free labor. >> >> i am involved with the league of women voters of new jersey. i'd like to go back to the comment you made a couple of questions ago when you were talking about looking at why people vote for the candidates that they vote for. what in your view are you doing in jersey city and what could we be doing statewide to make sure that voters are are in fact infered about the issued and vote, that's the first thing, and also vote with the knowledge of the issues. >> if i had the solution to, that i think it's a real challenging issue everywhere. it's a challenging issue in jersey city.

we spent probably $2 million on our side alone of the race and voters turnout was what i mentioned earlier. it would be hard to be a resident in jersey city during the election and not know there was a may recall election going on from a house to house standpoint. i think people vote on things that areless of substance and the more we try to educate them, people try to gravitate towards things that aren't meaningful and move the dialogue forward, sometimes gender or race or geographic location or who their neighbor is. i don't have a answer for you long term. >> we are working on it. >> i'm a former organizer with food and water watch. i want to thank you for your opposition to the pipeline that is now in service between jersey city and manhattan, a 42 inch

gas pipeline going under the hudson. i know that jersey city attorney is going to argue now -- >> yesterday. >> there are some arguments coming thursday. but the regulatory commission is approving these pipe lines right and left all over the country for natural gas and oil. and very destructive projects. how can municipalities and what is your attorney arguing? how can we reform the process so that localities have more of a say in these projects? >> i don't know what we can do on the municipal level as it relates to municipalties having more input in the process. there is a federal board called ferc which decice and aproves these pipe lines throughout the country. when you talk about ethical government, ferc is a great example of conflicts that exist. every single person on that

board serves formally in the oil and gas industry. so there is an inherent conflict there to begin with. when you look at last year's approvals of pipe lines in this country, it was close to, i don't think they rejected one. it was 100% approval rate. when you think about conflicts and where to start on reforming the process, it would be creating program terse around who and what can serve on those types of boards. they can be honest brokers looking at a project based on need and not for whichever company is applying. that's the starting point and that is one of our arguments in front of ferc that we're in ront of now. >> i'm a social studies teacher. i want to go back to your comments about school board

politics. there is a newark race heating up now. there is a lot of contention over the state superintendent and so as the mayor of another large city i was wondering about your thoughts on that. would it help newark if they got local control back? >> i don't get too involved in newark dynamic. the jersey system was the first to be under state control. we had part of it delivered back to us four years ago and we hope to get the remaining portion of it. about a year and a half ago we hired a new super oaf schools. we have -- new superintendent of schools. we're working to be the first to be building public prek facilities which we are very proud of. we are working hand in hand. and i think jersey city has a lot of terrific stories on the

education front. one data fact i bet you many people in this room don't know. the best high school every single year in the state of new jersey is in jersey city. we go back and forth. [applause] >> we usually go back and forth with mill burn actually. there are a lot of great stories in jersey city. i think that local controls as it relates to jersey city would be a huge benefit. and the reason i say that is because i think it would be an affirmation from the state that we are making progress. we have more parnts engaged than ever as i touched on from a voter standpoint. we are short spaced. we are the only urban district in the state of new jersey that is growing and we're seeing 20% growth projected in the next five years. it is a great story on a lot of

fronts. it would be hard to get into the details of newark. but we are pushing for local control in jersey city and we think it's important and we are on track. we think it's attainable. there are other things the state government has been focused on. it's a conversation that the time is right for jersey city for that. >> i want to do a time check. we've got about five minutes left. and i'm you for coming glad you mentioned mcnare in education. i'm a former resident of jersey city. there are schools like lincoln and insider that are not the same caliber. i've recently learned there is a loophole with tax abeatments

given to corporations that the municipalty takes a lion's share and the counties get very little of the funds. wouldn't you think that schools ought to be a priority in allocation of funds with anything collected? because given the institutional design of education, the municipalty has in funding schools. >> the funding formula in places like jersey city and what was formally known as the abbott district is different than melbourne. how we deal with the state, what requirements are there. when you look at the funding for places like jersey city as an example, it is amongst the highest per pupele cost in the state of new jersey. you are talking in excess of $22,000 per child to educate them in the school ssm. i think many would say still

needs work and we are working to improve it. it would be a hard pressed statement to say the reason we have struggles in the jersey city school system is funding. there are a lot of sose owe economic issues that impact students that we struggle with. you think about out of school time we are working aggressively to adeal with. after school programs we are working to deal with. one thing we're working on is expanding our summer youth initiative partnering with the corporations on the water front. when you think about how we are incentivizing development and the impact on school systems, i would say there hasn't been a direct impact from one to the other and if you look at the funding formula, it would be a stretch to say that dollars are the cause of the problem. >> that th will be our last question. >> ok.

i downloaded your app. it's fantastic and i believe everybody should take a look at it because i live in monroe. it would be wonderful to have this technology available for us. >> i'll give that you payment we discussed later. just kidding. ethical government. >> speaking of ethical government. i'm in technology. what parts of technology would you like to implement and what things do you believe technologically are unethical such as spying or web cams or cameras around the city? >> things that are discussion drones and those sort of things i wouldn't be supportive of. we have an aggressive camera system throughout the city.

it's something we invest in where possible. we haven't seen that type of investment in the last two or three years but we've seen it works as a preventative tool for crime. we are exploring what is going on with our red light cameras, whether it's something we want to continue to implement or if we think it's been misused as more of a revenue generator. we are exploring that. outside of that, i will tell you data is something we continue to push and to share as much as possible. we think the more open we can be from a technology standpoint, the better it is. that's why we have a whole team that digs into that open government framework i touched on, the dash board i touched on earlier. those are things i think the more we can share and open from a technology standpoint is better for the city and better for the residents. i want to say again thank you

for the opportunity to be here. thank you for taking time out of your busy cal ders. really -- cal dars, i really pleesht it. -- appreciate it. >> on the next "washington journal" the heritage foundation does raising minimum wage.

>> this weekend on c-span, the national governor's association kicks off their winter meeting with an opening news conference and panels on homeland security, jobs and prescription drug abuse. and live on book tv, the story of the allied force task with recovering european cultural art facts stolen by the nazis. that's on c-span2. sunday at 4:00 p.m.. >> the nation's governors are in

washington for their an newel meeting. they talked about issues including increasing the minimum wauge. president obama spoke about highlighting the issue and his lance to work with congress. >> it is wonderful to have the governors in town and talk about what is happening on the local level. we spent some time talking about a couple of issues that are of critical importance to our constituents and the country. one of those is the issue of minimum wage and what we can do to get america a raise. many of the governors in this room are pushing to raise their

state minimum wages to benefit more working families and help grow their committees. -- economies. >> my state of the union address, oble, i promised i would do what i could as the head of the expect tive branch of the federal government and have already signed an executive order saying if you want to do business with the federal government as a contractor, you need to be paying your employees $10.10 an hour. we don't someone washing dishes for our troops helping care for them to be living in poverty when they are working full time. what we've discovered in looking at this issue is increasingly businesses recognize that

raising wages for their employees is a smart business decision. because they end up having lower turnover rates, higher productivity, higher morale, folks stay longer and are more focused on the job rather than having to worry about whether or not they can pay their bills at the end of the month. this is not just good policy, it also happens to be good politics. because the truth of the matter is the overwhelming majority of americans think that raising minimum wage is a good idea. that is true for democrats and republicans and independents. so in fact, where we've seen some of these issues going to referendum, for example in new jersey, even though the republican governor opposed it, it passed by 60%. and the reason that this is important is not because

everybody is going to be benefiting from a hike in minimum wage. the truth is most americans make more than minimum wage already. people understand fur working hard and taking response nlt that you can get ahead and look after your family. raising minimum wage will help up to 16 million americans. that's a big deal. that could give a boost to our economy as a whole. i'm going to press congress to press a federal minimum wage bill that goes up to $10:10 an hour. i'm going to be seeking republicans who are prepared to work was on this issue. as i said in the state of the union, it's not something that requires a big bureaucracy and a lot of federal spending.

all it requires is for us to take out a claim on behalf of the american workers that is consistent with our values as a nation. i'm going to be interested in hearing the efforts of the governors in this room to see what they can do to make sure that america gets a raise. i appreciate their presence. we have a lot of other issues on the plate. but i wanted to highlight that one because i think it is on a lot of people's minds, how can we boost people's incomes and wages as they are working hard so they can get ahead. thank you so much everybody. >> thank you. >> after their meeting with the president, democratic governors spoke to reporters about the issues they discussed including job creation and education. his is about 15 minutes.

>> how are you? we haven't had heat like this in ermont since august. >> we got everybody? come on in governor. thank you so much. i'm chair of the d.g.a. and i'm honored to be here with my fellow democratic governors. we just had a very productive meeting with the president. obviously we share a common set of objectives as democratic governors with the president which is to grow jobs and economic opportunities for our constituents. as you know, the president has been focused on ensuring that we lift up the middle class, we expand opportunity and we ensure

that every american has the potential to have a good job by being paid a fair wage, ensuring that they have a home that they can live in and enjoy in security and a secure requirement. we democratic governors are working together across the country on exactly the same objectives, trying to grow jobs and economic opportunity for the middle class by ininvesting in education, infrastructure, invasion and a brighter future. as you probably know, our view is that our republican governors are engaged in a different effort. as we try to grow jobs in the middle class, opportunity for all, education from early education to higher education, republican governors have a more radical social agenda that gives tax cuts to the wealthiest, asks

the middle class to pay more while they cut education and the opportunities that will allow us to grow jobs in this great nation. while they do that, they seem more focused on passing policies that ail nate women, minorities, immigrants, gays, and other americans. so we are proud to stand together as democratic governors committed to growing economic opportunity. i can tell you in the state of vermont, we enjoy the fifth lowest unemployment rate this side of the mississippi because we are investing in education, ininvesting in infrastructure, ininvesting in the things that our constituents expect us to do to have a brighter future. the president shares the same objectives. i'm going to turn it over now to my good friend, vice chair of the d.g.a. from new hampshire.

>> thank you governor. thank you for being here. i wanted to join the governor and my fellow democratic governors in thanking the president for spending time with us today so we can talk about the initiatives we are all making together to expand opportunity for the people of our country and our states. in new hampshire one of the efforts we've made and the president has really helped shine a light on is making sure that college education, whether it's community college or university system is affordable. so because we were able to invest in ourer education system in our last budget we have been able to freeze tuition in our system. first time in 25 years we've been able to do that. we're focusing as part yes, sir with our university system and k through 12 educators on stem education. making sure we are modernizing

our stem standards, partnering businesses and educators so we can do the kind of training that will give opportunity to all of our citizens. it's incredibly important that we make sure that young people understand what kind of careers are available to them at advanced manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing, incredibly important sectors in my state and many others. finally we talked a lot with the president this morning about making sure that americans who work really hard, working 40 hours a week or more can bring home a real livable age, and particularly making sure that an equal day's work gets an equal day's pay. women who work full time in this country are earning 77% of what men who work full time are. we know that gap is present in just about every single occupation. one of the things we are also going to focus on is making sure

that men and women, about 50% of women are the bread winners or co-bread winners in their family. we know when women earn equal wages, it helps grow opportunity for all of us. it's been a great conversation with the president and our fellow governors. we are focused on coming together and solving problems and moving the country forward. it's been great being here. >> thank you. >> just a few words now from a governor who i have the pleasure of following as the chair of the d.g.a. he's been creating jobs in the great state of maryland. > i wanted to touch on a topic we touched on today with the president. that is the topic of minimum wage.

it is one of the things that all of us as governors agree upon is that we should do the things that work, that actually grow our economy and expand opportunity. we understand that prosperity does not trickle down from the top and it never has. prosperity is built from the middle out and from the middle up. in maryland this year we are seeking to raise our minimum wage to $.10 an hour. this is lapping in many states all across our country. the truth of the matter is when workers earn more, businesses have more customers and our economy grows. so today we had discussions with the president about how we could work together so that when people work hard and play by the rules, that they are able to get ahead. that is what america is all about. a mom or dad that is working 40,

50, 60 hours a week at a minimum wage job and falling more shind not the america we want our children to grow up in. when people work hard, they should be anal to get ahead. that's why we believe it is time to give america a raise. it is time to give money mum wage a raise so we can grow and strengthen our middle class. >> from the other coast, the great fwove nor of the state of washington. -- governor of the state of washington. >> not great. just good enough to get elected. >> i want to speak from the northwest corner of the country which is a high-tech region. we have boeing, microsoft, amazon, we get technology in our state. i was delighted to have this conversation with the president today for two reasons. number one, his opportunity agenda gives us opportunities to

work with the federal government in a high-tech dynamic way to increase jobs in a high-tech economy. he gets it when it comes to education, increasing educational opportunity. he gets an understanding as we defeat climate change we're dog to grow clean energy jobs by the bucket full. we are building carbon fiber airplanes and substrait for cars, the most durable silicon panels on earth made in washington. we talk for ways for the state and federal government to partner to grow clean energy jobs an he got that. the second thing is i want to make a comment about a minimum wage. we are in a high wage economy where i am. i was asking my state economists the other day, even though we have tremendously dynamic companies that are doing incredible, why are we not having as much economic growth as we should expect and want and

their answer was clear, it's because we have a drag in our economy because of low wage jobs that are not creating consumers that can go out and create the demand we need. in a corner of the country, i can tell you one of the most important things we can do for economic growth is to remove that anchor on our economy and increase these lower wage jobs in this minimum wage is something we want to do and my state has the highest minimum wage. but we are trying to increase our state minimum wage because it creates more demand for more retailers and restaurants that create jobs. here is one truth we ought to hold self-e.t.f., if you are working 40 hours you ought to be able to feed your family and not be on public assistance. >> the governor of highway highway.

hawaii. >> we are pleased to have brought warmer weather and we are working on the sunshine as we speak. >> we'll be happy to take questions. >> what did you make of the president's message last night that democrats don't think mid terms are sexy enough? don't you guys think mid terms are sex decphi >> i think they are particularly sexy myself. >> he took asia lacking the last time there was a midterm. >> the good news is the american people know the economy is coming out of a tank. the president has created more than 8.5 million new jobs and things are looking up. i think what the american public will say in the midterm elections is we're seeing jobs

pick up, we're seeing our kids have better educational opportunities and we're actually seeing a president and democratic leaders focused on lifting up the middle class. as opposed to republicans giving the upper class while middle class get kicked in the teeth. [inaudible] is that a winning argument? >> we don't know whether that's a winning argument. we know it's the right thing to do. we didn't get elected to do what polls say. we got elected to do what we believe is right. if we raise the minimum wage, lift people who are currently working 40 hours a week or many, working hard and have to go on government assistance or live in poverty after they get their

paycheck, what kind of nation are we? it disproportionately affects women and those who want to build a better life but can't. there is not an american who doesn't believe in the basic principle you work hard for your family, you should we're not paying a decent minimum wage. with this do-nothing congress, we can implement higher minimum wages. education.on on onanted to add one thing minimum wage. what we also know is that when financiale a level of security, businesses have more customers. agree --e data in most the historic data and most agree. i agree with the governor that this is the right thing to do. already raised our minimum

wage this year by $.45. we are proposing what he five ints in january -- .45 january. there's a grand total of $404. we're not talking about lot of money. we're making sure that mothers and fathers can take care of their children. in some cases, families can come back together and basically reunite. we are talking about people having the opportunity to pay all of their bills and stay in the same apartment for more than 30 or 60 days or 90 days. this is important stuff. everyone criticizes this proposal should i assure you they are making a lot more than $404. women will benefit. depending on what state you're women are the

category that is making the minimum wage. there are a lot of teenagers your 12% nationally and the people who are making minimum wage are teenagers. what we're talking as mothers and fathers and people who have a job and we need to help them. >> are there ways that the governors can exercise your executive powers to advance opportunity not just the minimum wage, but other issues? executive action on adoption of a minimum-wage minimum wage involving a state employment and perhaps contract ears. we are exploring that. -- or perhaps contractors. we are exploring that. we want to raise our minimum age by a dollar $.50 or dollar 52 cents. all we're doing is restoring the purpose of the minimum wage to what it was two or three decades ago. erosiond an of what the minimum wage is.

we are giving people what they had in 1968. analysis, ionomic am entitled to speak freely about the cbo. seven nobel prize winners have conferred with 64 studies and there is empirical data. you study counties that have raised the minimum wage versus those that have not. do you know who comes out ahead in job creation? does it have raised the minimum wage. confident with this economic analysis. it shows in real world terms that we will create jobs by doing that. thank you. [indiscernible]

that?nd if you comment on -- could any of you comment on that? >> i think there is a mistake that there's an argument over the core common standards. they were developed with educational organization and they were developed with governors and boards of education all across the country . the argument is about implementation. what we need is to stop foot dragging congress to help us with the entire spectrum of education in the u.s. from preschool straight on through to education and reeducation and focusing across the country. if you do not have common core standards, you will not be able to compete in the real world of the 21st-century. what we need to support for the application across the board. >> [inaudible] >> no. what a great note to end on.

thank you for joining us. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> on the next "washington of the" james sherk heritage organization discusses the proposal to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour. and emily miller of the washington times on gun ownership. and the federal advisory council on wildlife trafficking and eu your strategy to combat trafficking and how it impacts u.s. sales -- and that strategy to combat trafficking and how it impacts ivory sales. all on "washington journal" live at 7 a.m. on c-span. >> this weekend on c-span, the national governors association kicks off their winter meeting saturday morning with an opening news conference.

throughout the weekend, panels and homeland security, early education, jobs, and prescription drug abuse. on book tv, talk to "the monuments men" author. it talks about reoccurring -- recovering artifacts. saturday and c-span 2. and real america. archival films produced in the 1930's the 1970's by government come industry, and educational institutions. sunday at 4 p.m. >> coming up next, debate dream liberal activists bill ayers and author dinesh d'souza. irst, fbi investigation and indictment of dinesh d'souza on campaign finance charges. chuck grassley asked the director of the fbi about what led to the investigation and the

history of the fbi's review of campaign filings. you could mean more the details at washingtonexaminer.com. >> next, dinesh d'souza and bill ayers debating the question, what is so great about america? ayers known for his 1960's activism. the debate was held at dartmouth college in new hampshire. it is two hours. >> good evening and welcome to tonight's feature debate between dinesh d'souza and bill ayers. i'm a junior at dartmouth and the current editor and chief of the dartmouth review. it is my privilege to serve as moderator and introduce you to the topic.

i would like you to locate the nearest emergency exits and silence all cell phones. please note that flash photography is strictly prohibited but our artists like to encourage you to take photos and share what you are seeing on social media sites. when individuals like bill ayers and dinesh d'souza get together for an evening of discussion, there's sure to be much to talk about. the focus of the debate tonight has to do with the nature of america and its meaning in the world today. we will be asking our participants for what their thoughts are on what makes america unique and how it has succeeded and failed in living up to its own ideas. the wording of the resolve have been left purposely vague. we hope that we can take up the central question fully and explore its social, economic, and political forms. part of what will make the discussion unique is the background of its participants. you would be hard-pressed to

find two americans whose career in politics are more different. on the right, we have dinesh d'souza, a critically acclaimed author and political commentator. born in mumbai, india, yet a 30 year career as a public intellectual and has been called one of the nation's most influential conservative thinkers by "the new york times" magazine. since the 1990's, mr. d'souza has published 12 books. that includes "what's so great about america?" america."'s on his left is bill ayers, one of the nation's premier theorist on elementary education and a former leader of a counterculture movement that opposed the vietnam war. born in the chicago area, he is best known for his involvement in the political activism in the 1960's, and the leader of a weather underground, a self-described communist

underground group that conducted bombings in the 1970's. he has had a distinguished career as a professor. he has written about social justice and characterized education as an ethical enterprise. to have two individuals of such distinction with us tonight is no small feat. we owe their presence to the tireless work of our sponsors and supporters. we would like to thank the young americans institution. their dedication to the ideas of liberty and the supporting apparatus of liberal debate will

be displayed in full throughout tonight's discussion. we like to acknowledge the efforts of the college republicans and libertarians whose actions on the campus were instrumental to make sure the debate could take place here. we also want to thank the campus, and we hope our ideas tonight can positively impact our own discussions after the debate has ended. i will now turn the floor over to mr. bill ayers. he will have 18 minutes for his opening remarks. given 18za will be minutes to make his. this question and answer session will continue for 30 minutes until the debate ends. we asked that audience members reserve all the questions to the time allotted and i present their questions clearly and directly as to give others around him a chance to speak as

well. we hope that making this event responsive to issues that interest you that we can create an evening of debate and as enjoyable as it is memorable. without further ado, i yield the floor to mr. ayers. thank you to both of our speakers for participating in this forum. [applause] >> thank you all for coming. this keeps being called a debate, but i don't know who the pro or con is. i think it is discussion about a lovely question -- what is so great about america? ialoguedollar log -- d was first proposed to me, i immediately to make a list. let's see -- on my list, topping the list is chicago. it is my hometown and i know it

well. he cause it is one small piece in all of its outsized and crazy complexity of america itself, the city is the essential american metropolis. chicago is one of the things that are so awesomely great about america. the musical, the film "the jungle," "the blues brothers," and the filmmaking wachowski siblings nelson auburn, whose dazzling book was called "city on the make." it once described chicago as a beautiful woman with a broken nose. he would have said the same thing about america. so great and there's more of course. lake michigan, the vast inland sea now under siege from cataclysmic climate change.

the chicago cubs, who teaches humility and perseverance. [laughter] whenever i travel abroad, and often inside the united states, the city's name evokes a clichéd response. for years it was al capone. then, refreshingly, michael jordan, michael jordan. someone asked me recently if i i knew oprah. of course, i said. it is a small town. today, the universal reaction of hearing chicago is one word -- obama. chicago is home to barack obama, the president of the united states. the first black president in u.s. history. during the heat of the primary battle in 2008, when asked which candidate he thought martin

luther king jr. would support, senator obama respond without hesitation -- reverend king would not endorse any of us because he would be in the streets building a movement for justice. -- undoubtedly true. it tells us a little bit of what we should think of our own activity. one point it raises that if you take a reef glance at history, you recognize that it's building movements at changing things. lyndon johnson was never part of the black freedom movement. franklin roosevelt was never part of the labor movement, and abraham lincoln never belong to an abolitionist party. though three presidents are membered because of fire from below and that is what we ought to be concentrating on. when you think about political power, often you think about the white house or the pentagon and you think, that is where power lies.

there is power in the neighborhood, the factory, the mill, the classroom. power is there and that is the power we have access to too often we stare at the sites of power. we have no access to. in a democracy, we can't wait passively, wondering what the king has in mind for us. we are not his subjects because we are the sovereign, the collective authority. we have the opportunity and the responsibility to enact our sovereignty every day. jane addams acted on her his citizen responsibilities every day and she is part of what is great about america. socialist, feminist, lesbian, pacifist, adams established whole house in went to start the first juvenile court in the world was freed people from prisons and for houses, the first public kindergarten in

america, the entry child labor and a thousand other projects. she argued that building communities of care and compassion required more than doing good. more than volunteerism. more than the ultimately controlling stance of a lady bountiful. it required a radical oneness with others in distress. when she opened her settlement house with her sister activists and lived there with an open, unlocked door in the hurt of a poor, immigrant neighborhood, with families in crisis and need, and she pushed herself to see the world through their eyes and fighting for their humanity, achieved her own humanity, as well. j edgar hoover, the g-man wizard of oz --

outstripped any crime-fighting abilities. he had called jane addams the most dangerous woman in america shortly before she became the first american woman to win the nobel peace prize. 50 years later, at the helm of the fbi, he bestowed that same honor on my partner, bernadine dorn, and it was possibly the only time we agreed. there are countless women sweating out jane addams' hopes all over america, naming circumstances and situations as unacceptable, working to right wrongs, fighting for more peace and more democracy, more joy and more justice. these men and women's propel themselves to act in solidarity with, not in service to, the people with whom they work. they are what is so great about america. what else? my list contains multitudes. the spirit of democracy.

he precious and fragile ideal that every single human being is of incalculable value. using faith in the biblical sense of faith unseen. the conviction that people me know kings, queens, or rulers of any kind and we are capable of aching the decisions that affect our lives and the people what the problems are also the people with the solutions and with the wisdom and energy of ordinary people is our most precious reality. the inspiration of liberty. the aspirations towards liberation, the belief that all human beings ought to be free to invent and reinvent ourselves, to shape our identities and every sphere of our existence without the traditional

constraints of king or court or church or howling mob, and whether we are concerned with our social character or our politics, our manners or sexual practices, we can resist convention and strike out in a path of our own choosing or own making. third, the pursuit of social justice. like any compelling term, social justice is not easily defined because it is not so much as a point of arrival for a specific destination as it is a longing, a journey, a quest. it is a ceaseless striving by human beings in different places at different times under vastly different circumstances and pursuing a range of strategies and tactics and tools for greater fairness, greater sustainability, equity, recognition, agency, peas, and mobility. these three themes, democracy, liberty, and justice are generative. the more you have, the better

off you become. the more you give away, the more you have. they are clearly dynamic and unfinished beings pulsating with the uncertainties and chaos of life, not static or fixed or instrumental. each is made more vital and unrestrained when encouraged and assisted by the arts of liberty and specifically by a small but mighty phrase, easily embraced by the humanities -- i wonder. it is not the known, after all, that propels people out of bed and out the door. it is not the taken for granted that prods us up the next hill. it is not received wisdom, including all the deadly clichés of common sense, that pulls us forward and pushes us to create or invent or plant and build. the deep motivation at the core of our humanity, the powerful force driving towards liberation, is the vast and immense unknown. that is why the phrase, i wonder, is a measurable. i really don't know.

as soon as you know something for sure, it becomes boring or self-righteous and it turns tedious or dogmatic quickly. if you think all there is to know about a certain thing, then fervor may be there but not curiosity. not the drive. at that point the questions closed down, answers come too easily, and you become a threat to yourself and perhaps, others. there are americans whose lives who have soared in the wings of wonder. i signed, whitman, hughes, kelly, the marx brothers, woody guthrie and pete seeger, tommy morello, just to name a few. in a free and democratic society we learn to live with questions. learn to speak with the possibility of being heard and we learn simultaneously to listen with the possibility of being changed. remember the brief but famous dialogue in the form of two

simple questions between ralph waldo emerson and henry david thoreau shouted over a prison wall not far from here? what are you doing in there, henry david? yes is incarcerated friend for locked up for failing to pay taxes. thoreau responds, what are you doing out there? that's a good question. what are you doing with your spirit of democracy, your rumors of freedom, and your various quests for justice? there is a wisdom simple to state but excruciatingly difficult to enact, to state to the spirit of democracy and justice. open your eyes, pay attention, as step one, be astonished, do something, and then doubt or re-think. i will elaborate. open your eyes.

this means you cannot make simple, participatory decisions about the world unless you participate in it. i think of my mother. she had broken her ankle and she said to me, what about this thing called global warming? i didn't want to scare the hell out of her, so i told her and she says, i am sorry i asked. well, you asked and someone told you. and when you are told something, you feel a call on you to do something. you open your eyes and you feel astonished at the loveliness all around you, and you are also astonished about the unnecessary suffering that human beings impose on one another and then you do something. you have to act on what the known demands are, recognizing you are a limited and finite eating, but you have to act -- finite being, but you have to act anyways on what you seem to understand.

then you have to take the fourth step. you have to refrain, wonder if everything you did make sense. if you don't doubt, you become orthodox and dogmatic. some of you must know monty python's "life of brian." you guys are not nerdy enough. google them. it is a story of a reluctant messiah. he shouts down at the mob below, look, you have got it all wrong. they say, it he is the messiah. he says, no, you have to think for yourselves. you're all individuals. yes, we are all individuals, they cry. no, no, you are all different. frustrated, yes, we are all your friend, they say together. one bewildered man in the crowd goes around and says, i'm not. the others gang up on him and say, shut up, you are different.

that is what dogma does to you. what is so great about america? the arts and the artist. the dedication of the picasso statue in chicago begins, this man love art? america is a place of voyages, metaphorically as well as literal. centuries ago, an adventure and his band of fellow travelers punched into the unknown, wrote the wild waves until they discover the bahamas and as the authorized text tells us, discovered america. we know that story by heart, and it is worth noting that whatever else it represented, that exploit, part myth, part symbol, took a surplus of imagination and vision, resourcefulness, and courage on the part of the wild and random crew. every story needs a prologue. no story could ever quite begin at the beginning. before that, and other cruel voyageurs, their own resourcefulness and courage, to travel thousands of miles on foot across the bering strait down through forest and mountains into the great plains of north america to settle there

and bring forth generations. that is another story we all know by now. there is a third -- a central part of our shared american narrative and another piece of what is so great. those americans who rose up to oppose the castilian invasion and resist the colombian genocide. they mobilize their own visions and their own american hopes.

clearly, history is more than facts. it is more than an intersection then what happened and what is said to have happened. each of us, both then and now, is both actor and narrator in history. we are each a work in progress, thrust into a world not of our choosing, and yet destined to choose who to be and what to become in the unfolding drama. how many? >> two minutes. i may have to take three. >> sorry. the opening lines to carl sandburg's love song to america, where we come from and where we will forever return. here's a fun fact about him.

he moved to chicago from the walkie where he served as secretary to the city's first socialist mayor. he was later hanged for his role in the haymarket demonstrations. when he was on the run from the police, he hit out in the home of daniel's and socialist parents, who owned a factory there. he went through an essential american transformation when he renounced white supremacy, a life altering choice available to all of us, right here, right now, and became a leading voice for anarchism, socialism, workers rights, and the eight hour day. he married lucy parsons, who was a former slave and outlive him by 50 years. -- declare himself an abolitionist and cleared death

row in 2003, just hours before he left office. two years for going to prison himself, fraud, corruption, the usual stuff. it was a magnificent action challenging capital punishment and out george ryan is my favorite illinois governor. the death penalty itself is the shame of the nation. there is always another incongruity, despair the -- disparity. until the end of time, another pathway opening. >> time, mr. ayers. >> their stance another possible world, a world that should be what is not yet. that is a good thing because

contradiction may save us. nothing is settled once and for all. we are in the middle of the model right from the start. thank you. [applause] [applause] >> thank you very much. i am honored and thrilled and moved to be back here at dartmouth. i was, many, many years ago, a student sitting here in this very auditoriums listening to speakers and debaters and it is a particular privilege to be back in hanover having this debate on a really important

topic. as you know, this has been a topic of some controversy and some sensitivity. earlier, before the debate we were discussing some possible to script out security measures and we decided we should not have metal detectors for the audience but we did have metal detectors for the two speakers. [laughter] now -- what's so great about america? as i think about this topic, i harken back to my days as a young boy growing up in india, coming fresh faced at the age of 17 to the united states for the first time. i have never lost the shock of my first impressions of america. i have lived in america almost

my whole life and i am very much of an insider. i have long been an american citizen. i still try to maintain a little bit of that dual perspective that sees america from the outside and from the inside. i think this is really important because very often when we debate america, when we complain about america, we are doing it within the prism of america. we are doing it in a sense, and shortsightedly in the matter of the fish condemning the surrounding water. we are using a utopian stander. america's terrible. compared to what? well, the garden of eden. that is never the immigrant perspective. they are always aware. in addition to this utopian standard, there needs to be a standard that looks at america compared to other places on earth.

in other words, we have to keep our feet on the ground or else we run the risk of losing the human and realistic perspective of things. for example, mr. ayers talked about social justice, dividing the pie, getting people a fair share. it never seemed to occurred to him -- how you get a pie? who made the pie? how do you make a pie grow? it is easy to plot the carving knife and starts splitting. it is much more difficult to actually be the one who comes in with the pie. i want to talk little bit about america in the broadest scheme of things, to look at what america has meant in the world. if you think about human

history, there are very few great inventions in history. the invention of the wheel, the invention of fire. i think america is responsible for perhaps the greatest invention of all -- the invention of wealth creation. what does that mean? that means that for centuries, and even millennia, no one knew how to create stuff. no one knew how to create wealth. our member as a kid, i would go to school and i would have 10 marbles that would look at the other kids and they had more marbles than i did and i said to myself, how do i go from having 10 marbles to 12 marbles? i realize there was no way. none of us had any money. we had marbles. the only way for me to go from 10 to 12 was to take someone else's to marbles. historically, wealth was acquired through theft, through acquisition, and through conquest. how did countries get founded?

machiavelli says all great nations are founded in crime. you found a country by invading someone else's country, killing who is running it, and declaring yourself king. that is how wealth was obtained for thousands of years. the idea that you can start with 10 marbles and end up with 15 marbles without stealing someone else's marbles, that is the american ideal. that is a very old idea. you can, in a sense, create something out of nothing. it is virtually divine. the reason this one unnoticed for centuries is that the people who create wealth, who are basically be science and technology guy on the one hand, and the entrepreneur or the merchant on the other, these two guys have been heated in virtually all cultures throughout history. the merchant, traitor, entrepreneur is a low man on the totem pole.

confucius says that the noble man knows what is virtuous. the low man knows what is profitable. in india, we have the caste system. who is at the top? the priest, then the royalty, and down the list to go until one step from the bottom, the hated untouchable, and above him, the merchant. low life scum. a great muslim thinker in the middle ages said looting is a better way, a moral way, to get wealth. why? he said trading was slightly effeminate. you are exploiting the wants of another. he said that looting is very manly, because you have to beat a guy in open combat and take his stuff. it appeals to the manly virtue of courage. i say all this because i wanted to convey -- by the way, this is true even today. if you go to europe, even now, inherited money is better than earned money. why? inherited money is like manna

from heaven. kind of like the way that belair has money. earned money means from the european point of view, you probably had to run over a guy to get it. it is looked down upon. here's what i want to say -- you have the totem pole with the priest at the top, the merchant at the bottom. what america did, what the founders did, is they flipped it. they created a society that would be devoted to wealth creation through trade and technology and entrepreneurial capitalism. this was always an american idea, but it was always intended to be for the benefit of everybody. the declaration of independence does not say all americans are created equal. it says all men. the american recipe was, from the beginning, intended to be made in america but intended for

global export. everybody could benefit from the system. if you look at the original constitution, before the bill of rights was added, it only talks about the right to patents and copyrights. technology, invention, is the key to american success and american affluence. what is the benefit of this? the benefit of this is stunning. when i first came to america, the most impressive thing to me was not that there was affluence in america. i knew that. the most impressive thing was that the ordinary guy, and i'm not talking about the smart guy, i'm talking about the not so smart guy. i'm not talking about the hard-working guy, i'm talking about the guy that did not work that hard. at the greatness is of america

is that the not so smart, not so hard-working guy still had an amazing life. he had a nice home, two cars in the backyard, if you're in california, he had a small pool. i'm am constantly comparing america with my friends and india -- one guy who has been trying to immigrate to america for i don't know how many years. the poor guy can never get a visa. i said to him, why are you so eager to come to america? he says, dinesh, i want to move to a country where the poor people are fat. [laughter] what is he getting at? the phenomenon of mass prosperity. of the ordinary guy having a fantastically well. that is true, but i want to go beyond that to suggest that what america really offers is not just comfort and wealth and the ability to live well, it offers you the chance to write the script of your own life. not long ago, i asked myself, how has my life changed by

coming to the united states? how it would be different if i stayed in india? i grew up in a middle-class family and i did not have great luxury, but neither did i lack for anything. in coming to america, my life -- is it better off materially? yes. but it is not radically different. and i stayed in india, chances are i probably would have lived within a five or 10 mile radius of where i was born. i would have married a girl of my identical social, economic, cast, and cultural background. i would have become an engineer like my dad, or a doctor like my uncles. i would've had a set of opinions on a bunch of subjects that could be predicted in advance. i guess my destiny would have been in large part given to me.

not that i had choice, but there was a defined parameter. in this country, we have the ability to write the script of our own life. we are in the driving seat of our own future. our biggest decisions in life are made by us. america creates the sense of possibility and out of that, you can become an activist, a community organizer, in a sense, what are you doing? you are living off the great capitalist explosion of wealth that you did not even create. who is doing that? most of you. if you look at your life, you are actually living up the dream of the early karl marx. he said, it would be great to live in a society where there

was not a whole lot of work to be done. in which we can sit around, do a little bit of work in the morning, and then we can do some art in the afternoon, and some intellectual banter in the evening, and then some artistic expression. in a way, he was describing dartmouth. [laughter] what he kind of missed is how do you get a dartmouth? who pays for it? where does the abundance come from? there is nothing like dartmouth virtually everywhere else in the world. all the foreign students want to come to a place like this one because they represent the for film and of not just the right wing, if you will, capitalist rain, but also left wing, the progressive dream of selfless omen and self-realization. i want to turn to a moment of what is happening to the american dream. what is happening, i fear, is that it is beginning to be shrunken in america.

incredibly, it is beginning to be seized upon and elsewhere in the world. we are losing our own dream. it is going to other people. if you look around the world, what you see is countries like result, china, russia, they are growing at five times the rate of the united states. why? we have taught them the secret of wealth creation. for a long time we tried the bill ayers formula. we try to go over and build homes, lend him money, all of which were a complete waste of time and money. admittedly, for the moral edification of the people doing it, but of no real value to the people on the ground. the indians and the chinese had an insight and it could be called, very crudely, the advantage of backwardness. what is the advantage? we don't have a whole bunch of money, but we do have a whole bunch of people. if we can get those people not

to sit around doing nothing, talking to anthropologists or social workers, but making stuff that other people actually want to buy, we will take over the world market. that is really what has happened. the american dream, our dream, has now become a global dream. his is the great gift that america has given and is giving to the world. i am talking about global technological capitalism, has been far and away the greatest anti-poverty program ever created. all of the concoctions of jane addams, and frankly, mother teresa, and every government and out and barack obama pale next to the simple ingenuity of the iphone in a small indian village were some female entrepreneur is using it to sell a bicycle. in other words, what has delivered the goods for people is not, ultimately, social agitation.

rather, it is the very american sense of taking nothing, sand, and making it into silicom. it is that ingenuity that is far more profound and act in saying, what do i do to divide the pie? everyone has an opinion on that. now, i want to say a word about american foreign policy. i want to say that american foreign policy, to me, viewed as a whole, has actually made the world much better and much safer. there are all kinds of exceptions and stupid stuff and the vietnam war and the war in iraq and this and that. i granted all. just step i can ask yourself this -- what would the 20th century or the last 100 years have been like if there was never an america? what would have been the outcome

of world war i? or world war ii? or the cold war? what would the world be like if america sort of never existed? for all of our blunders and for all of our self-interest -- by the way, democratic societies have every right to be self-interested. we elect governments to look out for us. the question is not if america is self interested, but in being self-interested, is america making the world better or worse? we self-interested we got into world war ii. we didn't even care about hitler. it took the bombing of pearl harbor. self-interest. that self-interest got rid of nazi germany and japanese imperialism. he fought the cold war, but who would deny that the end of it, the world is much better and freer? the russians have all types of problems but no one wants to

restore the old communist party. american power has been, ultimately, a great boon for the world. in a way, it kept the world secure. what america invented is the idea of wealth creation as an alternative to conquest. frankly, most people in the rest of the world believe in both. if china today or russia had america's power, they would be using it for wealth creation. we taught them that. they would also be using it for conquest. what america can do for the world now is show the importance of transitioning from the one to the other. it is another way of saying that american foreign-policy is not about acquiring real estate. people tell me, if american -- america invaded grenada and iraq and afghanistan. if america invaded all of those

places, why don't we own them? the truth is, america goes in, america gets out. we don't want to own anyone else's real estate. our foreign-policy can be summed up in two phrases -- trade with us and don't bomb us. that is it. [applause] there are all kinds of criticisms to be made in america. i will be happy to make them as will the next guy. i think taking the global perspective, taking the perspective of history and the perspective, i end up with the words of jean kirkpatrick who said, sometimes we have to face the truth about ourselves, no matter how pleasant it is. thank you very much. [applause] >> so many strong men set up, it

is hard to know where to begin. no one said that america is the most terrible place. there are a couple of assertions you have to take on faith that are astonishing. one is the idea that america's great invention was wealth creation, not taste on fact at -- not based on theft at all. what about the sacking of the entire continent? that was a theft. [applause] 90% of the residents who lived here were murdered, and that was a part of it as well. i will go back to the question of contradiction. i said in the opening that contradiction may save us and i think we need to see things as contradictory. i find a real arid, lack of imagination when you assert that the only thing we can do is see america in relation to someplace else rather than to fire our imaginations to imagine standing right next to the world, a world that could be or should be, and committing ourselves to work

toward that better world. we don't have to say, oh, jamaica is better. that is not the point. the point is, are we perfect? no. can we improve? yes, and how can we do that? i want to say three things -- one, the muckrakers and whistleblowers and truth tellers from upton sinclair to ida b wells, to chelsea manning and edward snowden, they are what is so great about america. the citizen activists who brought us the clean air and water act are largely responsible for the fact that you live in a country where you can turn it on the faucet and drink clean water, unless you live in west virginia or one of the fracked-up states. captain john brown, harriet tubman, what that necessary pistol in her pocket. let me ask you to quit questions, taking those last two

movements. -- two quick questions, taking those last two movements. are you all against slavery? i know i am at dartmouth, but really? [laughter] can ask again, are you against slavery? [audience answers "yes"] a little louder. >> yes. >> you would have been against the founding of the country 150 years ago, but we are all good abolitionists now. we are all for a woman's right to vote now, but hundred and 50 -- right? men? okay. but 150 years ago, you would've been against the founders, the constitution, the

bible, and the law. let's agree, we would have been those good people, but the fact is it takes an imagination to step outside. you don't look at slavery and say, we are better than these other countries. you say, this is something that needs improving. that is how you begin to become an active citizen. you make a stand for human beings, for justice, for social justice, and in the last 150 years or 200 years, the people who have made a difference in this country, the people who love actually inspired us to do better than we would've done, not by looking elsewhere but by looking at ourselves, the people who really made a difference are the american radicals, from jane addams to emma goldman. len -- the legacy continued.

michelle alexander, on and on. as ella baker said of martin luther king, martin did not make the movement. the movement made martin. we have plenty to do to put our shoulders on the wheel of improving our lives and the lives of others. [applause] >> the debate has taken an interesting turn because we sometimes hear the phrase american exceptionalism. what you have been hurting today is that in a way, we are talking about two types of exceptionalism. if i were to talk about great americans, i would talk about the wealth creators, benjamin franklin, addison, steve jobs. i think those guys collectively have done more than all the redistributed combined. i'm not saying there is not room

for both. i'm saying there is a priority. it is time to talk a little bit of sense. i think we are at a moment now where we can do that without resulting, without mere slogans. 90% of american indians were murdered? genocide? actually, that is not true. the white men brought unwittingly a bunch of diseases. indiansority of contracted the plague and died. this was a great tragedy. it was no more genocide that when the black light the view bionic plagues up across europe and wipe out one third of the population of europe and that one came from asia.

i didn't see european submitting reparations or genocide proposals. they have the sense to realize that this is part of the tragedy of history. the beings have carried two days whichcarry diseases for people did not have any cure for at the time. this is no excuse, but it is a way of demanding a certain intellectual precision we talked about these things. slavery -- isn't it a fact that the founders allowed slavery? it is. why did they do it? because if they had not allowed it, there would have been no way to have a union. 12 of the original 13 states had slaves. certainly the southern states, but most of the order and states -- northern states would not have joined the union had there been an attempt to forbade it at the outset. what lincoln said was a founders declared the right to freedom so that the enforcement could follow when the circumstances permitted.

in fact, 300,000 whites from the north died to end slavery, securing for the african-americans freedom that they were not in a position to secure themselves. i'm glad someone around the underground railroad, i don't know why no one mentions those 300,000 white soldiers who had nothing to gain and gave their lives to and slavery. -- to end slavery. when martin luther king said in the 60's that i am submitting a note and i demand to be cash, i was waiting for the southern segregationist to say, what note? he was not appealing to the promise made by the southern segregationists. he was appealing to the declaration of independence. here is an amazing fact -- martin luther king was appealing to a charter and a principal

articulated by a southern slaveholding planter, thomas jefferson. it is another way of saying is that martin luther king was claiming the promise of the founding. he was claiming the rights of the enforcement could follow when the circumstances permitting. this is a way of saying to americans that we can look at our history, with all the passion and tragedy built into it, and take a certain justifiable pride in the original principles which the founders got right from the start. thank you. [applause] >> this is the cross examination. i pose a question to mr. ayers. you answer and post one to me. we will go back and forth.

my first question to you -- you started out as a revolutionary and, well, you started out in the bin laden mode. you tried to bomb the pentagon and u.s. capitol. here's my question -- you sounded totally different today. you talked about being an educator, you talked about socratic doubt and wonder. is the old you still alive or has he thrown in the towel? >> if what you mean by revolutionary is having a fully worked out program by which we can kind of imagine a different world and overthrow a government, i am not that. if you mean someone who is willing to dive into the contradictions, try to make sense of them, fight for more peace and justice, more

balance, more sustainability, and being willing to live with ambiguity and complex at the and move forward? sure, i see myself as someone who sees the need for fundamental change. the struggle against white supremacy, which i invited everyone to join, is a struggle that goes on. it has not ended. it still goes on and it takes different forms. [applause] it is not slavery, not jim crow. the destruction of voting rights, the overrepresentation of black men in prison, that is white supremacy. 2.5 million citizens in prison? 5% of the world's population imprisoning 20% of the world's prison population? that is an outrage. we should change it. [applause] >> i have to agree that the lock them up impulse is getting out

of hand. >> my question to you -- you have written, among other things, and implied again today, the slaves are dead. let's face it, the descendents of slaves are better off. you said many times that i am not submitting a note to get reparations from the british as i'm better off. there are other ways to think about. you may have taken an esl class and there are other ways to imagine coming to the west besides the slaughter of millions. my question is, many people say that the state of israel, a catalyst for the creation of the state of israel is the holocaust. you have the same thing about the holocaust, that it was in some case worth it because, look at the end? >> the argument about the holocaust is this -- i'm not saying the jews are better off for the holocaust because they got israel. a completely different way to

put it is that the moral anguish about what happened in the death camps did help, in fact, to create political support for the state of israel. the point about colonization and slavery is a little different. the indian prime minister went to oxford and he gave a speech that if he had given when i was a kid, he might've been strung up on the streets of bombay. he said that gandhi had a dream of wiping a tear off of every indian face and now it is a global technological capitalism that is helping to realize that dream. not india's 40 years of socialism, but technological capitalism. he said something else and this is the controversial thing he said. he said we have benefited. we are in a position to take advantage of global capitalism because of the legacy of empire. although the british empire was

very hard and imposed indignities on people who lived under it, their descendents, modern indians now, speak english and have technical institutes and also have an infrastructure that enables them, not to mention democracy and separation of powers and checks and balances. you walk into indian courtrooms and you see dark-skinned guys with white wigs. the british have gone home. we can take off the wigs. nobody even proposes that. it's a way of saying that colonialism, for better or worse, was the transmission. they brought western values that we both affirm to india. >> you are saying as that of the

holocaust was it helped, we should be grateful for the creation of israel and this was the transmission. >> absolutely not. i would say that the state of israel is a good thing to have. it would be preposterous to say -- >> the same is true of slavery. it is preposterous to say it was a good thing. >> that is not what i said. they were not in slavery -- >> white supremacy still manifests itself in different ways. it is not a matter of individual racism, it is the matter of structures that are influenced by a system that keeps others down. >> i am not saying no. i am saying what frederick douglass said. he stood up before an abolitionist society and said, i will not celebrate the fourth of july.

the fourth of july is an emblem of white supremacy. the civil war began. lincoln, who took douglass at his word that he didn't belong in america and wanted a country of his own, said, ok. lincoln had 7, 8 places he was sending emissaries to see where free slaves could have a country of their own. but frederick douglass said, no, we don't want to go anywhere. for all the problems, we are 100% american. we want to stay here. this is our home, and we want to stay here. american indians, blacks, indians, all of us have a choice today to live in the old way. american indians who stay on their reservation will not have cell phones, they are going to live the old way. we are going to hunt and live the national geographic live.

that is how it used to be and that is what we value. we will make it as if columbus never came here. >> who is arguing this? you have a great argument against somebody, but i don't know who it is. >> that is my point, everybody has voted with their feet to live this way. everybody wants cell phones. nobody even thinks about this. >> everybody has not voted with their feet to live in a permanent war economy. everybody has not voted with their feet to say, look, we have a trillion dollar military budget. that is wrong, outrageous. the idea that we go over there and leave, that is the nature of empirism, not going over there and holding the land, it is a neo empire where we control the resources. in 2010, the taxpayers, us, gave $300 billion to private corporations like halliburton a

no-bid contracts, and that was the biggest corporate welfare scheme in the world. that is the biggest whenever executed. and that is going on regularly. this notion that somehow corporations are persons, and walmart is a person. , andons walmar and that is the end of the political system of democracy. that is the end of it because money buys political office, it buys judgeships, it buys redistricting, and that is what we're doing. and that is what we're doing and we should resist it. [applause] admit, there is no question the government runs all kinds of rackets with private industry, and it does it in the corporate sector, the defense sector. i think you also have to admit in the social welfare sector. of alliances kinds government makes with groups to privilege them or give them advantages. here is the point i want to make about foreign policy. i think the iraqi war in retrospect was very stupid.

>> nobody voted for it at the time. >> i believe that the time there were weapons of mass destruction. >> why did you believe that? it was so transparencies false. at least 50% of the american people knew it, in every scholar knew it. >> first of all, here's the problem -- the problem is that saddam hussein at the time was behaving as if he had nuclear weapons. the u.s. said to him -- if he had no nuclear weapons, he should have told the inspectors, come on in, take a look, i don't have them. but he was acting like he had them. that said, it is inexcusable to invade a country when you don't know -- it is like it is inexcusable to go into somebody's house if you don't know they have drugs in the toilet. you are uncomfortable. , we know thating

north korea has weapons. should we kick their dorian? >> of course not. >> that's your logic. >> let me qualify the logic. what do you call in dictator who has nuclear weapons. the answer is, you call that person, "sir." when people have nuclear weapons, you have to treat them with kid gloves. that is why we did not want saddam to have them. >> but we knew he did not have them. >> we did not know that. >> all the intelligence knew that. ake airport. you talked about all of the money that we waste on foreign expeditions, and i think one point clear from that, we did not go into this country to steal their stuff. the fact of the matter is we have spent a whole bunch of money in a rack -- in iraq. we could have taken over their oil fields and taken the revenue for as long as we could hold them.

left --, the hated osha bush left iraq. stupid though it is as a country to spend that much money, it is not evil. they were trying to do something good in iraq. >> it's not something good. tell me something good, think you are dreaming. it's not stupid to do what they did if you're giving the money to halliburton and lockheed martin. that is what they did. billions of dollars, taxpayer dollars were transferred to those operations by these very manipulative.liv we like to think of ourselves as a peaceloving people. if they said we are going in for the oil, we would say, no, don't do it. instead they said we are going in for democracy.

and look at the democracy we nation building. and look what we have in iraq, over andd over. this is the nature of empire is him today and it is about resources. that is why you see the war and invasions and military bases, --dreds of millions of hundreds of military bases all over the world. >> the military bases and the u.s. navy keeps open all of the commercial traffic in the world. the reason stuff comes over here byely and is now stolen pirates and bond is because of the u.s. navy keeping open the shipping lanes. i think it is time. >> we would like to invite anybody in the audience who would like to ask a question to line up. we have two microphones. if you have questions, please come to the front and they will take them one at a time.

michelle, you want to start? >> hello, my name is michael walsh. i am from new hampshire. i was in vietnam in 1968, the tet offensive. airborne division. [applause] you have to hear the other side. i came back and i was at the moratorium and boston common and then i heard abby hoffman speak. we marched down and took over harvard square. i had more tear gas at night than i ever had in my life. took an armed stance against the united states government, and i might not agree with it, but it took courage to do that. how do you still feel about the right to bear arms? do i have a right to bear arms,

or is it only the government think it's to have guns? >> you are asking me about the second amendment? i think that we have gone way too far and that we need to find a way to take back some of the extreme kind of gun ownership that exists. it is not a question of do i think -- i think we should disarm, and i think that means we should absolutely allow serious background checks, to allow serious kind of limits on what people are sold. the idea that somehow everybody has the right to a machine gun and that is protected by the second amendment is pure folly and is ridiculous and it is leading us in a very dangerous direction. [applause] >> would you comment on that? >> we have the bill of rights, and i think it is sort of odd, imagine if you use that sort of rhetoric with regard to

the first amendment. well, i think speaking is ok to do, but i think we should limit our speech and i think we should all be really careful of what we say, and if the government wants to run background checks on us, people would say, are you out of your mind? why do we have the first amendment? [applause] uzis or machine guns, but i am saying let's extend some of the same rights to the second amendment as we automatically due to the first. >> but the truth is we debate the first amendment as well of the second amendment. in the supreme court and is with the supreme court in its wisdom has decided that giving goo gobs of money is protected by free speech. these things are debated. >> i'm not putting it outside of the bounds of debate. i am guessing there is a burden that has to

be met and it has to be the same way for the right to bear arms as well. [applause] paul? >> hello, this question is directed at mr. d'souza. this question is more about some of the things that have changed since you were at dartmouth college. dartmouth college has made incredible advantages for lgbt east evidence. we are holding our 30th reunion. any people consider your time as editor and chief to be the lgbt studentsor at dartmouth college. a lot of people talked about how you outed students, you went to meetings at the time. people talked about how you

would go through letters of lgbt students and publish confidential information in the review. i wanted to ask, number one, what do you have against queer people, when is that going to change, and why do you have those views on that. [applause] first of all, i have to say i'm really kind of amazed that my activities as an undergraduate, which were actually in the late 1970's, early 1980's, are being discussed. the good news about it, i will tell you, is that i was there, and mother jones was not. here is what i mean. began to become a successful author in the 1990's, many years after i went to dartmouth, left-wing groups on would callcreated i it an urban legend history of the dartmouth review, looking

back at what we supposedly did in basically fabricating stuff and handing it out and relying on chinese whisperers on the left to preserve these legends. for simple, none of them can name any students that were named in the review. you will notice this is all just what he allegedly did. i did not do it. i have never been to the gsa, never been to the meetings, never taken any of their files. we read an article on college funding for the gay student association, and in the article we mentioned the four officers who had applied for college funding and we noted in their application they had not described any intellectual activities and were basically using the money for parties. so the thrust of the article was college fees go to fund intellectual and college groups. they do not go to basically fund beer cakes and they don't fund -- beer cakes and they don't fund recreational activities.

the point i am making is the mother jones recapitulation 30 years old, there is no resemblance to the fact. i am happy to defend what i said, and quite frankly i have done some sophomoric things when i was in college, my main defense. i was at that time i saw for more. but i don't want to be held accountable for things i did not do. >> so you were misunderstood and they have the facts wrong. will you now give a full throated endorsement of queer rights? >> i don't know what a full throated endorsement of queer rights means. >> i mean, i have read your -- i have read, for example, your attack on french intellectuals as people -- who would trust men who carried handbags? >> i never said that. >> again, that was not when you are at dartmouth. i think the young man has a question.

the question is, can you now say that queer rights, gay, lesbian, transgender rights are fundamental to your view of what freedom would look like today in america? >> i'm a firm believer that we are all in this country i minority of one. i don't believe in racial rights, i don't believe in rights accrued to groups. i believe as individuals we have all the rights we are entitled to under the declaration of independence and the constitution, gays and lesbians included. [applause] >> so you don't see groups. you are like stephen colbert , you don't see groups, you just see people. you don't see race, gender. those categorical's are not there. if a group of people you could prove are categorically ca kept down because of their identity as gay, you would oppose that? >> would you affirm right now as a group the fundamentalist evangelical christian rights?

>> affirm what? >> let me clarify. >> affirm what? >> let me clarify. among the dartmouth faculty, and this is probably true of the ivy league, self-described evangelical christians are smaller in number in proportion to blacks, hispanics, gays and lesbians, any of these so-called mine or to groups. they are the smallest minority of all groups, so presumably evangelical christian rights would mean the right to have a group, the right to be recognized as a group, the right to -- >> they are recognized as a group. >> right for affirmative action, the right to have the university go out and recruit people to make sure their perspective is well respected, sensitivity session so students don't make derogatory comments towards evangelical christians. would you affirm all that? [applause] >> where are we demanding that? i think you are making this up.

i think this is a strawman. you are saying they are a minority that is oppressed. show me where they are oh pressed. where are they? and what is the oppression, they cannot get tenure? are you kidding? evangelical, christians have tenure all over america. so what you talking about? >> what i'm talking about -- >> he is talking about a group that was systematically discriminated against. >> i would submit if you or do go before a tenure committee today and you have one applicant who was let's say a champion of queer theory and another who was an outspoken defender of evangelical christianity, the queer theorist would be far more confident speaking up and saying, this is who i am, and what expect that to accrue to his or her benefit, where is the evangelical christian would do anything he or she could to suppress that, to be quiet about that, because this is the acceptable bigotry of the ivy league's, and you know it. [applause] >> there is no truth to that. you obviously know nothing how

tenure committees work. it would depend on publications, peer review. it would not depend on whether you are popular. you are wrong about that. it is not true of dartmouth, it is not true of harvard, it is not true of illinois. >> let me clarify my question. >> perhaps we should move on. in fairness, we should perhaps have other questions. i don't want to get too caught up in the bushes on this. in the interest of fairness for other people who have questions, we are going to move on. >> yes, let's change it up a little bit. i attended a public hearing this morning regarding a bill called hcr-10 that was introduced to the new hampshire state federal investment affairs board. this concurrent resolution applies to the congress of the united states to call for a convention under article five of the united states constitution to have a constitutional

convention. and i would like the speakers to think about this issue and reply to the audience as well. what are we going to do about our constitution? you know, in history there are very few times in history where there has been almost out of nowhere i would say a semi-miraculous event. centuryn the fifth a.d., at of nowhere, philosophy, all congregating together, and nobody knows what was there before and there has not been a whole lot after. elizabethan england, germany am a 19th century, philosophy, music. i think the american founding is one such moment, a remarkable group of people with deep insight came together, and they gave us a formula for wealth creation.

no rebuttal to say that we are living to hundred years later, because the principles of the founding are as relevant today as they ever were. to think that, for example, we can have a constitutional convention now and have a group of comparable wisdom, basically you could say update the founding. more likely, we don't need to redo the founding. what we need to do is live by the principles of the founding. [applause] i don't -- i mean, i think that the constitution is there to be changed. and it does need to be changed. for example, one of the things we need to fight for is the right of every person to vote. one of the things that astonishes me is how much effort

goes into suppressing the vote, trying to not let people vote. and this comes largely from the right, but a lot of other directions, too. there are many ways suppression happens. we should fight for and believe in universal suffrage. that is not in the constitution, but that is the kind of constitutional change we should make. everyone should have the right to vote, and everyone's access to the ballot should be unrestricted, and we don't have that situation now. in fact, we have felony disenfranchisement. if you look at felony disenfranchisement, it follows the entire struggle, the entire history of the civil rights struggle. the civil rights struggle was a struggle for justice, but it had a couple of tactical things that mattered. one was integrating the schools, one was access to the ballot. in both of those great struggles, we have not moved forward. access to the ballot was undone

through felony disenfranchisement. what we ought to do is fight to extend the ballot, and parenthetically the other suppression tactic is money. money and politics takes away your right to vote. it is not one person, one vote, it is monsanto with 10,000 votes. we have to get rid of the electoral college. that would be a good thing to do in a constitutional convention. this is an absurdity held over from slavery. there are things we need to do, but i would think the right would join with the left and say every human being, every citizen has the right to vote. and that means if you have a felony, you don't lose your citizenship. in fact, while you are in prison, ballots all to be brought to you. you are still a citizen. why shouldn't you vote? why not? why do you get disqualified from any citizen because you committed a crime? we should extend the vote, we should do a way with gerrymandering, we should get phony money out of politics. >> we are about halfway through. >> my name is adam.

i am head of the atheist's agnostics on campus. one quick comment, evangelical groups.ut way the lgbtq just one of them probably outnumbers us. the idea there is less of them than a particular minority i think is unfounded. >> i said faculty. >> faculty, of course. a question i have, you were about religion, politics monitoring thought, giving us things like slavery, giving us women's rights. do we need to further go along erosion ofs of religious parties as well as governmental priorities to make it better? >> i'm not sure i'm understanding your question, sorry. say it again. >> please forgive. erode religiono

further warped government policies further to move further along the social scale of woman's rights and slavery? >> should government take a tougher stance against real agent to limit presumably what seems to be religious cricket? >> >> public policy. >>give me an example of what you mean. >> you gave the example of slavery and women's rights, saying that religious ideas were covering both of them as though they were upholding both of them. why have that wrong? -- do i have that wrong? that was one of the things that people 100 years ago or 50 years ago were supporting. >> oh, what i said. now i'm with you. what i said was if you were against slavery 150 years ago, you would have been against the bible, compass constitution, the law, the founders, and your preacher. that is what i said, because those forces were all in favor

of slavery. the antislavery movement was a tiny mite oriental the civil war, and then it became a mass movement. >> one quick clarification. do we need to go further in order to get more liberal rights oding these ideas more to get further along the social scale? >> i think we need to fight to human the realm of freedom. frankly i think in the 5000 year history of states, and has only been very, very recently states have done anything to extend the realm of human freedom, and they have only done it when there has been power from below. they have never done it on the road free will, never. it is always about building a different kind of world and we fight for that. no sensedebates make if you don't talk and somewhat specific terms. my argument would be that we have interpreted the establishment clause of the

first amendment about religion in some way as to make religious believers, in fact, into second-class citizens. here is what i mean. let's say tomorrow somebody were to say let's put a statue of old there next to the u.s. capitol voltaire nextf to the u.s. capitol. there would be a debate, do we admire him, it would be on the merits. knowtear yes or voltaire -- voltaire yes or no? if somebody said let's put a statue of moses on the steps of the u.s. capitol, people would say, you can't do that, it is outside the first amendment. vol s had more impact than taire, but the point is it would