and kathleen kennedy townsend, absolutely. let's give them their props. absolutely. he is a giant. er kathleen kennedy townsend at the other end to my left, she has worked me half to death without knowing my first name. the a. philip randolph into stocks for social justice in the name of political policies you set forth for us as goal. two questions, what would martin do? please indulge me if you don't mind, four minutes. if dr. king were alive as an 82-year-old retiree in the economy, what would he do? he would likely be celebrating his 82nd birthday tomorrow. he would probably be doing that by celebrating the work of the first african-american president and by applauding the passage of the long-awaited health care reform bill. he would probably be part of a victory celebration that would speak to the establishment of medicare and social security and in doing that in a way to remind folks don't touch those things that are not broken. known for his non-violent approach to peaceful resolution, he would mourn with the rest of the nation over the senseless and troubleshooting of hours

kathleen kennedy townsend is a very old and great friend. >> how old?my point of view, fourscore and four years. you are very young. you do not easily get music on a panel. when donal leace was giving the song and music, i remember the first time i heard harry belafonte. how many have heard him sing the leading of that? where is my friend, abraham? i will not give all the words. the next time -- the first time i heard it, it was, where is my friend, john? the next time i heard him sing it, it was, where is my friend, abraham? where is my friend, john? where is my friend, martin? the last time i heard him sing it, it was, my friend, robert. when i first ran for public office, it was a reporter doing a feature. after interviewing me, he said, how lucky you were to have worked directly with john and robert kennedy and martin luther king. i said, the three that meant the most to me in my life were all three killed in one decade. less than a decade. just the pain that one feels when you think what could have if robert and martin had lived, one as president a

and kathleen kennedy townsend talked about this. what we find now ishahas taken f 've to ao that we 'v society where everyone is -- [inaudible] so the language of rights is supposed to free people from oppression. [inaudible] and it used essentially to keep people in oppression. and i just wondered if you have any comments about that. >> clearly, i do. [laughter] yeah. i really believe that we have to redefine our language. we have to build the language of justice, our language of mutuality, and the language of common community. i think that is the efforts some groups have already done with talking about the common good. and i believe it's critical to do that because that is what our country -- what is a country? it is not just a collection of individuals. it is a collection of people who have a purpose to let people flourished, and we flourished by helping one another. i know we are talking about martin luther king, but i will tell this story anyway. excuse me. i do not know who i have to excuse myself to. in 1968, david frost, i d

thank you very much to our panelists during the formal part of our discussion, doug tanner, kathleen kennedy townsend, harris wofford, and the others. thank you very much. [applause] and thank you to candy shannon, our wonderful moderator. thank you to all of you for being here this evening. [applause] just a few quick announcements before we close out this event. first off, while i mentioned that joy ellison was the first place winner of the first ever essay contest, and we have our two runners-up. jack crumholt from florida and natasha dillon from new york. they both wrote wonderful essay is. we will be doing more contests in the future, so make sure you learn more. their two boys to stay in touch with what americans for democratic action and education fund is doing -- there are two ways to stay in touch. www.adaction.org. you can friend us on facebook. americans for democratic action. please make sure that you are connected to everything that ada and ada ed fund are doing in those capacities. i want to thank the staff and volunteers, and especially our wonderful panelists and moderator. i love wha