Is there anything you want to say . Sometimes it is worth letting you take three minutes to tell us what you want us to hear. Brown i temper myself with commitment. I find myself in this commitment being the only viable alternative for 1992 to restore stability to this country. It is the premise of my case that the governing elite is stuck. It is paralyzed. It cant take the necessary corrective action to restore vitality to this country. The level of despair and suffering and injustice has no historic precedent in history of our nation. Folks in washington are acting as though there are some problems out there that it is pretty much business as usual. Two interpretations of 1992. One is there are some problems that ought to be corrected. There is another view, there is something profoundly wrong with what is going on in the politics and governing processes of this nation. I take the second view. I believe the social fabric is unraveling. That the central state is aggregating to itself authority that would shock and dismay our founders. That Civil Liberties are being eroded. That injustice is the experience of millions and millions of americans in a way that is absolutely intolerable. When i see millions of kids who do not have a mother or father or received tens of millions in poverty and despair. When you see the exile of a whole generation of americans be it a black, latino, white, red, asian, it is not right. Political corruption, mass cynicism at the process, failing competitiveness, a loss of decent high paying jobs is combining to unravel the fabric of this country. The only way we can restore the upward you and this country is to make a challenge to the governing elite and to overcome their resistance. I would say by record i have always been for protecting the underdog, for environmental protection, innovation and creativity of all kinds. My record, i have always been for reform. My record is very clear. I am not a saint. I have been in politics for 20 years. I grew up with a politician at the dinner table every night. It was politics. It was labor leaders, jewish leaders, San Francisco irish politics. That is my upbringing. I also have a moral commitment to justice. That is not the market as closet dictator. That is a community that cares and works for people. This community is not working for all the people that live here. The gap is growing. The chattering classes doing very well. The chattering class consists of people at this table. The media, the lawyers, the politicians and the rest of the people who earn their living by their wits, their mouth, their pencils. There is another group of people who dont have a job or are losing it because they make cars and people down in mexico are really to do it for a fraction of what they will. That is the challenge. I came here in 1976 and i went through harlem and i saw bond outbuildings and it shocked me. Carter went there and made certain statements and nothing happened. Ive been doing this campaign. It is still there. It is still there. And down in congress they are not even willing to vote the Mayors Program of 28 billion to assist the cities of this country. They are not willing to fully fund headstart. The money is there. They came up with over 100 billion for s ls. They came up with a pay raise of 40,000. The money is there. Economists are saying spend more. There is no theoretical or political reason for not having a renaissance and revitalization right here at home. The only thing that prevents it is the gridlock, the inability of the present system to function and respond to this mortal challenge. That is what my campaign is meant to achieve and to respond to. I am here offering people a clear choice. It is a legitimate it is a protest but more than that. It is a choice to restore vitality to a decrepit political process that is discouraging half the American People from participating and my invitation is joined together and in coalition we can restore this country to its original commitment to opportunity and upward growth in each generation. We appreciate that. If everybody who asks questions could identify themselves, that would make it easier for the governor to respond directly. City hall bureau chief. When we start with the tax question. Are you asking new yorkers to commit political suicide with your tax . Are you going to restore deductibility for state and local taxes . Gov. Brown i will save new yorkers more money in my tax proposal than any deductibility offers them. Deductibility will be more than compensated for by the savings on the personal tax that ive proposed in substitution of the mess that exists in the revenue sharing and commitments of the cities that my campaign commits itself to. This is part of an integrated strategy to rebuild the cities and industries of this country. The only study of my tax proposal by the citizens for tax justice is logically flawed. All we are saying sympathy and fairness. I am representing those who have lost all advocacy and im not here to in any way disadvantage those that are suffering the most. I want fairness and simplicity. We have to improve and make it better. David, did you want to complete the question . I dont get it really. New hampshire has no state or local taxes. New york has among the highest in the nation. Does no deductibility we will still be paying those taxes. Gov. Brown but you will save more by broadening the base and lowering the rate. New hampshire still wont have local and state taxes and we will be paying them and wont be able to deduct them. Gov. Brown yeah, but wait a minute. What youre saying here is you need a federal tax. That makes you feel better if you have a high federal tax against which to deduct. Instead of paying it 100 , sure. Governor brown but wait a minute. I just want to capture this here. If you have 100 and you can somehow offset it with estate tax, what is the difference if you pay the state tax and you have a federal tax to offset against it . You are happy because there is a burden on you that you can lighten by the payment of your state taxes. If the burden is not there in the first place you are in the same position. The reduction of federal tax that im proposing will put you in a better position than you are today. With a larger federal tax and the deduction that you then try to cushion it with. The local and state tax will be there no matter what. Mr. Brown but if you are lowering your federal taxi will save enough money that you will come out ahead when you net out the loss and adaptability. The increased savings. The other point of this, youre getting hung up on very small issues. This country is losing its capacity to save and invest. Every Economist Says we need to find the savings and investment. They say that the business tax im proposing will be the most efficient collector of revenue. It will be progressive. If we have to cover the first 15,000 in income we can do that with a slight adjustment so that if you make only 15,000 you wont have to pay any tax. This is a large collector of revenue. That is why some people like the added tax. The flat tax is my own idea and i combined them because for most people the payroll tax is the most progressive. You cannot deduct state tax against your Social Security and medicare tax and for most of the people in the world that is the biggest tax burden. It is only the high income people that get the advantages you are talking about. For the person making 25,000, the payroll tax is the big not that he has to cover, and i am offering a rent deduction for the first time. A deduction for charity, for mortgage interest and moreover this is a concept that is open to improvement. I have seen studies and we can make them available to you, whereas if you move up by a very small amount you can have enough money to rebate to low income people making 15,000 or less and cover them from any burden that they might incur. Joe nicholson, medical science editor. I am going back to a question that someone talked about sunday. We had an extraordinary coincidence in the newsroom yesterday. My colleague on the right and another each did separate interviews with two people who did not know each other. Both were men of stature and High Integrity and both told similar stories. I interviewed kurt wolf, news director of channel 11 and a host on channel 31 and 13 at times. He told me he had seen you take a couple of puffs on a marijuana cigarette at a private party some years ago. Fred dickers source told him the same thing. Mr. Wolf did a taperecorded interview i have here. My question would be, can you tell us, have you ever tried smoking a marijuana cigarette . Mr. Brown no. Ok, that is your answer. Show it to me. Here it is. Mr. Brown who is the individual . This is kurt wolf. He answered the question. Lets not printed out for. Over. s not play it mr. Brown i dont know that individual. [indiscernible] you say you have never taken a puff of marijuana cigarette in your life . Mr. Brown i dont recognize that name. If you had more elaboration i wanted to go back to the meeting we just came from with Jewish Community relations council. The other people wont know that during that meeting there was an interruption there was a lot of back and forth between that. I would like to ask you having had a chance to think about what happened there, what does that meeting tell us and you think it was a mistake to have chosen reverend jackson as your running mate . Mr. Brown it is not a mistake and i hope it is not too late to heal the divisions and animosity between the black in the white community. The Jewish Community and the black community. We are a country that in certain respects i consider a very profound crisis. I am running to create the stability and justice that will allow america to be what its forebears intended. Because of the feeling that jackson is antisemitic. I do not believe he is. I believe the blacks among other groups in society are seeing their youth destroyed. The highest cause of death among black kids under fouryearsold it is aids. [indiscernible] that you are theologically advocating antisemitism in the black community. You spoke of a particular rift. You make it sound like it is merely a matter of poverty. That poverty generates antisocial behavior, when we know many people who are poor are not antisocial. You sound like an apologist at times advocating antisocial behavior. Mr. Brown keeping this country in the failed condition. The country is the cannot also. Mr. Brown do not give me that blame america stuff the republicans use at their convention. I heard jean kirkpatrick. That language just mirrors people are not responsible for their own behavior . You not response before your own behavior . Mr. Brown i believe in accordance with the tradition i was brought up at the age of seven we reach the age of reason and are capable of sinful behavior. I very much believe in personal responsibility. I also understand as a student of history and someone was going on around the world that if you go to a poor nation like india and the punjabi you find the violence because of caste and poverty. You walk in these communities. Ive stayed at a homeless shelter in the last two weeks where there were women and their kids living in broom closets. This is america and these people feel alienated. You that they do. And are they better . You bet they are. I am committed to this country, to make it strong and harmonious. That will never happen on the path we are going on. I was trying to ask a specific i do not want to debate with you. Mr. Brown i think he is raising a good question. I was try to ask a specific question. You said there was particular rift between the black and Jewish Community. And i wondered what you thought was the cause of the particular rift between the black and Jewish Community. Why would black resentment focus itself against jews. You acknowledge there is a phenomenon. Mr. Brown in los angeles, you have against korean grocers. Yeah, we do. Mr. Brown in these poor countries where people start fighting each other. Anytime you have people who are feeling stressed they look for a scapegoat and they find someone who was on the outgroup who has a different language a different skin color, a different religious tradition and they identify that as the source of their problems. It has nothing to do with if this person is jewish or catholic or that person is a mexicanamerican. It is just the human nature of having a solidarity with ones own group and attributing evil to the outside group. That is being exacerbated in this country. It is not a particular characteristic of one group over another. That is the truth of the matter. It is just the normal business and the level of despair is out there. I mean, i have sat on Radio Stations. I was on a black Radio Station in chicago and the asked do you support a congressman and i said of course not and they looked at me like you dont. And i saw the gap in interpretation. Is what really concerns me and i think the answers not to excuse antisocial behavior. I embarked upon an antichrome anticrime program. The answer is not to excuse antisocial behavior. I embarked upon a prison Building Program second to none. We doubled the number people convicted of felonies from 18,000 to 19,000. My record on crime is tough. I also knowledge that you need a community where everyone has an opportunity. When you see mothers with no husband and kids living in a broom closet it is a formula for explosion and that is happening not to just a few but to millions. They see on the one hand the affluence and of the other hand utterly to short conditions. The spread of aids, the lack of jobs. The disempowerment of black manhood, that is expose of. My anticrime program is full employment and a living wage. There will still be people who are criminal who will do terrible things and they should be punished. Im not saying you end evil. Certainly my background in belief in original sin and human nature as a constant. Does not change that. Social conditions exacerbate things. The level of murder in this country was 300 now it is Something Like 2000 year. I believe it is social conditions and the priority which bush and the congress are still talking about is not acknowledging the extent of the alienation. I could have told you this would happen two months ago and i knew this would happen. I knew it was going to be a division. But my campaign is about truth. I will tell the truth no matter what happens because i think this country is at risk unless somebody has the guts to stand up and say the emperor has no clothes. We are not going to make it out. This concept of a living family wage, to what extent is it different from the welfare system which does provide a living family wage . Of you and advocate expanding the welfare system if it is more of a living wage and of so, where do you get the money . Mr. Brown im an advocate for having a president in Political Party it that every american has the right to life, liberty, pursuit of their own happiness, which requires a level of economic security. Now how we attain that . By cutting the military budget, converting our best research and technology and investment to a civilization civilian revitalization. All the different ways we can do that, it can also take the form of earned income credit, direct payment. It can take the form of Public Service jobs, civilian conservation corps. A whole variety of ways that everybody can have an opportunity. All im saying is the reigning doctrine more money in welfare youre saying. Mr. Brown no. Welfare is pathology continuing to exist. Raise elite prosper and their pay. And we are sitting around in rooms like this and talk about people are dying and nobody is doing a darn thing about it. We have the money and the time in a variety of ways to make this country available to all its citizens. And part of that is yes, im against the fast track to mexico. I want a civilian conservation corps to enroll hundreds of thousands of young people. I want a Training Program but all the lists people give you are fine, but we have to make the commitment and acknowledgement that we are not living up to our social responsibility and that is killing the country and ultimately it will undermine everything we stand for as americans. I want to call on another member sitting around this boardroom. Jack newfield . Jack i heard what you said about black jewish tensions coming out of despair and poverty but how do you explain the fact that the most vocal antisemites in the country are part of the elite . Congressman savage, minister farrakhan. Professor jeffries. Isnt it something that has nothing to do with poverty and despair . Mr. Brown they exploit it. When conditions continue with no hope you are always going to be finding people who emerge to press the hot button. What im saying is the answer to the rise of antisemitism, the rise of hate crimes, homophobic attacks, is to create a stability based on opportunity that we do not have available to all americans. Has your potential Vice President , jesse jackson, told you he regrets his involvement with Louis Farrakhan . I mean, given your comment ms. Around you heard his, yesterday that he said about new york city. Brown you heard his comment yesterday that he made about new york city. He does not have an alliance as far as i know. I reject mr. Farrakhan and anything like that and i believe if my Campaign Offers the opportunity to make the shift to domestic revitalization that in its absence will not occur and the erosion will continue. I do not see anything in clinton or bush that acknowledges the depth of despair. That is what people have to get through their head. The hatred and the animosity building up amongst people who see no way out is threatening the foundation. We have the money, we have the genius that we can not create a welfare state but create an opportunity through jobs through investment here and recognizing the threat is not a Russian Missile but the social disintegration that comes from despair and lack of income and jobs. Amy if i could just get back to the even the people that have been your most vocal supporters sort of say you are flying by the seat of your pants. In order to silence them, why have you not ordered someone from your campaign to crunch the numbers . Mr. Brown we have. It works out it is amazing. There are hundreds of billions of dollars in tax loopholes and tax breaks. That is what is holding the economy back. This is a program which everybody talks about. Lets stimulate and strengthened the economy. The economy is stagnant. This is a program to lower marginal rates from the base and create saving and investment that will enable this country to generate the new wealth it needs. Amy this has been analysis by mr. Brown i think there an article in the wall street journal today. It should becoming. If it was not in today. I was told it would be in today. Questioning your figures and you talk about adjusting them upwards. Mr. Brown you can do that if you had a point on the value added you can totally exempt you can cushion the effect. Is there an exception . Look, im in a coalition. As is a concept of fairness and simplicity. Both of them have to exist. You are talking about 2. 5 generations for the manufacture base to collapse in new york and what your plans it will certainly take another generation to rebuild it. What do we do in the short term . What can the feds do about the fact that we have one Million People on welfare, a crime rate out of control, guns on every corner, metal effectors at the metal detectors at the schools . What in the short term can the feds do to make that city and other cities like it into a better city shortterm the First Six Months of your administration . Mr. Brown i believe we have to embark upon the Mayors Program, 28 billion, revenuesharing. Pump money in, take over the burden of medicaid. Put the money in which will have an immediate effect and i have outlined a program that i believe will make Jobs Available to unskilled, semiskilled, and skilled. Cutting Energy Consumption in half. That requires retrofitting buildings are replacing lighting coming heating, cooling. Reengineering motor systems. Retrofitting buildings, refitting heating, pulling. Reengineering motor systems. I am talking about a massive program that would be a decentralized effort at private utilities, Public Utilities, state and federal governments. Because we have an energy waste because of the lack of efficiency. A lack of new technologies that are now available. And i see that in the quick way of jumpstarting the economy and providing jobs. Just creating the investment, government will have it will beme in, but through the utilities like they are doing in california where they are giving incentives for people to retrofit buildings and replace inefficient mechanical systems. This will require hundreds of billions of dollars tax increase. Mr. Brown no, look, you have the biggest source of capital is the building of new energy. Isnt the intention tax incentives . Mr. Brown you need borrowing in longterm notes by private and Public Utilities and investment by the federal government to push this along. In addition to that i think, the infrastructure look at the roads. Building the highspeed trains. Fully funding headstart. Taking care of the health care. Look, there is so much to be done. People do not believe it is an imperative. What really caught my attention is Ronald Reagan defined it as an evil. He said there is an evil over there and we have to spend a trillion dollars. I am saying we have a commensurate evil that is more real and threatening and we have to make the same level of commitment in the most ingenious way we can. Not just a smaller public sector. Although that is part of it. Certainly a Public Service core. I think that is appropriate. But it is basically to incentivize the private sector. I want to lower the marginal tax rate and get rid of the deductions in the tax code. I think it is operating as a wet blanket. You mentioned the article in the times of the zero parent family and its growth. 6 million kids. We have kids here who cannot read and write. No workforce that can supply needs for a lot of our companies. Metropolitan life is shifting its insurance claims to ireland to be read by someone who can read and write. Im talking about the shortterm. We have an amazing bulk of people who cannot read or write, never mind work. Mr. Brown we had a Cedar Program that was a 12 billion program that was virtually canceled and turned into this much more modest effort of job training partnerships. We know how to do it. If people cannot fill out an hireance problem, they can on as a trade. I had a program called california worksite in education Training Program country and people in the private sector for the jobs appropriate in the public sector. The problem is not the list of what to do. I was in laconia, new hampshire. A woman stood up and said i make 5. 50. Im a teachers aide. I know a lot of neighbors were out of work who like to get a job at 5. 50 and those jobs are not available. The federal government spends 300 an hour for lawyers on wall street. There is an imbalance. At the top, things are working. At the bottom there is increasing despair. I believe we can generate the money if we knowledge the extent acknowledge the extent of the problem. Teachers aides, headstart, child care just fixing the roads in this city and state and nation. Getting at the business of fixing up Public Transit is there a but we dont make the same commitment that we make to keep 30,000 troops in japan or 30,000 in south korea or 150,000 in europe or the gulf war or panama or whatever. There is a sense which it is ok but the whole world has changed utterly. Were we wrong to go to war with Saddam Hussein . Mr. Brown i did oppose it. I do not feel i know the full facts. I dont have the full information. You must be saying something more comic mr. Brown i dont know the relationship between bush and Saddam Hussein and the encouragement he was given and the ambiguous signals in those days before he invaded. The efforts that bush made to get foreign credits for saddam. The use of information they made available. They made the impression that they encouraged him in ways whether intended or not and i think that were could have been stopped and had bush listened to some of the congressmen telling him hes moving in the wrong direction. With the extent of the Nuclear Utility i think you have to take it out. I supported the attack on the Research Reactor and im not about to see that man have weapons of mass destruction. Do you think that bill clinton has the character and integrity to be president . Mr. Brown i think that clintons record of compromise and accommodation with what i would call the politics of usual does not give him the position and the moral force to lead the change this country desperately needs. Him im not here to sit in judgment on his personal character. I think it is the issue for people to understand what his politics have been. Conflicts of interest. The accommodation. The total embracing of insider money. 1000 donations. The warchest from his friends in washington. Folks down there doing business with the state of arkansas. That business of politics which i know so well. That closes the kind of shift and change i believe the country needs. Im going to tell the truth and lay it out the way i see it. We are not on course to get at the problem. What clinton has put together is the same old compromise. No challenge to the injustice that is happening and therefore i dont see his candidacy or presidency, which i dont think whatever whatever takes place i do not believe he will get the nomination or if he does that he will attract the millions of people necessary to challenge bush will bring back economy enough to make himself a formidable candidate. If he does get it will you support him for president . Mr. Brown depending on how the rest of this campaign goes. You made a statement to the effect that youre not perfect, yes you have changed. Do you sympathize with people who wonder about your political position . Mr. Brown could you cite one . As the chairman of the Democratic Party in california, you were actively involved in the same insider politics that you today so vocally criticized. When did you come to the conclusion that the system is as an evil as you depicted . You make it sound pretty demonic. Mr. Brown that is the interpretation. I heard jimmy carter say, the attack on the government is not justified. If you play back his speeches about the tax code being a disgrace to the human race and everything he said it is an interesting shift people make. I supported the political reform act and it was written in my office in 1974. Curbs spending and lobbyist influence. Parts of it were struck down on First Amendment grounds. I came back after six years, i wanted to link a Grassroots Party to the incumbent and grassroots people. I raise the money from individual donors in amounts higher than 1000. What i saw, the party is losing its membership. Young people are committed to independent or republican. Democratic loyalty has diminished at a greater time than any since roosevelt. I tried to resuscitate it. This is the man who conducted charlie keatings finance motor registration drive. I wanted to provide the same level of support. As soon as we stopped this forcefeeding of elite money into go register, it stops. Nothing coming up from the bottom because there is no believe. There is no coming together of a real Political Party based on a platform and a vision and an agenda. What i saw at that time was the thing we force candidates to do is spend all their time what she said was i will not go to a meeting for less than 50,000 and if you are going to 20 in one year, you to spend all your time pleasing and cajoling the top 1 . I asked everyone to raise their hand, have you ever given a thousand dollars. It is a most 100 in every meeting i go. You have this absolute cutting between the few who are in charge of the Democratic Party and the vast majority who we ought to represent in the tens of millions more who dont even show up for the polls because they feel they have been left out. I decided i would run a campaign that depends on the people who have been left out. People who would call 18004261112. Everyone said i could not do it. I took a substantial risk. This is not a campaign of compromise. I know how to pander. I started campaigns saying i would not take any more than 100. My best advice is that you cannot do that. You have the raise at least 250. I said, we will do 100 and everyone came along with it and for the first few months nothing happened. This month we filed a report with more money in it than bill clinton. This was a field of dreams that we build and people have come. They are coming by the hundreds of thousands. This is an authentic Political Movement. It is not about jerry brown. I merely a catalyst and if i can get no other point to you i want you to know that as a person who is been around politics from the time i started to walk this is something that is happening. Our party is progressively dying and i am seeing it be reborn from wisconsin to maine to vermont. Thousands of people are coming out, making tshirts, writing letters to the editor, starting committees of correspondence like the revolutionary war. This is something that is alive and vital. Im a flawed candidate but it is about restoring the party that i love and the country i want to see work. It is coming with all the experience of being a governor and having to raise one million to get there and my commitment was for political reform, to environmentalism to innovation. I think if you look at my positions over 20 years when you say this or that, i think there is a core constituencybased on an Irish Catholic family growing up producing a politician producing a son of a politician and all the circumstances you would expect and this is a good faith effort to create something open and positive in a dying political process that the majority of people do not participate in and think is a bunch of baloney. I think it should be welcomed. We dont know how you are. What about the rigors of the campaign besides losing your voice and maybe your patience and a little sleep . Tell us what it is done to you. Mr. Brown what it has done to me. You have come to down for once. Mr. Brown it is reinforcing the original idea of the campaign. You personally. What does it do to a man personally to go through this . Do you gain weight or lose it . Mr. Brown i lose it. 25 pounds. When i came back from japan i weighed about 165 pounds. When i became chairman of the Democratic Party and ate a bunch of those meals i condemned, i weighed 215 pounds. It went against my nature. I started the campaign what about sleep . Mr. Brown four to five a night. What i have learned is, the moral principles upon which i grew up with are the anchor and all this microphone inyourface jumping around jackson this the post and change her position and all that, the anchors i had growing up, when i believe the only compass that keeps me going and can keep politics moving in the direction it has to go. Who do you dump it on . Who do you go to . Mr. Brown i get into bed about 2 00 and get up about 6 30. This is what we do all day. You are seeing it. There is no other life other than unconsciousness. Yesterday at the board of elections you began to develop a critique of the nominating process. The system itself. The front loading, the disproportionate represented states. D think this is a fair system . Mr. Brown no. Could it affect a reconsideration . Is the system loaded . Mr. Brown totally. This is not me talking. I have studied the american political system both by direct experience and intellectually. People like Walter Dean Burnham have studied electrical markets and they have made a very important point. We have a skewed electorate. Those were voting are older, more education, more income. The democratic primary system and schedule. Mr. Brown i wanted to put it in a larger context because they all feed each other. The primary system is biased toward upper income participants, which exacerbates the already skewed electorate. That is the reason why politicians are moving toward a dukakis confidence, not ideology type of campaign. The dlc was an effort to move away from even minimal commitment to the traditional constituency in the Democratic Party. As part of that, the super tuesday was invented to create a southern candidate, a conservative candidate that would not get into the problems you have a new york where you have jackson democrats, the Jewish Community, trade unions. All the hurlyburly of a mayor koch or mayor dinkins and the idea was lets marginalize california, new jersey, ohio, pennsylvania, in new york which have been the traditional base of our party, and create more republican suburban version. That is not going to work. Bush will win if the dlc super tuesday view of things happens. What we are seeing as a party that does have division. Clinton is not winning in the northeast. He won in the south. You have this division and somehow we have to heal it and put it together. I believe the original process by which Bobby Kennedy and Gene Mccarthy fought this thing out as late as june, was a more open and authentic process. Now newsweek and a lot of National Media wanted end this thing two weeks ago. That really kills the decisionmaking process and the participation. What he thinks sanghas dropped out . Mr. Brown he was out of money. All of these guys. I think clinton is a couple Million Dollars in debt. I want to make that point. This is a campaign wellmanaged. When we did not have the money, we spent less. We are on track and we are totally embedded in a rising Political Movement that is not controlled or manipulated by a few thousand people that you can and move into these the elite cocktail parties. I know some of the people in the hierarchy of my party cant quite feel it yet but this is the best chance to enable the Democratic Party to restore itself in a way that millions of more people will come in november to vote. Thats the only way theres a chance. Bush is going to win if this thing is a dlc model the issues like clinton did. Last night, we were asked about the welfare waiver in new jersey. He said he did not quite like it. He said he would sign it. He kind of made a gesture to liberals and poor people. Then i said i will not sign it. That he had to add a little more liberal to cover himself. He was up there saying im going to protect seawolf even though he knows seawolf is dead is a doornail. In the interview with mcneil he kind of covered it up. That approach was the dukakis approach. A certain loser. If that is the nomination, which is going to be elected. Im trying another approach. It has everyone jumping on my back. We had an exciting meeting this morning uptown. Im saying lets draw a line. Im going to stand on truth, the constituency of Bobby Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt and jack kennedy and let the cards fall where they will. This country needs a true opposition party. Im going to represent that constituency, the unrepresented and let the American People make the choice. I see you are wearing the red ribbon of aids awareness. As you probably know the Bush Administration announced a new Media Campaign last week. What the Media Campaign did not include telling people how to avoid getting aids. It did not mention condoms, safe sex, clean needles. We are now 11 years into this epidemic and millions infected. What is your in reaction to that kind of campaign . Mr. Brown another part of the invasion of the governing elite. Obviously hiv is passed by sex. Particularly by anal sex. We have yet to talk about that. Condoms are not 100 and people ought to know that but they are going to protect to a measurable degree. We have good knowledge it. A strong position to communicate and the president is in a strong position to provide the funding to discourage the fact that they are not talking about that. The reagan initiation and the Bush Administration are not talking about how you can avoid getting it, what safe sex is, what clean needles are. Mr. Brown we should talk about it. Politics is such a decrepit art these days. Its all about little lists and banalities that you could pick up at any office of any think tank in washington and circulate them around and a chattering class promotes in and beats us up in the process. The chop liver at the end of the road continues the process we are in and im trying some way that i believe is imaginative to open the process. Talking about aids and how Sexual Activity is going to transmit hiv is going to be part of the process of truth. Do you have a question . Throughout the campaign and today you keep talking about political corruption. A very general term. Who is corrupt and give us some examples . Mr. Brown ill start with the derivation of the word corruption. A latin word mean to break apart. Im saying the political process is breaking down. Congress, the Political Leadership is not working. What about the governors and mayors . Mr. Brown these are all fine. I take the view that human nature is fairly constant. There is a bell curve. A few geniuses a few saints and real scoundrels but most of us are in the middle. What affects us are the systems we create. The system we have is running down. 5. 3 billion people on the planet. We have hundreds of millions of people in the workforce that will work for a fraction of wages americans work for. Our International Companies are moving to take advantage of this disparity and wage base and in the process tearing up the cities and the stability of this country. I am about saying, i know youre financed by some of the same financial elite but we have to oppose them to preserve the social and economic fabric of america. That is the whole in the electorate and im trying to provide it in a politics that is so dead that people take serious these lists and i love it when they said clinton gave a major foreignpolicy address. It was a bunch of they nowadays but if you can get ap and the tv to keep repeating it as though something was said. It was meaningless. What is meaningful is the system is corrupted, it is breaking down and if you take 500 Million Dollars to elected Congress Every two years out of care few have some saints they will not be very long because you have to go day after day from 1 and you disconnect yourself from hundreds of thousands and millions of people who would like to have a more effective voice and therefore their contribution has to be more proportionate in the process. When you can get the few that can bundle the bigmoney, you cannot keep that proportion which a democratic system requires. It is a system i think people in the congress at the same goodwill and human nature as Anyone Around the table but we are forcing them to get the money so you guys take them serious. You people take them seriously. You get the coverage you get the money. They get in and the same decadence and corruption continues. The system. Can i get more people from the chattering class to ask questions . In realworld terms would you stop American Companies from investing abroad and likewise stop Foreign Companies from investing here . Is that the sort of protectionist mr. Brown no. Freetrade and nonfreetrade. The greatest freetrade Ronald Reagan adopted more freetrade protections than any president in 50 years. We have to expand it will have to protect the industry of america in an intelligent way. We dont stop International Finance we learn to compete in it and we are not competing well enough. We need Economic Strategy. My strategy would be to set some goals like we did putting a man on the moon and putting him in a space shuttle. The president ought to set a goal like that. High speed trains, fuel efficiency, energy efficiency, Better School system. National Healthcare System with a real costcontainment like the canadians have. Lets set some goals, stretch our imagination come a push the technology and we will be able to compete. In the meantime dont negotiate away jobs. I see people in tarrytown, a good talent that were the stores are opening, you know when General Motors closes it will be a ghost town. What is the cost of a ghost town . Add up the divorce, the dope, the domestic violence, the deterioration, the loss of belief how do you use the power of the federal government to prevent gm from leaving tarrytown . You are a arguing that the federal government can intervene in all these cases around the country to make the country better. Mr. Brown i believe we need a Greater Public sector intervention to maintain the stability and to encourage the modernization process. You sound like you believe the government mr. Brown i am very skeptical every time politicians get involved they start logrolling and we know what happens. Your answers consisted of pointing to government programs. Mr. Brown i dont see a lot of calluses around here. And for a browse. Ive seen these guys in michigan, younger than me and looking a lot older. Germany is paying 22 per hour. They are on the Common Market with italy and portugal and they are able to intervene to protect wage structure. Im for trade union reform, more himim for trade union reform, more Employee Stock options. I want to spread out the ownership of capital in a way that will give a different how are you going to use the federal government to keep gm in tarrytown . Him mr. Brown proposals to give working people more ownership and say in a management decisions and that a stock options. You going to give trade unions more cloud so they can negotiate some of these decisions of outsourcing and removal of plants. Whatever it takes lets get the clunkers off the road. That will reduce pollution. We will increase the fuel efficiency of the fleet and if it takes a federal investment to get a more modernized factory at a better car, i would spend that as a part of a social Economic Strategy to maintain our base. The challenge is not the ill will of the politicians. It is that we are in a world market where people for one dollar per hour can do what millions of americans have done. There is no genius who has an offtheshelf answer. Im saying we have to find a way to protect those jobs. When we close down the logging and redwood park in california we did give them a year or two of stipends. Its going to be retraining, direct government assistance to modernize. Its going to be negotiating with mexico that will maximize the number of decent middleclass jobs. The reason new york is dying is because 650,000 manufacturing jobs of left over 30 years. We have to find a way to bring them back or you will have an increasingly what is the answer now . The answer is to erode Civil Liberties, bill presence, test urine and have more wiretapping and undercover agents. That is the response. Im saying that is ominous. The first president ial debate in my lifetime where Capital Punishment and executions with the president presiding has become the viable item of discussion. That is frightening. I say there are examples in france and germany with more indicative planning. They are not perfect but we have got to find a way to modernize in a way and move up the Technology Scale to compete. Japan is building ships. We are hardly building any. German factory workers are making a lot more money than our workers are. We have to organize ourselves in a way that will stabilize that middleclass base which has been the hope of america for 200 years. Your staff is signaling to me you are off so we will take a last question. Im just curious, what led you to go to calcutta to work with Mother Teresa . How has the experience shaped you or have you feel about the experience today as you campaign . Mr. Brown i spent six months in japan studying meditation and spirituality under the jesuits and buddhists and others. What i find is the biggest obstacle in politics is cynicism. What you think or what i think, what i call the base process. I wanted to see what a woman who would base her life on wholehearted service to the poorest of the poor in a country with hundreds of millions of poor people and after she lived her life will still be just as poor as when she started and to be a will to do it in a way that would touch peoples hearts and transform their lives. I wanted that belief, that sense of heartfelt generosity. I wanted to experience it and let some of it rub off on me. I joined with other volunteers in a way that i dont believe i could have in america where i am so well recognized. The first 2. 5 weeks no one knew who i was and i was just there cleaning bedpans and holding dying people in my arms. It opened up a part of me that has enabled me to be a better person. If i can bring some of that the politics i think what do you do after this . Mr. Brown im going to continue building a Political Movement that will advance the objectives ive said because i dont believe a politician dropped into washington can make the political shift required. It will take the involvement of millions of people taste on an agenda and a believe that is going to take time to do. We will not turn this thing around in 30 to 60 days. Im running for president and i think i can get the nomination and when. It is an interesting campaign. Whatever happens im going to keep going. I stepped aside after 82 because i have been thoroughly trashed. I thought it was good to step aside and let it all kind of roll over. I thought i could come back with a fresh perspective. When you are a politician and your governor of the big state you live in this plastic capsule and have guards around you. Everyone wants something. You know what you say can be reported. Polls coming out in the paper telling you how much they like or dont like you. Totally inhuman. Debilitating and psychologically damaging. How would you avoid that bubble in the white house . Mr. Brown because i have been in it in a very intrusive way. Step aside lived a private life, lived in a small village in mexico. Study japan. Met with political leaders and activists in europe. Often by myself. I have seen and experienced the world. I am an older wiser person coming back into a process i been a part of an i believe the stability, the grounding, the scar tissue, the Human Experience serves me well. That is why i am presenting myself and i believe i have the experience which is pivotal in my life. [indiscernible] i had the answer and experience going into maryland as a governor. 1976 . Within two weeks i rocketed to political stardom. And if you dont get the impression that you are pretty great and you have Something Special when you dont understand the human psychology. And to see that pinnacle deteriorate down i went back to maryland three months later and people didnt even notice me. It was artificially induced. It was the commercials, the organizers, the hoop law. All of this artificial convention and you start to believe it. I was putting myself up and i had it totally demolished, not only that here but over the rest of my six years as governor from being the most popular now, people wilson is more unpopular than i was at now, coming back again in the face of radical and laughter. Fighting through that and what i get out of all that is the importance of sticking to it and will power and commitment and not being distracted by all of this powerful attention and celebrity miss which is extremely intoxicating and disorienting. And i think that is the ultimate corruption of power. I have also studied in the schools of humility where they put you in your place, whether it is the jesuit order or the dying kolkata, i have trained in the school of humility and i have a lot of ambition and ego but i think these experiences serve me well in a process as so disorienting as the one we have. I believe this is the greatest contribution that i can make to american politics. And i want to ask people that im listening please call in. You have already pledged over 5 million. You have kept a Campaign Going that they said could not happen. Please, cspan, dont cut it off. Since we are on cspan, thank you for coming to the post. Will you be attending yes. [indiscernible] during campaign 2016, cspan takes you on the road to the white house as we follow the candidates on cspan, cspan radio and cspan. Org. What next, the history of the chicano movement. Mexican americans, africanamericans, labor leaders and others were brought together. His remarks are about 20 minutes. Is a pleasure to have them back. He is assistant professor of history at texas university. Texas christian university. He received a phd in history from duke university. And he has a forthcoming book