticed is different. living in united states. that's what it means to me to be -- that's what it needs, to me, to be an american. >> in the next washington journal, we look at the use of "big data" by the obama administration. , general norman seip discusses the benefits of the obama administration's pre- candidate -- pre-kindergarten program. then, talk about how much foreign visitors to the united him.s spend on towards it is live every day at 7 a.m. eastern time.

>> one of the boys that we make in this book is, does it make any difference to have popular elections? we come down on the side that it made a difference. setters were having to go out and deal with people, as opposed -- having to do -- senators were having to go a big -- to go out and deal with the people. as opposed to, buying votes. they were buying a license. elections.e buying next, a look at the origins of instagram and went ahead in the future -- and what is ahead

in the future. we will hear more about that --ry airing this events, held by theevent, commonwealth group of california. >> awesome. popcorn. popcorn andrequest, a comfy couch. welcome. so, i'm excited to be here. how many instagram fans are there out there? that's awesome. we are going to be recording this for radio. i should bang this thing three

times. are you ready to start. ? good evening and welcome to the commonwealth club. you can find us online and watch our videos. you can join the community at instagram. facebook. tonight, we're are hosting a conversation with the founders of instagram. kevin is a cofounder of instagram. he started as an intern. google, two years at before cofounding instagram. of the 100imes list most influential people. california to brazil in 2004.

he is the secret man behind all things scaling on instagram. you guys are now at 100 million you?, does that shock are you like, how in the hell did we get here? >> i don't know how big this is going to get, but i know it creates a night is going to take -- i know we created something that is going to take off. it is incredible. --but start at the beginning let's start at the beginning. >> i graduated stanford in 2009. i started out studying user experiences.

i was frustrated on how hard it was to use cost -- computers. people lack basic computer skills. towas so hard for people understand why you click this thing and double-click that thing. it was way harder than it needed to be. i thought, this has to be easier. yeah, i went to stanford and met kevin at a coffee shop one morning. i said that i would work on this full-time. guys interesting, you started bourbon first. you create a program that was like nothing -- that was nothing

like what instagram became. >> early on, or my uncle gave me this laptop, i got -- not a lot people will remember when laptops had to colors -- two colors. it -- a couple of days on games on it. he told me that you can create these things with code. he taught me a few commands and that i started programming. and i programmed on the side. into trouble making programs that kicked my friends off-line on aol and prodigy. i got a family account elite in one time -- i got a family account deleted one time. i do computer science class my first quarter. i got into my class and i looked

around. to do this andng do this really well. it was the hardest lesson i have ever taken in my entire life. i got a c on my first assignments. i thought, what has the world come to? design andto product a different major. i got the equivalent of a business degree as an undergrad. that hopping around, and realizing that coating was not me to realize that i want to do lots of different things. when i left my day job and worked on the project that would bon, my one regret was not sticking through the tough times in college. that was a lot of

fun. mike was one of the first users. when he joined, i said, welcome to the team and we are going to work on something completely different. he said, you're telling me we're going to work as of the different? >> talk about bourbon. what were you trying to create? >> our homepage says -- or it -- got at's dead now renew that domain -- got to --ew that the main -- domain we want to take communication from your mobile phone and --nvent it for check-in's through check-in's.

you could check-in if you are at a restaurant. a lot of others. --t of that was being part being able to share an image with your check in. it turns out that the people who use bourbon the most loved the part where you could share an image. loved said that she posting photos, but she said that she did not take photos as well as her friends. usesd, that's because greg some apps. was --zed that the key there were two keys, photography was the key and we had to make it accessible. through doing that, the rest is