Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On Dollarocracy 20140118

Suits and i give it to a gray suit company and not a blue suit company i am giving you a competitive bid vantage and a field you dont have. You pay me back with a super pac that dates to my campaign do you realize the economic distortion effect rippling through the economy multiplied by one transaction times thousands and thousands over decade, think about how many value misjudgments were made because the pricing of of product is wrong because me as a politician could give you a tax break. It is no small item. Why do you think the left fight so viciously against the flat fair tax because it is unfair or not flat . No. They fight it so badly because again there is no power in yes. Everything is a yes you pay 15 and you pay 15 doesnt matter. All of a sudden i am powerless. That is the best thing i could do for you if i managed to win is leave the job much more powerless than when i came in. Supposed to be a representative government. That was the idea. [applause] as mentioned we have a few copies of our authors book with us today, life inside the bubble is available readily on amazon got comment at bookstores in the area. We appreciate your kind attendants and dan bongino will continue the conversation after we adjourn which we do now. [applause] booktv is on facebook. Like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, get uptodate information on events. Facebook. Com booktv. Coming up next on booktv, robert mcchesney, john nichols at the university of illinois, argues that the increase in Campaign Spending over four decades has hurt democracy. The program from the International House of the university of chicago is an hour and a half. Hey, folks. Robert mcchesney, john nichols, we are here under the Global Voices author series sponsored by the International House of the university of chicago in whose home room we set for the folks on tv and is also sponsored by the very distinguished seminary, what books for which is around the corner from here and my own interview series in which i interview chicago activists and doctors and troublemakers of various sorts which until today was named after my 2008 book nixonland ricksonland. I am changing the name as of today to the rickipedia interview series. Welcome to john and bob. I will tell you a little bit about then. John is a native of a small rural town in wisconsin and kids and newspapering in various places in the midwest in pittsburgh and came back to work at one of the most distinguished institutions of progressive newspapering in america, the capital times, news editor was the legendary william w. And the conservative smart alex in the university of wisconsin campus baited him by having a mccarthy lecture of the year in which they printed the invitation on pink paper. Coming back to madison he also became an essayist and journalist with a National Audience for the progress of which is another outstanding Wisconsin Institution based in madison going strong, almost a hundred years now and the nations oldest journal of opinion the nation, for which i am a regular contributor and he is the washington correspondent and he is the best kind of washington correspondent there is, the time that lives a thousand miles from washington so he is not messed up in the tangle of egos and distraction and insanity which we all know about we are speaking today on the day of the end of government shutdown, and the governments slow down. Robert mcchesney was a rock and roll journalist in seattle, his magazine rock at is enshrines in the rockandroll hall of fame in cleveland as one of the roots of the seattle music scene that gave us nirvana but he decided that was not nearly romantic enough to undergraduate school and became one of the most distinguished historians on questions of telecommunications, mass media, democracy which is the name of Charter Communications which came out in 1993 and history of the broadcast system came about which is in no way an inevitable store with lots of interesting contingencies and another book that got a lot of attention, a lot of debate called rich media. And we started a lot of those scenes. John has written a lot of those books too. The most recent being uprising. It is about how madison became Democracy Movement in places like cairo, some of us in chicago in the madison and rally around the state capital when Governor Walker who ran as a sane and sensible republican the day he decided he was going to crush the public unions. You know about republicans have reporter their minds. Like george bush saying the day after the 2004 election he had the mandate to privatize Social Security but anyway, we get very distracted when we talk about republicans so we will stick to the script here. Today we are here on behalf of a very interesting, very readable and purchaseable book best ranch in hard cover called dollars dollarocracy how the money and Media Election complex is destroying america. And i want to start by opening the floor to john and bob and asking about this word that they calling for the book not plutocracy or anything but dollarocracy. What does this word mean and why did you go in this direction . We wrestled and you know about this, wrestled with the idea of one word title like nixonland or Something Like that because it is important when you have these debates about elections and politics, so easy to make it complex and say it is all these things. We know what the problem is in the american experiment. Most americans want and to some extent think they should live in a democracy. In a democracy the vote matters most but what we argue in this book is we have moved very rapidly in the last 20 to 30 years toward a dollarocracy where the dollar matters more than the vote and we think this is a critical thing for people to understand. When we talk about the dollar matter in more than the vote is not simply campaign financing, people giving big money to support candidates. In the book we detail that in fact in the 2012 campaign full cycle, 10 billion was spent, a little more than that but also how our media works and all the political structure works. In deference to the dollar rather than in deference to the vote and the best way to sum it up is to say that we think today we live in a system where massive infusions of money and respect for that money trumps the will of the people. The people of the country say we dont want to have debates about Social Security, medicare and medicaid. We believe those programs should be maintained, dont want them to be ripped apart, dont want to privatize and say that quite loudly in an election. Two four months later the folks in washington once again discussing privatization of Social Security, testing of medicare and things like that. What we believe happened in our country is ideas which are defeated, that lose, are actually killed and buried are reanimated by money. What we referred to as zombie ideas that walk among us and that is not how it is supposed to be. The will of the people want to guide the debate. Not a handful of wealthy people to steer us towards what they want to talk about so that is a great recipe for democracy, dollarocracy. Nothing to add . The research is pretty striking in this regard. Princeton University Press published two leading books by political scientists last year in 2012 that were years of research on how congress works. The best political scientist in the country. They both reached the identical conclusion that if you look at congress and the decision it makes the values, concern and interest of the constituents of members of congress count for nothing until they get to the very wealthy. It is really dollarocracy personified or typified. People have no influence over their members and even worse when they discovered was most members of congress usually take the position exact opposite of what the poorest third of their constituents, never support the poorest constituents. The forward is by senator bernie sanders. Bernie was senator sanders was asked a release party in washington d. C. Graduated this institution. Who we saw preparing for the march on washington. He has been in the senate for seven years and before that served eight terms in the house of representatives and in his introduction, stated emphatically and without qualification that it is impossible to get any legislation passed in congress that is opposed by wall street or corporate america. That is dollarocracy in a nutshell. This was not in impressionistic. It is done using the most rigorous method. And doing vote by vote and opinion polls of what people in the lowest third believe and the middle third they are no questioning that. We all know that we all know how money has come to dominate politics a what i have chosen to do next is to the center of the book, the stuff that i found i opening to me which is something we dont think about which is the role of money in local news broadcasts. By the host 90s the revenue numbers nudge the 2 political and accounting to 2 of local tv station revenue and the decade later tv and political advertising between 5 and 8 of total ad revenue. In 2012, political advertising accounted for around 20 of tv station revenues and we are talking about elections that dont go on all the time so these quadrennial elections every 32 years are basically like bonanzas in which political campaigns shovel money to these local newscasts and fascinatingly enough, this is my favorite stuff, they used to be a kind of gentlemans agreement that you didnt show political ads end there was also section 317 of the federal Communications Act which stipulates even if it is not in force all tv commercials are identified as who is sponsoring them which of course is not even honored in the breach. Just to kind of set this up, one of the things we do in the book was that we started this book three years ago, four years august now, and our purpose was to look at the entire process of lekking a president in the congress and all our elected officials and understanding how it works. We didnt want to look at it with preconceived notion. We believed things had change so look at democracy from the start in all ways, and one of the things that surprised us the most is in the country we have no idea how much money is spent on our campaign, so we dont know how much money is spent on our campaign, and, particularly thats funny, want first chapter you say, oh, the first 10 billion dollar election. Youre, like, ten billion . What struck us was there was all these assumptions about it, money, politics, and yet theres no system. We had to step back and create a model for measuring money. What we found is instead of the 6 billion initially recorded and in all the newspapers, 6 billion, an amazing amount of money, but what we found was 10 billion. Because all the 6 billion figures just look the add president ial and congress. We dug down into local election, state elections, judicial elections, referendum, in california alone, 550 million alone was spent on referendum, and a hundred million in michigan and maryland. Overwhelming proportion of the money goes to television, particularly local television and particularly to that area around the newscast and popular programs in the evening where people are watching so what we begin to understand is theres this massive, largely unregulated, and even unmeasured flow of money into the television stations, and low and behold, it does transform them, not merely how they approach their own schedule, how they structured their evening, but, also, we would argue that theres been a tremendous standing down of journalism at the same time theres an inflow of money, and at that point, its bob who has looked at what it does. Well, the subtitle of the book is how the money and immediate why election complex is destroying america, and the reason i wantedded to make sure media was in there is that going back now until the 1990s, commercial broadcasting is one of the core elements opposed to any form of the election system because of the beneficiaries, and they are to Campaign Finance reform to gun control. Its clear they own the board in washington. We chronicle how in the 1990s, there was the effort to get air time for candidates as condition of broadcast of getting their licenses, an effort to allow to have debates aired locally, and they were strong, the commercial broadcast lobby the National Association of broadcasters, no one knows about it, but everyone knows about the National Rifle association. The National Association of broadcasters is treated as the more fearsome lobby. Unquestionably. The head of the fcc then, bill clinton, had better communication system, and william, found around the country support across the political step trouble for commercial broadcast, you know, air time for candidates, draw people into the election of the community, and back in washington, told in so many terms, interviewed him in the book that if he continued this in the political career and go to the fcc, loses funding from congress. It was not an issue you could talk to in washington, and that was in the 1990, and now, since then, the revenues that have gone to the stations increase the dramatically, and whats striking is that these are not ma and pa you say local commercial broadcasters, you think of the station, but, no, these are owned by eight to ten of the Largest Media Companies in the country including disney, comcast, news corporation. Excuse me. What happens is this is where its cynical and shameless. They get broadcast licenses for fierce spectrum, tv channels, and they are supposedded to do something for the public interest. Thats why they get the license over anyone else in the community who would like to have that monopoly, to have a license or television channel, and when the federal Communications Commission in the course, whats the highest form of service that they provide the community . The answer is they should cover the local election, debates, free time to candidates. Thats thousand they are to legally qualify to get the license to get the local tv channel. What we see 1 the amount of ads have gone up. This sort of coverage has basically been eliminated. We had 5 million political ads in the 2012 cycle double what we had in 2008. They fill up the air waves so much. They basically, one point in some battleground states, 3040 ads in a row. I mean, they sold the space. What you get now is the government is not end forcing the law. One thing thats worse, and this really has to be talked about, which is, you know, the Great Development from Citizens United case case in 2010 said basically anyone can give as much money as they want. Corporation, labor union, or individual to a campaign as long as they didnt give formally to the campaign itself, but an unaffiliated group, a third party group. This is a change in the law that affects one tenth of 1 of americans, who already give the legal limit which was several thousands dollars and 120,000 total for federal campaigns. Citizens yiewntsed has no effect on 99. 9 of millionaires, but more hundred millionaires and billionaires, it does. Most of the money went into third party groups, dark shadow groups not affiliated with campaigns, dont meet criteria for disclosure, we dont know who gave the money. Theres a study showing that ads that are sponsored by these third people are more false. Thats what im getting to. Okay. Thats your mojo, man, and fiercely negative. All negative. The ads are attack ads against other candidates, almost all the slimmyist ones. This is why its important. The ads run by third parties are not covered by the First Amendment. Candidates run what they want and station runs it because of the First Amendment right to run what they want in a political ad. Third party groups are not candidate ads, to be treated like a used car lot, and if a commercial advertiserments to run an ad, a tv station has to verify its accurate or cannot run the ad, its legally liable. Does that happen . Well, you cynic. No doubt, bro. Heres the crucial point. The Third Party Ads the coch brothers paid for, i attack ads, by law, were to be reviewed by the station, and if they were not proven to be accurate and front, the station was not to run it with fear of running a broadcast license for fear of running it if fraudulent. This is what we find, the shamelessness is that there were ads, everyone knows that. They are all attack ads, half truths, at worse, they are complete lies. The tv stations with the few remaining journalists do fact checks on tv ads, and stationings would review Third Party Ads and find, like, that they are filled with fraudulent claims, completely lame, and the same station, the news team airing the ads ran them 200 more times and raking in the money, even though the, you know, by the law, they should be held liable for that. The federal Communications Commission refused to enforce the law, refused to touch it. The News Organization stipulated to their eel legality. Yeah, if it happens to their own News Organization, and this is left us in as a result of this, you have the disturbed situations where theres simply no accountability whatsoever. Anything goes. As head of the broadcasting situation, the only way it runs is if its check clears. Rights, right. Then you get into some of the stories that get attention because local elections are not covered, you know, president ial elections covered poorly, but the book has stories. You have one about huh Governor Walker in wisconsin, the best pal, guy who bought your vacation this year, managed to sneak in a change to pension law in wisconsin . Oh, yeah, yeah. So the state employers are no longer vested in the Pension System until they worked for the state for five years instead of being partially vested immediately, and it was not broken by any of the news stations in madison. Maybe you can tell the story. I mean, its the we see and again and again again that media has been down with local, state, and national, and its worse at the local and state level and detail in the book how many state houses across the country are barely covered. I mean, by the standards that anyone would traditional had thought, and one of the mistakes we make is to think that because a bunch of people crowd into the White House Briefing room, that weve got we have a sufficient media to do journalism in this country. We dont. We dont have sufficient coverage. Things like this, you talk about massive changes in how the state operates are exposed by bloggers or by, you know aggressive magazines, 20,000 subscriber. Thank heavens for them, its very, very important, but understand this, this does not work. It does not fill the void, and it does not cover our politics because heres the deal, if you bring 10 billion dollars in ads into the game and saying to, you know, like, a couple journalists, yeah, hold us account, make this work, fact keck the whole thing, they cannot possibly keep up with it, and heres a bigger crisis, Fact Checking ads shouldnt ought to be what political cove ranch is about. It ought to be about big ideas and important, you know, really important things debated, but we say, well, what did they say in the ad . How effective will it be . The last thing, for example, the wisconsin fight becomes reel van to the book because we spent time going in and looking at local rations across the country and how they are warped by inp flows of money. The president ial race in 2012 was not a situation where scrap pi barack obama beats, you though, big, tough mitt romney. It was not david versus goliath. Obama, he and his supporters, raised almost as much as romney, huge amounts of money, and so in the president ial race, there was a situation where big money beat slightly bigger money. Thats the reality of that. When you move into local, state races, you have situations where you have an overwhelming inflow of money, huge amounts of money, often from out of state, and that is not countered by journalism giving people a sense of whats going on because of the less coverage. I just final thing, the best story, i think, we tell, our favorite one, is in West Virginia. We tell stories about West Virginia, where in West Virginia, working class states, state with a lot of meaning, it says the Mining Companies are powerful, basically run a lot of what goes on politically and economically, and even culturally, and in West Virginia they felt they were not getting the best break from the state Supreme Court, and so as a key case involving a Mining Company moving up in the state Supreme Court, the owner of the company came in and spent millions of dollars to displace the swing justice on the court. Thats a very convenient way, independencive way, actually, to by results, but look at the attorneys general they are so important. They regular laze commercial product. And they also protect consumers. By all accounts on the side of the people, the attorney general, they wanted to get rid of him, and so they got a guy who had been a washington insider, who had not practiced law in West Virginia. This is the top Law Enforcement officer in the state, got a West Virginia law license and i think its four days later he files to run for attorney general, and then they 4 a massive inflow of money, and he beat the incumbent attorney general, a guy who was fresh into the Legal Community of the state, kind of like getting marrieded by one of your friends who got an internet license to be a preacher. Well, and heres the troubling thing. They bring the new attorney general in. This new attorney general is there and knows exactly why hes there. He didnt work his way up the political process. He had huge amounts of money behind him, so much money he could overwhelm the sentimentses of the state and overwhelm the media in the state. We write about that in the book thinking the real power is the moneyMedia Election complex is at state and local level where so many decisions about laws are made. Right, a big part of the work, bob, 1 it did not have to be this way story. I mean, that these things happened because political decisions and political struggles happened along the way, and one of the favorites in the book is the whole saga of public broadcasting, which was really fascinating and really held out from time, saying its, like, the loss thomas of the public option, the option, health care, lost comments of public broadcasting. I was just disappointed on one thing, you dent mention the guy in the Nixon White House who put the strang l hold on public broadcasting was anthony scalia. A young one. With, you know, other countries dont have tv commercial advertising for campaigns. Take all the money that germany just had a National Election a month ago, and sufficient Democratic Party returned to power. Every dollar that german politicians campaigned spent per voter in their german National Election, for every dollar they spent, in 2012, just under federal election to be compared to the accurate exaifertion for president in congress, we spent 332. We out spend germany 32to1 , and others spend like jempleny does per voter, not like us, way off grid. The United States is no longer a functional democracy. When you out spend a country like that, like germany, the more money thats improving the quality of the election demeans it because it open the flood gates for the top to come in and do what john described in West Virginia at large in the country, and where the money goeses overwhelming majority is commercial broadcasters for the ads. Now, heres what happened. In the 1960s, tv advertising started in earnest. This started in the 50s, but in 1960, it was clear it was a growing, dominant part of the political culture, and commercial broadcasters were willing to sell the product. Other countries just had public systems and democracies to dominate nate. It was not an issue, and never developed the culture and still dont have the culture, tv ads are illegal in germany, britain, sweden, or norway, considered to campaigns what chemical gas is to warfare. They are unchartble in a free society. In the United States, our media response of the politicians in the 1960s was not unlike that of other countries and most americans realizing they would be expensive and of dubious value. From the getgo, there was a kern that maybe we can do something to limit the role tv ads play. A bipartisan one, this is not a liberal versus conservative. This is changing the nature of politics in a way thats not healthy, thus in terms of raising money to be raised and dubious nature of the ads, they are really garbage to be frank. Why it was pushed for was pbs and npr and a what rallied support for that is the idea we would have election, cam page coverage because by 1968, people were naysuated by the tv ads, the lame spin, and here we were in 1961, one of the truly great political years in American History, more than anyone, so many crucial issues on the table, and instead we are getting ads, nixon has marching bands and its like a car commercial. Thats a great ad. Compared to now. Compared to now. Thats what we discovered. People hated political advertising from the beginning. When they pulledded for it, they didnt like it. Faze enating how the old ad guys. Oh, like, its great to sell soa. Its just honest, honorable, but the political candidates did not want to do it. Thats rooght. The early adses, one used to poll people on what they think of political advertising and advertising every year, and we went through them year after year, people responded, no one liked political advertising, so, finally, they stopped giving the option that you could like it because it was the scale of how much you hated it there. The ad from the sixties were not negative compared to today. Compared to today, they were striking. Robert redford made a movie called the candidate, in 1972, a critique how the Marketing Campaigns are demeaning, and showed several ads that the candidate does in 1972, all positive, and supposed to be horrible, oh, how awful, but today, compared to what we went through, they look like the gettiesberg address. Nixon had a guy in a girder and a hard hat eating a sandwich that in scwornlg increase govern wanted 47 of the country to free load off the other 53 of the country was bad. This is the movie im talking about. Yeah. At all times, getting rid of the ads, understood right away we have to do it, and public broadcasting was a way to do it. What happened . What happened was it never had the political support. It had some support. The difference between American Public broadcasting and public broadcasting in europe and east asia, in those country, public broadcasting provides sports, entertainment, news, documentaries, feature film, the works, the job to serve everyone in the country with everything. And commercial broadcasters dont get claim to things. In america, how it was set up in 1967 is public broadcasters do m the stuff they couldnt make money on left without an audience. The way to, to their credit in 1967, its in the book, was they cant have the big audience, but have the edgy stuff, bring in people who are cut out of the people on the mainstream america, minority groups, artists, young people, the provocative age of the culture, tried it for a week, and people in Congress Said why are you doing exposes, and examining the budget, and that the politicians said enough of that. We just want too have lame public broadcasting that does not spend or take viewers away, and they cant do anything racy. You get dinosaur shows and classical, you know, animal shows. Cspan is a part of the system. Give a nod to that. That was a victory, one of the concessions they made to have the cable monopoly, and you pay accordingly because of the higher rates in the cable company. Are you allowedded to run that . Now we have Citizens United, which basically makes the in a lot of ways, the story of the West Virginia Supreme Court at large because a story, i think a lot of people who follow politics because its difficult, sort of like some Supreme Court reporting too, but the way the Citizens United p went down of an offense to every cannon to every good order. Id love to hare you guys tell the story, and tell the sequel unfolding last year where they take in the stratusphere. You asked that exactly right, rick. Thank you. Theres a question youll ask wrong later, but thats nailed there because you put it in the context of not just one decision, but many. This is how we approach the Citizens United ruling in the book. Its a simple case, minor case, a group of people made a movie about Hillary Clinton who wanted to publicize the critical movie and put ads up saying we have a movie exposing Hillary Clinton. Rough stuff. It was the question, how it was funded . There was challenges back and fort, and up to the Supreme Court, john roberts, chief justice the Supreme Court said, you know, you have not asked for enough here, butment to bring in more briefs, want everybody to think bigger, and Citizens United, you are saying to people, we want a bigger case, you tee pied lawyers are not doing the job. Judge judy and said, you know, my roommate stiffed my a thousand dollars, and she says, didnt you sue for 8,000 . Dont you want his house . You know, his car, and so its expanded out and became this case which knocked down 100yearold barriers opening up the process to sufficient an extent it was a shorthand for money and politics, and this is the important thing to understand. We begins story in the 1960s, not in 2010 when it was ruled on. What we argue is that going bang a long time ago, ewe saw people who recognized the power was court as a vehicle to strike down laws, and a hundred years ago, and the most interesting character, and a celebrity in the book is louis powerful. Powell was a lawyer in virginia, and he was a republicked lawyer, corporate lawyer, a brings a, and tobacco, you know, worked for a lot of corporations, worked for William Morris and just at the time when tobacco regulation was a big one. William morris. Heres the great thing, to understand the whole of this thing in a real shorthand, and i recommend the book as a fine holiday gift. Great way to get the whole story. Baht father or bottom line, early 1970 s, saw regulation of the Tobacco Industry as well as corporations in general. The last tobacco ads aired r and around that time, power, close to the u. S. Claim beer of commerce and other groups writes a short memo, detailed in the book, and basically what he said was, what, you know, if this government has the power to tell corporations what they can fizz and begins to really regulate corporations in the room, we might well end up in a situation where the people have significant voice over the direction of the economics and the Business Life of the country. That could be very, very problem latmatic, and so in the memo, he outlined and said, but, you now know what . They have to enter the political game in a much more serious way. Start think tanks, like, i dont know, the heritage foundation, start legislative groups at the state level. Get involved in creating own media, having con severtive media, what a con cement, but one of the most important thing to do is get really serious about the courts. They have to make sure are people on the courts who understand the importance of business and the importance of, you know, corporations being able to do what they want to do, wealthy people doing what they want to do. This memo move like wildfire in the Business Community, literally people in early 1970s saying, you know, can i get a copy . It was, like, this hot commodity, except that no one else in the Business Community knew it existed. Nobody knew, and yet in its existence, its so exciting, so energy jizzed, corporations begin to move their lobby shops to washington. Nay had been in new york forever, decades. The actions in washington. Suddenly, theres a massive explosion of lobbying and massive explosion of money in politics. When a company like quaker oats, you know, in chicago or Something Like that or a company, the brief was to make sure bills passed advantaged their company visavis the competition. Right. The idea of lobbying for corporations as a class kind of union of capital was the innovation of the 7 0s, a lot of great, young historians burrowing into the archives. We borrow and build on the work of many, many good writers, and many, many good thinkers too, but i think one of the things that, perhaps, is unique, is a connection of the powell memo to the story of what happened with the courts because, of course, shortly after powell wrote the memo, richard nixon, having a terrible time getting a southerner on the court, seen as a moderate, and, you know, not joined with the darker forces during the segregation other ray, in any kind of way, so difference than the previous guyed, and the end results was that powerful of the swept through and got on the court. Only one member of the senate voted against him. 9 o1. The senator was fred harris from oklahoma. A great left wing populist. Real old school populist senator, and harris said, you know, when i look at this guy, i just dont think hes going to be all that good for working people op the courts, and low and behold, as soon as powell was on the court, he became the intellectual underpinning of a series rimings going back to buckley, then through the lobby, all the names of different ruins that knocks down Campaign Finance rules and regulations again and again and again. He had an enemy. A guy who ironically he had a guy, you wont believe it, named the Supreme Court justice who you think was powells adversary . Anyone want to guess . Renquist, one. Most conservative ever on the u. S. Supreme court. William said this is crazy. He lets money flow into politics, you know, literal i tens of billions of dollars, a situation where rich people define what the issues are and who wins. You cant do that. Thats not a fair political game. He kept pushing back, pushing back, and powell ultimately left the court very honored, very respected, you know, well regarded, little talk about his role on in. No one talks about the chamber of commerce case, and, you know, gay marriage, all those wonderful, important stuff, but this sneaks under the radar. All the way through. So powell leaves the cor, and renquist is replaced by john roberts, and roberts, unlike renne, also fairly moderate, but, boy, all in for this stuff, and so thats the art of hisly that we tell in the book of how the powell position from the outside in the early 1970s has now become the law of the land as imposed not by the congress, not by the people, not demanded by citizens, but, in fact our Supreme Court, and what we argue is that this is a dire circumstance not because of what happened already, but because, as you mentioned, there is no evidence that this court is going to stop, and 10 when we try to talk about Campaign Finance reform, talking about regulator lobbyists and money in politics, all this, the reality is that is certainly looks to us like we have a court that shoots down efort to do it. And in mchitch pes, no record to rule on. It was like spun out of thin air. Mchutchen is a case, Mitch Mcconnell all over this, a case where rich people can give more money to candidates because theres some limits on how much a wealthy person gives candidates. He wants it expanded opposed to third parties who give freely, but hes the interesting thing about it. Why would you care . J do you care . It gets back to what bob talked about because the candidate ads come at the lowest rate on the rate car. They are cheap. You can put more on. Expan the amount of money that rich people can give to candidates, we super charge the power of the cam page contributions. Now, why, at this point in history, why would the Supreme Court see as an essential, you know, front of the ticket case, one that super charges the ability of wealthy people to influence politics . Do they not have enough . [laughter] never enough. The goal of the Labor Movement was more. The other side of the coin fitting in with this discussion is that other issue obsessed with with the case before him is justifying voter suppression, and i used term to which renquist does not have an honorable history. To. Weve seen in the last four years at the same time theres been this effort to unleash the aint of billionaires and hundred mim theirs to give up limited money to ceos, making if harder for poor people to vote and people of color, and the Supreme Court ratified this, this summer throughout the Voting Rights act proHillary Clintoning Southern States from reinstituting mechanisms used to keep black people from scroating, and immediately after that, theres slamless decision, of course, they never do that anymore, and it was like the right thing to do, and five Southern States went in to vote. Congress would fix it, all this. Okay. Lets get back to whats to be done because, look, its not going to save us from this. The one thing i want to emphasize is i have been blogging in 1999, and i tweet, have nothing against the internet obama and the remarks today blogged for the government shut down. Who wouldnt. Dont listen to the bloggers. Unless they are good like me. Important thing to understand, is that bob and i are not against the internet. We do want people to understand the interpret in context. One of the most dangerous thing that happens today is the suggestion that the interpret is going to fill the void creteed by the death of old journalism. Its an easy concept. It makes us feel good. Theres something out there to get us through the crisis, but ill cite is a study from years ago, and bob takes it from here. They looked at baltimore, maryland, a classic u. S. City, and they studied all the ways people get their information saying, you know, how do you get or find out . Found out even in recent years, people got information from old media, from the newspaper, from television, and they also found that most of this, what was called journalism was produced by old media newspapers afternoon television. What happened on the internet was a restating of that, and maybe a commenting on it, but very little actual journalism, actual few people doing journalism. The reason for this is that as we see newspapers lay off reporters all over the place, radio stations layoff audio personalities, journalists leading the field in huge numbers, and, actually, old media outleets shutting down, youre not seeing a commerce piling on the internet. Theres no evidence of the filling of the void, and so communities that not that many years ago might have 500 people going out to cover their local and state governments on a daily basis, their job, going to do it no matter what, tired, they do it, thats the job, they cover the school board, city council, local race, all that, do massive layoff, down to many, many fewer people in the old media outlets, and there are not dwsh theres no filling of the void on the other side, and the critical thing that we found was this. The study shows that newspapers have a source of gathering information, but the baltimore sup newspaper they looked at was doing 33 less fewer stories than ten years ago, 73 fewer than 23 years ago, and so the old medias producing less and less, but the new media is not filling the void, bark to the core, and 2 you have a standing down what fills the void . Its empty space. In the last book, you had an answer with the Public Relations people. Well, we take Something Else in the book as well. Campaign ads. The ads fill the void. Bob explains why its worse than you think bob is the its worse than you think guy of the team. [laughter] cyanide pills . No, no, no, but the critical thing is why . Yeah the the crisis of journalism, the free fall collapse of paid reporter covering politics, covering anything, independent competitive news rooms, its the great story of the past two decades in the United States meaning when you go to vote, most of the races get no coverage whatsoever, some not covered at all, left at the mercy of campaign ads if you have any information at all, and this is a problem because the constitution is based on having a credible vile process giving information to people who dont have a lot of to participate as eelive social citizens. Its something to be proud of, and its blasting before our eyes, and the hope was eventually the internet, had i think newty, money online, and we had a rough time, but had journalism to solve the problem, and now its becoming clear, however, that well never have that or will never happen in the visible or foreseeable future for a simple reason. For the last hundred years, advertisings provided the lions share of the revenue of the support of journalism, 501 00 depending on the medium. Newspaper is 6080 . Buying ads in news media in order to reach the tarktsed audience and, therefore, subsidize journalists and reporters. They never wanted to do it. It was opportunistic. Forced to get the target audience. Now, the internet, they can avoid content supporting content. They dont buy from websites to reach the people who go to the websites or get a cut of the action to the website going to the great four internet advertising networks, yahoo, aol, microsoft, google, and said, i want to buy 20 million women, 1824, interested in x product, and they find the women wherever they go on the internet in realtime, right away. Get to that. A lot of what goes on the internet, visavis politics, if you write about it. Theres not an article not enough people talk about it. Really, more resembles what the nsa does. The National Security agency. Basically, theres a surveillance system, and the great agents of hope and change over here in chicago had a massive super computer driven system to basically you can talk about what they do. I have to finish foe toll journalism, even more important than this, as important as that is. Because of the fact you cant make money making Journalism Online him anymore, its disappearing. The tragic thing is watching great journalism monetize themselves. It cant be done. Murdoch abandoned Journalism Online for the last 30 years. The Guardian Newspaper acknowledges they have no way to support itself when they go purely digital. It deppedz on other sources of revenue, and they have massive impacts and if they cant make it, who can . The argument is if you take nothing away, take this. As a public policy, we have a way to solve fuchedding for the independent competitive uncensored media is as important as anything we talk about, and theres nothing couched, and recognize the market cant produce significant quality or quantity, and now that advertising is gone, were out of luck. We have to support it with public money. Now, going to the question yeah. The issue with the Obama Campaign, the insiders who studied the campaign closely said the one Great Development obama did, the cam page in 2012, is revamped the use of the internet between 2008 and 2012 to recognize the geniuses of the interpret today is its a cleaner that sucks up information knowing everything about it, everywhere you go, and what obama did is instead of having 4050 different types of information spread around on voters, they put it all together on the cloud. Put it all together so they had all their information combined, and they have between 1200 and 2,000 pieces of individual information on everyone in america. They knew about us than we knew about ourselves, and with stupor computer power and best scientists in the world, they do fun things with the information, no exactly what language and work and email to get you to be sthettic, what issue you care about. Beards and earrings and wear tshirts to work. Now they make seven figures. Not just politics, but just like people who have advertising, when people learn, which people dont know, that campaign collect massive nsa styles to follow them on the internet to give specified ads, they are horrified. Yeah, evidence is clear. Secretive. Obama, the part of the Obama Campaign that did this was off limits to reporters. Called us that manhattan product, refuse to let any human know, the budget was top set, and anyone who studies it closely in the industry is romney didnt have anything close to it. I want to get by they hope the interpret will solve our problem, and the problem of the internet was bril lament. Either we control the fate, share the same road, see what power people thought, be anonymous, and we were in control of the experience. We had that power. Whats now is they know everything about us, a world if you do google searches, they have criteria, a different page on the website. Its a completely new world order, and we have the illusion we control it, but we do not. Something im wanting to talk about is what does it mean for civic life when messages a target the to individual voters and theres no common narrative about what the candidate means and what hes trying to achieve . You quote someone from politico. Yeah, a great quote, really. Its circled eight times here. Imagine one of your neighbors sees them attacking regulations, another sees ads passionately arguing for stronger environmental regulations, and the campaign ads you see never mention the environment. Imagine all ads come from the same candidate, that cant happen on tv, but its business as usual. Mind blowing. It is. This is the interesting thing written about in the book, everyone we talked to said, oh, 2012 is just a test run. Yeah. 2012 was just people literally figuring things out, whether things would work. Romneys efforts crashed and burn so it did not, but here is the thing to understand what it does to politics. This means, and i know its hard to imagine that maybe there might be cynical players in politics, but if you were a cynical politician, you could jetson, you know, any keep of public message whatsoever, any kind of ideology whatsoeverment your dont have it come in on principle. You can just say, i can tell everybody what they wants to hear. I can get power. Thats an election, a competition for power. I can get power, and once ifer it, it does not end there. I got all votes for all reasons for all people telling me what they want to hear, not what im going to do, but once i get power, i can continue to tell them i do what i said i would do, and in a moment when journalism stood down and dont have sufficient coverage, especially at the state and local level, you have a situation where someone could live their entire political life, be a very, very successful politician where americans, depending on what they believe, think very, very Different Things about you. Going back to that, this mentions the tv, the two are not isolated, they work together, but journalism standing down, that means that wealthy interests come down and step a fortune on tv adses and create a story. Yeah. Create a narrative with no basis except they want to basically make them go broke. Yeah, break. Open to mass destruction. You guys, despite what it sounds like in the last hour or so are happy ware yores and optimists. Ill start. The division of labor, im the, like, get them off the ledge to jump, and john pulls them off and prepares to go to battle. Im a big believer for a number of first of all, its selffulfilling. Act like change for the better, its impossible, and you guarantee its possible. The only thing to control is what we do. If youre alive, you have to have optimism. To pursue in life. I think one of the big problems we have is all of us is it is easy to look, and you assume thats how they will be, getting out of that, no matter the situation, its a paralyzing thing. History, what we see today in america, all sorts of pressures in the long term, the growth of poverty, massive inequality, corruption, the climate, and these are things that are going to be addressed one way or note, doesnt have to be positively, can be negative, but the state is not going on forever and will change, and we have to understand it so when the crisis is pronounced, we intersect and have change, move to something thats going to have change. One lesson i had is its changed the way, i had a professor at the university of washington, South African, moves to the United States in the 1960s with his wife, and they were a militant activist, and in the United States, and he studied knew more about South African politics, the family lived there, visited there a lot, and he theres never a change in south africa, the government will never negotiate a day and see if theres justice for black africans, requires bloodshed like never seen in the continent before. Its unbelievable. Ive never been so depressed. He gave lectures on it, reads every paper in the country almost, and here he was, and says this in 1998, two years late, Nelson Mandela released from prison, five years later, elected president of south africa, and theres less vines in those five years than in the new jersey bar fight on a saturday night. Heres the smarteddest guy in the world, completely wrong, totally wrong, devoted his life to studying it, the pass vies of the resolution and cant see it. Were not predicting the future, only see whats going on. He knew it was a situation in south africa, but no way of envisioning something what was around him. We have the problem. We cant get hung up on the prediction. So lets take from what bob said. Founders were imperfect, very, very flawed in what they did, and, frankly, the constitution they developed, the start of the american experiment, a document that even many of them were unsatisfied with, and they gave us to respond to major problems by amending the constitution, and what we argue in the book, the conclusion and what we say is that we must respond as people have responded to the gifts of the american experiment, by amending our constitution, to make structural changes, that are not about candidates and parties, not about a particular grouping, but are about fixing the structures of our politics so that they respond appropriately to the moment we are in. Thats impossible. Constitution was written on stone tablets and handed down to Michele Bachmann hundreds of years ago. [laughter] it can never be changedded. Thats an impossible. Other than its changed 27 times. Almost every major amendment, certainly a lot of amendments we care about other than the prohibition, had to do with democracy, had to do with making the system work, and so across the history of the american experm, when we reached crisis moment, we have amend the the constitution. We rarely do it with just one. One, two, three, multiple amendments come through because people are ready to fix it and amendments come in the context, also, with a host of other changes, referred to as an age of reform, and thats how we got votes for africanamericans, thats how we got votes for women, votes for everybody. We elected the u. S. Senate, struck down the poll tax, wealth tax, in 1962 , and then we came around, eight years later, said, hey, this 21yearold should avote, weigh in on it, and again, and again and again we amend the constitution to make democracy functional and expand it and realize its own promise. Today, we blee that the constitution in the United States should be amended to say that money is not speech. Corporations are not people. The citizens of the United States have a right to organize elections in which the vote matters more than the dollar. A simple concept that Teddy Roosevelt would agree with that most of the political figures of the last century agree with, and that amendment should come in the context of other amendments. We should eliminate the Electoral College. The Electoral College should not exist because no one who loses the popular vote should be the president of the United States. We think that we should have a constitutional amendment that says you cant gerrymander congressional districts because its absurd that 8095 of americans live in places where their Congressional Elections dont much matter, and, finally, most importantly, we think the constitution of the United States should be amended to say every american has a right to vote and right to have the vote count. The right is not detailed in the constitution, and that lack of that right has been used again and again and again to strike down protections for groups that need to vote. I know what you are saying. I really do know. You are sitting here as every group we see saying, wow, those are great ideas. I love those ideas. I like being in the room at this wonderful institution with this great moderator, and i feel great about that. Thats what we need to do. I fear that when i walk out of this room, i might think its hard to amend the constitution of the United States. Its a difficult thing. That while these ideas sound great, we cant possibly do it. What we do in the book is argue that there are critical juketures in American History where the problems are so severe, the great mass of people start to recognize the need to do big things, and change does not come from washington. It comes from outside as a wave that begins to overwhelm both Political Parties and make Something Big happen. Notably, 16 american states have formally called on the congress of the United States to get big money out of politics, overturn Citizens United. More than 500 communities acted on this issue, and that wage is coming. Its real. Its not well colored in the media that does not cover grassroots politics, but its out there. I close saying even there, grassroots activism, real things happening in the country, its easy to talk yourself out of it. The thing is to look at history, and we do a lot in the book. Go back a hundred years ago, look at the country a hundred years ago, you recognize you live in a country where a little girl, dont go to school, they work in mills, often as a bobbin girl, changing the bobbins in machine, and in the best of circumstances its the worst they do, and in the worst of circumstances, they get injured on the job, losing a hand or finger, but its okay, they were expend l. It was a guilded age. The people could do what they wanted with the people that worked in the phak factory. If they grew up, they worked in a factory to make participants and shirts, work there with italians, jews, lebanese, people from all over the world, africanamerican young women from the south to escape segregation, and all working together in this factory, and then when the factory caught on fire, when a fire swept through, the girls ran to the doors, and tried to open, but they are locked shut because when you work, 1214 hour days, in that guilded age, wealthy owners didnt want you to steal a bathroom break from them. You didnt have the protection, and 10 the girls had to make a choice. Do they burn alive or do they jump to their death . When the families of the fire victims came to collect the bodies of their cousins and their aunts and their mothers and sisters, they walked in the streets in new york, and they saw their loved ones having had to make that most horrendous of all choices, and what they recognized was that those young women didnt have the right to vote. If they had the right to vote, they didnt have a right to elect their u. S. Senate or define congress because we had an appointed rather than elected u. S. Senate. They didnt have the right to tax corporations or create structures of regulation and control it like how a ceo, owner of a company, that they have to treat people as human beings. Ten years later, ten years later, women had the right to voamentd, we had an elected u. S. Senate, we had established the tax system, we begun to palsz child labor laws, protections for women in the workplace, laying out the ground work for the new deal, the fair deal, all the changes of the 20th century because in that moment, it was not just a triangle shirt fire, i dont say that, but in that moment of recognition, millions of americans decided that they were not going to take anymore. They were going to make the fundmental structural changes that gave them the power to write and control their future. We argue in the book we reached the moment once more, and that is it is our duty to be what our grandmothers and grandfathers were. Full citizens. Committed to making this expermed work knowing its hard, but we have to raise that cry for a functional democracy because if we dont, we will live the rest of our lives in a dollarocy, what the best of the partisans of the american experiment fought against from the start. Im going to applaud that. You can too. [applause] but were not done. We got a good solid 15 minutes for questions, even though pretty much everything that could possibly have been solved has been solved here. Hardly. We are broadcast on cspan, so, please, stand and wait for the boom microphone to come so you can smile for the cameras. Its a great question. First of all, we have to have journalists of society. We cannot live without journalism in society. People get paid to do it, competing and committed to covering beats and are accountable. Any system of government were living in that doesnt have that wouldnt work. Its one of the great professions. If you are interestinged in it, do it. Anyone in the room who wants do. The downside is what i said economically. What john candidate am came out of Journalism School he had jobs lined up. But today coming out of Journalism School, wherever it is, its not like that. If you are reporting jobs less compared to a generation ago. Theyre not coming back. I see so many talented young people. They want to be journalism at every school we go to. It moves us. Whey tell them is what i would tell my own daughter she. S to be an actor. The only job being harder. Its almost like being an actress. You have to build your clips and work harder and have a day job. It takes a dedication that didnt exist before. I encourage people to do that. As hard as it is to take the risk with your life, and the uncertainty of your future that comes with it, its still worth it. This country will not be worth living in without journalism. It really wont be. Theyre heroes. People who make the effort to be journalists now should be regarded that way. It forces society to come up with institutions so we can support journalists. But we have to do and dont. I have students i teach and daughters, its a terrible economy right now. Most of the jobs theyre getting are horrible jobs. From my experience, they dont pay very well. What i came out of college in 1977, i got a union job. You probably have heard of it called unions. [laughter] it was paid 10 an hour at the lumberyard. I figured if someone got the salary out of college today it would be 78,000 a year. I told that my students they would fall over. That would chop off a foot for that. Its a hard time and hard to find good jobs. Its you might as well do something you love. It there are no great other options 0 through the. I know, its not great. Talk. Any answer is dont do it. Competition [inaudible conversations] the the only responsible to tell any young person who asks to get any writing is dont do it. Because it doesnt matter what you say. If theyre meant to do it thailt do it anyway. Okay. There grow. The humanitarian will to do creative, meaningful work is incomeble. I dont care what they say at the economics department. Were not utility maximizing creatures. And art and writing and i would say this to students who want to get ph. D. Es in the humanities too, dont do it. Youll do it anyway if you have to because the will to create meaningful lives. People keep on doing it. When i was in new york in the mid out, we were all, you know, accepting starting several salvationsalvationsalaries of 18,000 a year to be editors and now all the of my friends are new yorker Staff Writers and write 900page books about republican president s. And our tv critics and novelists and its the same people. All of my friends its a great rate of success of people selective enough to enter in to a profession they know wouldnt be repneumoniative and would require honor and in integrity. That are literally producing groundbreaking investigative reporting. The striking thing, to me, is that the need is so great its going happen. Its a question whether youre going part of it. If you want to be part of it, you are going find your way to do it. I can tell you a few years ago, a guy was banging around on the edges of the discourse; right. And some pretty good essays and making people think about things. He got a job at the guardian. I think the world is different because of it. He did some courageous journalism as a young guy. It shows you what is possible. Jeremy, my colleague at nation. Without all the easy ins. What naomi kline has done. Were doing it in all sort of new ways. Sometimes through an investigative reporting center, sometimes writing books, sometimes making documentaries. And i think documentary film, in many ways, is the new wave of journalism. Its happening. My frustration is not the young people who come up to try to do it. I think they will. Theyll starve sometimes. Pretty close to it to get there. What i want to make sure that is that middleaged people keep at it. Thats an interesting dynamic. The young person coming in, i have faith theyre going to come, but there comes a point when you try to support yourself at the certain age, and that, too, i think is starting to fall apart. We are not sustaining big news rooms. We are not sustaining, you know, situations where somebody wants to cover a school board can do that. We are creating models where you can do the blowout story. You can expose the nsa. Im not sure were doing enoughly nearly enough to make sure our loam local drainage area. I want you to youll do it. If you want to coit, youre going do it. I want to make sure if you do it for your whole life, weve got the structure to support media. The most important thing to understand is just about every other country we want to compare ourself with does. Other countries figure out how to make sure they have a vibrant, strong, journalism be it public or private. Sometimes with a melding of the two. But the bottom line is they dont leave it to chance. They dont say, well, weapon hope theres a journalism in the future. They say, no, you cant have democracy and functional Society Without journalism. Thats where i want young people to come in and them to become advocate for their own journalistic career but also for a structure that makes sure that people can have a life. Pull out a couple of more. In the front row. Wait for the microphone. Feel free to identify yourself. Sorry. Its easy to be concerned about being able to create change given the nature of the problem that youve been talking about. So if money is driving the system, and money is driving the politicians, and money is driving the court, it makes it seems that would make an incredibly hard to create the type of change you think needs to be there. I think about the change of, you know, with all the recent gun violence weve had. One would have thought it would have been fairly easy to pass gun control laws in the country. The nra brought a tremendous amount of money to bear and knead impossible. Youre hopeful. But i worry there whether or not there are things that worked in the past. The nature of the problem. So much money has been pushed in to government by business. It makes it impossible for the things that, wood in the past to work again. And if i can push back a little bit on that. Ill jump in on that. First, its a very its almost a selfevident question. The sense if youre going work through the system, and the system you show demonstrated is entirely corrupt and pervious to popular pressure. I think the other lesson the one that sort of drives a lot of us is the prices of our political system today is that its been cool onize colonized by corporations and large money. And jeff cohen put it, the range of debate in american politics extends from ge to gm. We have a political system over here. Republican party way to the right, but the democrats followed in their wake. Theyre right behind them. Theyre way over here with the gegm range of economic range. Permanent stagnation, to union, declining income. Theres a [inaudible] a growing number who are also alienated from that. Who want to participate and looking for solutions. Thats the great pension that drives our politics fop to some extent the system is rigged. Also means that the people who benefit by this political system know theyre in the minority. I think thats something we should keep in mind. The strong thing to make it possible in the top onetenth spent unlimited amount on the campaign. And to suppress the vote, on the other hand is a passive recognition. They cant win a fair fight. We have the numbers on our side. All the numbers show, especially young people, they are alienated from that view of the world. They want real solutions, they are no the traditional coldwar thinking that my generation was raised in. Theres a real opening there. I think it has people dominate and scared. Thats why they want to spend money and suppress the vote. They cant win a fair fight. That should keep us we are the majority. We really are. I would add to that just one other thing, the solution, i think politically, occupy shows this in the madison uprised showed this. A nonviolent peaceful demonstration are going to have to become a larger part of our politic. John i talked. I dont think people in power are that scared by twitter campaigns or online petition. Scott walker jokes about it. I think they are scared to death when they see 100,000 nonviolent protesters. Nothing scares people in power more. Its one of the important freedom protected in our First Amendment. I think it gets them. Even occupy, youll remember the uncertainty of it. We had the occupy movement, and in Bobby Jindals response to Barack Obamas state of the union address. They talked about how expressing equality. Unheard of from a republican for 30 years. And the second occupy start to listening what a lot of activists were saying, which is that they dont believe in the electorial vote and are not going vote. They stopped paying attention. Another quick point i always make, when you vunder to despair and pessimism, and the system is riggeddism, what are you saying to our brothers and sisters who fought for over a century of war are the e emancipation. What are you saying to some of the women and men who fought for a century. The cliche the moral arc of the universe is long but justice is power is a serious thing. Where the pressure points will be revealed are only evident to us in retrospect. We never weve, across this country in term of the all upanddown the east coast and the midwest. Going out to california next week on the tour, a never went in a room where people say we dont like your ideas. We think your analysis is wrong and we think your proposal to fix things are wrong. Thats not what we hear. What we hear is people say we agree with your analysis and your idea. We dont think we can do to. I like the odds on that. I like we have gotten to that point. Can we get that last step, that last mile. It is that ghandi quote. It is the proposals we make are structure changes. We recognize that there are deep divides on issues like guns and reproductive rights, and all sort of other issues. And people are well organized to battle on the issues. What we argue is many of the structure changes we propose in an honest debate can find left right coalition that are unexpected. Across the country when legislatures have voted to overturn Citizens United. Ares