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"washington journal" is next. ♪ >> 40 years ago, they gathered at a farm in new york. people gathered for music, mud, camaraderie and chemicals. it was woodstock, which is now known as a generation. it is august 15, 2009. we will talk about woodstock for the first half-hour of the program. a couple of articles and pieces to look at to get us going. the first is from brett green who writes for the denver post.com under the title of a better america immersed from woodstock. he writes woodstock means little until you place it in the larger context of the society unravelling around the young adults. from their parents generation, they had absorbed rich idealism for social and economic justice. the piece by brett green and author in denver goes on to say, it was an interlude arriving in the context of more social and political upheaval than most americans have witnessed. it was a chaotic but peaceful interlude to a forthcoming breakdown between government and the governed when combined, it would end an unpopular war. i want to talk for the first half-hour, your thoughts, did a better america emerge from woodstock. the numbers ... twitter address is cspanwj. if you have called us in the last 30 days, send your comment via e-mail or twitter and give others a chance. >> what was it about the gathering, this carnival, this music festival that influenced your political evolution and did a better america emerge from woodstock? more from the denver post piece, a better america emerged from wood stot by brett green. he wrote it was meaningless if nothing meaningful survived. when we pierce through the t-shirts and costumes, we see a different america, four decades later. arguably, he writes, a better america. our first call is from matt in philadelphia on the line for democrats. good morning, welcome. >> good morning. i wasn't at woodstock myself, i was attending a university and unfortunately, i didn't have -- i should say fortunately, i didn't have mommy and daddy writing me out checks for my tuition. so i was working at a local restaurant, and i was working a lot of long and hard hours. and most of my friends were in the same position. you know, we were working during the woodstock festival. of course, we couldn't attend. you know, i'll be perfectly honest with you, i kind of resent the fact that our generation has been, in effect, tarred with this woodstock generation tag. i really don't think it's accurate. i think a lot of the baby boomers are hard working, pretty much sober individuals. if you go by woodstock, i don't think we are termed that way. >> in terms of politics, do you see a change coming after that weekend in new york? >> yes, i guess that is a valid point. it maybe coalesced a lot of antiwar, pro civil rights activities. i think, too, to be honest with you, there were a lot of unsung heroes that were, you know, had come before us. such as martin luther king, other people who were at the forefront of the civil rights movement and, you know, of course martin luther king, but a lot of the other ones maybe unherald ones didn't get to be heard. >> we will move across the state. joe on the line for the republicans. >> hello, rob. how are you. >> go ahead joe. caller: i'm not of the woodstock generation. i'm the tail end. i was born in 1964. i am of the baby boom, which i believe ended in '64, but i was never part of it. my older brother's generation. i lived the fantastic disco duck days. i loved the music of the hand me down albums. i loved music, hend rix. and the who. i love the music, but i don't like the things that came out of the generation. i became conservative later on in life. the fact that there was -- what is it 40-something million members of my generation, you know, were killed through abortion, but something else i always noticed about the generation of woodstock were the ones that were throwing off the establishment, total unlimited, unfettered liberty and freedom is what they said. as they became older, generation of professors and politicians and the teachers, have become a very suppressive generation. this is the generation that is now ruling. if you notice every facet of our life is regimented, people that want to control what you smoke, eat, drink, speech codes in universities and everyday life. they have really become more repressive than their mom's generation. host: more about the better america from woodstock. your thoughts. this came from last sunday from rapert guzman. the festival with a statement on nation's direction. he writes the festival stood in opposition to years of american violence, police brutality of the southern civil rights marches. the assassination of two kennedys and martin luther king junior. the bloody chaos of the democratic national convention. hovering over it all was the muddled vietnam war. escalating body counts punctuated evening newscasts. maurice? go ahead. michigan? caller: i'm sorry. first, i would like to say, woodstock would have been incorporated within the fabric of america, america would have been a better place. people have a difference of views and opinions based upon their own upbringing in their homes. if everybody looked back, you would see the individuals performing at woodstock would send out a message in the better place for individuals in america. pointing the fingers at who did what to who or what happened to what person, everybody was looking for a better way of life. everybody was looking for a better place to live. ok, whether it was government trying to do things particularly for individuals in the huarache and families growing up in government doing things for their family. [inaudible] ok. there is all sorts of things going on that we're not at liberty to speak about on national television. but every american citizen is aware or are aware of what the actual impact of woodstock really was. had the views and opinions and sentiments and emotions that are worked on truly and incorporated within the fabric of america, yes, we would be living in a better america right now today. >> devon out of washington. >> they call me devon. host: on the line for republicans. go ahead. caller: as a baby boomer, i attended a few key sessions of woodstock. the camaraderie of woodstock and what it was, but it is nice to really reminisce on the days of woodstock. not only great ones, there are bad ones too. in such an economically struggling time, not only economically but so many other aspects. i would really like to reminisce on my soul, the baby boomers and others of my age group. i have been to multiple conventions and meetings strictly focused on woodstock itself. float back to the acid days. host: how long after leaving the concert did you realize that what you have been throughout might have a change or effect on the evolution of american politi politics. caller: it had been quite a while. i didn't grow up -- i was just five years old. but it dawned on me then, especially i watch the show quite often. the question really came up, and brought me to my point. i couldn't really put a time line on it, but it's basically what i want to get out there is it is a good way to reminisce. host: james on the line for democrats, your thoughts about the america that emerges after woodstock. caller: i think woodstock was great, it was great for more reasons than one. host: give me one reason. caller: during the change -- during the time of finishing out the civil rights movement and just more people got to come to know each other. the reason that we have so many problems in this country is because we don't respect -- we have to respect everybody, regardless. even if they're bad people. if you talk to them and try and have a coligsz along the way all the time, we would find america is just about what we want it to be. >> and this piece in news day, written by rape ert guzman, he said the implication of several hundred thousand young people gathering peacefully was hard to ignore. at the time when the world seemed to be falling apart it represented peace and solidarity. joe on the line for independents. good morning. caller: good morning. back in august of '69, i was in the jungle in vietnam, in my second tour. it was crisp conversation that was happening. we thought it was fantastic. we were killing so many people over a lie. we were so proud of our generation and showing they could have a big fling and have nothing but peace and love, no arguments, no killings, nothing like that. it was a demonstration back in vietnam. host: when you were talking about it with your fellow troops in vietnam, about the concert, did you have a feeling what was going on in upstate new york might have an effect on the politicians? caller: we knew nothing would stop the politicians. the only thing that would stop them is when they killed the kid. america realized they couldn't get them off the college campuses so they were murdering them on the campuses. right then, america figured out it was the end of the war. i have to call woodstock a new look by greg walters. i'm so glad i got it. because i wasn't there. it was a way for me to live the experience. i wish the woodstock generation idea would have carried on. it was squashed just as soon as it was over because this continuous war thing that we have got going on in our united states where we can never stop having a war, that started up after woodstock, i mean after watergate. >> joe, we will leave it there. on press telegram.com, danny freed rick writes 40 years later woodstock still defines my generation. what was true for those that were after 1946, certainly true for baby boom, sputnik, vietnam, nixon, watergate, woodstock represent life-changing people and events for me and my friends. he goes on to say, in basic terms, woodstock exemplifies the hippie counterculture of late 1960's an early '70ed. 32 of the best-known musicians performed during that audience during peaceful, stoned and sometimes naked concert goers. eric, you are on the "washington journal." caller: hi, yeah. the thing is, i was one of those hippies out in san francisco that was born at berkeley and i really think that that changed the fabric of life in this country. the whole woodstock generation as we speak. basically teached the people of today to learn about politics [inaudible] you know, doing the right thing, basically. host: so how much of what came out of there has continued on? how much do you think it has moved the political football forward, either to the left, to the right, down the center? caller: well, a little of both and sadly, not as much as should be for the concerns of the people, the people themselves, you know. we're talking about the medical crisis. i have worked in the medical field off and on in the field of research. the thing is this country is woefully behind in health care. host: thanks for your call. we will take a little break from our discussion about a better america emerging from woodstock to check in with matthew daley who writes for the associated press. he writes on issues in washington, d.c. he is here to tell us about health care reform with president obama and max back at from the chairman committee and also in mostly sunny helps in the health care efforts. caller: good morning. host: why health care reform in mostly sunny? guest: president obama wants to sell the plan to the country and specifically to areas where there is a lot of skepticism. they feel like the president is an effective salesman. i think he wanted to go up there and talk to an area in the west, where he would make gains, there are two democratic senators in mostly sunny. it is a tough time for democrats. he wants to sell the plan to a skeptical public. host: what role does the chairman of the finance committee have to help sell this to the plan in mostly sunny? guest: less so in mostly sunny than in the senate. he's well known, everyone wants to know him in mostly sunny. in the senate, the chairman of the finance committee, he will play a crucial role in getting this bill passed if there is a bill passed. host: what was the overall response to the presidents' forum? will this have a long-term affect on the senator's future when he comes up for reelection? guest: it is a front and center issue, where he has a front and center role. leading a group of so-called six that is trying to negotiate a bipartisan compromise. senator gratzly, who is a ranking member on the finance committee. in the past, grassly and they have worked together on that as well. the forum yesterday was respectful. 1,300 people outside of the hangar at bozeman. the president got a few skeptical questions. the tone and the town meetings, you know, he said tv loves a ruckus. there are meetings where people are having discussions back and forth. i think there were two that you could describe as -- i don't know if they would be hostile as just skeptical. host: the forum took place in belgra belgrade, montana. it is a place where there is big enough to have 1,300 people there and question the president. it is bozeman the. host: will there be an opportunity to talk about it more over the break? guest: in their event more give and take there because they're smaller events, tends to be different. security with the presidential visit. you know, some people are accusing the administration of trying to sort of back the crowd in new hampshire. they simply deny that they're stacking the crowd. i think when you add another senator or member of congress, you get more -- it is a little bit more informal. sometimes the give and take is a little bit rougher. host: matthew daley thank you for being on the "washington journal" this morning. guest: happy to do it. host: back to the phone and regarding our discussion regarding the america that emerged from woodstock. the concert took place 40 years ago this week in bethel new york, a farming area outside of new york city. diane writes, the woodstock generation subject to the draft to fight in vietnam, coalesced and intensified antiwar sentiment, if not for these people, the war may have gone on longer than it did, another six years of useful bloodshed. if those eligible for the draft, you would see a similar protest rise up. back to the phone. tulsa, oklahoma. we have seth on our line for republicans. good morning, seth. caller: good morning. i would like to say, basically, i can't see what woodstock had anything to do with iraq. there is nothing similar. host: nothing similar between woodstock, vietnam and iraq? caller: no, sir. host: beyond just the war, is there anything about american politics that you see emerged from woodstock either on the right or the left? caller: i think democratics going for woodstock, sex, drugs and letting someone else pay for it. host: next up is new jersey. good morning. caller: hi. host: what do you think about the americas that emerged from woodsto woodstock. caller: i was there. i'm a 63-year-old hippie. i can tell you what happened. we focused the national conversation about a lot of things, war, drugs, the green movement. i really believe it infused liberal politics with the stance of looking twice at things and reevaluating things. sociology, there is an attribute that human nature has in taking the world for granted where we accept certain things, like racism for example. that is another thing we looked at hard and made a big change because of woodstock and what emanated out of woodstock. what we did is stopped taking the world for granted and forced even to take a look at things. i think that persists in politics today. >> did you feel personally that you had been changed over the weekend that your politics had been changed or your thought about public policy had been changed? guest: i wasn't in the public policy at the time. my consciousness was changed. i can tell you that. i had a chance of renewal, invigoration and hope. out of that consciousness, when i became politically engaged or interested in politics later on, i brought that to the table. host: thank you for your call. on twitter, we have a comment. americans know less about the history of our country and know nothing about our constitution. we will continue our discussions and look at other items in the news this morning. this from the front page of the business section of "the new york times." us sees an ailing bank and sells it to bbnt. a large lender that rode the excesses of the real estate booms with seeds by federal regulato regulators, making it the largest bank failure and one of the most costly since the collapse of indy mack last year. and deposits to bbnt corporations a wafrng that has emerged as one of the industry's strongest players. back to the phone. miller place new york. anthony on the line. caller: you point out an article by mr. guzman where he mentioned divisiveness in current america. that is true. woodstock represented that type of society where people were more in tune in helping one another and doing for mankind. breakfast in bed for all. ultimately what we have now when they tried have a reunion of woodstock, the children rioted because of the fact they were, charged $10 for the tiny cup of ice cream and advertising all over the place. woodstock was a pure festival in that it had no sponsors, no infiltration by the corporate, capitalistic media that has now, they put a strangle hold, the current, more modern woodstock, they had everybody fenced in, in a way that was almost like prison and not allowed to bring in food. any faud brought was taken away. and then extorting them by celling necessities. it took away the philosophy of the festival. host: did you go to the original woodstock? caller: i didn't. my best buddy did. the headline was hippies mired in mud. you could see him. he had only brought a bag of potato chips. that is all he had. he could survive there because of the unity of mankind. and everybody getting along and providing for one another. in today's society, you don't see that, you see, like with health care, right? only certain people can go to the doctor. anybody or everybody else is, you know, put into bankruptcy just for health care, which is such a disgrace on this nation. host: we will leave it there, thanks for the call. clinton departs africa filled with hope that is the headline. matthew lee writes about secretary of state clinton leaving part of the 11-day african tour. she used the tour to reinforce the message brought earlier this year by president obama. to combat civil strive, disease, violence and squalor wherever it exists. back to the phones. queens, new york, on the line for republicans. your thought about the america that emerges from woodstock? caller: well, good morning. i don't think that woodstock really created a better america. i mean, let's face it. six months later we had the killing at alto mont. it didn't even change the times. it did do, and i agree with the caller ahead of me, was the powers that be saw all the money that they could make off of woodstock, and i think it really created an era of commercialism that happened in today. the problem with woodstock, i feel, philosophically for the country, is people are stuck there. they're not only stuck in 1969, they're stuck in the early '70's, which were actually really the continuation of the '60's. the '70's didn't really start until the vietnam war ended. since then, every war that the united states has contemplated fighting or had to fight has become a vietnam war, whether it is or not. every republican president since then is another richard nixon. every environmental effort to get energy into this country is going to turn into a three-mile island. the people who really identify and hold dear this moment in time are stuck back there to a great extent. and unfortunately, i feel it hurts this country. host: thanks for your comments, george. we have this from jonathan lee. he writes contrary to popular belief, america in the '60's remained an overwhelmingly conservative country where the fashions and even music were in the minority. caller: good morning. i was a kid when woodstock was going on. but i heard a lot about it. i read about it. i seen it on television and everything. it is more like a peaceful protest, what the kids did. and one of the great things about it was, if it wasn't for woodstock, we wouldn't have all the great music that came out of it. this is like a piece of history that i think kids now ought to learn about now so that -- it is a piece of history that should be learned and should be cultivated and preserved. host: in terms of history, what is the lesson to be learned coming out of woodstock? caller: one lesson is that -- one lesson is that a bunch of teenagers can get along better than other people who are fighting -- fighting among each other. host: kenny in savannah, georgia. thanks for your call. in the morning times, retailers see slowing sales. halfway through the back to school shopping season, retail professionals are predicting the worst performance for stores in more than a decade. yet another sign that consumers are clinging to every dollar. the article in the "new york times" go on to say the national retail federation and industry group expect the average family to spend 8% less this year than last and shopper track, the research company predicted customer traffic would be down 10% from a year ago. manhattan is the next caller. don on the line for democrats. go ahead. caller: i was sitting a quarter mile away from the entrance because we need a lot of them. shooting heroin. and because i had gotten my draft notice and wednesday i had to be at 110 whitehall street. so i wanted to be as dirty as i could so i couldn't -- so they wouldn't take me. unfortunately, they did. but that is another story. and it was fun. you know, i can't really think of what woodstock did to us. it was a bunch of people that got together. we broke down a fence where they wanted to charge us. there were enough of us there that mob ruled. once we got inside, it was great. everything was peaceful and it was nice. unfortunately, as i say, on that wednesday, i had to take one step forward, and that was that. ok. have a good day. bye. host: thank you. we have another quote from jonathan lee of human events.com. to define the '60's of what supposedly happened or what actually did happen is to have a false narrative put forward by a clique that makes their experiences of that of a generation. in california, nicholas for the republicans. caller: i think it is from the standpoint of the next generation from the likes of woodstock. i'm 26 years old. one of my parents ran away from home to go to woodstock and basically, you know, thinking from that, the way i was raised, the way the next generation is lived on, we're a generation of green, we're consuming green things, this art, music, all this pop culture that stemmed out from the woodstock generation. you know, certain parents, whether or not they were involved in the woodstock, have that influence in them that will be passed on. it will cause more consumers and art to spawn out and make money for america, is what i am thinking. you have peace, love, goods, going everywhere. it is not negative. if you think a better america emerged, i would say yes. host: are you still with me. caller: yes. host: how do you think you would be different if your parents hasn't gone to woodstock, and talked to you about that. one of my parents went, and the other grew up on a farm and left when he was 18 and went to warm warmer climates he couldn't go to a concert because he was working three jobs. i had love, art, all of these influencing me, as well as the strong, wake up in the morning, work, take care of yourself. these two influences coming together, i'm not a drug addict, you know, but i do enjoy life and i work very hard. host: thanks for your call. thanks to all the callers that participated in this segment. we will take a short break. when we come back, we will talk with suzy mad rick, who is the founder of the suburban gorilla. we will find out more about the blog, what she writes about after this break. ♪ >> british voters are expected to go to the polls next spring. this week, david camera on how a torri government would change politics. >> senior editor and columnist on his public radio series which profiles people that overcome difficult obstacles in life. on c-span. >> this fall, enter the home to america's highest court. from the grand public places to those only acceptable by the nine justices. the supreme court, coming the first sunday in october. on c-span. >> this month, c-span2's book tv weekend continues, with more books on the economy, current events and politics. monday night jillian, chris anderson and harry reid. >> "washington journal" continues. host: now from pittsburgh, suzy madrik. she's coming to us from pittsburgh where they have just concluded next roots nation. the national convention of liberal bloggers and activists. first, suzy, where did you come up with the name "suburban gorilla" how did that happen? guest: when i was a newspaper editor and columnist, i wrote a column for an area in pennsylvania. it is considered the republican counterpart to the democratic regime. i liked the idea, it was suburban and guerilla. they weren't used to people taking pops at them. host: tell us about next roots nation and what is going on up there the past week. guest: i skip most of the panels because this is an opportunity for me to meet and talk with and network with these people. the online colleagues i'm in contact with throughout the rest of the year. there are all kinds of great panels for people who aren't bloggers, all kinds of information about how to be effective some your community, how to get things done. you know, it is really fun. that is the thing. it sounds dry and boring. it is fun and i look forward to it every year. host: one you did not skip was a panel that you moderated. senator ceptor and the one running to replace him. tell us about that. guest: i thought he said something newsworthy that i didn't see picked up. that the republicans in congress have gotten together and decided before the inauguration that they were going to oppose any stimulus bill put forth by president obama so they could break him. i thought that that was interesting, but apparently nobody else was paying attention. and senator specter tauktd about his record. there is big mistrust of senator specter in the blogosphere. he does this interesting thing. he's been representing me in one form or another for 40 years. what he does, he comes out and makes an impassioned speech about something. he will say this is wrong and unconstitutional this simply can't stand and then he turns around and votes for it. i asked him about that, he said you have to look at individual votes. i thought, no, i mean, because i don't have that great a memory and if i noticed it in the past, it is there. host: the panel was covered by the philadelphia inquiry, specter tells bloggers and activists he was working hard to support obama's health plan, set bank likened to bush. setback also covered your panel discussion. we would like to show the audience what happened there and then we will continue our discussion. >> this is an odd question but something that comes up a lot at the conference. it is what i would call the net group, will you still love me tomorrow syndrome. [laughter]. you know, we go out with candidates issue they say the right thing, buy us dinner and tell us we're pretty. [laughter] and then it's only to get us as far aware r away as possible. we're like the girl they had under the bleachers but won't take to the prom. host: what was the response of the representatives and senator regarding the sort of romantic allusion you made to politics. guest: they weren't together and weren't on the statement at the same time. actually, we had a really good response from him. one of the problems we have being effective in the blogosphere is we started this tactic of saying, here is a marginal race out in wisconsin or oregon or minnesota and we're going to get a lot of small contributions from all over the country and we're going to target that rate and see if we can't take the seat back for democrat. they see all the $25 contributions come in, but they don't see it is coming from us. they don't think of us as a lobby as they would anybody else or a caucus. they intend to say i represent my constituents and the people who gave me large contributions. and as i pointed out to -- like yesterday, i had taken a look at his campaign contributions for when he first ran for congress. you know, far and away, your largest contributor were the net roots, but there is no way that we can consider you our guy in congress the way a lot of other lobbyists do when they give that much money to help somebody win. he said, you know, i never thought of it. but -- i'm sorry. the next question. when i spoke to him afterward, he said, he was going to see if he could put together a net roots caucus of congressional members who had been helped by the blogosphere in terms of funding and see if they couldn't work together and address issues together that were our concern. that is great. how often do you get a result from that. host: if the viewers and listeners would like to get involved in this discussion call the numbers ... the e-mail is journ@c-span.org. or twitter is c-spanwj. caller: mariana, florida. host: go ahead. caller: i am active retired duty. i have health care. however, i have a conscience and a heart. i believe we need health care reform. i have a couple of observations, i would like your opinion. in california there were thousands lined up to see a doctor. cbs news reported it. on the front page of "the new york times" of what i understand. cnn said not one word. i called cnn constantly. the negative portrayal by the 24-hour news channels, in my opinion, were the angry protestors, negative views expressed constantly, has led to, in my opinion, a decline in the chances for healthcare reform in this country and a decline in the popularity of the president because of what they have portrayed. this was expressed on bill moyer's the journal on pbn with the discussion he had. those are my points and my observations. host: thanks for the observations. on top of that. suzy, the lead story in the philadelphia inquirer this morning says obama is saying the media is overplaying the protests, "tv loves a ruckus." he said it is polite to have questions. your thoughts. guest: absolutely. i was a journalist for 20 years. i will tell you this, reporters are lazy. they're really lazy. i don't think most people understand that there is nowhere near as much fact-checking going on as you think there is. people think what they saw on tv is true. all the time on stories. you need to fix it. they would get mad at me. i'm sure a lot of those people worked their way up through the ranks and maybe they even work at cnn. the thing is, also with the 24-hour news channels, what happens is when they have a mistake in the story, once the mistake is there, they rarely go back and fix it. they have to fill up a big news hole on a 24-hour channel. they keep repeating the same erroneous story with the error in it over and over. i have seen this so many times i can't even count. fox news, one of their favorite tricks is whenever a republican congressperson is caught some a scandal -- and kids, you can play along at home, they will always put a d after their name when they run the news story. so something like you see on television. >> what about what you read in the blogosphere, can you read that anymore in the mainstream media? guest: there is a good music critic that i have been reading for years. i'm familiar with his pace. i know that if he says, you know, this is a good album you would like it. i can go out and buy it without hearing it first. i have been reading him for so long. i kind of think that is how it works from the blogosphere, you get a sense for the judgment of the person you're reading over time. and the thing about the mrog spheres we're self-correcting. there are a million people out there, experts at some little piece of something. and they're very happy to leave a comment or e-mail us and say, no, you have that wrong. here is another point. you know, we're not shy about making those corrections. host: another call. this is from austin, texas. robin on the line for independents. good morning. caller: [inaudible] on actually answering the question about how health care will be helped not only to the soldiers, such as jimi hendrix or [inaudible] having his head strapped to the back of a stretcher to puke to death. he could not od. shall we explain how -- host: let's move on to holly in columbus, ohio. holly? caller: good morning. i want to say in regards to the protests, i have been keeping up with this. what i find very disturbing is, especially fox news, of course, they just say america doesn't want this, america doesn't want this. i'm an african-american, i'm well-educated, i have master's degree, i have lost my job, i have lost my health care. and i'm currently experiencing some health care issues, i don't want anything for free. i don't want to just live off of anyone else's taxes. what i find disturbing is they keep saying america doesn't want to look at this. when i look at town halls, i don't see me or a lot of people that represent me. it is unfortunate, these people are just so mad about president obama, and it shows how, really, republicans -- i'm just going to say republicans really feel about everyone else, other than themselves. and what i want to say is to people out there, there are other perspectives, it is not just about them. everybody doesn't just want to live off the system and get free health care. and president obama is the one president, he just has a heart and cares about everybody. the way that these michelle martins and glenn becks are trying to make him this -- this filler in the white house that he's trying to destroy america. ok. to me, they're making him be like a god, he can mesmerize millions of people all over the world to believe what he's saying. host: we will leave it there, holly. suzy, your response? guest: i'm right there with you, hun. i have been out of work. i have been fighting to get a ruptured ligament repaired in my ankle. i understand what you are talking about. people are getting distracted by the side show. i think these people that go to the town meetings, they're concerned. they're people -- particularly in this economic environment. they're frightened of anything new. they're believing what they're hearing. most people are not educated news consumers. very few people are educated news consumers. in order to be an educated news consumer, you have to read widely and you have to read consistently. i mean, you know, i read like 10 newspapers a day. let me tell you, i would love to hit the lottery and never read another paper again. but it is really difficult for the average person to fit this in between going to work, taking the kids to soccer, making dinner, doing homework, you know, taking the car to get fixed. you know, real life gets in the way of knowing what is going on. people tend to fall for the side show. the people coming out to the meetings, i think they're real people. i don't think this was manufactured by lobbyists. i think it was -- the lobbyists gave them fools to organize. but i think the fear was out there and the anxiety is out there. everybody is anxious now. most people don't really know whether they're going to have a job one day to the next. how could you not be anxious? health care, that is something that affects everybody. if you think you have health insurance, you haven't tried to use it yet. i had an emergency room visit a few months ago where i came home and i found a bill for $12,000. i called them up, i said yo. they said oh, we're sorry, we made a mistake. i thought how many people get that bill and don't fight that and assume they owe it. there are a lot of shenanigans in health care. people are anxious. host: take another care from james out of eunucha new york. go ahead. caller: i'm not a republican that is slamming obama or anything. i don't mind necessarily having universal health care. my problem that i see is i don't know who to trust, who to listen to. i have a situation right now with my mother-in-law who fell in a nursing home. they said it was part of her dementia. because of insurance, they couldn't do certain tests unles they had a reason. so what happened was she ended up going in two weeks later and found she had a bleed in her brain and cancer. well, now it's too late to do anything and she's basically comma tosis. my problem is what -- comatose. what will happen later? my problem is what will happen later? i have a broken ankle. i don't deserve a splint. you should walk it off. that is my biggest concern. i don't get any answers. i hear one side or the other, but i don't get any definitive answers on what it is actually going to consist of. host: thanks for your call. suzy, go ahead. guest: that is a true level of concern. people don't know what congress is planning to vote for. and by the way, you know, i really identify with what you just said as well. my mom just died a couple of weeks ago. we had all kinds of health care issues with her and health planning ahead. it is really a difficult position to be in. but please understand, the insurance companies are doing it. the insurance companies are the ones making those decisions for you now. the insurance company decided i couldn't have an mri for this ankle and i had to fight for it for two years. that part will be better. that much i can tell you. i can tell you that i don't believe there will be a bill passed that doesn't involve higher standards for your care, not lower standards. it is that standardizing them. there are all kinds of reasons why doctors order unnecessary tests and all kinds of reasons why insurance companies deny necessary tests. what the government hopefully will do with this bill and what everybody about the bill says is they're looking to find higher standards. that is why it is so sad that people are panicking. call your congressman. they're usually very happy to take phone calls. call your congressman. find out what they're looking at. don't panic. these people do work for you. don't do it in a belligerent way. say i need help, i'm concerned. they'll help you. host: next up is mark. good morning. caller: thank you for the opportunity to take my comments. i can't even begin. so many people touched on so many things. one of the big things is people that say the mainstream media, and these people are in business and want to make money. you know, disseminating information is a huge part of that. if they can, dig deeper. it is tough. i feel like, just like the last guy, you know, where can you turn? where can you get that information? i think that people need to start demanding that as well from the news sources. you know, they need to say, hey, we need something that doesn't include all the political aspect of it. we need the truth. if they don't like what they're getting, they ought to change the channel. they have to go someplace else. host: mark, where do you get your news from? caller: to be honest, i flip back and forth on everything, but i work with drudge reports with headlines and it is easy to skim through. i go to usa today, i try to get a lot from them. i feel like they stay out of the -- host: one more question and then i will let you go. do you read any of the blogs? caller: you know, i haven't gotten into it much. there is so much out there. i'm sure there are resources that organize the blogs and give a better explanation of what everybody talks about. i haven't found that resource yet. one of the points that you made and the clip you played that i really liked, you know, when she talked about the bleachers. i feel like the american people need to have that players-only meeting. where the coaches go out of the locker room and need to come together and say what do we really want, what do we really expect out of our government? they need to look at the local politicians more. i think a lot of responsibility needs to start shifting back down. host: sorry for cutting you off. we have to move on. go ahead, suzy. guest: i often read usa today. i think they do a great job and keep it neutral. i have found a much lower level of bias, one way or another. another good source is my blog susiemadrak.com. it is hard to know what to believe. that is where blogs come in. basically -- i always say i'm a news cons cons area. i tell you what they leave out and what is wrong with what they put in. it is difficult i was in the business myself. i have an eye for this thing. i see a lot of the distinctions. one of the problems with the news industry is they don't have to worry about health care, you know, they don't have to worry about whether or not their home is going to get foreclosed on. they're not dealing with the anxieties that ordinary americans are dealing with. it is controversy that is good for advertising. the more viewers and eyeball on a program, come on. we all know it. yet we have people who believe everything he says. i'm glad there are people like mark out there with a high level of skepticism who are still trying to find out what is going on. host: let's take this call from dale on the line for democrats. caller: thank you for taking my call. i waited a long time to get through. i have a comment about cnn and csnbc. if we wouldn't change the laws around the newspapers and radio stations.. . find out where they really are coming from because we are offering paid advertisements to these groups. host: james on our republican line. caller: about 20 years ago the federal government ordered all of the medical schools in the u.s. to reduce their enrollments. then they turn around and paid the medical schools for their lost income, some having reduced tuitions. this is how your government? when it has -- this is how your government acts and has any avenue of influence in the medical profession. many times the public is not aware of it. host: thanks for your call. guest: there is an interesting thing. we have the internet now. i have seen this from talking to politicians over the last several years. they are not aware of how easy it is to check up on what they say. they really cannot get used to the fact that in five minutes i can tell you that you just lie about something. you get to look up all the stuff. you get to arm yourself. the thing that they don't like are in form, educated voters. inform yourself, it is the only way to fight back against special interest groups. one of the best things in the reform health care is wendell potter who used to be the director of some company and started talking about all the things about his job. he quit his job to the store and manipulate the news to make it sound like health care reform was an evil plan. he is now a bidding what they did, talking about what is going on now. -- he is admitting what they did. he says it is a lot worse this time, don't believe what they are telling you. host: let's take this last call from our independent line from pennsylvania. caller: as far as the lobbying /analysts goes, if you could speak to the 30 or 40 different military types that were on cnn and the other news stations that were actually getting talking points from the pentagon and putting them forward. secondly, you did i get a chance today but howard dean did a great job yesterday. i listened to the entire thing yesterday on the radio. i would recommend strongly to get his book, because even though he is partisan, it is a pretty non-partisan explanation of things. he explains things even better than obama. guest: what i have noticed about the calls here is that the democratic and republican calls are saying the same thing, we are anxious, we don't know who to trust. you cannot trust what you see on television. you really cannot. you can trust some of it but it is hard to know which things to trust. they had these military analysts that were getting their talking points from the pentagon, and it was an absolute conflict. they were out there cheerleading for the war. the same people telling you it will bankrupt this country to have health care are the same people who told you it would not cost us anything to go to iraq. give that a thought. host: susie madrak, we will have to leave it there. thank you very much for being on "washington journal." a short couple of minutes, we will talk with the author of " flat broke in the free market." is part of our series looking at all there is of nonfiction throughout august. we will have him on in a few minutes. we want to tell you more about this week's news makers. karen ignani was asked how her organization's response to health care reform differ from its harry and louise approach of 1993. it opposed the clinton did ministrations plan. >> we made a commitment to play a productive role from the beginning of this year. the president invited us to the health care summit and we stated clearly that our members were committed to contributing to the process. we have held to that all the way through. there was a technical component which we filled identifying a way to achieve reform in the cost containment. the country has just scratched the surface. i hope we will talk about that, but we need to if we will have a sustainable system. the third issue is making sure we stand behind what we say. more than two weeks ago at the end of july, we put up a commercial that talks about the fact that the list has no geographic boundaries, no boundaries -- tha illness has no geographic boundaries. it affects everybody, and we know there are important things that can be done by way of getting everyone into the system, keeping them there and making sure they have a safety net. we are for bipartisan reform. host: that is at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. tomorrow. she is the president and ceo of america's health insurance plans. joining us now is john jeter. good morning and welcome to the program. guest: thank you for having me. host: tell us how you came up with this title. guest: the book is based on my time abroad for a -- as a foreign correspondent for the washington post." i am trying to ask the question on why there are paid a loan stores on the south side of chicago. the title, my first book we ran through probably two dozen titles and this was the one that seemed most appropriate. host: we will look at a lot of different things you have written in the book, but in the beginning you write from argentina to zambia, the restructuring of the global economy has ripped a hole through the earth, house by house and city by city. tell us more about that. guest: it is trying to reconcile how globalization and colonialism, there is not much daylight between the two. globalization that we have had for the past 30 years has essentially served the interests of very wealthy speculators and punished working-class people. that is in chicago, rio. it is essentially reinforced poverty and expanding it. host: is it your premise in the book that poverty is the same regardless of whether it is here at home or abroad? and both of those situations have been caused by globalization? guest: that is exactly right. it devalues its work particularly in manufacturing. that is the key to growth and an expanding middle class. globalization devalues is that work. we don't make things any more, neither do many countries throughout southern africa and south america. we buy things, and they buy things, so is based on debt as opposed to investment and savings. it is based on deregulation and privatization, so it has exploited the get go as we know it in the united states throughout the world -- exploited the ghetto as we know in the united states. host: you write that globalization has widened in equality, estranged neighbors from one another, unravelled families, and flooded streets with protesters. guest: that is exactly right. it has reorganized the world in a lot of ways. it has deepened the arrangement between rich and poor, the haves and have-nots. host: are talking with jon jeter, author of "flat broke and the free-market." it is part of our book series during the month of august. previously he had worked as the south american bureau chief from january 2003 to july 2004 and the southern africa bureau chief. if we would like to get involved in the conversation, the numbers are on the screen. e-mail us at c-span.org. our first call comes from nebraska on our democratic line. welcome to the program. eric? caller: good morning. the question i have is the problems we are dealing with his leg globalization -- is that globalization is part of the working family. until we recognize problems in our own family that we have to have this experience that we will work it out. i also find at this time that the republicans coming into this conversation -- we have an opportunity to do anything we want to do, but they are putting a price on it. we can do anything we want as a people on this planet. thank you. host: jon. guest: i definitely agree. one of my point i make is that people often describe globalization as being inevitable. the point i wanted to make is that there is nothing inevitable about it. it was a series of choices that was made, and in each occasion that choice benefited the will to do as opposed to working class people. i definitely agree with the collar. as far as working family, i am not sure what he meant, but another point is how this global financial system has impacted social relationships within the family and the neighborhoods, and the relationship people over the world have with their politicians. it has isolated people more and more. i think i agree with the caller. host: ryan on our republican lun. caller: have any typically a free-market guy. -- i am a free-market guy. i have lost my job three times to indian developers. i kind of understand how globalization can hurt people. i am trying to keep myself train and my skills marketable so i can survive, because they can pay an indian programmer $20,000 a year where i can get a lot more. how you speak to people who want to embrace free-market but cannot want to lose our jobs? guest: part of the problems is that the framers had captured the language. the free market is free when it benefits the wealthy people. look at the bailout of wall street, under most circumstances you would refer to that as socialism. the one thing i recommend in the book to the extent i make a recommendation about what works is not any theological approach to economics, but one that is quite messy. it is a very different combination of socialistic and capitalistic enterprises, regulation but also encouraging free markets, investing in technology. the point is not that we need a communist system, but these things, where they are proven to work like in scandinavian countries, they are very messy. host: you divided the book into two parts. the first part is called canaries in the minds and the second part is chickens coming home to roost. guest: i was trying to set the table and explain what has happened over the last 35 years two different countries in terms of these very obscure but austere economic policies that have been adopted all over the world. and what these policies are, but also putting them in the context of how it has affected different households. the second part i tried to explain how those policies have impacted people on the ground. i talk about the food crisis indeed how deregulation -- and how deregulation and to modification of things like food, how that has infected people over the world. things like marriage rates going down because there is no work. that has been very key to the marriage rate. host: we're talking about globalization is impact on workers with the author of "flat broke in the free-market." the author is jon jeter, who is our guest. our next phone call comes from our independent line from florida. caller: how are you doing? thank you for coming in to talk about this subject. do you think the reason the more is -- the reason the world is going more global because it is harder to track where the money is flowing? is it one of the reasons america has not focused on the borders in america? is that a new form of imperialism? guest: let me answer the second part first. i do believe is a new form of imperialism, this system of -- if you look at who was served by colonialism in terms of the wealthy. that continues today. if you look at who was hurt, people of color, women. this has been reinforced by globalization. it is a rebury ending of colonialism. -- it is a reid branding of colonialism. in terms of the free flow of immigrants? i didn't understand the first part of your question. a lot of what we have done with the bergeborder, a lot of these problems were post-nafta. a lot of people have lost their phonfarms and factories, so youe had this influx of people looking for work. that is a feature of globalization, this great migration of people traveling looking for work. you see in africa and latin america. that is a feature of globalization. the workers traveling to find work. host: our next call comes from the virgin islands. go ahead caller: good morning. i see the subtitle for the latter portion of the book is hope for the future and it relates to some south american countries. could you tie that into some of the places that are doing well with a global economy? and then how do you figure a lot of the poor cities like some parts of chicago, alcan places like that prepare themselves for a global economy. -- how can places like that prepare themselves? guest: the last chapter in the book deals extensively with the chile example. chile underwent a coup in 1973. the president was overthrown and there is a great myth chile has had this megyn is an economy since then because it is the most conservative -- has had this great economy since they were the guinea pig for globalization. that is not exactly true. what happened there the mat and this is instructive, is chile, by emphasizing speculation, they shrank investment and saw what we are going through now, these cycles of boom and bust. their economy would grow by leaps and bounds for a few years and then it would shrink drastically. at one point they had a 33% unemployment rate. what happened was about 1990 when the president left power, they reverted back -- not reverted back because it was a messy system. they all must repealed these conservative policies. they started investing more money in education and health care and technology transfers, so the agricultural sector could grow. would you have seen is the fastest-growing economy since 1990 in latin america. the lesson is they have geared their entire economy towards production. that is a lesson for cities like chicago and throughout the world. during their economy towards producing things, and i don't want to make it seem that chile is the perfect example, but by gearing their economy towards production, they have had this steady growth for almost 20 years that has been unparalleled in latin america. host: you write the juxtaposition of these two countries is the means for cracking the complicated code of microeconomic theory and understanding the relationship between the cold war and washington consensus. what do you mean? guest: the models for what can be done and how to get ahead is found in chile and venezuela. what you see in venezuela over the past 10 years is an economy that has distributed money down as opposed to up. they have lessened the gap between rich and poor. uc venezuela follow that same path. -- you see venezuela follow that same path towards economic growth. it benefits more people as opposed to the tiny elite. the model for how to proceed is found in those two countries. host: joe on twitter writes, you are trying to tell us chile was better off under a dictator? guest: know, i am saying the myth of the economy is that the country grew by leaps and bounds under the dictator. that was a myth. there were times of extreme growth, much like in the u.s. over the past 20 years when we had this boost in thand boom cycles. they have heightened their minimum wage so it one -- it was at one point the highest in latin america. i am definitely not endorsing a dictator. host: jon also spent some time writing for the "detroit free press." he is our guest on the "washington journal," talking about his new book. our last call comes from indiana on air republican line. caller: good morning. the word globalization has many meanings to different aspects in the united states or any other country. i guess my question would be two-fold. number one, do you believe globalization is beneficial to the united states and its economy, and all those folks out of work today? number two, do you believe that the united states congress, in its inactivity or its activity in making laws that has allowed over the last 20 or 30 years this idea of globalization is good, but yet the u.s. has lost tens of millions of jobs and have been exported to countries like mexico, china, malaysia, and nothing is being manufactured in america at. there is not any new manufacturing where people who need work that can assemble clothing, make toys, make tools, is gone from this country. you can drive around, especially in the south and see textile factories closed. my question is, is globalization good for america or is a a serious detriment to bringing back the economy of this once great nation? host: thanks for your call. guest: no, i don't believe globalization is good for the u.s. economy or any of economy. that is the purpose of the book, which is that globalization has devalued work and it is exactly responsible for drawing up these same manufacturing jobs. it does that by of shoring jobs, by looking for the lowest labor costs and devaluing labor unions. no, i doubt at all think globalization is good. i am not sure if you completed your second question, but i definitely think one of the products of globalization also is this estrangement, and responsive government we see all over the world that don't respond to working people. with our proxy on capitol hill serving the interests of corporate america, they are going against our own interests. i definitely don't think congress has the working class interests in mind by their endorsement of these ideas. host: whose responsibility is it for americans to prosper under globalization? is it congress, executive branch or private sector? guest: i think the choices that have been made, it is a series of choices. most of them have been political. they were driven by the private sector, but there is a political choice. politics and economics but answer the same question, who gets a head? -- they both answer the same question. the answer to the question for the bailout for congressional leaders and for our private sector is the speculative wealth gets ahead. we have changed from manufacturing economy 30 years ago to one that values finance, insurance and real estate. host: you write the capital of the industrial world is no longer detroit but shenzhen. and the men who migrated to the motor city have been replaced by women who roam the world to take jobs as maids, nannies and prostitutes. guest: china has one of the prime beneficiaries of globalization, but there are two things worth noting. they have done in a way that is almost opposed to what the world bank and imf prescribed. they invested more money, if they have had less control on their currency. their monetary policy has been more flexible than what the world bank and imf typically prescribed. they have also opened up their naval force to exploitation -- open up their labour force to exploitation. this is not the same growth we saw in the western world 100 years ago where people were coming to this country from europe finding jobs in the factory floor. finding unionized work and they were climbing into the middle class and building wealth. that is not happening. host: marcus in mississippi. go-ahead. caller: i was astonished to find out that the fed gives individuals of other countries, it seems to me whoever controls the money basically controls the country. my question is, how exactly is the federal reserve chairman chosen, and what affect -- what part you think the federal reserve bank plays a role? i would like to know, who owns the federal reserve bank or the system that makes up the federal reserve? who are the stockholders? are they the board members we see on tv? host: we will leave it there. guest: i will be honest with you, i am not the best person to talk about the federal reserve. i don't know how the chairmen is chosen exactly. i can say this about central banks, one of the things we have seen over the world, specifically in brazil, is the central bank has served the interests of investment class. the international investment class him. one of the examples i give is in brazil. they saw interest rates of about 26% on the bonds they were selling to wall street. this killed the economy. the economy contracted that year by about 1%. that is the central bank's authority to make this choice between inflation and job growth. inflation is a bad thing but if you don't have any money, inflation is irrelevant. this gets back to one of the choices that globalization makes. nine times out of tennis it will benefit the wealthy as opposed to the working class. -- nine times out of ten it will benefit the wealthy. caller: i finally got through. host: congratulations. caller: i wanted to make a comment regarding the jobs -- the manufacturing jobs that were in america and were moved to countries like india and china. i think that they are experiencing an industrial revolution much like what we saw in the 20th-century. i think that they are developing a middle-class while we are losing our middleclass. i also think that for an economy to do well, there has to be a strong middle-class. that is indicative when you look at consumer spending indexes. we just don't have the money. we don't have the dollars because we don't have manufacturing jobs that developed are middle-class. guest: that is exactly right. that is the essence of the book, which is that china and india have replicated the success in developing this industrialized economy. by opening of their labor force to more exploitation, it does speak to the myth of gdp. you have a growth but poverty grows at the same time. the loss of manufacturing jobs is really such a central element to both this recession and the declining living standards in terms of the exploitation of people, but declining marriage rates, unraveling of our society and many other countries is based on manufacturing jobs. when we lose those jobs, things fall apart. the middle class falls apart, and they are such an important part against so many social ills, so when you deplete manufacturing jobs, you deplete the middle class. host: how does the u.s. go about reclaiming those manufacturing jobs? guest: there are a million ways. we can be more flexible. we can be more flexible with our monetary policy. we have adopted a strong dollar policy, which is very paradoxical in that a kills inflation and jobs on making imports coming here less expensive and makes exports more expensive. teh caller mentioned something also come up which is we can pay more attention to the household balance sheets. we're trying to revive this -- there are a million things we can do in terms of extending more student aid to college students. i think a universal health care, particularly a single payer system, these would start to build the economy. the green job industry is another thing that could be very helpful because right now we are at a point where we have more waitresses and cooks than we had assembly line workers. that is not the america of the most of us know. host: this e-mail in georgia rights, in my job, i travel over the world to work with analysts. i am not surprised when i land in a third world country and discovered their analysts are better trained than their american counterparts. irreal examine is the birmingham -- a real example is the birmingham public school system where they are teaching filipinos to teach basic math and science to public-school students. please ask him to comment on the differences, we are no longer competitive. guest: that is right. that is the product of this disinvestment, this zeal we have had in terms of our political class in reducing the investment in schools and health care, which are related in terms of people's training. all these things which goes towards production. c i. hile -- i talked about chile earlier and how they started doubling the money they spent on education. at the same time, the rest of latin america was cutting in half. chile basically prepared their work force to produce things and be middle class. that is the failure of the american economy over the last 30 years. we have not prepared our work force to be middle-class, to produce the things that will actually create wealth for a wider class of people. host: is that because in the u.s. there might be what is perceived as a rush to go from the lower class to the upper class and skip the middle class all together? or is it that we are not preparing the lower class to step into the guest: middle class i think it is the latter. because we have devalued work, particularly manufacturing jobs that really built this country, especially when you look at after world war ii, our investment, wall street -- the portion of gdp has tripled. that is a function of where our priorities lie, which is speckled tiv wealth and not in producing things. our political class and our private sector have made a choice that we are not looking to develop a work force that can produce things so much that we are looking to develop wall street which is basically gambling. host: where did that pride go in manufacturing? for example, in the auto industry there was a time during the 1950's when you go to detroit, people were proud. they will tell you that is a ford and have built that car. that is my industry. where did all that dough? guest: i think gradually it has been -- about 1973, at this bush backed by a more political class -- thsis -- this pushback to deplete unions and control the economy in a way that benefits the wealthy. i think -- i don't think the problems we had with globalization are a result of workers. our workers are still as good as anyone, but it is the choices that were made by the political class and corporate elite that has devalued workers and has been serving their own self interests. host: our next call comes from kinetic said. caller: appreciate your topic today. i had a couple comments and a question. stratification has left a lot of inner cities without the benefit of an industry, whether it be ohio or even in connecticut. it has been a transition to a customer service-oriented environment. you'd think would brown versus board of education, you had the actual physical reality of job loss, has said the division that leaves lower class and middle- class at a loss -- has set lower class at a loss? you think certain events could serve as an impetus for people to move around the u.s. and maybe this is an issue bring into focus what we have problems with the social security, or maybe leaders are seeing that we are getting to a point where we cannot come back from what we have done to ourselves? guest: i am not exactly sure what the question was. brown versus board of education, i am not sure what role that plays in globalization, but i do think -- one thing i right about is if you look at who has struggled with globalization, who has been left out, it is typically people of color and you look at the unemployment rates for blacks, which is something like 16%. if you look all over the world, you're looking at people of color and indigenous people and women. because they are the ones that do the work and they are the ones who would have been the assembly line workers 40 or 50 years ago. these things are not middle class jobs. i am not sure if that was the question, but that is the best i can do. host: this writer writes i am the wife of a dispossessed manager from ford. my husband has been away for three years working to keep our family in our home. he has missed seeing his children and we have lost so much security. we all suffer with this trend. how can we in state common-sense protectionism now? guest: that is exactly right, it is not just a question of working last. it is really the ultra rich who have benefited from this. it is everyone but this small elite of people who have benefited from the last 35 years of these choices we have made, but i don't believe the horse has left the barn for good at all. there are any number of things we can do to reverse this trend. investing in health-care and a real single payer system that would create jobs and invest in productivity of our work force, spending more money on education. also things like what if we took detroit and also manufactures and reoriented them towards building a green the economy? light rail transit and retrofitting things. things like that could go towards rebuilding the middle class, spreading the wealth in a way that is good for the entire population as opposed to just a small sliver. there are many things we can do. these choices are ongoing, and maybe the horse has left the barn but we can bring him back. host: our next call comes from ontario, right across the river from detroit. caller: good morning. we certainly enjoys c-span. i have a couple of observations i have made. the problem is that our politicians have become almost a burt middle-class -- have become upper class. they identify with the wealthy and they go to the parties. they see the excesses' of wealth, they had so many hidden perks people don't know about. in the last week they had quite a scuttle about the jets that the politicians felt they needed. had it not been for people rising up against it, they would have gone through. the next thing is that i think the underlying faction was to break the unions, because the american middle class was becoming a little too successful to suit their needs. it is ok for a ceo to make $20 million a year, but how dare somebody afford themselves a vacation every couple of years and new car, and all those things that exemplified a comfortable middle-class, i think they decided to put the worker in his place, so to speak. i also think social security is on its way to being broke. i don't think many americans realize that the money that is extracted from their paycheck goes into a general fund. it is not put away to take care of the needs of social security, so there for a person's social security check is being used to fight a war in iraq or afghanistan. people are very poorly educated as to the money that is collected from their taxes is spent. host: you have given us a lot to work with. guest: thank you very much. i right about this in the book where i talk about just what this expanding corporate influence has done to our politicians over the world. it has created this political class that is almost run responsive to the citizens -- unresponsive to the citizens. look at health care reform, most polls show most americans want universal, but we had a conversation here in washington that doesn't reflect that. i do think you have, because our politicians and they increasingly serve the interests of their corporate clients, they left regular people behind. in terms of the unions, i think they play -- they have a lot to do with what has happened. it is a matter of paying workers less because that means that is more money corporations can keep in their pockets. you have seen this since 1973 where the american worker has not had a raise since 1973 when you adjust for inflation. that is not the path to a middle-class or a robust economy. on social security, i don't write a lot about this, but i would disagree with the caller on this issue. my understanding is social security is fully solvent for about 40 years. even then we will be talking about a minimal reduction. i see social security as part of this privatization and has been such a big feature of globalization that wall street wants to get its hands on to make profits for themselves. their regard for working-class people is fairly minimal. host: larry on our independent line from miami. caller: thank god for c-span. it is very important. i would like to ask mr. jeter, do you agree with me that in 1992 when president clinton was running for his first presidency against ross perot he started this business with free trade and ross perot said it will kill us, it will lose jobs. and it will be almost impossible to get these jobs back. we are in a situation now where the only way workers in india, when their minimum-wage comes of two hours, then we will have a fighting chance to get this jobs back, but until that happens it will be years until the average worker will be able to go back to work in the u.s. guest: i do think this trend towards globalization, adopting these fundamentalist market policies began in the 1970's, but it began in earnest with bill clinton and particularly the nafta. nafta was the turning point for our economy because it is a model for some many trade packs that have seen many economies around the world suffered. i do think the whole point of globalization is how much is the price of labor? if india start to demand wages similar to what workers in the u.s. would demand, we would see real pressure put on the framers of this economic system? that is definitely a key point. host:"flat broke and the free- market" is the book. jon jeter is our guest. next up is santana from california. caller: i really think got to see somebody is on the air who is not sponsored by the insurance company or coca-cola. i have two questions. first one is globalization. when jamaica became independent, [unintelligible] [unintelligible] when he was in power he gave free education and free health care to everybody. the imf said no, we cannot do that. now everything is [unintelligible] the second one is the bailout. i believe the bailout should be from the bottom up, people who are losing their houses, they are the ones who should be served first. what happened? guest: that is exactly right. you see that all over the world. i have seen in my work hell some many of these programs that were started or the people really want in brazil, where there is a land redistribution movement there but there has been no effort because globalization demands you do not pay money out for things like that. health care, education, you see so many countries cut back as a result of trying to find their way in this system. these are the demands that were put upon. i mentioned the case of mozambique, which cut subsidies for its cashew industry and it killed the cashew industry. this is that kind of things we are seeing, these choices made on behalf of the corporate class of the investors worldwide. they punish the working class. yes, in terms of the top down system of globalization, if you look at how we have tried to revive our economy in the u.s., we have emphasized the bottom line of wall street, and the bottom line that needs to be prioritized is the ordinary americans balance sheet. people are overextended, painting much in debt -- paying too much in debt, and there is no clear path to reviving the economy when you have people over extended. there is no way to revive the consumer demand economy when people don't have any money. host: we have been talking with jon jeter, author of "flat broke. in broke. " it is part of our look -- the author of "flat broke in the free market." thank you very much for being on the program. now we're going to shift to skype and talk to an executive director with right online. you can find him at rightonline.com. tell us a little bit about the conference. guest: thanks for having me today. this is our second annual conference and we brought together many people across the country. we will focus on how we can more work effectively together. we kicked off yesterday with some great training seminars and issued panels capping it off with a keynote dinner. we start again this morning in just a minute with a great lineup of speaker is in be another round of panels this afternoon. host: earlier we talked with susie madrak, who came to us from the netroots nation convention. how does this convention differ from there is? guest: in many ways, they are the same. it is a great statement to have both sides in town focusing on getting people on all sides of the political spectrum, but we are focused on getting our folks trained. we have a stronger focus on people not already using these tools and learning how they can get more engaged, where more experienced people are already more engaged, but we are trying to start from a more basic level but also have more in advance people here to get everyone working together in a more effective way. [inaudible] host: how will conservative blogginh affect the outcome of the 2010 elections? what kind of contributions will that be in that system? guest: our focus is not on a dancing any candidate but in advancing the issues. -- our focus is not on advancing any candidate. we have seen a profound impact of new media on elections in the last few cycles in terms of organizing people, but even more important than elections is making sure we hold the key to the fire on key policy efforts that will be prominent in the 2010 elections. host: where do you see the gaps in what is reported in the mainstream media to the issues you feel are important to your organization? guest: one big thing we see is attacks from the left saying activists on our side are not real, that is a corporate-funded astroturfing. [inaudible] in supporting an agenda our side is supposed to. the greatest story not being paid attention to is the real folks who are here, how they want to make their voice heard and find more ways to get involved. it is amazing to see people come from all around who are committed to the cause. it is very encouraging. host: in a few minutes we will go live to the right online conference, where some of the keynote speakers include michelle malkin, grover norquist, jim pinkerton. tell us what some of these folks will be talking about to the audience gathered there in pittsburgh. . certainly looking at the audience, to be effective, we have to move this from the bottom up, and we have to encourage those folks and empower them to do that. >> there is a thought that there is a liberal bias in the mainstream media to some. is there the same concern in the bloggasphere that it tends to lean left as opposed to conservative? >> i think there is a generally-agreed upon thought that the left is ahead when it comes to online activism, but it is different than mainstream media. it doesn't matter if it is bias, because we have more power to fix it. people can turn on their tv's, but they can't get engaged or make their voices heard. they can turn on their computers and they can make their voices ha heard. it is a medium where if there is an advantage over the left, we have an ability to overcome it. i think we're making great strides in that. with the momentum that we have, i have no doubt that advantage will be overtaken in a short amount of time. >> we're talking with erik telford of rightonline. you can find them at rightonline.com. also speaking to the group today, three representatives, tom price, mike pent, and john shaddock. >> they are going to discuss policies that are currently coming up when they go back to session, but they address what's happening now in the nation's capital and how people need to be engaged, online or off line, and what they can do to be more powerful in making their voice heard. >> all right, executive director of rightonline, erik telford, thank you for be -- speaking to us from pittsburgh villa skype. we will be going online to the second rightonline conference in a few minutes. in the meantime, we will open the phones for some open phones, a chance for viewers and listeners to comment on some of the things we've been talking about today or things that you have seen in the newspapers or maybe heard on your local television or radios stations. the numbers, 202-737-0001 for republicans, 202-737-0002 for democrats, and 202-628-0205 for independentents. can you send us a t wism -- twitter, also, and you can also send us an e-mail journal at c-span.org. we continue to show you the gathering there in pittsburgh. the second annual rightonline conference. we'll look at some of the items in the newspapers this morning. more discussion on health care in the "baltimore sun." "obama tries to cut heat on health. president blames nead immediate -- media for focus on protesters. he said the president did not deny there have been angry outbursts by opponents much his plan at democratic meetings of his lawmakers this month, but he said that was not the whole story. tv loves a raucous, obama said. what you haven't seen on tv and what makes me proud are the many constructive meetings going on all over the country. let's go do st. roberts, missouri. dee dee. good morning. caller: good morning. i want to mac a comment about the speaker you had on earlier this morning. she had a lot of important opinions. i just have one statement. what are the jose angel cordova so afraid of? -- what are the h.m.o.'s so afraid of? why are they so afraid of the health care reform bill? host: why do you think they are afraid of the health care reform bill? caller: i don't know why. if they are so into free enterprise and competition, why are they so afraid? host: sterling heights, michigan, on our republican line . welcome to "washington journal". caller: i would like to say with regard to the white house and the majority of the congress, they have nothing but contempt for the american people by trying to foster this notorious bill down our throats. just look at the background of the man occupying the oval office. he's surrounded with communist mentors, like saul linsky and william ayers. and the reverend wright church he attended for 30 years, this ought to tell anyone with common sense the man is notorious and diabolical and he has nothing but the worst interests in mind. host: mike, have you read the house bill? caller: i have seen what fox coverage on it, and i don't need to have cancer to know i don't want it. host: jonathan from lowell, massachusetts. caller: like your previous guest i also lived in brazil, though i lived in 1985 and 1986 when they had the plan to try to change their currency, change from the old currency to a new currency. and just to elaborate on his points, it's very true. the elited, the world bank, the i.m.f. definitely suppressed the workers' best interests, and since they don't contribute as big corporations do, they are not going to get the influence that they deserve to have. so in any event that's all i have to say. go c-span. bye. host: in this morning's "the new york times" "race for republicans turns conservatives against each other." they are talking about perry seeking a third term and his primary opponent, bailey hutchison, the state's senior senator. if you want to read more about the texas governor race, you can go to "the new york times" on hard copy or online. woodbridge, virginia, on our line for moderates. go ahead. robert? let's move on to linda in santa barbara, california, on our line for republicans. caller: hello? host: hello, linda. caller: yes, i would have liked to have talked to mr. jeeter. -- jeter. he seemed to have emphasized the fact that we don't spend enough on education and various welfare programs. which i think is, if he would check, we've spent billions since the 1960's. how does he explain the -- you know, the dropout rate in places like chicago, which he seemed to know best? no matter how much you spend you can't educate people who won't stay in school. that is one of our biggest problems. host: linda, why do you call education a welfare program? caller: i didn't call -- i said education and the various welfare programs. i'm not calling education a welfare program. host: i'm sorry. i misunderstood you. caller: i would give you an example of my own niece, a middle class, came from actually a middle class family, but she was -- you know, had a single mother, and they were lower middle class. although her family, you know, would be considered upper middle class. but anyway, she managed to go to a prestigious college in oakland, and it was fairly a free ride with a $30,000 a year tuition. and she did work very hard, and she studied hard, and she got fairly good grades. host: linda, thank you very much. we're going to leave it there. while we're waiting for the start-up of the event in pittsburgh, we're going to tell you a little bit about what's coming up tomorrow on "washington journal." we begin with a representative from the associated press, martin cutsinger talking about the state of the political economy. david wasserman and mark murray will be talking about politics 2010. then we continue our book series on "washington journal" with martin anderson and anneliste anderson. that's tomorrow on "washington journal." back to the phones. barbara in bridgeport, connecticut. your on the "washington journal". go ahead. caller: yes, good morning. i have been watching the town hall meetings, and i must say i am so disgusted with the right wing party. they are so ignorant. we can start with glenn beck who had mostly all of his sponsors taken away from him because he talks stupid. we can talk with the other fat one, that rush limbaugh, and not to mention mostly all the people that get up there and carry on are from the south. they are ignorant, they have no teeth, they have no brains, and i'm so ashamed of them. i am so glad i do not live in the south. thank you. host: barbara? barbara's gone. in "the washington post" this morning grassley is the talk of town halls. this is by perry bacon who writes about the town hall meetings of senator charles grassley, the ranking member in the senate finance committee. "conservative activists mobilized early sending urgent e-mail alerts asking republicans to show up at meetings." some iowans, explained someone who strongly opposes the health care reform effort wonders if grassley is wandering off the reservation. curt, what's on your mind this morning? caller: thank god for c-span. i want to talk about the health care system. i am an immigrant. and since i come here, my wife have insurance. i don't use it, because i don't normally get sick, but she uses it a lot. man, i'm telling you, the bills are -- they are so crazy. i understand, people always say america has the best health care system. i don't see that, because the facts don't add up. england, others have longer life expectancy than america. go to 2008, we have a medical situation. he actually curse the medicare system here, and now he's the one saying oh, we have the best health care system. now there is a video saying him cursing it. so these guys are deseeving themselves and a lot of american people. thank god for c-span. i really learn a lot. and god bless. host: karen on our line for republicans from pennsylvania. where is conadentious, pennsylvania? caller: by straussburg. thank you for taking my call. regarding john jeter, he should be running for president. he puts it as it is. we have a dumbing of america. we have illegal immigrants coming in to undermine the middle class fully supported by our corporations. we need manufacturing. people, wake up. we are being sold out by our huge 10% upper class, or upper, upper, upper class. that includes russert, bill gates, who opens up a huge school in india instead of doing it here in the united states. i immigrated to america in 1958. i do not recognize our country anymore. my heart is broken. our huge billion nares now doing to the middle class and to the working class. thank you for listening to me. host: karen, where did you immigrate from? caller: from germany. host: why did you pick pennsylvania? caller: we originally came from new york. we just moved here three years ago because my husband wanted to live in the country. i love the city, but he wanted to come to the country. host: alexandria, virginia, on our line for democrats. good morning. caller: good morning, c-span. thank you for taking my call. i do support health care reform. currently the cost of health care is breaking our backs. i think it should be humane of us americans to support health insurance for everyone in this country. we pay for it through our tax dollars anyway. if i have a cold or flu or if i break my arm and go to the emergency room, what should have cost me $65 going to the doctor's office is costing the government $700 because emergency room is not designed for primary health care. we're all paying for it through our taxes. i guess we're not recognizing that we are. so all this opposition where people call in with mixed rather than -- myths rather than facts is completely confusing such an important issue. host: thanks for your call. if you are watching us on television, you will see they are gathering in pittsburgh for the americans for prosperity foundation second annual rightonline conference. and we will go live to that conference. >> americans for prosperity! host: it sounds like they are starting up now, so we will go live to pits pittsburgh for the americans for prosperity foundation rightonline conference. thank you for joining us today. >> americans for prosperity called the stimulus package one big barrel of pork filled up with goodies that will do nothing for the ailing economy. >> the more americans learn about the stimulus package, the more they don't like it. >> the senate takes up its version today, but there is one group that thinks the entire thing is a horrible idea, and they have an online petition that's getting thousands and enthuse -- thousands of signatures every few hours. >> we were only able to access the front page because there was so much web traffic. >> i know the calls are against the stimulus. i know americans for prosperity was on fox and friends this morning, and they set up a web site just less than a month ago, and they have 100,000 people that have signed. the group americans for prosperity is number one. ♪ let's see how far we've come ♪ ♪ i started running but there's nowhere to run to ♪ >> you are watching live coverage from washington, d.c. we are hearing from a group known as americans for prosperity. >> americans for prosperity is one of the main reasons that people are turning around now and the public is definitely on our side. >> americans for prosperity, radio talk shows, bloggers, americans have found out what's really in this bill. >> when you look at the numbers, states where people have the freedom to choose, that's where prosperity is, that's where job growth is. >> a crowd of dozen dozen rallied. they are called -- here to fight against a new bill that would make it easier for unions to organize. >> the reason people are leaving in mass exodus from places like massachusetts and new york, heavily unioned states. >> people are trying to take a fundamental right away from workers when it comes to deciding if they want to join a union. >> i think a lot of people, the vast majority of americans feel we are sick of these bailouts. i've got 500,000 people who signed our petition against the stimulus bill. i'm willing to e-mail all of them and tell them to come out to your event. >> act visits gathered to tell the president, you don't know stimulus. >> together they gathered for the taxpayer tea party. it is a protest organized by the americans for prosperity. ♪ let's see how far we've come let's see how far we've come let's see how far we've come ♪ [applause] >> leading us in the pledge of allegiance this morning is a.f.p. foundation oklahoma state director stewart jolley. >> i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> thank you. >> good luck. [applause] >> ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the president of americans for prosperity founks, tim phillips! [applause] >> good morning. i hope you guys enjoyed last night pat toomey. [applause] >> the radio wildman of the central part of the state, i guess. thank you all for coming out this morning. i mentioned this last night, but you are on the cutting edge of what we're trying to do with the movement. you're it. you're here. you're learning. you're educating yourselves. we're getting better and better online. we're going to catch them and we're going to beat them because of folks like you and what you are doing. this morning you will hear from amazing folks. i don't know if you know this or not, we have the number one and number three best-selling authors curnt currently on "the new york times" best-selling lists. [applause] >> we'll be doing book signings, hearing from them, and have an opportunity to do book signs with them later in the day. we have two of the best political and economic rallies in the country. [applause] >> when i get up in the morning i want to hear tick tomlinson. we have one of the guys, leading from the beginning of this movement. he's here, he's a good friend. i'll tell you something, this morning walking around and last night, i met so many of you. i'm so excited to get to know you. how many of you are tea party folks? [applause] >> we have so many good tea party folks. we have folks across the state and country. especially here in the state, and i want to thank you all for what you're doing fplg -- doing. our first speaker was not seeking the limelight. he was thrust into the limelight by asking a simple question. you know your parents always tell you, be careful what you ask for? this guy was standing in the frontline, and barack obama wandered by, and this guy asked a simple question. he was a good-old normal average american, and finle suddenly he found everything from "the new york times" to msnbc and cbs news attacking and vilifying him and going after him, and he found state officials in ohio digging without any cause into his business background. he paid a price for freedom. guys like this, we need to say thank you to and appreciate and keep active. and joe has been out there with us across the country. some of you were in pittsburgh with us. joe was there with us. also in harrisburg he was with us. he does -- what he's doing this morning across this country because he loves this country, and he's not a quiter. he's a fighter. i want to introduce to you joe the plumber. [applause] [applause] >> i really appreciate you all coming. i loved my own plumbing crews. i had communications engineer. i had guys that worked for me. [applause] >> not that you-all work for me, but you do work for the american people? one way or another. and i believe in giving credit where credit is due. and i want to thank you for what you do. you guys are empowering your fellow man. what you guys are doing is incredible, getting the information out there, blogging. we can't do that without you guys. americans for prosperity, a lot of great organizations out there can't do it without the american people, and that's you guys. so thank you very much. i really appreciate it. [applause] >> usually my speech is about yelling at people, to be honest with you. usually i don't make people feel good about themselves, i want them to feel bad about them selves to get them to do something. whether -- but i have to relax a little because you guys are doing something good. there is an american heritage. we cannot allow them to take that away from us. [applause] >> a lot of people want to talk about how this is not a godly nation. i'm here to say it is. i am a christian. [applause] >> right now we find ourselves in the midst of a battle of sorts. mainstream media wants to propagate it, us against them, left against right, democrats against republicans. i'm here to tell you, try to lose that message, because it doesn't work. it does not work at all. my neighborhood is full of union guys, all democrats, and they are all my good friends. we all want a strong military to protect us, and then we want the government to get out of the way and let us do our thing. that's what we want, right? so when you are out there blogging, as easy as it is to take a shot at the left, i ask you to refrain a little bit, because these are your neighbors, these are your friends. let's make this an american movement. conservative, absolutely, but make it an american movement. because we need all our guys together. mainstream media does their best to divide us. they do that from lobbying to get certain words out of textbooks that our children read. i don't have this 100% confirmed, but the other day a read an article that we are no longer americans. that bothered the hell out of me. i'm an american. i'm not a person of the united states. i am an american. they tried to take that away from us. [applause] >> police correctness is another way of keeping us down. i believe in true leadership. i believe in stating exactly what you are, what you are about, and asking people to follow you. if they don't follow you, obviously you are going to go the other way. don't go left, go right. that's the perfect example. he's a republican, he's a democrat, he's this, he's that. he's just one of many that do that. so true leadership is somebody -- don't get me wrong here. i'm not sitting here saying i'm the next leader that's going to carry a sword. but a couple things i don't believe in. i don't believe in abortion. i didn't believe in it 10 years ago and i'm not going to believe in it 10 years from now. you can put your money in the bank that joe stands for this. i love my gun. i don't believe in same-section -- same-sex marriage. these are things i believe in. i want true leadership from whoever i'm going to vote for. i want somebody that's going to stand up and say, this is what i believe. so i want you guys to make sure you reach the people that are going to support you. there are necessities that turn our country back around -- that's accountability, responsibility, education, and the constitution. [applause] accountability. back when -- a.i.g., he put that writing in there to get their pone bonuses, yeah, i lied. so what? he's got a perfect reason to say "so what" because us americans haven't held them accountable. i go to fix the plummings sometimes at someone's house and usually i make it right. now you -- once in a while that calcium breaks free and i have to go fix it again. you better believe it that i hear it from that husband the whole way i'm over there about the $70. what about the trillions trillions of dollars they are taking from the american people? i have no respect for someone who lies toward me, takes my money, puts my children in debt. he wants me to be respectful toward them? please. i'm not the most civilized person. those kind of people i usually put behind the woodshed and just beat the living tar out of them. i don't like being lied to. you are empowering americans again. that's the key. you are empowering americans again. back to my point. accountability. we have to hold them account able. that is your responsibility to do that. education and constitution. my son is 14 years old, straight-a student. proud parent movement. legislation captain of the -- also captain of the football team. the teachers do their jobs, but my size 12s also do their job. it's the parents job to make sure they do their job. the constitution is black and white. it is not a living, breathe document. you can follow that and make sure that your politicians follow that. that's all i have to say today. thank you for coming. always respect your military members. thank you for coming. god bless you. [applause] >> thanks for coming out today. how many of you are either readers or subscribers to "the wall street journal"? thank you for helping to pay my salary. i remember who i work for. >> i want to tell you, i haven't been able to spend as much time with you as i had hoped because i'm dividing my time as a reporter between this group and the netroots nation left-wing bloggers group. they have been very nice to me, in fairness. last year they treated me like a pinata. they have been much nicer to me this year. people tell me, what's the mood like at this conference and the mood over at netroots nation. i'm here to tell you the mood is much brighter and more optimistic. [applause] >> their leading political activist was on a panel of poll centers, and they said -- pollsters. he predicted that the most likely outum come of the 201011 lex was that liberals would lose between 20 and 50 house seats. -- he predicted that the most likely outcome of the 2010 elections was that liberals would lose between 20 and 50 house seats. and i don't have to tell you what happens when that hits. nancy pelosi becomes minority leader. now we've all been this way before when freedom has been challenged and attack and the american people have summoned all that is best within them to defend it. i want to give you a very, very short history lesson based on what ronald reagan taught us when he was presidential candidate and president. in 1977, the conservative movement, the free market movement was in peril. the country was in peril. democrats had won the white house with jimmy carter and they had won control of both houses of congress, and it looked bleak. ronald reagan addressed a group of his advisers and they were depressed and he said, be of good cheer. he said, "or for i am beaten, but i am not slain i chalet down and rest awhiling and fight again." and reagan told us the following -- he said, look, liberals only win elections when two things happen -- when we make mistakes or the people who claim to represent us -- claim to represent us make mistakes -- and when they campaign as moderates. that's just what jimmy carter succeeded in doing. he said the problem is this -- they may campaign as moderates, but they can't govern as moderates because the people who pay the bills for the liberals won't have it any other way. they will not let them govern as moderates. they always have to move left. and reagan said, i brict that jimmy carter will govern from the left. if he governs from the left, he will fail, because liberalism always fails wherever it is tried. if it fails, people will notice. if people notice, they will get upset, they will get concerned, and you then will have another opportunity to have a conversation with the american people. it doesn't mean you don't have to learn from your previous mistakes, it doesn't mean you don't have to connect with the grassroots and go back with first prins principles and be in touch with what the american people are demanding , but it means you have another chance to go and talk to the people with the votes from the american people, and if you do that from a principles position, you will win. [applause] and what happened in 1978 a year later? prop 13 in california. tax revolts throughout the country. including even massachusetts. and the 1978 mid-term elections which pretty much stopped jimmy carter in his tracks, except for the damage he was doing to the american economy in our foreign policy. carter brought us 15% inflation, 21% interest race -- rates. gas lines. remember gas lines? the soviet union on the march. in 1908 ronald regular yasian was able to come roaring back and come up with one of the best lines in politics. he said a recession is when your neighbor loses his job. a depression is when you lose your job. recovery is when jimmy carter will lose his job. [applause] somehow i >> somehow i think we're going to hear that line again directed at some people in congress next year. [applause] >> but of course reagan won 44 states in 1980, and we all know history changed as a result. well, in 1993 it happened again. there was a president who unfortunately broke a tax pledge. remember "read my lips? no new tax pledge." and the voters voted off. that's when they figured his tray table was not in its full and upright position. campaigning as a moderate bill clinton won and once again, 16 years later, the democrats had the white house and both houses of congress. ronald reagan has not yet been felled by the alzheimer's disease which zeasm apped his energy. he had one final meeting with his aides and staffers. he said be of good cheer. he reminded them of his speech. he said here we are again. the same conditions apply. bill clinton campaigned aze moderate. he will govern from the left. i guarantee you the people who pay the bills won't have it any other way. if he governs from the left, he will fail. if he fails, people will notice. if they fail, people will be concerned and rise up and you will have an opportunity to talk to the american people about an alternative approach. and he was right. bill clinton raised taxes. the b.t.u. tax was proposed. there was scandal after scandal, and of course there was a-- the hillary health care plan that crashed and burned. well, here we are again 16 years after that. notice the syncronicity. 1977 to 1993, 16 years. i say if we won the last two battles, it's time to go 3-3! [applause] and this time, in 1977, it was people like the direct mail kings that were beating the competition, then it was the television ads. this year the obama campaign basically took the pharmaceutical companies into -- the pharmaceuticals cut a deal with barack obama, the insurance companies have been on the sidelines trying to get some crumbs on the table. we all say we can't oppose this because we want a seat at the table. they weren't told the seat of the table is because they were there to be lunch. the responsibility this time has fallen on you, the american people. with the new technology, blogging, the internet, viral videos, e-mails, you have been the people who have risen up and stopped this health care plan so far. you can stop is completely. bras you -- because you are now the voice of the new politics. i believe we have reached a point in this country where political leadership can come from anywhere. we all know the leaders in our movements. sometimes they're really not leaders, they are followers. they watch the parade of people outside their window, and they say, those are my people, i must go out and lead them. you are the new leaders of american politics. you can bring about change. you are doing it as we speak. i just want to leave you with these words. in 1977 you proved you could stop big government in its tracks. in 1993 you proved you could stop big government in its tracks. now i think we have a chance to do that again. you know, they call the generation that survived the great depression and won world war ii the great estrogen racial, but the great estrogen racial is only the great estrogen racial until the next great generation that has a challenge to america's freedom and security is given the chance to do it again. if you do what you did in 1977, you may one day be able to turn to your children and grandchildren, and when they ask you what you did in the summer and fall of 2009, you will be able to say we were a new great generation. we stopped big government in its tracks. thank you. [applause] >> please welcome the managing editor for redstate.com, erick erickson! [applause] >> good morning. thank you all for being here. thank you americans for prosperity for putting thees this together. usually i start out giving a great line from abraham lincoln that starts back in 1856 when he was wondering why the united states had become already the greatest country on earth, the envy of europe, europeans were coming to study us. his line was that in this country unlike any other every man can make himself. every man can make himself in this country unlike any other country. now, generally i delve into the speech a little further, but because of events ha that are upon us, i want to change up what i would normally tell you. if barack obama succeeds, if health care passes, if cap and trade passes, in this country, people won't be able to make themselves anymore. the government will make them for them. i am lucky. i happen to be in the one business in america that barack obama is actually helping other than grave diggers. the rest of you, though, in your jobs, you are going to have a lot of trouble. so we come here today to figure out how to fight, how to organize. we work together on this. dep you don't know the person sitting behind you and the person sitting in front of you, you probably know the people on your sides, you don't know the person in front of you or behind you, you need to know that person, because we're in this together. this is actually a fight. people don't like to use that word, but it is. so together we have to fight together. we stand up. we go to the tea parties. but now, this is where i want to deviate. right now the left is organizing boycotts against people like glenn beck for daring to speak out against the president. they are driving advertisers off his tv and radio shows. if they succeed with him they will be emboldened to come after other people. beck is pretty big, so if they can take him down, they will work on people smaller than him. so we have to stick together. there is an orget operation in this country to shut us down. you and i are astroturfers. the people subsidized by -- you and i who leave our job without pay to go protest, we're astroturfers the people bused in bied unions that are paid $12 an hour are the real activists according to the media. the president and congress are against us, but the majority of the american people are with us. and together we can do what barack obama promised -- we can change the country. we can commit this country back to freedom, back to small government. but now here's my provocative statement of the day. how mr. of you belong to tea parties? look at that. so now what do you do after the tea parties? let me suggest something for some of the leftists who may be in here today. if they faint when i say this, you will know they are a leftist. we need a counterpart. -- we need a coup. not a coup of government, a coup of political parties. how many you that went to a tea party then showed up at a precinct at your political party? take me, i'm from georgia. there are 50 republican precincts. of the 50 republican precincts in georgia, half of them have no cap tains. who -- if they are vacant, who runs the republican precincts? the tea party activists. who runs the state political party? once you take over the state political party, who runs the national party? not washington, d.c., but you guys. we need a coup in this country  of the political parties. they promise hope, they promise change, and frankly republicans are probably going to get swept back in office thinking they have done everything right when they really haven't, it's just the other guys lost. so until they start cleaning up their own act, it is not going to do us any good. we will be back where we are. so you must get involved. stop going to tea parties and start going to political parties and blow them out. get involved. take them back. become the voice you want to become. become the local political party, become the national political party. you know, we are a two-party country in this nation. valid access laws prevent third parties from coming. we have two good parties -- well, one of them. we have local activists in operation, so take them over. once you take them over, then we take back washington and we keep it. thank you. [applause] >> please direct your attention to the television screen for a message from the republican conference chairman, the congressman from indiana. >> i serve as chairman of the house republican con fence. i want to thank the americans for prosperity foundation for allowing me to speak a few minutes with all of you today as you gather for your annual rightonline conference. last year the political pundits were writing the obituary of the republican party. it is becoming clear after many months that all the pundits spoke too soon. republicans have taken a stand for the american people and for fiscal responsibility, smaller government, and traditional values. the tide is shifting. that shift is due in no small part to your hard work in the online community of conservative activists. we learned last fall how powerful and formidable a netroots following can be for any campaign. now through your growing support and dedication, we're beginning to win some of that important ground back, and not a moment too soon. we're living through some pretty historic times, both in the depth of the economic crisis we face and in the attempt of some democrats to exploit this crisis to advance an extremist liberal agenda. love ri 7.7 million jobs -- roughly 7.7 million jobs have been lost since democrats took control of the congress. trillions trillions have been lost in savings and investments. many are trying to plan for the future. as the american families try to make sacrifices to get through this tough time, in washington it is business as usual. this year alone, congress has passed the $787 billion stimulus bill followed by a $4 trillion federal budget, topped off with a national energy tax and plans for a government take-over of america's health care. and whether it is correspondenceorship on the airways, the steady erosion of our free market system or taxpayer-funded abortion, the liberal assault on our values continues at a dangerous pace. house republicans are committed to offering better solutions, and that's where you come in. we need your input and we need your voice. you have the power to carry our message faster than at any time in human history. our success depends on your success. that's why i'm excited you gathered in pittsburgh to sharpen your tools and prepare for the battle ahead. as we look back at the last seven months, there's a lot to be proud of. many of our people have mage made cambridgeous stands. as we look to the road ahead, we are reminded that much more work is yet to be dufpblet the american people need -- yet to be done. the american people need solutions that will get this country back on track. they want someone to hold this country and congress accountable for their failures. with each passing day, job losses mount, and people continue to face extraordinary challenges to provide for their families. in is not a moment to lose. house republicans will work hard to build on this success fment success. continue to stand in the gap. i'm delighted to have you standing with us. i hope your conference is a tremendous success. much continued success to all of you online, and may god bless you for your work. i'm mike pence. [applause] >> please welcome internet entrepreneur and pittsburgh radio host, glen mekum! [applause] >> thanks. it's great to be with you today. i want to talk to you about the impact of new technologies and hold human nature today. first the new technology. you know, something of great significance occurred this week. a pennsylvania man -- that's right, a pennsylvania man -- a private citizen who had never been in the media limelight before, an educated man, who had a long career living in other places for canada for two years, england for two years, he stood up in a town hall meeting and asked democrat party senator arlen specter a question. he said, my question, senator relates to page 425 of the bill, which according to my interpretation requires seniors, folks like us, senator -- folks like us, because he was -- arlen specter is a little older than he was actually. to have mandatory counseling for dying with dignity. that's scary. i'm an active working member of society. i'm offended by this required counselinging. i'd like to hear your views on that subject, he asked the senator. and arlen expector, a man that already -- specter, a man that would have voted for the bill, including the compulsory government end of life counseling, will president obama been successful in pushing that before the august recess, arlen specter stood up and said he can't support end-of-life counseling. in the following days, a media storm erupted over this end-of life counseling in the bill. imagine my mother, your father, your mother having to go every five years having to go to compulsory counseling on end-of-life issues. not a private discussion with a trusted clergyman, not a private discussion with someone in your home at an appropriate moment, no a required meeting with a government bureaucrat. and it's funny, when you run the numbers on that, gee, everyone senior citizen, every person 65 and older having to go every five years to this required counseling session, you know what numbers you get? that's 65,000 sessions a day. 65,000 sessions a day. 7,000 government practitioners would be required just to hold all these 65,000 sessions a day. and imagine the aassembly line. imagine what a private, personal, intimate discussion that would be? no, it would be a bureaucrat paper chase for the government officials and it would be an incredible, incredible violation of our privacy. well, the man from pennsylvania in his quiet intellectual way put a spotlight on this previously overlooked component of the bill. within days senators from both parties were crawling all over each other to say that this was going to be withdrawn from the bill. the man from pennsylvania downloaded the bill from the internet, had time to read it because the democrats failed to force a vote before the august recess, and he changed the debate because of his thoughtful analysis and clear communication. this is the way legislation should be scrutinized in the future. in the past, even president obama has stated that proposed legislation should be posted on the internet for at least five days before votes in the house and senate. we must hold president obama accountable for this stand. we must insist that all bills -- [applause] we must insist that all bills be posted online for all to see with plenty of distributed intelligence for people in this room and -- to read and analyze the bill. the result will be much, much better public policy. [applause] while the intelligence of the internet is relatively new the wisdom of successful leadership is old. on august 6 president obama spoke to an enthusiastic group of his supporters in virginia. he said the following, and i goat, "we've got some work to do. i don't mind responsible. i expect to be held responsible for these issues because i'm the president. but i don't want the folks to do a lot of talking. i want them to get out of the way so we can clean up the mess. i don't mind cleaning up after them, but i don't want these folks to do a lot of talking." [booing] >> there are so many things wrong with this statement, i don't want to go into them all. first, the regular middle-class americans who are attending tea parties and townhall meetings did not create a mess. the mess is from an overly-lax monetary policy, the community liberal re-investment act -- [applause] >> and then those banks, those bad subprime loans were packaged and sold by fannie may and freddie mac, the government-sponsored entities backed by barney frank, maxine waters, and the cadre of liberals. second, it is our right in the first eament amendment of the constitution to petition the government for a redress of grievances, and it is the president's job to take into account the views of all americans. [applause] but third and most importantly, i want to focus on the growing issue, the growing issue of barack obama's leadership. one day he says there will be no earmarks in his spending bill. the next week there are -- remember the number? 9,000. another day president obama tells us that he has only met rod blagojevich once, and that was at a chicago -- that was at a chicago bears football game. but of course, we have all seen the pictures on the internet. there are many, many pictures of barack obama having intimate discussions with rod blagojevich. in various campaigns over many, many years barack obama tells the people that he supports a single-payer system. you go online and you can see his supporters saying, this is not a trogian horse. it's right there. this is single-pair health care. and yet just' week ago he said this is not single-pair health care, and i've not really said i supported that. a president has been in office seven months, and even while he beats his chest about being president, it is not clear where the truth ends and his lies begin. [applause] over 20 years ago i was a young officer in the united states army. [crowd: "thank you." ] >> thank

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