tv Morning Express With Robin Meade HLN October 20, 2009 6:00am-10:00am EDT
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push back reaction. i suggest silos. it is all less judgmental. or how about specialists? or the word i dispeninsula. something i know a little bit about. you realize of course that it is not the intended recipient of these communications. right? ok. no one is calling n.s.a. i'm on the line. that the signals inherently -- with no one trying to do anything extra to them are very complex and that in order to turn them into something intelligible to the human ear requires a tremendous amount of technology, which, in fact, has to replicate the communication system of whatever it is your intended target is using. in fact, some of those are nasty enough to actually consciously choose to encrypt what it is
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they are saying. so you have god's own acre of computers through which you'll send these signals hoping they can solve an incredibly complex math problem through the end of time. . these can be solved -- can be solved, by the way. is just a question of time. when you have intercepted the communication coming into have read it and made it intelligible to the human ear and decrypt it, some guy speaking -- some guy is speaking a language you do not understand. in many conversations in many parts of the world, in one conversation they are probably speaking several languages that speaking several languages that not many americans und i can recall one -- who were working with peter singer and the group up that's in my
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seeing and the group -- the group up ads m.i.t. there were having all these discussions up there on the lawn. it was very complimentary. the guru for the group was leading us in discussion. essentially, they tried to say the business plans had to harmonize with the broader thrust of society and nature. you can only a string so far and your business plan is overwhelmed by these broader trends. when of the great natural trends -- human and natural trends -- in the modern world, do you know that we lose, we lose one native language or dialect just about every month? i had the thought -- i was director of the nsa at the time -- i had the thought ":." -- "cool."
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[laughter] these dialects are very hard. you cannot get the staff of material in those silos without letting them be -- the stack of material in those silos without letting them the specialized. the interchange, leveling, whatever, keep in mind you can only go so far. you have to respect the disciplines. you have to understand there is a reason and a really good reason why the culture of the cia is different from the culture of nsa. you cannot homogenize. you homogenize them at your peril. the great watchword in each of these disciplines -- and here is something i would like you to remember. fragility. in each one of them. they are all very sensitive. they all operate on the edge.
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they can all failed and failed catastrophically if we are not careful. what i would tell you coming out of this first roman numeral about getting it -- as good as we are about the third roman numeral, this will never look like home depot. you'll never go down there with one of those big cards and say you want a little bit of this and a little bit of that. it is just not that way. i want to talk about mining. roman numeral two. hear, when i talk about mining in it, i want to talk about information that is indeed available. information that's the creator of that information would not mind -- information that the creator of the information would not mind sharing with you at all. but the mind that uses it has existential problems. we were talking about this with charlie here because you're very
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familiar with this. there's a mountain of information inside the department of homeland security that is not intelligence but information of intelligence about you. there are impediments to other organizations in the federal government getting access to that information that no one ever intended. is just the natural state of affairs. but me give you some examples as to why this has intelligence value. keep in mind -- this is information the government already possesses. why there is difficulty in moving it left and right, why there is difficulty in sharing it. oneness' many people who control our behavior -- one is many people who control our behavior are frankly -- there are not many of these -- they are frankly luddites.
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they simply oppose the most modern tools. i have been in front of congressional committees talking about data no one would argue i have a right to possess, data which i had been working with for decades. and the basic objection i was receiving was that i was using a complex machine to do the work. nothing had changed. about the data or the process -- other than i could not do it with a computer and do it much more comprehensively, and i'm sure you all recognize this, far more accurately than i could have with the 3 x 5 cards and a pencil. that is one issue. the second is -- what is the
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21st century meaning of privacy? hear, i am not so much talking about when you think you are entitled to privacy and you pull your blackberry out and you are not offended when they send you advertisements related to the last e-mail you sent. i am talking about privacy as it is in the government context. what is it -- where is our political culture in the understanding of privacy as it pertains to the government owning data about you? this actually is a very complicated issue and one we have not debated as a people. it is one that is hanging out there. as much as we want to improve our sharing, until we get to this redefinition, this new social contract on what privacy is, we are only going to get so far in terms of data sharing.
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i of trouble thinking of this except by analogy. -- i have trouble thinking of this except by analogy. on the turnpike, i was going to watch the steelers and the browns play. that goodyear blimp it takes a picture of the field in a beam across the planet. to any of you have any objections -- do any of you have any objections that you're in that photo taken on the playing field? would you object of that picture were being taken by the national gaea's base -- geospace intelligence agency? are you offended because they have the big photo of the field, or do you only get offended when a narrow down to section 521, rose 21? which is where i was yesterday. where is the original sen in
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terms of privacy advocates -- original sin in terms of privacy advocates as regards the data? was it in the big picture with the lamp, or when it was narrowed down to a very specific photo of you and your wife at the football game? we do not know. i will tell you on a very personal basis as the director of nsa, that action puts you in very difficult positions. the broader political culture has not yet defined where the line is. is it in the raw possession of the data base? or the data? or is it in the use to which you put the data and the criteria on which you do that data usage? the third issue is that we have
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historic plea -- we still have the data. the question is, what are the impediments to sharing its? a third issue is the difference between law enforcement and intelligence. i will tell you as a career intelligence officer, i have hardly embrace -- i have heartily embraced the lower thresholds on which intelligence operates in gathering information. i have to speak of the pre- freedom of information act reform act. didn't -- getting one for intelligence purposes was different than law enforcement purposes. since there was a lot between the two, the one may or may not have been an invasion of privacy. the other one could end up an invasion of liberty.
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if the discussion is not precise enough -- and i am not a lawyer -- think of recent court decisions that talk about the president's inherent power to conduct searches without a warrant for foreign intelligence purposes. there's been upheld in two appellate court decisions in the last four years. the present has inherent authority -- not given by congress -- inherent authority to conduct searches without a warrant for foreign intelligence purposes. that is a pretty low threshold. it is a lower threshold because the courts have not helped that the president conducts -- can conduct searches without a warrant for law enforcement purposes. you have two different standards as to what you can do.
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i have two different baskets of information. you think about how you can mimic this. there were created by two different standards. can i throw information from the intelligence basket -- which was collected by the different standard -- can i go to the law enforcement guys? as an intelligence guy, i have an answer. we've talked about this a bit, and it ties in with law- enforcement and intelligence question. it is simply this -- what are the rules for using data for the purposes other than the one for which the data was originally collected? i just fell out of form back
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here during the last presentation with my social security number on it. i freely gave that form, as i do with taxes. how do you feel about sharing that data -- which the government now possesses because i just gave it to them -- sharing that data with other elements of the u.s. government? it did not used to be such a big problem, but if you think about what you have been talking about here from the time you arrived to the time you leave, that is precisely the issue. you are talking about molding this of the data can be shared from left to right. but we have not thought about the fundamental legal and ethical questions that are lurking behind the screen of what seems a fairly easy decision about the responsibility to share. we were at a conference last
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week with an industrial partner. one of the speakers was talking about the privacy question. he coined a great phrase. i wrote it down. i will share with you this evening. he talked about "the american sentiment against and invisible omniscience." "the american sentiment against and invisible on nations. -- invisible on nation's." that was roman numeral two. i will go to roman numeral 3. there are some inherent things that keep things in lanes. in mining, there are inherent things that keep things in lanes. now we get to sharing. ok? and we will talk about instances in which the data owner -- the new phrase, the
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dallas to words -- data stewards -- they are the impediments to sharing. the ones who have collected it. it is not a question of maintaining lanes in a row because -- we have got the data. now you have the data steward being reluctant to share. this is very@@#@ @ @ @ @ @ n r@d the mantra of sharing has become permanent. i can remember back iraq/wmd
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estimate. one of the issues was the opaque miss of the source data. analysts looking at information since the sources were so completely shielded from the analysts, there were instances where information seemed to be corroborative but it truly wasn't. corroborative, but it truly was not. because the original, the alternate original source turned out to be not this, but this. ok? so there is a wonderful example where the failure to share data -- my own agency, the cia -- really reluctant to share information on sources. it actually clouded the view of
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the people who were making the final call, the weapons of mass destruction. we have all heard the 9/11 story. the 9/11 commission, connecting the dots. and how we may have done better in terms of connecting the dots if we had gotten everything we knew in one place. put aside things we have known since the book about pearl harbor. . .
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>> between federal and state and local. even before 9/11, we started a policy called right to release. the normal drill was to write a report in the dam it down so you could put it at a lower classification -- dumb it down so you could put it at a lower classification. so the first report to go out was the general release report. if you think of human dynamics and human energy, that almost traps you into being more robust in that first report, because it is the first one that you have written. we have gotten better at sharing. we all recognize the need for sharing.
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but it is not an absolute. there is some information that will not be shared. al khabar is a site in the eastern and searing desert. -- the eastern syrian desert. there was a nuclear reactor there that was destroyed. the cia was given that problem. i was director at the time, so that means i had a prominent role in working as an intelligent -- intelligence problem. the guidance we got from the president, the goal we had was actually check -- capturing the coin. everyone in the american security community has a gold coins.
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the coins for la khabar had a map of syria and a star where it was spurr. and it simply said it "no core, no war." the guidance we got from the president, this reactor cannot stand. but getting to that point of not creating a general war in the middle east. no core, no war. we needed an exquisite precision on what was going on at al khabar and when it would go hot. at the same time, none of that could leak because if the syrian government were to be aware of our knowledge, if they were 28 be embarrassed by the knowledge, prematurely embarrassed by the knowledge -- if they were to be prematurely embarrassed by the knowledge, it would give it --
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it would be more likely they would do something today and we would regret. you see the challenge. this needs to be really closely held and the intelligence has to be really good. we kept that to an incredibly small circle. not everything in life is a trade-off, but keeping it secret and getting it squaws intelligence is. -- it's quiz if intelligence is. ex-- intelligence is. i hit -- the more people at nsa or cia knew about this, the better quality analysis we would get over here. that was not an absolute. and neither was this. we actually kept it very closely held. and we ended up with no core, no
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war. so there are some things out there that by their nature, either nativity of sourcing or in this case, not so much -- either sensitivity of sourcing or leaking. it cuts across the grain of what is appropriate and generalized mantra for gathering information. let me end with a few comments about sharing. i use the phrase data stored in data orders before and how they could be an impediment to sharing -- data stewards and data storage. when you get to sharing, you will probably get to a happier place if you accept the premise that sharing itself is a shared
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responsibility. that is just not the responsibility of the data steward, but the data requester or to the individual to whom the data is entitled also has responsibility in this equation. when we started this after 9/11, we got a lot of push back. we would call other organizations, not normally part of our community, and say, we need to go secure. and the response we would get on the phone, ok, wait. i am going to close the door. a true story, actually. we want to give you this information, you will have to go to skiff. how much will that cost? we want to clear some of your deputies for this data.
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could you fill out these forms? forms? i am filling the blank as to what the individual was. -- fill in the blank as to what the individual was. if you want to catch this, you have to have a catcher's dam it. -- catcher's mit. mike mcconnell shepherded through a directive called 502. to my mind, it will become one of his lasting legacies because it's set in motion a process, i think, that will get us into a far more robust sharing space. cia was at the table, and we were very serious about this, because as director i realized that that dog we used to hunt with, we would cross our hands and go, no, it was just going to
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get -- it was not. to hunt anymore in the american intelligence community. -- it was not going to hunt anymore. if nsa information weeks, you lose a frequency. the cia information leaks, you lose something other than a frequency. somebody gets dead. there is a stronger culture that it's more narrow when it comes to sharing. i realize that could not last. we used the formula that we have actually developed at an essay called swimming upstream. -- acra nsa called swimming of state -- at nsa called swing upstream. you can say swimming upstream before this demodulate it, with
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upstream to the regional conversation with this source. we saw that the way down here. you get to see the finished product pretty much. what you really want is the stuff behind the screen. you want a little more of the story line. and our phrase for that was swimming upstream. generally, the big collection agencies, remember the word fragile? a collection agency would say, and no, you see what is on screen. we will take care of what is behind it. that is an unacceptable solution in the modern age. how do you let people who have lived a life on that side of the screen through the screen and upstream as far as they can go? you need rules. you need rules. and the rules that 500 to reflect, and you will not see this explicitly stated explicitly -- 502 reflects.
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a customer can swim upstream and touched the data, as long as that customer can add value to the data at that point in the flow of the stream. that is a little confusing. [unintelligible] if the regional intercept is in a country and the customer does not speak a language, guess where he is hitting in the stream? guess where the rapids will appear to him? guess where his ship will not go much further? because he cannot add value for their up there. f urther -- further upt here. but he may be able to add value to the english transcripts. so the will be put out is we
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will let customers swim upstream as long as they are in waters in which they can add value. -- on their own. there is a corollary to that. their value-added it had to be objectively a value-added. it did not have to be equal to our value-added at that point and the water. does that make sense? i think the nsa linguist, would listen to these guys talk for the last eight years, would add more value to that. in the waterway. if the customer could at -- to that point in the waterway. the swimming upstream concept was incredibly useful. it gave you a mechanism to say yes, comma
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and if you cannot save yes, comma, then you pretty much opt far no. . opt for now. . there is one thing that swimming upstream requires. the water is more dangerous is to swim upstream. and so you have to be equal to the burdens that those fast- running waters create. in other words, the more you, upstream, the more sensitive the information is, -- the more it has to look like the protection given to it by the original data steeward. you will actually know the name of the source. you will have to protect the name of the source and everyone involved in this is going to have to believe you can protect the name of the source as well as the agency that is protecting
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the name of the source forever. that means the network you use to access that particular data point may not be the one that is plugged in play with the rest of the community. it may have to look more like a network of the original data stored. -- data steward. the one issue on which this really turned, and remember i aá what i just said in the last 10 minutes i think is an adult conversation about sharing.
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because everybody in the conversation has serious responsibilities they have to think about. i think it cuts beyond his bed and i could. this is inherently difficult if we are going to get into a more prosperous sharing space, everybody will have to put their shoulder to a very difficult burden. well, getting it is hard, it's a fragile. secondly, when it comes to money, there are broader issues in our political culture that have not yet been resolved. as hard as we were pressuring, until those a result, those will be impediments to moving information around the way we think it should be moved around. we think it should be. and finally, it is truly a shared responsibility.
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and the more you are willing to work at it, even when you are the catcher rather than the tour, the more you will make the game of toss productive and frequent -- more frequent. and with that, i will be happy to take any questions you might have. [applause] >> i think that might have been the most cheerfully delivered depressing talk i have heard in several years. thank you. before i open up to the broader audience, let me ask you a prior question when it comes to data. as you know better than anyone, the intelligence community every year is asked to do more and more in terms of collection. with each new administration, there are new priorities but the old ones do not go away. can you give me a list that you think we can live with less collection on?
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>> i have seen this movie. as director of t. rowe -- two agencies, i have gone in and said, let me tell you what we will cut back on. i just lose. there is an insatiable appetite out there. you have to enter into a -- -- with policymakers you have to remind them, i cannot do it all. what you get down to is to inform them on what you will light not on, and it -- lighten up on. seriously. there is no one out there who thinks anything we are doing right now is not really important. i was heartened, the new pddni, david was in front of the -- for a confirmation hearing, and
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quite strikingly his purpose -- his remarks were identical to the priorities that we had over the last eight years, in the last administration. and that was not a given, because when dennis gave his first world wide threat testimony, i think he caught a lot of the community a bit off- stride because the year -- he put the economic crisis up there is the preeminent threat right now and how that will play out. david reverted to the traditional bracken and stacking. and braque -- and bracking and stacking. and that is how he laid them out. those have been the touchdowns for the american intelligence community. -- touchdowns for the american intelligence community. that rest of the world bank. thing has got to beat -- ought
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to be a part of your community and to have to keep enough people out of the 24-hour news cycle to get enough warning to policy makers and say, this is coming down over here. that is hard to do. as a community, we have got to down fairly well. i cannot give many details in this venue. the fighting 15 months ago in georgia was not a surprise to the american intelligence community. i think we were very much on top of that. tactical warning that it would start on that thursday night in august? no. in terms of all the pieces being in place, we had it and did a fair job of letting policy- makers know. if that does not answer your question, i apologize. like many things in intelligence, not a problem to be solved. this is a condition that you manage day-by-day. >> open up to questions and
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please remember to go to a microphone and identify yourself. >> given the recent advance -- >> can you identify yourself? >> given the recent advance in new york with the zazzi case, what your thoughts on creating mi-5 domestic intelligence capability? >> that is a very difficult question. it comes down to some basic questions i tried to lay out and roman numeral two, in the mining thing/ >> i think all must know that the national security is a work in progress. it is not as good as we want or what hope to be. i think a fair question that some critics ask and it is a fair question, and i am not in a position to give a definite
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answer, a fair question is -- can you create a domestic intelligence service inside and organization that is fundamentally your federal police force? it is that a possible act? it is not an approach that some of our democratic allies have attempted. mi-5 has not, canada has not. australia has not. there are separate organizations. one has to address the possibility that, given how are equally democratic states have decided to do this, that this alternative approach remains out there is an option for us. i think the jury is still out as to how much the bureau can develop and nurture this domestic intelligence service inside a broader culture. we will have to see.
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>> may be the post-lunch. is there another question? >> general michael hayden, thank you for your thoughts and the perspective was very helpful. i am struck by either the beginning of it in terms of your quarry -- you are worried about whether is silos or your general support for the concepts of, in the sense, we need specialists. what is missing, seems to me, is the holistic approach. if everybody, for the purposes of the human body, if that cardiologists comes in and says, i have done my job. or the podiatrist or whomever
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and that is all the focus on, then you're missing the call lasted callthe holi -- the holistic effort. where does the holistic approach eventually come out, where all of this sharing of information comes in? where individuals come in and assess it and all that it. -- audit it. how do we get to the concept of the whole when you talk about silos? >> that is a great question. let me address that on two levels. the first part will be brief, the second part of bit longer. the first thing we do is to create as much connective tissue as you can between the parts. so icd 502, for example, creates
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that connective tissue. i believe that over time that develops. we americans are criticized for not being thinkers in time, historic thinkers, but we are good workers. we are very practical people. you put americans in an environment, and they will develop connective tissue. that creates that type of connective tissue over time. second, badly mixing metaphors from the medical profession to the musical profession, where is the conductor? who is the one who says, more wins, a little as percussion. -- a little less percussion. the way i described the reorganization of the intelligence community in 2004 and 2005, i was the first principal deputies so all lot of this has my fingerprints on it, is that it was an attempt by the american body politic to read
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calibrates a dynamic that is present in all complex organizations. and that dynamic is simply this -- a trade-off between autonomy and unity of effort for the whole. that is the deal. and that is what we tried to restructure the american intelligence community, to give it the clearly intended consequence was more unity of effort is what folks were after, back to your medical metaphor. who is putting all these parts together? that, too, is a work in progress. to give you a quick report card, i think we underestimated how much unity of effort the old dci position created. number one, if you ever met george tenet, who was the last dci. the legislation was already building and everyone knew where
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this was going. when you look at his personality and his relationship to the president, george as head of the central intelligence agency -- and that first word still means a lot. george had a fair amount of throw weight. he could create centripetal forces inside the american intelligence community. now you create a dni who does not enjoy any of those informal or positional advantages. he does not run cia. how then does he create the centripetal forces? because as you correctly suggest, the centripetal forces would become even stronger. frankly, i would offer you the view that right now be dni probably has less control over the major elements of the
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intelligence community than the last dci did. that is not so bad that i am suggesting that we we do this. -- redo this. what happens when you reorganize? there is a certain bathtub in capacity, even the capacity for which you reorganize. now you're trying to seize the -- you are starting to see because dni reorganize. the whole fight over dni representatives in world capitals is representative of the urge for more unity of effort. it remains to be seen, in my mind, where the dni kind of detached from any organization can recreate that kind of stick and water control that the -- rudder control that the dic was
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able to because he ran an organization that was at the center of the american intelligence community. >> georgetown university. i just warn you, general, that on november 29, your team will need a very important team, my ravens. [laughter] >> bed ate -- and a bad couple of weeks? >> you are watching the pittsburgh game. i was watching the ratings game. they were fantastic in that last half -- i was watching the ravens game. >> we both agree that we are not a redskins fan at the moment. >> i would not come close to being a redskins fan. at the beginning of the conversation, at the beginning of your talk, you talked about the need for a conversation about the meaning of privacy in the 21st century, and this is
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terribly important because i think there is a generational issues involved in that -- the younger generation has a different view than my generation does i think there are also issues that have become politicized in the present american community. and i wonder how you believe this conversation can get started. do you see any impetus for that amongst the academic community, the political community, the business community, all of which are directly involved? >> another great question. off the top of my head,@@@@@ @ our political process is so hyper charged i think it will.
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very long time before we have the kinds of discussions that we need. michael o'connell labored night and day to get the place at dawn. -- to get the fisa act done. academic community to actually take these on. to kind of shepard from the super-heated air at the other end of the mall and begin to explore what we really mean by privacy in this kind of iraq. the one that comes to mind -- and this kind of era. the one that comes to mind is the availability of data. at which point of view across the privacy threshold? you have access to the date on or that to access it? do you understand the difference? the data is available, or when
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you actually access it? i would tell you as director of tennessee, i have to be spare with my words, -- as director of nsa, i was far more concerned about why i would excess debt at on term what purposes and for the reasons that i did that, rather than some abstract discussion as to what was or was not theoretically available to me. i fully recognize there are other good americans to say, and no, this part is really important and we really need to have a conversation about that. if we draw the lines over here, however, about availability. many of the things you are suggesting in your conversation before lunch become much more difficult, because there are higher walls now placed around this information, whether it is in the private or public sectors or one part of the government or another part needs it.
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that sort of thing. we just do not have a clear understanding. there are differences between north america and europe. anybody been to london lately? look around? smile? you are on camera. very difficult for the american political culture to accept that. i was talking to a friend, and said what you think about a universal identification card? it has more on that than any universal identification card -- it has a chip in the back. i do not think i civil liberties are being infringed by my cheering at card around, and that is at -- almost a third real discussion inside the american political culture. -- a third rail discussion. we need to be able to find the opportunity to talk about this. is that institutions like georgetown or george mason or
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duquesne they can put the ball in motion. it is difficult to tee it up in a strictly political context. >> the los angeles police department. with regard to domestic intelligence and threats to the homeland, whether they be in sight threats or outside threats or insight threats with transnational reach, -- inside threats, who do you view are the collectors, where are the collection platforms, and you as that vital link from state and locals to the oc-- ic, so the ic has the benefit of seeing emerging trends and patterns? >> hard question to answer because in order to get the information you described you need a lot of players and the need to be well-synchronize.
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i have nothing of the government nature about the zazi case. based upon what i read, there is tremendous richness in regard to domestically developed information. back to al qaeda -- only when all those things are brought together to you have a real sense of the dimension of it. at cia, as director, i was also the national humint manager so that anyone doing human intelligence was under my broad direction. so that included cea. -- dea. it included fbi's national security branch. i am reflecting the de gunheim's overall security -- the dni's overall security.
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common source registry, c ommon source information. there is a legitimate collection intelligence for the bureau inside the united states against these kinds of threats. but back to a point i made earlier about political culture in which we operate, that was directed in the 2004 intelligence reform act. it was not until the last hours of the bush administration, november, 2008, in which the attorney general finally approved the new guidelines for fbi collection inside the infant -- the united states. my catholic liberal arts lehman few of its spaces between cases -- layman view of it spaces between cases. you work the spaces between cases. guess what happened on capitol hill?
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doing that which congress suggested creates a fairly significant firestorm about civil liberties and unleashing a police state-like activity on the american people. those are the kinds of things that we have to work our way through in terms of our political culture. it is a longer answer than you bargained down. and i say it -- at nsa, we did the terrorist surveillance program. i was comfortable doing it, because i did my role. is this technologically possible? yes. if you do it, do good things happen? yes. is it awful? yes. by the time i became director of cia, i kept those and i added a fourth. i had learned that in addition to technologically feasible, operationally feasible and lawful, and had to be politically sustainable.
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that it could not -- even if lawful, even if effective, it could not continue with an on- off switch that got turned every 24 months based upon the congressional elections. and i think that is where we are now. i think the national debate has moved beyond lawful, certainly on the nsa program. almost all, in many cases more, that i was authorized to do under the president's authorization. we are still in this politically sustainable that has to do with the political culture. and that is where the sparks are flying out. one last question. who should be talking to these guys? and frankly, i was cowardly on that question. i would watch the bureau and the department of homeland security fight that out. it is like, he says it is less filling. he says, it -- it tastes great. i do not know enough as to where
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the linkages should be. should it be to the bureau or the department of homeland security? i just do not know which way it would work best. but i think you ought to get a vote. thank you. >> general, thank you for being here today. u.s. intelligence where we do not have stovepipes. we have a number of cylinders of excellence. >> i like that. >> we have talked a lot today about the difficulties with clearances and sharing across not only the federal environment but down to the state and local level. there is another court we have not talked about. i am not clear about your answer as to whether you think and mi-5 is a good idea or not. if it is, what is the proper mechanism to get not only to the
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state and locals but to the private sector? that 80% of what we are trying to protect its own and operate -- operated by the private sector. >> going back to the mi-5 question, i really do not know. both pads are difficult. scientifically, separate from culture and history, mi-5 bypasses issues. it is cleaner. when you apply that with an american culture, you run into different things. [unintelligible] the other one was private sector. again, i have to be careful with how i choose my words here. but the private sector is very, very important for us. what we used at the last agency week -- i was at was cooperative
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and disease. -- corporate entities. -- coooperative entities. we would be fools not to try to leverage what the american culture gives us. here is the advertisements imbedded in my answer. when people cooperate with us, they have to be protected. we have to show incredible discretion in our discussions with cooperating domestic entities. i can say this publicly. they do things out of patriotism that i would be embarrassed to ask them to do out of duty. that is how good they are. we ask only one thing -- they ask only one thing, we keep our mouths shut. i think we have let them down. -- in some instances. we need to have a process in
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which, even controversial activities taken by american security activities do not drag private entities who are doing things out of patriotism and duty into that public discussion in a way that is harmful to them. that is one of the few things i will say this afternoon that i think is an absolute. that cannot be allowed to happen. you are suggesting 80% -- that is the internet thing. separate discussion beyond the sharing question, but ultimately the fundamental question when it comes to that cold cyber-thing. -- that whole cyber-thing. all that is beyond your control and most of which is beyond your view. how'd you go about doing it? it comes back to the question of what constitutes privacy in the
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21st century. if you look upon the cyber- stool, there are three legs coming down. one is cost -- called ease of use, what is called security and one is called privacy. security is it will be there in the morning. and privacy will be seen only by people i choose to let it be known to. we need to balance those three legs in our international cyber debate. this is one in which the [unintelligible] the views are so strong it is impossible to begin the discussion. >> i believe that is a suitably depressing and -- end to the -- >> wait. >> before we -- please join me in thanking general michael hayden.
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>> your calls and today's headlines are next on." guest:"washington journal." the house is in session for general session at 10:00. and more about u.s. policy towards sudan with the deputy envoy to separate in one hour, lisa curtis from the heritage foundation focuses on afghanistan and pakistan. we'll be joined by the co-author of several books on the end of life care. and at 9:15 eastern, gail
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our question for the half-hour is on financial news. the column in "the new york times" is quite angry at the state of the economy with the firms that received a bailout. he asked a question and says the -- i am amazed how pass of the population has remained in the face of this sustained outrage -- how passive the population has remained. do you feel outrage over the economy or are you agreeing with him? our phone lines -- your reaction to bob herbert's column called "safety net for the rich." as we began, i want to read a little bit more from his column to give you a flavor of what he
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is angry about and talk to you about whether you share that or if you believe we are in a corrective course and things are getting better. he writes today -- we still don't seem to haveearn that the proper lessons. we allowed so made -- so many people to fall into the terrible abyss of unemployment that no one -- not the obama administration, not the labor unions and those certainly no one in the republican party -- has a clue about how to put them back to work. meanwhile, wall street is living up. i'm amazed at how pass of the population has remained. even as tens of millions of working americans are struggling to hang on to their jobs and keep a roof over their families heads, the wise guys of wall street are licking their fat cat chopped over yet another round of obscene bonuses. this time things of the bailout billions sent by an uncle sam with very little strings attached. never mind the economy remains deeply troubled.
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as the times pointed out on sunday, much of wall street is minting money. we will get your reaction in a couple of minutes. it is decision day for hundred karzai. tom labianco from "the washington times close what is what us. we learned about the outcome of the election and karzai is determined to have less than 50% of the vote which means he estimated decision today. what is the decision before him? thank you for having me on. it appears karzai will be accepted either a run off for a power-sharing agreement with the foreign minister abdullah of dole appeared -- abdullah bulova. host: what are the consequences of the election? when you read the news reports
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-- the climate becomes impossible for some of the villages very quickly, and so the possibilities of holding a runoff election are what? guest: it is a good question in terms of voter turnout. it reflects some of the original questions regarding voter turnout when we first had this to months ago. the question is, will this work to the benefit of a bill o the -- abdullah abullah. in a way it is hard to translate this. it is not unlike a special luncheon here to fill a congressional vacancy. very low numbers, and it becomes --
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host: he and his advisers are thinking strategically. guest: what is interesting is how quickly this seemed to let moved over the last few days. we had john kerry acting as the senate foreign relations committee chairman in afghanistan, meeting extensively with the president there. really advocating for the runoff. because it has clear consequences, hear what president obama does and terms of general mcchrystal's recommendations, which has been hanging over his head for quite a few weeks. host: one article i was reading suggested that that has been leveraged and trying to push president karzai toward a decision to accept results, and that looming decision.
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guest:, the senator, when he was on the sunday talk show making the rounds and giving interviews from afghanistan, he was certainly pushing this. and it seems to have worked in part because coming from the weekend where it was unclear what president karzai was going to do, " 72 hours or 42 hours later, now it seems that he is ready to either accept that run off or some form of power- sharing. host: have you read anything from your reporters on the scene that have helped you understand that you can translate for our viewers about possible power- sharing? guest: hard to say right now in terms of power sharing arrangements. although it sounds like any sort of arrangement would be temporary until conditions to --
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do improve to hold a runoff that would allow for more voters, more people to show up at the polls. host: their constitution allows for it? guest: that is my understanding. host: we will not know until the statement from president karzai but use set the stage for us. thank you. tom lobianco who writes for "the washington times." later on in our program we will have lisa curtis, south asia research fellow at the heritage foundation to talk about afghanistan and pakistan. we may know the decision at that point and we may also be able to back in the troop decision. let us get your reactions to bob herbert's, appeared before we get to it, another story.
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at the rescue banks, perks keep rolling. ceo's benefit after bailout. even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending to save many of them, companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives. the firms, accounting for more than $350 -- three and injured and $50 billion in federal bailout funds increased these perks i never to 4% on average last year. some chief executives like ken lewis and jeffrey peek from cip group each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets. others saw an increase in the value of chauffeur services, parking or personal security. the chief executive of the dallas-based lender comerica was compensated for a new country
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club membership with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. gmac financial services chief executive benefit from a 2.5 on the payment of this company to help with a personal tax bill. bob herbert's,. he is out of rage. wondering why we see a public that is passive about this. sheila on our democrats line. caller: thank you for c-span. you are such a good moderator. i really appreciate. we are starting out there basically. i lost a lot of money this past year. now you've got all of these hot shots making all of this money. the dow is over 10,000.
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because the dollar is going down, now gas prices are going up. we can't deal with this anymore. host: what are you doing about it? are you calling a member of congress? caller: i yes, ma'am. actually i called not only my own representative here in georgia, but i call all of them. host: what is your message to them? my message is, i'm sure president obama is doing a lot of things behind the scenes we don't have a clue about. they're all doing things behind the scenes we don't have a clue about. but he said he was going to tell
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us what was going on all of this time. i don't see that happening. they've got to quit all of the secret things they are doing behind closed doors and tell us -- because we are so frustrated out here. i voted for president obama and as a person i truly love him, however, if we don't get to the public option, if they don't change things on wall street away he said he was going to, then the bumper sticker i have on my car, i'm scraping off. host: thank you for calling in. joe on the republican line. watching up -- watching us in wyoming. good morning. caller: i would not say i'm outraged. i'm very concerned about what the current administration is the wintu our dollar.
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continual bailouts that started under bush and the continued at the administrative level now, it would appear to me that the bailout are intended debase the dollar, and that could lead to bankruptcy. yes, i am concerned. i also have a question. i am wondering with the current decision by whether those who makes those decisions that said the seniors will not get there: this year, who could tell me whether or not -- not getting the cola this year, who will tell me whether the senators and representatives get there is, or do they get there despite the recession? host: it is a question we ask ourselves this what -- as well our washington journal producers are listening and i promise you we will get an answer. last week we had a caller is asking the same question. next up is mount olive, n.c..
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george on the independent line. caller: i agree with the caller. i think we have become a country of pansies. we are more french than what the republicans accused the french are being geared we don't stand up for ourselves. host: let me ask a question. how do you want to express your feelings? caller: i want congress to listen to us, to live more like we live. on the today show a couple weeks ago they told us they had a thing where reporters find out that congress has a clinic down on the lower floors. and they would not even allow the reporters to walk in the door to look inside. not one congressperson with talk about it. they said we cannot talk about that, we would get in trouble. if the people knew we had this, they would be outraged. it is a clinic that is so well
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step that they appeared to be operations. they can't do open-heart surgery but they can do operations. if a congressman needs a specialist, they don't have to make an appointment and then go to the specialist office, they have the specialists brought in to them. congress is giving too much to themselves. they need to live more like we live. i would like to know whether they are getting a raise. i am stand most people are not going to get a raise in the social security but there medicaid -- medicare will go up the sea. host: we had our last caller asked that. we are on the case. from "usa today," it deflationary fears persist commit upturn. -- amidst upturn. the housing market is turning up. the dow jones broke 10,000. recently the slowly bubbling economy has even prompted some fed members to argue to raise interest rates sooner than later to head off inflation. but a small cadre of economists
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remain worried about a more insidious threat, deflationary. concerns about to fall in prices were higher last year but recently faded as consumer spending stabilized and many economists say the recovery has likely started. but not so fast s. columbia university's sotiglitz believes an extended bout of deflation is not only possible but likely. i think we are on the verge of persistent deflation. he says salaries are more relevant. since hitting a recent peak into thousand eight real average weekly earnings have fallen by 1.9%, the bureau of labor statistics says. below that -- pressure piles up on small banks. fdic chairman says they can't compete with bail out giants. community banks are coming under intense pressure from a crumbling commercial real-estate market, the weak economy, lopsided competitiveness nest
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with banking goliaths of being too big to fail, fdic chairman said monday. as the fdic insurance corporation braces for the 100th of bank failure this year, the most since 1992, bair warned small community banks are struggling to put -- compete against behemoth's like citigroup and bankamerica -- the reason, last year's $700 billion bank bailout prove that the federal government will do whatever it takes to keep the biggest banks are going under. jack is calling us on our democrats line. caller: thank you for c-span, as usual. wall street may be greedy but it is our elected officials who protract -- betrayed us and take campaign contributions. let me get this straight, the american taxpayer bailout of banks. banks use the taxpayer money to lobby the taxpayers elected representatives. and then lobbying against
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taxpayer interest, they lobby against financial regulation that may prevent the future economic meltdown like we just went through. so the bank and finance companies use taxpayer money to buy lobbyists, hire lawyers, they use taxpayer money to make campaign contributions, to buy off congressional elected officials. it is a form of bribery and they make decisions against the interest of the american taxpayer. it is outrageous. herbert on the economy is absolutely correct. we should all be out of rage and as far as elected officials, who take the campaign contributions -- i know what street is great but they are culpable, but the elected officials take the
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contributions and represent the interests of the big corporations, the financial corp., the medical corp. and all the rest of it. i am outraged. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- -- caller: good morning. i agree with one of the callers in the early republican column. what has personally driven me to act is the destruction of our currency, as a result of extended monetary policy that has completely devalued our wealth in this nation. i feel like that is the root of almost all of the problems we are seeing today. and even at the roots of what has led to the wars and the social programs breaking down.
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host: of revenue to act in what way? caller: last year during the elections, i felt like during a young -- as a young man, i felt as if i was given an opportunity to make a big choice and so i felt i needed to educate myself. and now that the election is over, i continue to educate myself and i'm looking for specific intelligence solutions because i don't think anyone else -- our elected officials have completely dropped the ball. and i feel like we need to present our own candidates who will represent us in a responsible way. and we also need to be able to hold accountable the representatives that are already elected. i feel like i am in the process of doing that and i hope others are, too.
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host: the president is traveling to new york tonight for a democratic party fund-raiser. " the new york times" has a story, financial giants donating little to obama party. here is what is reported. mr. obama will fly to new york on tuesday for a lavish democratic party fund-raising dinner at the mandarin hotel for about 200 big donors, each donor is paying the legal maximum of $30,400 and is about to take a date. party organizers say they expect about a third of the attendees will come from the industry. but the financial giants like goldman sachs, -- more than chase and citigroup that received federal bailout money, and as bankers raised millions of dollars for mr. obama's election, only an estimate its total contribution of 91,200.
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several democratic fund-raisers say it is fear of getting caught in the public rage that wall street titans may use their winnings to give back to washington in return. and the timing of the event, as in the industry lobbies against proposals for title regulations. i will read more from that later. next is a call from louisville, ky. nelson on the independent line. are you there? speak up, please. caller: i am here. i just wanted to say that we are getting -- like we are getting screwed over -- you can't afford insurance. other people getting all of this big money, they are the ones getting everything and then we are expected to be against what
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is good for us. why aren't we more upset at the fact that we are not getting anything out of this whole deal. go ahead and meet the insurance rate. host: next is bruce, democrat, not smell, tennessee. caller: hello. how are you? my first time calling. host: welcome to the conversation. what would you like to say? all because something about the economy and outrage, the public is passive. i think the public knows or feels they know what is going on. they are just too busy, times are hard right now, to really worry about that. we have to trust in some of our government. now the party of no or the republicans need to be rounded up and shipped to guantanamo, let us keep the place open. host: more quotes about the fund
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raiser in new york, $30,000 a participant, 30,400, the legal maximum. here is a quote from a partner and an investment firm who is a democratic fund-raiser and one of the chairman. there is some taylor and the financial industry to appreciate the level of public antagonism toward whatever wall street symbolizes but an order to save the company up -- capital system the administration has to be responsive to the public mood and that is a new ones which can get lost on wall street. this from daniel fass, another chairman, live surrounded by financiers in connecticut. he said the investment community feels very put upon. they feel there is no reason why the show earned $1 million to $200 million a year and they don't want to be held responsible for the global financial meltdown. how much that will be reflected in support for the president remains to be seen. next call, monroe, louisiana. todd on the republican line. auditcaller: i think the
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frustrating thing for the american people is these are lawmakers, and a branch of government is also the law enforcers so the american people feel helpless. if you vote them out all you are doing is bringing them up from your counties and from your local districts and those are the same crooks you are sending up to washington, so these are lawmakers and they make the laws and we have no power except to get rid of them and they are ultimately replaced by another corke behind them. -- replaced by another crook behind them. it is a fraternity that meshes democrats and republicans to gather and you see the deals are basically the same from administration to administration. host: susie from illinois. audit of good morning. -- caller: good morning. thank you for c-span. yes, i am outraged about this
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economy because it is going down. we are going bankrupt and they are still bailing out the big people. what about the little people? the retired people. talking about the health care bill. $1.20 trillion, we are already in debt. these people are blind and it think this is not going to be freed. it is not free. nothing is free. nothing that this congress gives out is free. it is all about them. they are keeping their money. they are holding hours back. i worked all of my knife, i worked since i was 16 years old -- all of my life, i worked since i was 16 years old and is congressman vote themselves a raise. how does it into effect? it should be the people who elected them to vote if they are good enough to get a raise. host: "the new york times" is trimming 100 jobs. buyouts are offered that layoffs will follow if to prove sign up.
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a twitter -- the next call is from houston, this is carry on the democrats' line. caller: i would like to find out if c-span is going to do any program on campaign finance reform. host: we have done lots. what aspect would you like us to explore? caller: it seems that there is a dark of a real information that people can actually responded to because of the way the news organizations have been structured, and i just wondered if c-span could champion the cause of campaign finance reform in the light of that. host: @ thank you for the request. our producer always listens to
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your calls so i appreciate you asking. from the internet, more detail about congressional salaries. this is from a website that hasn't history of annual salaries. congress is required by article 1, section 6, of the constitution to determine its own pay. that is and response to the caller is of the public should determine. pay adjustments can be enacted through stand-alone legislation or through a commission process, but most commonly member's salary increases are implemented through an automatic annual -- and which members receive increases. the salary increase takes effect january 1 of each year unless congress votes to decline it, though individual members and opts to decline an automatic annual pay increase. by law, members may not receive an increase greater than the increase in the base pay of gss employees -- those are federal service employees. we will find out more about the process this year.
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let us go back to calls, a response to bob herbert's,. bob bid -- bill, republican line. caller: i have concerns, too, like the previous callers. congress is definitely i think out for themselves. for the health care plan, they're not telling us what kind of plan they are going to get. i am sure it is a lot better than what we are going to be getting in terms of options. they don't want to fix social security because they get a separate pension plan that they will reap from. that is my concern is congress is out for themselves and not really for the people. not giving us the same options or similar retirement plans. host: next is will. joining us from myo, michigan. host: congress and wall street are the exact same thing.
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executives on wall street take big bonuses and i am surprised the shareholders of these countries -- companies are not out rates because of is their money, they are investing in these companies, and they should be reaping the benefits and not the executives. where the government is concerned, the american people are the stockholders. and the congressmen and senators and all of the government officials are taking pay raises that they don't deserve. now, if you read the defense spending bill, the military is going to get to a 0.4% increase in the money to the troops, which a that is a good thing, but you will find the government will probably turn around and say 3.4% for the military is what the cost of living should be increased and they will take their own pay raises. we as american people are the stockholders of this country and we should be outraged each and every time one of our government
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officials say, well, we need a pay raise. what have they done to deserve a pay raise? nothing. they don't listen to us. you say the american people are passive. we are not passive. have you tried to call your own congressman or senator or even a state or local representative? they hang up. they don't want to listen. they've got their own agenda and we are not part of it. host: i want to clarify, it is not i saying they are passive, i am reading bob herbert's column and getting reaction. let me show you one story in the big story and the washington post. bank of america deal had white house support. economic advisers of president obama signed off on a deal to protect bank of america from losses incurred by its purchase of failed wall street firm merrill lynch month before the new administration took office, according to bank of america documents. the documents describing a ton of discussions at the bank in late 2008 s third executives were told that the incoming national economic council director lawrence summers and incoming tourism secretary
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timothy geithner endorse the deal to provide the guarantees the bank of america. the acquisition has been the source of protracted debate since early this year when questions arose whether federal officials asserted an inappropriate amount of pressure to complete the deal. the issue has been the subject of investigation by the house oversight and government reform committee, as ec and the new york state attorney general. >> telephone call is from utica, mich. beard marilyn on the democrat's lead. -- the next phone call is from utica, mich.. marilyn on the democrats line. caller: i just wanted to say that i believe a lot of this has to do with -- i think it all started with the trade. it is like you go to buy something now, like i'd buy peaches, and i don't know where they come from but they are rotten the next day. i heard something yesterday on
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one of the radio programs but i listened to, and i didn't catch it in time to write the gentleman's name down, but there is something on front line tomorrow at 9:00 p.m. on pbs, and it is called a warning. what ever the gentleman is, there is some kind of mark to the 25th, 26, the 27. i am not really sure about it but it really caught my ear. he is supposedly a very reputable person. i just wondered -- i'm going to watch it and i told everybody else that it is called the warning. host: @ thank you for your call. but a very short amount of time. we have a crack research assistant this morning co- founded that earlier this year an article in the arizona daily star dating to march, congress skips denver 2010 pay raise. lawmakers on tuesday -- back in march -- denied themselves a pay
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raise next january but with an eye toward a better economic and political climate, decided to retain their automatic cost-of- living raises for future years. a blur of last procedural maneuvering -- remember, this is march -- holds of annual pay at $174,000 until 2011. early in the day on a 52-45 vote senators rejected a more politically painful proposal that would force lawmakers to stand up and be counted when they wanted to boost their salaries. no senator-bearer to dump on that idea publicly, but the economy tanking. senate majority leader harry reid said he supports the premise behind senator david better posit proposal to do away with automatic increases but the amendment would of killed and the underlying omnibus spending. the automatic pay raises were expected to resume in 2011 unless the house and senate banned them before them. that is the answer. it was scheduled for january, it is a cola process and the house
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early this year and marks but it to skip 2010. yet the piece of information. the last call is from new jersey. this is albert. caller: good morning. i would like to conclude this very interesting happened hour with the fact that the new team has to stop in this country. and the justice the park -- looting has to stop in this country. the justice department and fbi has to get people who are committing crimes against the american public. every single loan should be audited. millions of fraudulent loans. any person signing them have to go to jail. if this doesn't happen, then nothing will happen. this would undo the big banks. this process would undo the big banks -- j.p. morgan would be shut down, probably bankamerica should be shut down, citigroup
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should be shut down, all of the issue were is a fraudulent things have to go. without this the country will not able to rectify itself. everything that was said was correct but, but the legal system has to step in. there is evidence this was committed. there is documented paperwork. you can go out and find millions of loans which were issued in a fraudulent manner. and the people who are responsible, this is the banking sector. this has to be put under indictment. host: thank you so much. republican line, new jersey. we will switch to foreign policy for the next several segments. it is time for us to learn more about what the administration announced yesterday from the state department about a change in policy toward sudan. a short piece of video with
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secretary of state hillary clinton and a special envoy for sudan, and then we would talk live from the state department with the deputy said an envoy, tim shortley. >> we have a very clear measure of whether or not the changes we are pursuing are being implemented, and that is weather conditions on the ground are changing and improving. we have a menu of incentives and disincentives, political and economic, that we will be looking to, to either further progress or to create a clear message that the progress we expect is not occurring. but we want to be someone careful and putting those out. they are part of a classified ad next to our strategy that we are
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announcing the outline of today. but suffice it to say -- and let me _, that both -- let me underscore, that both incentives and disincentives are what we intend to employ going forward. >> we are acutely aware of the urgency of our task and the shortness of our time line. we have only six months until the national elections take place. the referendum on self- determination is only 15 months away. success requires frank dialogue with all parties in sudan, with regional states and international communities. we all must work together to get tangible results on the ground, to achieve a lasting peace, a better life for future generations of sudanese, and we must not stop until our task is complete. the tragedies are -- of, past and present, threat of no
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violence in south and north, call for immediate action. host: this is tim shortley, joining us live from the state department. he is the deputy sudan envoy. it i want to share two headlines. white house news gadahn strategy fits envoy pragmatic style. it is from " the washington post" -- north-south conflict to the emphasis. in a nutshell, can you tell us how what the state department proposed yesterday differs from past policy in sudan? guest: the first thing is this administration is looking at both the crisis and are for -- darfur and a comprehensive peace agreement simultaneously. focused on both and the strategy is a comprehensive, meaning it is focusing on all of sudan and the region. host: for americans watching this -- and you probably heard some of the last conversation
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about people's concerns about the u.s. economy and how much things are hurting at home -- why does the u.s. have an interest in sudan? how does it benefit the american public? guest: of the interest in sudan is quite long in its history, where we focus on the people in south saddam who have been persecuted by war for more than 20 years in a humanitarian crisis that evolved from that as well as the people in darfur who suffered from conflict in the last six years and the regional publications that it creates, because of the humanitarian crisis. thirdly, because of the interest and counter terrorism and the past links of sedan with terrorism. host: for our audience, we would very much like you to ask questions or comments. i hope and abuse of the announcements as we dared them yesterday and reading stories about the than policy in newspapers and on line.
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can you talk about the administration of the president there, and how the u.s. feels about its ability to work with him? guest: of the u.s. has been working with saddam for many years, for decades, in fact, to try to ensure -- working with sudan for many years, for decades, in fact to try to end conflict and the successful comprehensive peace agreement in january 2005 concluded a 22- year war because of an engagement with the government and what pressures and incentives. that is the same approach we are rolling out now, to get a comprehensive peace agreement in dar ffur and implement the final
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years of the peace agreement. host: can you tell me how many times you have been there and some of your observations? guest: i've been focused on sudan since 2005 and i have been there more than a dozen times or so. observations now is that the conflict has evolved since it began in 2002 and into thousand three, and we are trying to consolidate the gains on the grounds. in terms of north-south we are in the final year and a half or two years of the interim period ending in elections next year in april of 2010, referendum in january 2011, and finally either the unity of the state of sudan between north and south or secession of no country in southern sudan in mid july of 2011. host: of this referendum, how
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was it decided this would be a resolution between the tensions between the north and south? guest: the ideas they would work for unity during the interim period and the people of southern sudan would have a choice, a right to secede, if they sold shoes, and it would be done in a referendum in january 2011. -- if they so choose, and it would be done in a referendum january 11. host: let me tell you a little bit about our guests -- his bachelor's degree is from xavier university and a degree from the college of naval command and staff at the naval war college and previously served as national security council staff at the white house as director of african affairs for the sedan and east africa and also served with usaid, a humanitarian relief, conflict response and development toward rwanda and ethiopia and what the u.n. world
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food programs, specializing in resource mobilization for refugees and displaced persons. how did you get interested in this line of work? guest: most is happenstance. my brother and i went to run back in 1990 and ended up working for the u.n. at that time. it was not a chosen career but it became one after began working for the u.n.. host: beginning with so fall, south dakota. -- sue falls, south dakota. caller: i am actually a part of the lost boys that came to the united states in 2000. i was actually born in a refugee camp. my question to tin today is, the jigtim today, i have seen a lot
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going on with the policy toward sudan, which made me happy here in the united states. i actually lived in south dakota. people are still suffering right now in sudan, and we believe that the government's and its allies like the militia is still going on. they are supplying weapons. the security is not stable. especially, and my belief, people are still dying right now. we have seen a lot going on in darfur, and my concern in the united states, the stability still a problem. host: before he answers, two questions for you -- for people not familiar with the story of
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the lost boys, can you recommend one of the best books ever read on the lost boys? caller: sure. host: is there a book he would recommend? caller: sure. host: how you stay in touch with people back at home? caller: we contact people through -- i call my mom, they had a telephone you could use, not an official card that you can use here in the united states. the second thing about the lost boys, people don't know the history. i am actually attending a
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school, i give a lot of speeches in churches when i go to church on sunday. some people they buy a book online and the internet. we were actually born in the wartime, so some of us, they don't know their exact birth date. we have a lot of trouble now with homeland security because of our age -- we are not actually sure. people in the united states, we don't have that. host: i was a dealer for calling in ensuring a bit of your story. he is concerned about stabilization and security.
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guest: of the caller makes a good point is that the people in southern for sudan are working very hard to get the benefits of the peace agreement and get the peace dividend, as they call it, which is really all about social services, government assistance, freedom to actually lived their lives and to be prosperous. that effort and struggle continues today. there is no doubt about that. the caller also makes a point that there is instability being sown in southern sudan, either from what he says, which is support from the north, which we heard as well and are following very closely, and to some extent we are very concerned about, and, two, amongst tribes themselves and groups in southern sudan, whether related to cattle rustling, simply economic interest, or political reasons.
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we are very concerned about that. you will hear in the last few months there have been considerable violence in southern sudan with significant numbers of dead because of this and it is something the special envoy, the u.s. government is very concerned about. we are working with the president and his administration on a weekly basis and we are trying to see how we can be best supportive to ensure the violence stops. we are also working obviously with north sudan, kartuhm -- cartoon, making sure there is not the support to seven militias to spawn violence -- kartuhm. host: is a religious differences, ethnic or a combination? guest: it is a combination of all of these. we are very worried, the number of farms in southern sudan make
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it very -- the number of bombs in southern sudan make it very dangerous to all of them and it is something we follow closely. host: west virginia. you are on with tim shortley. fred, democrats line. caller: the thing is, i can understand why did they can solve the problems of other nations but they never helped nothing in the united states. they go to all of other countries, just like our boys dying overseas now, they offered him -- the general over everything, but what did he do when he came back and said we need more power, we need more help, the boys over there they showed on tv, they don't have a tank and nothing to fight with and then they are giving it all to some other country to fight their wars with pared what is
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going on in this country that the people cannot say that we put in office that they cannot save to of the ones that really need help. host: thanks, fred. anything more for that caller? we talked about that sentiment out the accept -- at the outset. guest: oa think i would say in terms of what we are trying to do in sudan, it has a direct impact to home because of the regional crises have spilled over. there has been considerable u.s. investment over the decades to meet the needs of the people who have been affected by these crises and to ensure that the crises and and the gross human rights abuses. and in the last many years, to the genocide in darfur and this has a direct impact at home. host: you are talking about
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diplomatic initiatives. in response to the caller mentioning u.s. troops. what if any american or nato presence is in sudan even in the form of advisers? guest: very few, it in fact. we had some in the past and darfur, the u.n. peacekeeping mission, and we had some very few advisers and juba south sudan in terms of military attache and the like. but very few. and most of the international peacekeepers in sudan are african or other states. host: a viewer asks by twitter -- guest: of the special envoy is working very closely with china to try to leverage their support for an end to the war and conflict in darfur and a
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peaceful end to our implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement. the secretary has also spoken to chinese leadership, and we are working very closely with them to bring our common goals keep to the front burner in order to solve these problems. host: atlanta, next on call. independent line. caller: good morning. i apologize if i did not get the guest's name. host: tim shortley. caller: good morning, mr. shortley. i am african-american and i am thankful our policies are changing toward an african nation and i would like to being one of the of -- i don't know if it would be a peacekeeper or even a true on the ground in sudan, and if it is possible and
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if you could answer some questions because i think he said juba through the united nations, is it possible that i can come through maybe the state department to also volunteer my assistance to help in our endeavors to help end the crisis in sudan, and give me a brief moment while i unmute my television. who glycol, who do i contact? -- who do i call, who do i contact? guest: combat is a very good question. the peacekeeping missions in sudan are manned by the united nations, united nations missions in sudan, both in khartoom and juba, and then the anddarfur, based mainly in darfur, they are
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run by united nations or african union. the united states contributes funding to the u.n. for these operations and supports the african union for these operations, but it does not have direct troops in there except for advisement. but we continue to look to see how we can support and bolster the capacity of both operations on a regular basis. i can go through susan and find a way to get in touch with you directly to see what kind of support you are willing to give and see if we can't find a match for you. i think that might be the best way to do it, rather than try to answer your question and try to find out here on the program. host: a viewer as in the china question in a different way --
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guest: they are right to say obviously that china had significant interest in sudan region in terms of oil and natural resources. the special envoy answered yesterday by saying that those interests and our own in terms of a humanitarian question, stability and security in sudan and the region, coincide and overlap so that it provides us with the basis to work together closely to end of these conflicts and assure there is security and stability. host: you mentioned the special envoy a couple of times. "the new york times" has a profile of him today. in this piece we learned that his first language was swahili, even though he is a native of
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illinois. he moved to calm go with missionary parents. can you tell us more about the experience in the region? -- you move to colorado with missionary parents. guest: he talks about being an african-american himself. because of his years of experience there. his close ties to congo remain, as well as you don and kenya. he feels very comfortable with people from those countries because he feels like he grew up there, and in fact, he did. he does speak swahili. in fact, he speaks swahili as often as he can. he loves to carry conversations out in swahili. anyone who interviews with him winnows swahili gets an extra few points, in fact. what else can i say about him? i think he is very operational. he knows the details and is working specific out all the time with his staff. he is someone who works on
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building relations, very focused on partnering with african states, with arab states, with neighboring regional and international countries who are involved in this crisis. he has traveled to beijing and moscow and many times to london and paris, to neighboring states as well. i think his close relationship with the president makes him perfect for the job because he has the president's confidence. he meets regularly with the secretary and has a growing staff to support him. and we are getting what we need in order to get the job done. host: of south carolina. tommy on the republican line. . caller: i am neither an articulate or intelligent person, i am a common labor -- but my earliest memory was
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palestinians, is rare, malls say telling -- palestinians, israel, mao -- all of you people in the fancy suits, why don't you take care of our borders and our ways and give us a chance and then we can go back to supporting everybody in the world and helping them? thank you for your time. guest: @ thank you for making your comment. let us move to atlanta. democrats line. caller: good morning. i'm a citizen of east african descent and i'm curious how we are going to do -- we know the fact that sudan was the biggest terrorist supporter in the region, and remember we had to hit them before. especially now, don't you think they have to change their behavior especially towards
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darfur? how are we going to deal actually with a dictator will is also a member of the united nations? guest: it is absolutely about changing behavior, no question. this is why the strategy is built around using incentives and disincentives as a way to change the behavior. the idea is we are working with the sudan to improve security conditions on the ground in darfur to lead to a sustainable peace fire and comprehensive peace agreement, to improve relations with chad and a proxy war between chad and sudan that contribute significantly to stop -- instability and darfur. we are working with them to change behavior on the border regions as well and to ensure the populations are sensitized to the commission's work
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between north and south. and the idea is to use these disincentives and incentives to show sudan that we can be supportive of the good choices that they make and there will be consequences for poor choices. and we are working on that, as the secretary and the special envoy and ambassador rise outlined yesterday. host: what is the population? guest: of 40 million. .
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here is how they conclude -- could you speak to both? guest: as i mentioned a few minutes ago, the metrics are measured by the measurable amounts on the ground. improving security conditions for those in camps so that they can return home after a peace agreement. provide compensation for those who have suffered in darfur. in the north and south, implementation of the cpa,
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making sure the elections are credible. host: will you be required to report to congress on these patrick's? guest: we will had meetings interagency, and as well in your reporting to congress. so we are looking at these measures as a way to demonstrate where we are in the policy and strategy. host: last phone call for you from beaumont, texas. caller: i hope you can understand me. i have laryngitis. we are investing and their security, whe.
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i do not know why we are taking care of their borders when we have to be taking care of our own borders. we do not want to end up like this again. my heart is broken. i cannot imagine what they are going through. i am an american, and this is my country. host: why don't we conclude by having you make the case that this is in america's interest. guest: our interest is in the horn of africa, in particular, dealing with sudan as a safe haven for terrorism. we have focused on sammon
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operations, relief operations, refugee effort -- operations for decades. we're working hard to bring those human rights abuses and conflicts in sudan to it and end. -- an end. host: when do you intend to make your next trip to the country? guest: the special envoy is scheduled to leave in about a week. after one stop on the way, he will be back in sudan to be talking about the way forward. host: we appreciate your being here. 10 shortly -- tim shortly of the
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state department. our next guest is lisa curtis, a senior fellow at the south asia senior research group. >> president obama meet with iraqi prime minister nouri al- maliki this morning. he will award 86 army veterans honorable citations for their actions in vietnam. the president will then go to new york to attend the two democratic fund-raisers. the u.s. military says an american soldier has been killed and two wounded when a roadside bomb detonated in northern iraq. in iran, an iranian american academic has been convicted of
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charges, including espionage, for his role in post-election unrest. he has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. talks with iran over its nuclear program have bogged down over who is invited. diplomats say that they are resisting french participation. they will be trying to persuade iran to send most of its materials overseas. those are some of the latest headlines. host: this is lisa curtis, a senior research fellow on southeast asia at the heritage foundation. there is a lot going on in afghanistan and pakistan. at the beginning of the program, we were waiting for an announcement from mr. karzai on
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whether he plans to accept the findings of his election. two directions they could take is a power-sharing arrangement, or a runoff. we do not know anything at this point. guest: it is a critical moment for afghanistan as well as president karzai. we had the complete commission indicate yesterday that over 1 million votes were basically illegal, which meant that he does not have the 50% of boat to needed to win the first-round of the elections. hopefully, he will announce there will be a runoff election or he will agree to the unity agreement with dr. padilla --
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abdullah. they have worked together in the past, both represent anti- taliban constituencies. he served as a minister to the karzai administration, so it is possible they could come together to form a coalition government, but that will still take time. so there is no easy solution. one of the question here in washington is whether the obama administration will make to wait a decision on troop levels before we have a final result in stable government in afghanistan. i think there are still differences of opinion in the administration about that. host: you see the phone numbers on the screen. we can also accept your questions by e-mail and twittered. the associated press is telling us that john kerry met with
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president karzai again on tuesday, his fifth meeting in as many days. what are the primary differences between abdullah abdullah and president karzai? guest: dr. abdullah represents most of the northern part of the country. president karzai represents much of the east and west of the country. he is seen as more representing those communities. this is a concern, that they represent different ethnic communities. given the history of ethnic divisions and the country, somehow, that there is not an agreement between these leaders, this could devolve into ethnic
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tensions in the country. so this is something that needs to be considered. what is in the interest of national stability? host: the same story raises this question -- guest: i think that is absolutely correct. this is why there is no easy solution here. if there is a runoff election, that can certainly increase the legitimacy of whoever is ultimately decided as the winner, in and another runoff karzai at the forefront. the idea is his leadership would have more legitimacy.
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however, there are many questions and obstacles to holding a runoff. one is simply the weather conditions. according to the constitution, an election would need to be held within the next two weeks. that would be a short time. to prepare. -- period to prepare. you would need people working at news polling stations. you still have the entire security situation. it would be an uphill battle, at this point. there is no easy solution here. it is going to take time. the u.s. and international community needs to exercise patience and see this process through. this is an afghan process that needs to be led by afghans, but at the same time, the
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international community needs to provide some security hos. host: lisa curtis has spent her career focus in on issues in asia. she took part in a number of official missions to that region of the world. she was a cia analyst specializing in that part of the world. she was also a professional staff member or the senate foreign relations committee for senator richard lugar. let us invite you to ask questions. first phone call from hot springs, arkansas. henry. caller: i have a suggestion and maybe a comment. years ago, in comic books, they
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had missiles, jets, space ships, and have suggested different things that have come to pass. i have a suggestion for afghanistan and pakistan. i would like to see the u.s. pull their troops away from the mountains. they have these planes that shoot smoke out of the back end. why can the u.s. do something like that with pepper spray? get those people to come down from the mountains and mow them down like flies.
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our troops and coalition partners cannot go in there. they have the advantage over our people. guest: one of the suggestions in general mcchrystal's asset -- assessment was that u.s. and nato forces would focus primarily on population centers and protecting the population. what we had seen is -- you are right -- but the terrain is extremely difficult, hard to provide statistics, make sure they are getting the equipment they need. this has been a major concern. i think there has been a focus on how our troops are deployed, but you bring up another interesting point. one of the major argument in washington right now is whether the u.s. should focus on a
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counterterrorism strategy, which is not having as many ground forces but using missile strikes and inserting special forces, focusing on to ever say havens. what we have seen in the past is this does not work. in the clinton administration, there were missile attacks launched on al qaeda training camps in afghanistan after the embassies were bound in 1998. the terrorists were able to move around and find different ways to train and attack us. we have seen that that has not worked and general mcchrystal has spelled out what is likely to be the most successful and comprehensive strategy that focuses on protecting the population. in order to do that, you need
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troops on the ground. host: we just got an update from the associated press. election runs scheduled for november 7. guest: i think this will be good for gaining back the confidence of the people in the electoral process. this will provide more credibility to whomever is found to be the winner of the runoff elections. it will be difficult because of security concerns. we saw on millions of people risking their lives to vote this by the taliban darning to cut off the fingers of voters. there will definitely be confined -- security concerns, but at the same time, this will
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help to reestablish the credibility of the electoral process, which is extremely important. we will still need to brace ourselves, but at least we have a way forward now, in terms of coming to a resolution. host: 18 days away. logistically, how likely is the country to pull this off? guest: i understand they have already sent the equipment necessary to conduct an election. i think there were some indications that it would move to a runoff and in the international community has been trying to prepare for that. the problems that we had in the first round, international and
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afghan officials have to do everything possible to limit the amount of election fraud. part of that includes determining where the election fraud is most likely to take place. because of security concerns, observers could not good to particular areas, particularly in the south. karzai took advantage of that, and that is where we had some of the most ballot stuffing. on the one hand, you do not want to disenfranchise voters, if you think there is a chance they will show up. but given the amount of fraud that took place at these polling places, they may have to reconsider whether or not they should be opened in the first place. host: next phone call, and
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johnson, iowa. paul on the democrat line. caller: my concern is we are putting a lot of money into pakistan. what kind of accountability itio we have in terms of who is going to use the money, and what for? it seems like things are growing every day and you can read in the newspaper how many innocent people are getting killed. do we have an exit strategy to get out of pakistan? guest: we actually do not have u.s. troops fighting in pakistan. we have close to 68,000 in afghanistan, but we are providing large amounts of u.s. assistance. we have provided over $15
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billion in military and economic assistance to pakistan over the last 10 years. the congressional members are beginning to ask these same questions. how can we make sure the aid is going to the issues we would like to see it used for? not lining the pockets of politicians, not going to board the pakistan army itself, to face its archrival india. the legislation that has been signed into law by the president, the kerry-lugar pakistan aid act, 6 to triple u.s. economic aid to pakistan so that we can provide projects and benefits to grass-roots society, rather than focusing on military assistance. there are several accountability measures in that,
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including improving the fight against terrorism, as well as several other mechanisms to ensure the aid goes to the right places. we see a shift in pakistan, in a positive direction. in the last six months, we have seen the pakistan military go after pro-taliban militants, particularly in the swap valley. now we see the pakistan military taking on an important offensive in the troubled areas, along the border with afghanistan, where we have training bases, several punjabi bases that have linked up with al qaeda, and they are taking on these elements, despite facing major terror
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attacks in the past few weeks, including an attack on the military headquarters in rawalpindi. i think they were trying to deter the army from moving forward with this offense that. the attacks have had the opposite impact. they have strengthened the resolve of the pakistani military in recognizing these extremist pose a threat to the country's stability and need to be dealt with. host: next phone call from oklahoma. on the republican line. caller: good morning. is it possible for us to get the results and have, for instance, tried-lateral talks between pakistan and afghanistan and india, related to this kerry- lugar act, is it possible to be
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accountable for these u.s. dollars if we go back to another peace agreement in order for them to see results? perhaps in another diplomatic effort to better the talks between those three countries. the reason i ask this question is because these three regions are affiliated with places, like africa. a lot of people seem to travel between those regions. i am a volunteer at the lost boys center. i was wondering if it would be beneficial if they could get results from another diplomatic effort in order to increase talks between those three nations. host: this is the second time we have heard about the lost boys center. caller: i am working along with
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the coordinator. he is one of the lost boys. if you want to get more information related to our center, books about the lost boys, you can call 602-262-2300. i heard you talking about them this morning. host: how many lost boys to do you work with at north center? -- that your center? caller: -- at your center? caller: it varies, about 50 to 70. they all came from sudan, and refugee camp from somalia. host: and there was a book published about two years ago by david enders. we were talking about it.
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that is one resource where we can hear about their lives as well as what it is like to resettle here in the u.s. caller: obviously, too, some of them have questionechristian orc ties, but it is really tough. getting acclimated, coming from these countries with all of the different issues, it is tough. i see other books that are listed in addition to yours. maybe you can give us a call and we can give you any information that you are interested in.
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host: thank you for your phone call. guest: he did raise something that i want to touch on. he talked about tri-lateral cooperation between afghanistan, pakistan, and india. part of the issue that drives the terrorism problem in this region are rooted in deep, historical rivalries between these nations. pakistan is at the center of this. i think what we see is a reluctance by some within the pakistani military establishment to break completely their links with these militants, particularly that can taliban. they see them as the best way to counter indian influence in pakistan. so i think what the u.s. needs to try to do it is, number one,
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indicated will remain committed to afghanistan until it stabilizes. that will help to impact pakistani calculations on the region. but also encouraging pakistan and india to see that they had a joint interest in the minting the impact of non-state actors in both of their countries and in afghanistan as well, and start focusing on regional and economic cooperation, things that can focus on building about the economic linkages between the countries and regions so that each country has a vested interest in the stability of the other. this is an important aspect of what we're trying to do here. host: one more question from twitter -- guest: i think the u.s. right now is frustrated with china. while china wants to see
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stability in afghanistan, it is relying on the u.s. to do most of the heavy lifting in terms of stabilizing the country. china has traditionally strong links and the pakistan, so they are involved in building up ties in pakistan. in afghanistan, we see the chinese are lead in the u.s., nato countries do most of the work there. so there are efforts underway to increase cooperation with china. ultimately, they are interested in stability of the region, but the u.s. would like to see china do more to encourage building in the region. this comes at the fact that it is not just about sending more troops. while that is part of the overall mission, a regional,
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diplomatic solution is also necessary. we have to bring in other players in the region -- china, india, iran, and others. i hope that we will see the administration focused more on this diplomatic effort. host: houston. kenneth. caller: what is the u.s. and united nations doing in terms of controlling the border with pakistan is coming into afghanistan? guest: of course, there are coalition forces on the border. but i think this is also an area of debate. what we see it isis, as many trs as you want to put on the border, it is impossible to
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completely choke off these people crossing the border. our efforts need to be in the tribal areas to shut down the centuries that have been in these regions. as i have said, the pakistani military is beginning to take this effort on. that is critical to being able to eventually contain the insurgency in afghanistan. in terms of what coalition forces can do on the other side, their focus has to be on the population centers, securing the population, realizing that you cannot stop every and turgid crossing the borders. but eventually if you have a hammer and and bill strategy with pakistan, as coalition forces focus on stabilizing the population centers, eventually,
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you can turn the tide against the taliban and work towards more stability. host: last question from butch. jackson, wyoming. caller: you are missing the whole point. host: so what is the point? caller: afghanistan is a failed state. 80% of the people are on heroin. our nato allies are saying, listen, we are going to get out of there and we are going to leave it to you because you or more of a danger to health and the taliban than we are. we cannot deal with these illiterate drug addicts. is a totally failed state and it has been that way for hundreds
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of years. guest: i think we tried that, sir, after the soviets pulled out of afghanistan in 1999. the u.s. turned its back on the region, did not think that any of its concerns were of u.s. interest. it was not until the attacks of 9/11 that people realize that what happens there does matter to the u.s. we cannot allow that country to come under taliban influence again as it was in the 1990's. i was in afghanistan in june and met some competent people, people who care about their country, people who are risking their lives to bring their country out of the instability and faces. so i think it is possible to work with the afghans. if you look at their long
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history, you will see a time from 1933 to 1973, where it was very much a stable, functioning state, and it was not until the invasion of the soviets in the 1980's, civil war, and then taliban rule that we have seen more instability and chaos. so i think it is possible to make changes. we are making changes. there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but i encourage you to visit the country to see but is happening. host: we await the decision from the white house about troop level decisions. we want to thank lisa curtis for being here to give us her perspective. we have been focusing on foreign policy questions. now we are going to move into
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domestic policy. we are going to speak to dr. joanne lynn, co-author of the book "improving care for the end of life." we are going to talk about that candidate of health care costs -- that and health care costs. >> "the supreme court" takes you inside one of the most stunning buildings in the washington. hear about the court's history
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and traditions from the justices themselves. and own your own copy of "the supreme court." it is $9.95. order at c-span.org. the 2010 student cam contest is here. just create a fine--- 5-8 minute program. winning entries will be shown on c-span. grab a camera and get started. host: let me introduce you to dr. joanne lynn, and among many of her dealings in health care,
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she is the president of americans for better health care. she is also the author of a number of books about the end of life care, including this one, "improving care for the end of life." i would start with medicare spending. 30%, according to the dark pit at less -- dartmouth atlas, 30% of medicare's in the budget was spent on 5% of the recipients who lose their lives in any given year. could you talk about what that number means? guest: people are fairly sick as
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they die. it is nature's way of telling you that you have been sick. one of the accomplishments of modern medicine is yet to live that long time with the illness. it is going to be expensive to live these last couple of years. the big challenge is whether we are spending it in a maze to bail that people are comfortable. instead, we are in a situation where it feels like nothing can be counted on. so the actual amount of money is not terribly scandalous. it is just not buying what we think we should be getting. host: at the time when we have more health care costs and more people to bring into the system, how should that change the debate? guest: we should not be changing
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-- it is probably a problem for us. especially since there is no evidence that those people live longer or better. if anything, it could be the opposite. people do less well with lots and lots of health care. there is also not a lot of reliability. people with a fatal illness are constantly worrying they will be in pain or they will not get a treatment that makes a difference. we should not have to worry about those plans. the context of cost control -- something we should worry about. we should not put in place incentives to stay alive, but we already have those. medical care costs already at the end of life is the biggest
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cause of bankruptcy. we should not the summit that, but at the same time, we should not be wasting money on a very low yield endeavors. host: in addition to our phone lines, we have a fourth line for medical professionals. those of you who are helping people with the end of life decisions. we want to welcome your perspective on this. since the average life expectancy in the u.s. is 78, that means a good number of people who die in the country every year are medicare recipients. how are the decisions about benefits paid to medicare recipients need now? >> doctors will see a certain
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lab test or x-ray and assume it is the right thing to do, what ever the text book says. increasingly, people are recognizing that as you get to the end of life, needs to be more money. what is it really worth to you? do you want to try this which is going to take one month from your life and you are going to spend all your time dealing with the medical treatment, or do you want to spend that time with your grand children and risk that you will not live that long? let's say someone at the 25 gets a treatable legion, we can assume they want to be fixed. someone at 85, maybe they do not want as much surgery. maybe we can do something that will make them not as sick. host: but aren't you describing what became merely a hot-button
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issue, basically advisers to the elderly that would be handing over decision to pass "death panels." guest: that was a silly sideshow. there has always been a bit of funding to see that doctors will talk with patients so that they can make good decisions together. in the current medicare billing, the amount of money a doctor is paid is key to how many and on the types of the doctor is working on. it just can tell people about their future technically does not have a place to be billed. so this would allow a bit of billing for the doctor's time. it was not a particularly strong incentive, but there were never any death panels, there was never going to be any settled review. just you and your doctor. there is almost no one who does
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not want to know from their doctor what is known about their condition, but they face. host: what is the best outcome that could happen in the health debate we are going through, that would work best for american citizens as they get to this part in their lives? guest: the current round of health care reform is unlikely to do more than lay the foundation for what we need to do. the media had this outcry of the purported that panel's -- death panels. it seems we need to be able to enable regional reform. we need to integrate all of these end of life programs. we need to make it possible for the entities who do that work to say here -- share in the savings they accumulate.
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we need to take seriously the concerns of family care givers. we face a doubling the number of people sick and cutting the number of care givers in half within 10 years and no one is talking about the extreme crisis in direct caregiving. so we need to start laying the foundation for measuring that. all the baby boomers will required paid care and it will be a crippling expense. then we need to talk about some of the things that medicare should and should not be covering. there have been encouraging recommendations that cost a bundle, but they are giving all the control to the hospitals. however, the people working in hospitals do not understand the dynamics of home care, hospice
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care, so somehow we have to develop entities that can see a broader range and hospitalization as just a part of broader care, rather than the only thing we know. host: we have some statistics and we will be mixing in about american demographics, and of life numbers. there also a number of important headlines to the health-care debate. there is also this one, basic premiums to rise 15% next year. we made reference to this story. he says --
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those are some numbers from "the new york times" on medicare premiums without any change in the system. let's go to the phone calls. we begin with a phone call from burlington, vermont. ron on the democrats' line. caller: i am concerned about expert panels making decisions about life. my concern is we are going to
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have less freedom. there are so many alternative medicine that are not covered under insurance company mandates right now. i think we are going to have more of the same. that is the reason my people are sick today. it is really by design what we are programmed to take, such as vaccines. those things have a lot of dangers things in them. i think if you just took the american public and put them in a european health care system, their system would collapse also. guest: he brings up a whole lot of issues. i do think we want expert panel is making some decisions. mean the making decisions based on the merits of what works for
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certain patients. doctors and patient need that information. it is not generally information now. people who get into these programs are generally healthier, much richer, much better off than the average person. i would agree -- disagree on one thing. i agree that people can be held here throughout their life, but there is still a fatal illness in store. no one gets out of this world alive. so we only have a relatively small number of things that cause death right now. basically cantor, or consistent failure, then we have motor neuron disease is, and all of tm allow you to live for a couple of years with the condition.
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that means there is going to be an enormous expense in the last few years of life. i am just as happy to have the middle part of my life be clear and honest as possible, but it will still be the case that something will cause or death. that something will likely cause long periods of disability or illness before dying. we do not have any way to avoid that, so we may as well do it right and provide reliable care that the community can afford. host: here is a chart that compares american demographics and how they die, how that has changed over the last century. in 1900, the top causes of death were accident, town press, or an infection. today it is cantor, organ system
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tell your, and -- cancer, organ system failure, and stroke or dementia. next colon call in the discussion. virginia on the health care professionals juan, calling from michigan. -- line, calling from michigan. caller: i have worked in health care for about four years. i would like your speaker to talk about care, as opposed to gatt panels. talk a little bit about carpound to if -- paluative care.
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guest: in a sense, we want that kind of care in our lives. can people be more comfortable, more functional? that is the specialty in health care, medicine and nursing, that mostly worked with teens, trying to say that people can live as good as possible without their illness being removed. can you be free of pain, as cognitive as possible? it is a balance of medication and alternative therapies, helping with the relationships, legal concerns, other things
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that are stressors. given that you are going to live with a disease, can it be time that you are going to value? this is a relatively new as a specialty. most hospitals provide some kind of paluative care but most hospitals would be willing to underwrite that kind of care because it would reduce their cost. host: syracuse. howard on the independence line. caller: this is my first time calling. i want to bring up a point and i have not heard anyone discuss. let's assume health care reform goes through. i would like to see it. but what happens 20 years down the line? people are living longer.
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where is our social security going to be at that point? it is crumbling now. what is going to happen if we are all living healthier and longer? guest: you have seen something that very few people in washington have put their focus on. interestingly, only the comptroller general and head of the congressional budget office have made it clear that noticing the conjunction of retirement security and health care -- all the committees on the hill only look at one or the other. it is in conjunction that is the real crisis. we face having a very large number of people who need services for a substantial period of time, and whose family
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members will have to be working because they cannot have sufficient retirement security. if he only had one or two kids, you may need to pay for your care. so we have not considered the fact that in 10 years the care giver crisis will be a big thing. people will not have enough money to retire comfortably and we will have a number of people who need services. how we can rally together to do that is the big test. it is completely off the agenda in the current round of reform. we are only talking about refinancing the current growth in the system. we have not been able to get long-term care on the agenda. those are waiting for the next round of health care reforms. the time has come when citizens need to push their legislators
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to start dealing with this issue. you have to make it safe for political leaders to take a lead. at this point, the community still thinks that he can somehow have inherently happy lives and drift off into retirement and all will be well. host: let me share some headlines about the health care debate in this morning's newspapers. the washington -- "the washington post" lead story -- in "usa today" we learn that the mud house is ramping up its push in the bill.
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these last elections, but my comment is, i have paid into medicare and insurance all my life. i have been insured all my life. i am 67 years old. i am not on medicare at this time. i have this part a card that they send to everyone, but i pay for my insurance. if i paid into insurance all my life, i should be able to make my own decisions as to the end of life. my father passed away at 90 years old. at 81, he had open heart surgery that cost quite a bit of money. he did not spend money on health care until then. he should have been allowed to do that. after he had heart surgery, he was able to be remarried, and
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saw two of his grandchildren get married. i washould be able to make my own decisions. these socialists should not be able to take away my money. my wife and and i did not have g television until we were in our 60's. we never purchased inexpensive vehicle. my children were cheap tennis shoes and cheap clothing when they grew up. they were all educated and paid their own way through college. every one of my four children has a college degree. host: your response? guest: it is not clear why anyone believes that anything in the current round of health care reform would limit their
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decisions. if anything, people who are working right now have much more constraint on their courses because, as effectively, we have moved all of health care under 65 into managed care which has substantial controls over which drugs are available, doctors available, hospitals available. once you are in medicare, there are very few constraints. there probably should be more to them and the amount of waste on tests and resources, but in fact, there is nothing in any of the bills that would lift his ability to make his own decisions. i think we would all agree that very long shot treatments that a high cost problem should not be paid for publicly. exactly where you draw that line is a matter of substantial controversy, but at some point,
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the proposed treatment becomes a research project. it is not standard treatment. our collective insurance, they should not pay for those procedures. but within the range of things that are proven to work, you and everyone else has a substantial opportunity to make your choice. in the present system, the incentives on the doctors are all toward maximum treatment. many of us feel that we could get a more fair deal if the incentives for more balanced, so that he was honestly offered the option of not pursuing a treatment at a certain point. no one would get in the way of his father had his surgery. he was clearly capable and went on to live well, but i will bet when he was near 90, things that his father would have turned down if he knew what they were in store.
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cleveland, ohio, and i'm also a cancer survivor. there is some time on it to say in response to some of what use -- so much i want a say in response to some of what you said. going back to what john was saying, when you talk about and of life health care costs, that breaks for some people, because it is end-of-life being connected with costs. i think that is what john was saying my mother paid into insurance from the age of 18, private insurance. they now have medicare and two supplemental insurance is at the age of 81. she has never been sick. you have some people like that. i am sure that the majority. but these people pay into entrance all their -- i am sure they are not the majority. but these people pay into insurance all their lives and they're pushing in a political sense of controlling the costs of their care, when they feel
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like they paid into the system. i think that is what john was saying. it is not about choice, but what choices will be offered you. in some other countries, those other choices will not be offered a place on the table after a certain age. in great britain, when you need a kidney transplant after a certain age, it is not even on the table unless you are paying privately. other countries, too. france has its problems. but people, i think, for the most part, as i have been part of these decisions, are honestly offered to opt out of treatment. my husband is an oncologist. we know that this does happen. as far as hospice care, this needs to get out there, and i'm sure that you know this, and people need to know this -- you have -- to predict that it will die within six months and all that, but you can go off hospice
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care. sometimes they find people with good nutrition and pain management all a sudden getting better, and they can go off hospice. that is a fallacy out there that' people are so afraid to talk about these issues. we need to talk about freedom- of-life issues, but it is hard for me as patients, and me as a cancer survivor -- it is hard to hear some of what you are saying. we are afraid of government officials controlling what we end up being offered. research is so important. host: madeleine, let me jump in crude we need a response. thank you for your call. -- let me jump in. we need a response. thank you for your call. guest: it is not clear to me why people think this will be different than what it is now read a few -- what is now. a huge array of courses are not available. you have to pay up front
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separate from people of thought long-term care insurance. we do not available 24-7 on call services for people who might thereby avoid hospitalization. in france, that is standard. in britain, every patient gets a trespass -- respite a year. you do not have that choice in the u.s. there are important things that have not even been brought on the table. we think it is but a look and drugs and tests and potshot -- we think it is about pelican drugs and tests and hot shot surgery. a lot of the care is not even covered. the things we need at the end- of-life to have a much more robust debate -- what is the care system you really want if
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you are dying of dementia? what is the care system you really want if you have a series of strokes and are left quite disabled? doesn't have a focus on avoiding pressure ulcers? it may be important to have run the clock aid and then it is to have a terrific surgeon who could pack up a heart valve. but we are not used to talking about those trade-offs. in the u.s., we have a very important options that we are not generally making available, and we just made different choices in other countries. somebody other countries' forces might look good to us if we look at them carefully. host: new york city, mary, democrats line. caller: i agree with you. there needs to be more discussion about this. cancer and strokes run rampant in my family. when my dad was on life support after a massive stroke for four years -- i don't want that.
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my younger sister and brothers and my whole family has died horrible deaths, or a will, painful deaths from cancer. -- horrible, painful deaths from cancer. my concern is that doctors are not open to this. like you said, they want to provide maximum care. when i go see might new doctor, they cringe at that, almost. my concern is, god forbid i have a massive stroke or i get cancer. i don't want to suffer. i don't want to be on life support. my concern is that i might get caught up in some legal wrangle. my fear is do i have to move overseas to die with dignity? terry whatever-for-name-is case in florida case really scares me. guest: thanks. that is a good set of questions.
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sorry for the experience of your family. people need to realize that you really can live to the end of life with cancer and never have overwhelming pain. that is pain that we know how it treats. we just can prioritize it. -- we just don't prioritize it. the drugs do not make money. there is no one pushing them. it is just not very well done and it is not terribly reliable. the story of being on a ventilator without being able to get off was an instructive lesson for you. in new york state, he need to have a strong, written -- you need to have a strong, written directives. when you have those, new york state will stand behind your choices. that is different from many states. people need to know their own states and their own laws. it is mostly finding the doctor and care team that will respect
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your choices and will see things from your perspective. yes, of course you can let them use of the letter and say if i am not waking up -- use a ventilator and say if i am not making up in a week, please stop. but you have to write these things down. you ought to have someone give a voice to what you are trying to say. one of the biggest shortcomings in the country right now is that we don't tell these stories at all. what we know of teddy kennedy's last month? what we know of ronald reagan's last year? what we know of any tv actor, a story of the end of life? we hide that all away. we don't even talk about it on sitcoms or soap operas. we don't have collective experience. we need people telling their stories and talking about whether they would accept this kind of life or not. and maybe we would have some consensus, or maybe you'd just have a consensus that people have to give voice to their own
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opinions and everybody has to be willing to follow them. host: this is a joke. ca -- this is joe. caller: i would like to see end- of-life counseling begin at 40, and it could involve the family. i took care of my father in his late years, about eight years. he had vertigo, incontinence, dementia, regular seizures we used to put him in organized care, and he wanted to be cared for at home. when was first diagnosed with cancer, he went into a deep depression. he could not make any kinds of decisions at that point. i would like to see the counseling start much earlier, and like to point out that come from my own personal view, but
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health insurance, insurance in general, is organized gambling by every definition of the word. the fact is dictating our health care is crazy. they have house rules, the armies of this statistician's looking over the data to see if they can squeeze out a little bit more money from us and lay down rules that just don't make any sense except for them to make money. that is my point. i would like to listen off the air. host: thank you. guest: that is a very interesting suggestion. as i understand it, in singapore, the taxation for health care changes at about age 40. under age 40 is for families. above age 40 is for long-term care. the fact that your money is going into a fund that you can draw from for health care issues, but also that can save upper -- safe up for your own
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old age is interesting psychology, because it makes people terribly aware of what they face. we do a lot of talking. we do not notice that. i agree that sometime around 40 or 50, people become much more realistic. they are only one generation away at this point. they start making much more reasonable decisions and much more thoughtful areas that they are concerned about. so, yes, counseling can start than. in the u.s., when insurance changes at age 65 to medicare, we at least have a regular medicare exam, which is suppose to bring up these issues between doctors and patients. it has not become terribly well established, but it is an opportunity. we need to have this conversation long before you are terribly sick at 85 or 95. you cannot make as good a plan if your plans are being made in that circumstance. host: the study by american health insurers, responded to by
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karen ignani, you might be interested, in "the washington post" today, "about that health reform cost study," responded to critics about what reform might do to the costs of premiums overall. next up, indiana, a retired nurse. caller: good morning. it is a privilege to be able to talk to you for the first time. i'm retired. i was privileged to take care of my husband at home for two and a half years. he had early onset dementia, and he broke his hip. was in rehab for 90 days. i was able to bring him home, and i had held during the day, studying at night from -- someone came in the evening
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from 7:30 to 9:00, getting him in his bed, and then i did tonight nursing. from that point on until 9:30 the next morning. the cost was $40,000 a year just for having people cover that amount of time. he was much happier, quieter, and got along better here at home than in the nursing facility. the best one in bloomington, that 90-day time. i love the idea that england has 86-week respite care -- a six- week respite care. i was bone tired after two and a half weeks of taking care of my husband, but i would do it again in a new york minute. we need more end-of-life counseling, starting whenever. i have worked as a hospice nurse.
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we do not wish to talk about death in our society. we'd better wake up. i live in the midwest, and the cost five years ago per year -- host: thank you for your call. guest: you can see why end of life costs are the biggest cause of bankruptcy. on the order of $50,000 worth a year, and you charged no one for and and got no recognition or benefit from your community for it, and he spent $40,000 a year to have the hired a. it worked out fairly well for you. but the average widow going into this may not have that. women live longer than men, about seven years on average. need nursing homes just because there is not a volunteer help. to some extent, we've been able
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to rely upon family members and for them to pitch in and make things work. that will be much less likely as our families get much smaller, and as those people must work to have a fair shot at a decent retirement themselves. you're right that you are in the midwest and that people are common sense and they need to take action, and that i hope in the next round of political debate on health care, one of the things that happens is that there is a very strong the caregiver agenda. that the caregivers are in there saying that we really neat things, that we need training and knowledge about what is likely we will -- the need things, that we need training and knowledge about what is likely to happen. and we need some respite and solvent financial support. if somebody takes care of an alzheimer's patient for a long time, keeps them from becoming a medicaid patient, shouldn't the community give him some recognition for that?
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some financial trends, a guarantee of their own peaceable living in old age, rather than facing bankruptcy over it? these are questions that are not part of the current health care reform could be doing it as if we're only talking about how to refinance the medical care system. that is not for the crisis is going to be. host: last call for dr. lindh is michigan, republican line. caller: i would like to just respond to the doctor keeps repeating -- i don't understand -- she keeps repeating what people have this notion that end-of-life issues -- what they are so concerned about -- a point is that when you have people who believe in life years compared to the cost, things are
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going to be rampant, and people who have put into the system all of these years, because they are old, and the amount as pentecost x amount of dollar -- the amount is going to costx amount of dollars. they have books on it and it is just ridiculous. host: thank you for your call . guest: i agree that figuring out how to draw lines is going to be very challenging. it is individual cases. when i was working a lot of patience and i would counsel patience, i would say that the best thing i would do is to make one mistake in the direction of over-treating you before i realize that you did not have enough reserves to come back to the kind of like you really wanted, and the only advantage is that i would tried not to make more than one mistake. that is a hard line to follow,
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because it means that would be slight over treatment. but it should not be whopping over treatment. the previous caller was saying that her father had been on a ventilator for four years. somewhere in there the family was saying that this is not the life he would have wanted. acidy clear that you have the authority to stop -- it has to be clear that you really do have the authority to stop. it will take a much more robust public debate. but if you were part of a group that was figuring out how to figure these out for your town, what kinds of things would be available, what would be oversupplied, what would be deliberately make somewhat less available? with an average of expectancy of about a year -- a member, as only worth -- a mammogram only
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as word if you are going to live for five years or more. that is an utter waste. i hope someone looks at that and says that that is a practice that does not make any sense a nursing home patient against dementia -- those at the kinds of things we need to start talking about. you find that there are lots of them. there are some situations in which we are over-diagnosing -- many situations in which we are over-diagnosing, where we could provide more aid and in-home care than we are doing now. my guess is that that is what people most want at the end of life. host: dr. joanne lynn has spent her career thinking about these issues. she's the author or co-author of at least six books about the subjects, the latest of which is open " sick to death and not going to take it any more." thanks for being here to talk to our audience.
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guest: my pleasure. host: we have one more test, very pleased to connect you with gail collins, who has been thinking about the role of women over the last few years. she has a new book called "when everything changed." we will be with her after this news update from c-span radio. >> numbers on housing construction reported this hour showed a half percent gain in september, a weaker showing than economists had been forecasting. inflation remains in check. the labor department reports that wholesale prices dropped unexpectedly in september due to lower energy costs. the census bureau and the national academy of science has reported that nearly 48 million americans last year live in poverty. 7 million more in the government's official figures. the disparity is due to a revived formula for calculating medical costs and geographic variations.
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"usa today" says the economy and political environment may discourage initial participation in next year's census. a government analysis shows that 64% of households are likely to mail in their forms, down from 67% in 2003 and an update on the presidential election in afghanistan. hamid karzai, standing aside senator john kerry at a press conference earlier, is accepting the u.n.'s fraud panel findings and is endorsing a runoff election on november 7. those are the latest headlines on c-span radio. >> "washington journal" continues. host: gail collins is on the screen, and happily with here in washington, d.c., instead of new york, as i said earlier. this is your second book on the history of women in american society. the title of this one, "when everything changed -- the
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amazing journey of american women from 1960 to the present," basically about baby boomers. last year we had a very competitive team a presidential candidate, we have a female speaker of the house, and we are on our third female secretary of state. what happened to allow women to obtain these positions? guest: the reason i wrote the book, the reason i got into this thing to begin with, was that i was doing a project for "the times magazine" on women's history. i realize that these suppositions about women can do what their limitations are and what the limits should be in society that have existed since the beginning of recorded history in the west changed in my lifetime. it is -- it's so knocks me out, the idea that i got to be around in the world for that particular
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sliver of history. there are very specific cultural and social and economic reasons why it happened exactly when it did. host: can you tell us some of them? guest: i will, thanks. after world war ii, our economy just exploded. we reached a standard of living that no nation in the world ever experienced. when that happened, for the first time, 60% of americans own cars, and for about five minutes, a tiny brief window, you could do all that stuff, send your kids to college, go on vacation from one salary -- for about five minutes. then the economy slowed down again. the expectations of the families did not change. that made a huge difference. suddenly you really could not hope to obtain the standard of living that they expected to have on one salary. the kind of economy we had right
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after the war, there were wafer people available to work than there were jobs available, -- wake fewer people available to work and there were jobs available, so it became a big deal to hire women. lyndon johnson was desperately beating the bushes for people to fight for these jobs. eventually they came to the idea that women could work and should work. unless you do that, in this economy, unless you're contending economically, the chances that you have power and influence are pretty minor. that was hugely important. the birth control pill came on the market in 1960. women for the first time really had control over their bodies. and a civil rights movement made americans so conscious of ideas about fairness and made younger people so dubious about taking authority figures for granted when they told them to do something. that helped to propel the whole thing forward. host: we would like to open up
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our phone lines and especially in light women to call this morning. our discussion is about the changes for american women in our society, economically and socially, over the past 50 years, and some of the factors that led to them. picking up on the theme of today's economy, with this recession, you keep seeing that the hardest hit are men, white men over 50, losing their jobs in record numbers. how will that for the changed economic role of women? guest: the unhappy part of all this is that i do not think there is a single women out there who thinks that the wage gap has been narrowed by it meant dropping down. but the basic bottom line is that no growing up in america today does not presume that she is going to work exactly the same way that guys do. and when men and women mary,
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the assumption is almost invariably that they are going into an economic partnership in which they will both contribute. the good news is that families have gotten used to the idea that sometimes the woman is going to be the chief breadwinner. that is no longer considered a huge embarrassment for a problem. -- huge embarrassment or a problem. but no one is happy about the idea that it is so hard for men to get jobs. host: if people are paying to the news -- paying attention to this, which many c-span viewers do -- guest: i notice they do. host: way of heard discussion about maria shriver's report. is it coincidental that your book is coming out at the same time? guest: it is completely coincidental. i first heard about that a month or two ago but the book thing takes quite a bit longer than
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that to happen. host: is it a good thing, because there is a lot of discussion about women? what you hope will come out of this? guest: the thing that bothers me is that there is a sense that for women they are very unhappy and everything is miserable. they are certainly more challenged than they've ever been in history and there are more opportunities and demands and they want to go for things and they could fail. but it is a spectacular time. it is amazing that all things that happened so fast. the one under realized, unaddressed chunk of this whole thing, is that we have come to a country where men and women were to drop their lives and no one has dealt with the question of who takes care -- to throughout their lives and no one has dealt with the question of who takes care of the kids. host: for the baby boomers in
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the audience, he might enjoy the early years, the remembrance of -- you might enjoy the early years, the membewere members of how things have changed and it the way you dress. let's take our first telephone call for gail collins, from kansas, republican line. caller: i am 84 years old. therefore, i was 16 when it will war ii was starting out, that good stuff. i am amazed at how everything that happened between now and then. but you know, during the war, women had the good work to help produce all of this stuff for the wars. didn't start a little bit earlier for the women -- didn't we start a little bit earlier for the women? the 1960's were great, but didn't start a little bit earlier?
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guest: that is a really great question. there was always an assumption that during an emergency, the women would come in. during world war roman oni, thed in the armament factories. absolutely, women were famous throughout the war for their accomplishments. but there was a perception that the married women were going to go back home after the war and return to their domestic chores, and that the young woman would get married and then go back home. this the first time in our history where we presume that people were going to work throughout their lives. host: this is twitter -- guest: that is a good question, and i have not heard a whole lot about it. you think that boys and girls would be taking more olmec --
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home ec. i guess it is the presumption that is more important to do other stuff. excellent question. i often tell people about it i worked with on the editorial board -- about a guy i worked with on the editorial board whose wife was sent to kosovo for a time and they had young children. he came to work and he looked just dead, and he said with great pain, "my wife is in albania and a hamster is missing." host: in 2001, a deal collins was the first woman editorial- page editor -- gail collins was named the first editorial page woman editor of "the new york times." she is now a columnist for the paper. guest: one of the reasons i was
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excited to take the job at "the times" is that we are running out of first things for women to do, except for baseball commissioner. host: one place where women have not made a lot of progress is in the fortune 500 companies bu. something like 14 or 15 for a fortune 500. and also any corporate board rooms. guest: and health law partnerships pick the things that require massive amounts of time and investment. but it is because of the work and family tension. it is hard to foresee a future where you are working 60 hours a week, troubling, not taking vacations, for long times -- working 60 hours a week, traveling, not taking vacation, for a long time. there are also discrimination
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issues and stuff, but that is the big girl in the room. -- the guerrilla in the room. caller: i am about 60, and i went back to school. i was an intelligent person, and it is such a good thing that women can now use their minds and we have some power. [unintelligible] regardless of all the problems, i think it is a complex issue, but regardless of all the problems, people are much more satisfied and feel better about themselves and have better self esteem. i think overall, it has been a good thing. the only difference is certain parts of the country are still
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back in the 1950's, and i meet these young girls who are still into this "get married and have some babies" blah blah, and i don't know what that is about. i think people think that is the way it is, but there are other parts of the country that are lagging behind. host: thank you very much. when you look at statistics, gail collins, a yo momma in society today, and uc teenage pregnancy -- a young woman in society day, and you see teenage pregnancy rates, what are you seeing? guest: for years these drop and drop, and people were having babies much later. that is taking a little bit now. may have submitted with the economy or different demographics of the country -- and may have something to do with the economy or different demographics of the country the number of unwed mothers with
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children has gone to a point where we have passed an argument about whether we can stop it or turn it around. i expect a limited time in which most of the babies being born are being born to unwed mothers. host: what does that mean for society? guest: if we do not answer the question of how these women can work and pursue serious wrist while making sure of their children being taken care of, we have a serious problem. caller: independent line. my fault. i have to push the button to mr. hea -- to hear joy. caller: i have strong feelings about this for a long time. i am married and i have always stayed home to raise my children except when i needed a part-time job for extra money i think our roles are not changing. it is our view of our rolls.
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a somewhat along the line, women felt that we needed to get out there working, because we are smart and we can work hard, and i think that is true because we can take advantage of our intelligence and our strengths, to make our children and our homes secure. i think men have gotten confused in their roles, too. we have a lot of angry, depressed, confused children, because they don't feel love, they're not sure what they should be doing in their lives. we can play great parts in defending our nation. but i don't feel like we should be in combat with men. that confuses things and puts more problems into place than their need to be. i think there are so much praise right now -- so much grays now.
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it is good to grow and we can contribute so much prepa. we can have businesses and bring income to our families. but i think is important that we still be homemakers. guest: if you look back at history of women, and the best thing of studying this is that it is not a matter of we were such babies and we did not try hard and then suddenly in the 1960's everybody became liberated and smart. whatever the situation is that women were in in this country, they worked very well and to the plea and strongly and independently. it's just that the situations changed. i talked to a lot of farm woman for my book, women who in the 1950's and 1960's really live like colonial women did come out in wyoming in places like that,
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and their wives were very rich and their relationships with their husbands were very respectful. their wives were huge economic contributors to the farm. you understood a lot better when you look at something like that where we came from and what those rules meant. it is just that there are not many farms any more. that life is gone. it is not that that was rejected by the women of america. it is not there anymore. the role of a woman, a traditional housewife, has always been respected. it was the tallest -- the highest calling a woman could have for a long time. but when the economy changed, when women's control of their bodies change and all these other things, and i think your caller, to -- what you think about for your children is different from what you think about for you. i don't know many traditional housewives per se, "i want to make sure my daughter does not go do college and prepares for a
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career, because i want her to be a traditional and." -- traditional, and." host: this twitter message -- is the story of the last 50 years different for minority women? guest: it is. the story before that was obviously way different for minority women did before world war ii, all african-american women did work. even if you were middle-class, there was an expectation that you did something to contribute to the community. it was a great achievement when you hit a point after the war were women could go home and take care of their own families instead of taking care of somebody else's family during the day. there was a time when there was a celebration for traditional housewives among african-
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american women. but like other people in america, that did not mean that they did not want to see their daughters move into the new world and prepared to do better. i think those differences have changed. host: we are talking about the role of women in american society. caller: good morning. it is nice to talk to you. i the really enjoyed c-span. i like to have a moment, and please don't cut me off it might -- please don't cut me off. my mother is 93 this year. she is a farm wife. i would like this lady to come out and see my mother, who has had a broken hip, only been in a hospital three times in her life, one was to deliver a baby. i am a farmer. i can cut hay, i can cut trees.
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you name it, darling, i can do it could i can work a tractor like he would not believe. i want the city women to come out here and say, "ok, i can do this job." i personally believe that you have the right to work, but look at the values that our country has lost. the respect -- you go to work and meet a guy who gives you more attention and you don't want to be at home because your husband is tired and you are tired. the morals that we were taught growing up, right from wrong, we have lost that. everything that was wrong is now right, everything that was right is now wrong. have you ever studied that part of it? my mama can sit and tell you -- she lived in the depression, and you talked about minorities? at that time, but people also
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were a minority because we were poor as dirt we did not know we reported we were happy. -- we did not know we were portrayed we were happy. -- we did not know we were poor. we were happy. my mom but still lives in the house that her children were born in. host: where are you in that lineup of 12? caller: i am fifth from the bottom. host: how many of the call ended up staying in farm life? -- of the 12 ended up staying in farm life? caller: 1, 2, 3 -- i am trying to count. there were a bunch of a split pieces, nephews, -- there were a bunch of us. nieces, nephews, grandchildren.
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guest: how many of your children are going to stay in farm life? caller: i have two and they are in it. host: thank you for your call. guest: it is true, as i said before, that when women lived on farms, they did incredible things and they were respected. this was the economy and they were working women within the economy co. it is just that there is not much of it left. the women i talked to in wyoming, who chairs their lives as farm women, and his daughters cherished that life and respect their mothers so much for what they've done, those daughters are not on farms, and the granddaughters are in cities, and their lives are so radically different from their grandmothers. that does not mean that you don't respect the life they all live. host: gail collins, discussing her book "when everything
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changed." huntington beach, california. caller: good morning, beautiful ladies. i am so excited to get through. i wanted to make a statement about my mom. i am 61 years old. in 1960 i was 12. my mother was what you would call the perfect house wife. she was the mother of four daughters, and she had a husband and a nice home one day my dad left. she had never worked. she sewed gloves and was a sunday school teacher and did everything at that time right. she was a good person. any good christian woman. when my father left, i remember going to church with her that first sunday, and after the service was over, the minister came up to us, first baptist church in long beach,
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california. he said, "we would appreciate it if you and your girls -- your girls can come back to sunday school, but we would appreciate it if you did not come back, because you are a beautiful woman and the men will lost for you now that your husband is -- will lust for united your husband is gone." she was forced into a divorce by her alcoholic husband, and now she was told to cannot go to church. she was a good woman. every night after that she would cry. she missed my father could eventually, my neighbors got togethe -- my mother never flirted with anybody, but she was a divorce said. -- a divorcee. she had never driven a car, she could not get a job. she had a lot of problems in life and ended up an alcoholic herself.
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25 years later, i went through the same thing. host: with apologies, but this takes a long time to hear the whole story, the bottom line -- caller: the bottom line is that it did change for me but there is still work to be done for the women. we need to have our own self- worth. unlike the following color that live on the farm, that is great -- and like the following color that live on the farm, but that is great, but she needs to have for children have an education. guest: that whole time when we got out of the war and we started watching what was happening, there was a huge spike in divorce in the 1970's, and at the same time, states or reforming their divorce laws. in the olden days, you had to prove adultery to get out of a marriage. one of the things was a perception that alimony would be
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something that you would pay a wife temporarily, while she got retrain and went back into the workforce. it seemed perfectly reasonable, but it was another message to a traditional house less that the 30 years or so they put into the house was -- traditional housewives that the 30 years or so that it put into the house was not valued by society when the divorce came along. when we reform welfare in the 1990's, the resumption again was it would be better to have poor mothers out working at home with their children. that was a very conservative movement. all in all, it was one consistent message, along with all the divorces, and people saw them even if they had not experienced them, and felt threatened by it could you cannot rely on the world if you were going to be a traditional housewife.
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you had to be prepared to take care of yourself, no matter what your life choices were. host: what about some people, some of them conservative christians, who look at the 50% divorce rate, and say that is caused by the changes you write about? guest: that is another argument -- you cannot make arguments like that -- maybe it was. the only answer is that we will not have those changes anymore and we can go back to a rural economy again -- it is not going to happen. you cannot and make society. you can only decide how we -- you can not unmake id. the only decide how we make the best of where we are. caller: i agree with this lady who just called. i have been watching this woman who says there is a war on
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women. i lost my mother last year, i lost my sister in 2006 but i'm the only one left in my family, except for my nieces and nephews and my two granddaughters. the one thing that worries me is that i believe -- i would greatly love to read her book, but the truth of the thing i experience is that we women are not equal. the war on women is out here. women are daily getting killed and kidnapped and raped. the judge does not want to interracial marriages. we are not going anywhere. david letterman says things about a woman and her daughter. my father was a drunk. he was also in korea and vietnam. he left her, my mother worked two jobs but always and of 30 years she was married -- worked two jobs always in the 30 years she was married to him. he beat her. they degrade us women.
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what happened to the women's movement? what happened to women walking beside meant instead of beneath or underneath them? guest: i am sorry -- i had a little bit of trouble -- host: can i pull one out of it for you? the unresolved problem of domestic violence, the war on women that she talked about, and how the court system does not respond or the legal system does not respond to it in fact, we are seeing increases as the economy worsens. guest: one of the more disturbing things in the history of the world, especially last year, is the incidences where you have guys who were clearly abusing -- celebrity dieguys physically abusing women, and the sense that you do not prosecute, the sense that that is just part of our
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relationship. that is such a bad signal to send. we need to start thinking about this, teaching young women about the importance of standing up for themselves, and never allowing that to happen. it is a really, really, really bad, bad, bad trend. host: of the five decades to cover in your book, was to anyone that was most significant -- there any one of its most significant? guest: between 1965 and 1975. everything changed legally. he went from a world -- you went from a world where it was completely legal to say, " we only hire guys for the job," or "you cannot get credit unless a man cosines for you," to a world where none of that stuff was the goal, and people did not think it was there.
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in which people did not think that women not having the same opportunity as was there. there was quite a bit of digested that had to go on after that, but it was over so fast . host: how important is title line? guest: it was very important to read when you look at someone like sarah palin, she talked all the time about the importance of title line and the ability to play sports. there is that to be some really important coalition in a world where it was actually thought it was bad to have women competing physically -- not just doing it a whole lot, but doing it at all -- to a world where women can compete and our spectacular and athletic in the field as men are. host: i think we are all women
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this morning. thank you for your call. caller: i was born in 1946. right after the war, my childhood -- we were pretty poor. they eventually had six children. we were still raised with the importance that the father worked and the mother did not work. that was my life. pretty much i was a romantic, so i was waiting to get through school, and no college it may be seeing if prince charming would ever come. that is a fallacy, of course. i eventually went into the service, the women's army corps, just because i wanted to do something different, and it was very frightening to step out of my own role into the unknown. but i did well with that. i met someone from across the united states and married, and
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even into the ministry, which was a change for us. i had three children of my own, did not worked, although i babysat and tried to bring money in. what i thought was a partnership in the marriage did not sustain itself at last. my husband did not want to be married anymore. i was left with three children, 10, 8, and five, to move back to oregon. during this time i was in the ministry, though, i found out that i could go to school, and this is the first time i had gone beyond high school. i got a registered nurse degree -- host: may i ask what is the question or important take away? caller: the important thing i wanted to tell her is that there have been so many changes and we all grow through these changes, but when it comes to getting to the age we are now, which is
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60, it does not stop. there is another change now. my identity from being a nurse for some years and having raised my children successfully on my own as a single parent -- now i am alone and i'm starting over again in and identity with my own senior citizen siblings. host: thank you so much for your call. guest: it is not actually a story just for women, the question of what happens when you lose your career identity. something of would like to respond to that goes with what she said is that when you look back at american women, women in general, before the 20th- century, most of them could expect to die when they were about 50. most of them would be having children until pretty much the time that they expired. you always had crowded desperate when you read the celebration of traditional hot -- always at a crowded nests. when you read the celebration of
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traditional housewives, you see that no one knows what will happen when these children grow up. women got married at 20, on average, had three or four children very fast. but the time you get to the 1960's, these women see their children in high school and they themselves are in the prime of their lives. they have households that although they are very busy when children are around, are not that hard to operate. that was something that really was never a challenge, because it did not exist until our time. as part of what she's talking about. we did not worry about these things, because people died much earlier. you had grandchildren or great- grandchildren living in the house. this is a huge challenge, one of the reasons that propelled him into this differenct time in life. host: geraldine ferraro did i
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change everything for women in the 1980's -- did not change everything for women in the 1980 ss. did hillary clinton and sarah palin make a difference? guest: hillary clinton really did change everything. it was very hard for women when she did not get the white house. this is a country that if people feel that something is normal, they're okay and they can hang in with it. but the idea for a for was that a woman anchor was not normal. they thought the voices were funny or whatever. but interracial marriage was not normal and now it is very normal in parts of the country. the idea of the woman being president of the united states now feels normal to many americans, and that is entirely due to hillary clinton, so that is probably a great legacy.
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caller: my call is more for one that was earlier, but i have been listening to this show, and as you talk about the role of women changing, and the economic developments of women in the house and moving towards a more equal partnership, again, i'm a domestic violence advocates, and there has been no reduction at all. in fact, we are seeing an increase in severity. we used to think that if the women had more economic independence -- it certainly does give more options, but the dynamic is still alive and well. i am interested in your comment on the intersection of domestic violence and economic parity, and why it has not happened. you talk about women and their self esteem. but even -- my focuses more on what is happening with the men
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that there is so much anger if the women don't have money, they are in a power down position, and now they are getting money and it is still just as bad. there needs to be more focused their, and i wanted to hear comments on that. host: may we hear from you, since you work in the field, and what you think the answer is for society? caller: i think there is a deep, in bred dependency interest in the young girls -- encouraged in the young girls from the time they are two or three, not being quite whole as themselves. we are still primarily responsible for the relationships, and still held responsible for the well-being of relationships. the boys get a different message still. i think there sex roles are still pretty much in place, even though the economics have proven the need for a second income in the home i think about
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how we are raising our boys. host: gail collins. guest: to answer the question of why there is domestic violence, i think that women are the people who are there. if a guy feels frustrated or angry or whatever, he is going to try to take it out on his mate, because she is there, the most available target. we don't, as a country, talk about this enough. we don't react with the revulsion to domestic violence that we do to other things we have learned over the last 50 years, like racism, for instance. i don't think, if you had, say, a popular entertainer who suddenly started saying racist things, he would be forgiven, but when some popular entertainm
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