(00:00:00) Thank you for bringing us all together. This is a very important type of convocation because the intangible spin-off says you're quite aware of almost every hour after everybody leaves is quite significant. I think we ought to pay more attention to having various training Gatherings and exchanges in order to (00:00:24) if for nothing else just to bring in the new (00:00:27) leadership of the Next Generation. You ask people (00:00:31) how did you get involved in this 20 (00:00:32) years ago? It's usually what I was at a mass Rally or I was at a conference. So these are very very important entry-level efforts. And for people who think they're the only Remnant left of the Progressive Movement in some place in Arkansas or Montana, they come here and they find that there are other similar enthusiasts and it's a good morale Builder, but beyond that Morello. It goes so far we have to talk about how (00:01:03) do we take 19th (00:01:05) century citizen action techniques and renovate them and upgrade them and enlarge them. So they confront 21st century multinational corporate power and their bureaucratic allies of which there are often little more than a mirror image (00:01:22) and that's (00:01:24) what I think some of the subjects is this week are about although the pivot is on the media and the media is defined in various general terms, and I think I want to break it down so we know better what my comments are relating to first of all what is (00:01:43) called the mainstream media. (00:01:44) We will call the corporate media and (00:01:51) And then the alternative media will be called (00:01:53) the Civic media. Slight exaggeration, but you can live up to it. (00:02:02) And then there are all kinds of other (00:02:04) media's media's through computer linkage systems videotapes. So pickets demonstrations (00:02:14) pamphleteering debates (00:02:17) the soapbox Etc. So we should keep on mind all night in mind because in terms of techniques of communication, we've hardly scratched the surface and clearly the corporations have exploited their communication options through the modern Technologies far more than citizen groups have I noticed that one of the students who brought together the 1700 students at Chapel Hill has to become one of the wonders of the modern world, especially in the spring. And Daytona is one thing but Chapel Hill (00:02:55) is saying how could he get more (00:02:57) media for what he what he and others did and that's that's not because he didn't try I've seen some of the materials and they really did touch most of the bases that they could touch. But the main (00:03:11) point is that the commercial media today says to the young (00:03:14) and America who are civically concerned we will cover you only if you break the law if (00:03:19) you take over buildings, if you block (00:03:20) traffic, if you smash windows, then you'll get on the network news. But if you (00:03:26) do research if you have news conferences, if you (00:03:28) Lobby if you litigate (00:03:30) if you do the serious (00:03:31) Civic prospects that you're (00:03:35) capable of doing it's not exciting enough. So that's really quite a message to tell people and of course, it's not only young people get that message. The Mac corporate media is driving the citizen movement to more and more flamboyant techniques to get a Tension and that can only lead to increase trouble because as people's frustration base increases they're going to have to say how do we get on the mass media? Okay will do this and that to get their attention. We look what the berrigan's have to do. Imagine men of (00:04:08) conscience like that the Berrigan brothers (00:04:10) and they had to literally (00:04:11) pour blood on submarine halls and so on (00:04:14) just to get attention for what (00:04:17) for what to bring the world to its senses regarding the nuclear arms race juggernut heading for the (00:04:23) precipice. Now that is a mark of deep (00:04:26) shame on our society that people such as the baring Brothers have to go to that (00:04:32) length to get some sort of attention. They have to go to (00:04:36) jail be arrested and convicted go to jail to (00:04:40) convey a message that now is recognized in retrospect as common sense (00:04:47) on both sides of the Soviet and Us aisle. No, I think realizing that we've got to become much more demanding on the corporate media squeeze whatever sense of conscience and Duty and journalistic ethics and Universal coverage that they're capable of not that we're going to rely on them heavily, obviously, but remember CBS turned right wing in part because of Helm's attack on (00:05:15) them the Washington Post (00:05:17) became more conservative as it became a multinational as we came a conglomerate on the stock exchange and started worrying about its stock prices and investment analysts had an interesting influence on that media entity. The New York Times after Watergate was put on the defensive and immediately hired William safire and moved to the right because (00:05:42) they are constantly being battered by (00:05:44) corporate Executives PR firms Etc (00:05:46) lunches meetings little insinuations (00:05:50) and other ways involving Revenue sources as well. And what is the Civic Community do (00:05:56) well they perform a brilliant diagnosis, which of (00:05:59) course is the first step toward self asphyxiation (00:06:05) the more brilliant the diagnosis the more satisfied we are with it why we know exactly why they're not doing this and why they're doing that and we can tell you 50 different examples and it's true, isn't it? Yeah sure is true. You're right. You're right. I'm right it we're all right, isn't that great? And well, then we may even put out a report in the news conference and get 30 seconds on the network news and we say terrific success 30 seconds which 90% of people never saw because I went by so quickly (00:06:38) never mind that they didn't know who was (00:06:40) talking. What group was talking. It's a flick of the eyelid supersonic (00:06:45) media and (00:06:47) these are tidbits. We (00:06:49) should not be satisfied with the problem. Of course is that (00:06:55) the people in (00:06:56) most countries have no sense of what they own legally quite a part of what they should own in our country. (00:07:03) Just gauge it for yourself. How many people in this country ever realized (00:07:07) that workers own two and a half trillion dollars of pension money. (00:07:11) We own the public Airwaves. We own a trillion dollars of (00:07:15) mutual deposits and mutual insurance proceeds. (00:07:18) We own one-third of America the area of greatest natural (00:07:21) resource called the public lands and the mainland and Alaska (00:07:25) and we control none of these we control nothing of what we own as he Advanced the advanced manipulation of the great historic (00:07:34) issue of property ownership is to split (00:07:36) ownership from control and have the corporate and investment and other Moguls (00:07:42) run away with the (00:07:43) bank almost not even caring who owns resources anymore. As long as they can control them (00:07:49) and reap the enormous (00:07:50) profits now when people don't even know what they own. Where are shall we say? Eat? Not even at home (00:07:58) plate? In the Quest for a fertile and deep democracy (00:08:04) and why don't they know what they own because they grow up (00:08:09) corporate like most of us did we all grow up corporate (00:08:13) growing up corporate means that we absorbed through the educational process, which is a mirror image of the power structure outside of it through the what comes over the media through the kind of business blackmail (00:08:25) that forces workers and other people to toe the line (00:08:29) to to the the kinds of magazines and newspapers that are red. We absorb corporate values and you see it everywhere you see in the kind of food people grow up eating (00:08:41) you see it in the definition of beauty commercialized definition of beauty centralized and changed according to certain (00:08:48) Fashions. The definition of beauty Now isn't even thought of (00:08:51) in terms of character personality wit compassion. It's purely a superficial imagery which suits commercial tasks. (00:08:59) We see it in The way our education is primarily vocational instead of Enlightenment instead of Civic training and Civic skills instead of a sense of History to absorb a sense of Injustice. So we can (00:09:11) have a greater thirst for justice to have a greater self respect for ourselves as people of significance in the Civic culture. (00:09:19) What are the courses they're basically early on the job training for the Fortune 500. (00:09:24) And as you go through high school and college and graduate school, we learn how to sell on the selling side of the economy whether specialized areas like marketing accounting or more general areas, like business management Etc. And we learned nothing about the buying function how (00:09:40) the bind function can be shaped to reshape the (00:09:43) economy according to non Mercantile values and the most fundamental (00:09:47) sense and to make sure that the (00:09:50) wealth is adequately distributed now (00:09:53) when we talk about environment the media image that comes to mind as pollution, which is a very charitable (00:09:59) term. Because what it really (00:10:01) describes is a silent cumulative form of (00:10:03) violence that affects present and future Generations in non anthropomorphic form. Thereby not provoking the kind of (00:10:11) Rage that people would incur if they saw mugging in the (00:10:14) streets and very anthropomorphic way (00:10:17) mugging in the street spits all kinds of neighborhoods (00:10:19) against one another and uproar but smuggiing an entire (00:10:22) city and generating (00:10:24) emphysema and cancer and other ailments that tends to be non anthropomorphic and not very provocative. But there are other forms of environmental violence the worst being hunger starvation without sheltered subject to disease abandoned by the kin and the parents worldwide. And (00:10:45) so when we talk about environment, let's give it the all-embracing definition that (00:10:50) empirical reality certainly invites it to (00:10:53) have (00:11:00) Now we talk about the corporate media. We're talking about an (00:11:03) investment house. That's what the New York Times is. That's what the Chicago Tribune is their investment houses and they want to return on their investment first and foremost whenever they're criticized. They unfurled a banner of the First Amendment as they produce less than 1/10 of 1% of their Pages for letters to the editor, otherwise known as the First Amendment rights being exercised of the reader (00:11:29) TV stations of the same TV station New York selling for 700 million dollars. Ninety percent of it is the license which we gave it. (00:11:38) The rest is a five six story building some cameras and several hundred people working in it (00:11:43) and they cry the First Amendment, but they don't (00:11:46) talk about the First Amendment rights of the audience. They want to get rid of the fairness Doctrine because they think it'll Bridges their first amendment. But what about the First Amendment right to comparative and diverse information over the public Airways that the audience is in is entitled to now. (00:12:07) What is what is the lever that we need to (00:12:09) use to (00:12:11) connect in this way? Because without (00:12:13) communication nothing happens obviously communication has to be one of a form that (00:12:20) relates to people's (00:12:21) capabilities not simply say oh that's fascinating or that's appalling but oh, that's something that means something to me and I'm going to do something about it. (00:12:31) First. I think we need (00:12:33) to very consciously develop a Civic philosophy of life. We don't have to get into the higher strata of the epistemology assists and the Philosopher's but without a Civic philosophy or without a philosophy of community interest. A lot of things won't flow will have jerky little advances here and there and and it will see 10 years in 15 years of doing nothing as effects. For example solar energy. We shouldn't have these kinds of slight ups and long Downs before another generation. covers old knowledge (00:13:09) in developing a community interest (00:13:11) philosophy. We have to wonder can we ever have equality under the law in any country that gives a artificial entity called the corporation all the rights of flesh-and-blood human beings. It's like someone saying to you you and General Motors are equal under the law. Good (00:13:27) luck. There are some arguments now (00:13:31) being made by some professors of law that that corporations has not the people in them not to Executives The Entity itself should not have all the rights that individuals (00:13:44) have. For instance when we tried with some success to require utility companies to put a solicitation envelope in their monthly (00:13:55) bill as occurred in Wisconsin, Illinois and San Diego (00:13:59) this was done in order to invite people to as ratepayers. Join a consumer group nonprofit (00:14:06) chartered by the state where the members control the group who care to join and (00:14:12) then they have their own full-time staff and they shape energy policy. They shape telecommunications telecommunications policy as important players not just leaving it to the utility companies and the (00:14:24) corporate monopolies. Well the (00:14:26) Supreme Court in 1986 523 Lewis Powell's a (00:14:30) majority opinion (00:14:31) ruled that requiring a California utility Monopoly under regulation of the California Utility Commission to carry periodically a notice in its billing envelope inviting ratepayers to join constituted a violation. Action of the utility monopolies First Amendment right to remain silent and not respond to (00:14:51) what's written in the insert and their envelope. (00:14:53) Yeah, the law permits corporate utilities to bill you for their lawyers to bill you for their PR people to bill you for their propaganda and their envelopes to you to bill you (00:15:05) for their lobbying expenses, but you under the interpretation of the First Amendment cannot get a state or federal government to require utilities which are monopolies by the way have enormous immunities and privileges thereof, which you give them inferentially (00:15:20) to put a notice inviting you to band together so you can be a collective intelligence on these matters. That's what I mean by having the same rights to a corporation as an individual a corporate entity not to mention a monopoly has no business being given a First Amendment right on something like this. No business whatsoever. Fortunately guess who (00:15:43) dissented very powerful descent. Other than William rehnquist, so perhaps that decision may be overturned (00:15:50) soon. Now the corporation is the most dominant institution our society (00:15:57) former Vice President Ford Motor Company said that with some eloquence in a book chapter. He wrote 1959 William (00:16:03) gossip. What does that mean? That means that government is not really the initiator the government is the (00:16:09) reactor the reactor to pressure on it. Sometimes the (00:16:13) Iraq to Citizen pressure but more often than not they (00:16:16) react to corporate pressure and through (00:16:19) all kinds of levers on government campaign finance an overwhelming presence in Washington the revolving door hiring out former government officials the threat to close down plants and go to Brazil if environmental standards are weakened these and many other lemurs have turned our government into a corporate State. It's really a (00:16:39) corporate State the convergence has increasingly interlock (00:16:43) now corporations. Don't stop it (00:16:45) Co-op. (00:16:46) In government Authority, they were moving into the university shaping University Research as many of you know (00:16:52) through their grants their joint ventures. Some of them in these joint ventures even have the right to appoint (00:16:57) faculty now such as at MIT in Cambridge their influence over religious institutions (00:17:03) has long been known in terms of the governing boards their influence over the media, of course is they are the media they as part of the same warp and (00:17:13) wove now, what's interesting about the corporate institution. So dangerous (00:17:19) is that (00:17:20) first of all, it's overwhelmed by the Mercantile standard. That's the way it judges itself. It's willing to collide and run roughshod over (00:17:29) other important values in a society in order to further the mercantil standard and that is health safety. Peace Justice opportunity preservation of the environment (00:17:41) and unless there's someone really (00:17:42) distinctive in control of these corporations and Finally bureaucracies tend to throw up to the top the most homogenized get along by going along type of Executives unless they're distinctively run by someone who has a broader range of values to implement. What (00:18:01) happens is that you get an immorality at the best (00:18:05) and an immorality at the worst in the way these (00:18:08) corporations behave for instance. How many of you could (00:18:13) frattin eyes and work with fascist dictatorships (00:18:16) and now corporations do that all the time. They did it in Brazil and to the Junta they did it in Franco's Spain how many of you could fronting eyes and do business with communist dictatorships and the corporation's willing to do (00:18:29) business with Stalin. (00:18:31) In other words. You see what they are able to filter out some very important variables in human society in order to achieve the (00:18:38) contract and generate the (00:18:40) sales and in the prophets and this is a characteristic of that. (00:18:45) Artificial entity called the corporation (00:18:48) that makes them inherently irresponsible institutions when other interests steaks and values (00:18:56) are up for (00:18:57) grabs and yet the (00:18:59) corporation's the most dominant institution in our society. (00:19:03) It brings to its knees otherwise, upstanding courageous people and it does it not so much although in some company towns. It's still (00:19:13) 1984 where the company dominates the town textile mill paper mill copper smelter town, (00:19:20) but increasingly the threat can best be characterized by not referring to George (00:19:25) Orwell's 1984. But to huxley's Brave New (00:19:28) World, which is that you use the velvet glove you use the automatic absorption of values (00:19:37) from the infancy on now, how would you like (00:19:41) to debate this proposition resolved at this time in American history? Corporations are more important in raising children than parents which side would you really debate on that? Let's start with infant formula a destructive and costly displacement of the best food infants could ever consumed. Let's go to war toys. Let's go to overmedication to tranquilize the Super Active kitties. Let's move to 7 and 8 year old girls being taught cosmetics and eyeshadow by the Cosmetic industry so they can learn (00:20:16) how to be proper objects and subjects later on in life. (00:20:20) Let's move to music which however much we may like it when it's when it's structured the way it is it's designed to blot out the mind-blowing one's (00:20:30) mind, you know with the Walkman walking down the street Denver Hazard of reflection that might take the place of the Sonic assault. (00:20:39) Let's go. Let's move to the addictions. Tobacco alcohol the drug dealers the television shows which (00:20:45) So the kids at an early age that violence is the answer to irritations and problems otherwise known as a p (00:20:52) and in between the violent shows, they're taught what to eat mainly High (00:20:57) food high-fat high-salt high sugar diets food additives chemicals all the kind of foods that predisposes them later to bad Health experiences later in life and get some flat being obese, which is a record now for a younger generation American never has been more flabby obese as they are now (00:21:18) who's raising the kids KinderCare is raising them and McDonald's is feeding them and HBO and Disneyland's entertaining them. They're spending more time with corporate products and services and entertainment and and addictions then they do with adults never in history have youngster spent less time with adults including their parents and more time with the where's and services intent to lysing and developments of what? Corporations have for sale. Now that's got to have an effect on them. It's got to twist and distort their values and rupture their sense of history and working through their peer group. These corporations have a very powerful (00:21:56) delivery system for their merchandise products (00:22:00) and a lot of this is internalized in terms of family isolation inside the family family atomization and family (00:22:07) conflict. Just think of all the conflicts over the kind of shoes Reebok and this and that and kids have got this kind of shoe and we want that kind of shoe and so (00:22:17) on this is growing up corporate. This is growing up with values that have to be challenged and displaced by survival (00:22:25) enhancement life-giving life-sustaining values. (00:22:29) And are we going to really just gild the Lily here? Are we going to just be satisfied with a vibrant alternative press important as it is or are we going to go for comprehensive displacement of the increasingly Collective homicidal corporate (00:22:43) Technologies and priorities that are (00:22:45) Going to sustainability of the planet and corrupting the public institutions (00:22:50) which are designed theoretically to curtail what Thomas Jefferson called the excessive powers of the monied interests as he called it and those days before there were (00:23:01) corporations. Now how many how many speeches are you going to listen to where the diagnosis is brilliant? The excitation is laced with insight and humor. And it gives us a great feeling we rush out the (00:23:18) door and (00:23:20) go out to the street and then we (00:23:22) see the world as it is held (00:23:25) hostage. The major capital resources the world which in many areas of the world are public in theory and even (00:23:34) in law are being corporatized and privatize (00:23:38) think of a more destructive venue Avenger than this the tobacco industry running out of customers in this country. They have to replace 5100 customers a day. Eleven hundred customers die from tobacco-related diseases 4,000 quit the population isn't growing fast enough for Philip Morris and the Marlboro Man so they go over seats. They get these Farmers to devote 10 15 acres to Tobacco production replacing vegetables (00:24:08) and fruits and the food that they were producing for their own Community (00:24:12) because it's a cash crop and there's a big demand for it. They grow 15 acres and then they have to use x number of acres to Deforest in order to provide the fuel to dry the tobacco leaf. So they're producing a killer product. They're displacing a nutritionist nutritious food there deforesting the land and the US government is behind the tobacco industry all the way through the state (00:24:39) department and a program known as export promotion now, (00:24:43) can you really keep your cool listening to something like that? Well, if you hear it once in your living room and America TV Land you say tisk tisk (00:24:52) tisk that's really awful terrible. And then on Comes The (00:24:56) A-Team and things (00:24:57) settle back to (00:24:59) normal now, perhaps the most destructive impact of the mercantil society is the way it appropriates the time of citizens and that is the key before you can do anything. You have to have a different (00:25:13) concept of how to use your time (00:25:15) and if that (00:25:16) And (00:25:16) is used in ways that have been (00:25:19) encouraged shape nurtured at cetera by corporate merchandising, then they've won before the game has even (00:25:25) started. I remember reading the history of the early reformers and the early 1900s when they were pushing for 40 hour week and one after the other would say it's not just the 40-hour week. It's not just reducing fatigue and wear and tear on millions of workers. It's if we get the 40 Hour Week people will have so much free time beyond the 40 hour week that they will go into their Community. They'll challenge Injustice. They'll become active participants in a vibrant (00:25:52) democracy. Well, I forgot about the television set among other things which takes up 25 hours a week on the average including 25 hours of four-year-olds, five-year-olds six-year-old. According to report just came out in the American Academy of (00:26:08) Pediatrics. So where am I going to end up here? I'm going to end up on an empowerment agenda which is We have to recognize that the substance of documentation of abuses neglects and destructive Trends and the elaboration of Alternatives which are economic life giving on the shelf or in operating models around the country such as solar energy is that that is not enough we can see look we have a fossil fuel nuclear powered dominance in energy. They have certain political economic characteristics beyond their delivery of BTUs, which have centralized their hegemonic power. What is it? They are all centralized forms of energy requiring heavy doses of capital and in the exclusive possession of companies who can exploit the the (00:27:01) mines and and bring them to (00:27:04) Market. Now that's very important reason why there's such a (00:27:10) obstacle to (00:27:11) solar energy solar energy. You see is quite different. It's almost as if it was born from the mind of Thomas Jefferson. First of all, it's very decentralized (00:27:21) and it comes in (00:27:22) all over the country. It's acceptable to small business and consumer production. It treats future Generations. Benignly. It doesn't heat up the Earth in terms of global warming not even Exxon can (00:27:34) produce an eclipse of the sun it it (00:27:39) comes in many Fashions and manifestation. So if you're in a windy area, you can it starred. It can be transmitted. It can come in to get into gas form and into direct sunlight (00:27:50) photovoltaic and solar thermal and and wind power and geothermal Etc. (00:27:56) Now all of these were forms of energy that we call solar destabilize the billions and billions of dollars into fossil fuel and nuclear. They Engine and the to can't coexist together. It's a zero-sum game the more solar the more retreat in terms of fossil fuels and nuclear. You think they're going to give up without a fight. I mean they have this they have this huge World Market, you're not going to go out and find the coal mine or an oil. Well and even if you did, how are you going to exploit it? You're going to lease it that is the principal obstacle to solar energy. And that's why we're never going to get it unless we the consumers become the producers directly and start increasing the percentage increment so that a neighborhood after neighborhood solar energy is not viewed as some (00:28:43) Buck Rogers 21st century (00:28:47) Fantasia, but it's something that the neighbor has it's something that (00:28:50) the city hall has. It's something that the local Factory or the school has (00:28:56) I think any of us who've been through a number of years of documenting and sharing in a (00:29:01) documentation of (00:29:03) Injustice and abuse is in the country. And AD infinitum recounting all the ready ways to remedy these abuses most of the crashworthy principles and cars were designed decades ago (00:29:16) if not centuries ago, but they weren't being put in cars because in a collision between a non collapsible steering column in a rib cage of the driver certain Executives in Detroit decided that the rib cage was going to give not the collapsible steering column until 1966 and why because the media got interested in the corporate media, why did the corporate media get interested in Auto Safety (00:29:42) was it because they thought it was important that it was a fourth leading cause of death in America and something (00:29:47) should be done about it that a lot of inventors that develop safer ways to build (00:29:53) cars. They got interested in it because GM hired it to deck detective firm to (00:29:58) Trail me that gave it the personal interest aspect you see (00:30:03) and they made the further mistake a follow me down to the US Senate and they made the further mistake of losing me in the US (00:30:09) Senate whereupon they went to the Capitol Police and thought they were fraternity, you know private detectives Capitol Police. (00:30:17) They asked for someone of my description and (00:30:19) they were shall we say (00:30:22) detained and that unraveled the whole thing and the Press got interested in it. Look at this David Goliath some guy who doesn't change shoes and 10 years, you know, (00:30:34) that's how they got interested (00:30:35) in. No one could learn the wrong lessons from this. Because in following years where we would discover all kinds of terrible situations, the media wouldn't be as interested. And if an editor at the New York Times such as Abe Rosenthal (00:30:57) decided they weren't going to cover consumer issues and consumer (00:31:00) Advocates. Then the whole New York Times complex wouldn't cover it. And if the times didn't cover it will the Post cover it maybe the post wouldn't cover it and if the post (00:31:09) times and of course the Wall Street Journal do not cover it (00:31:12) the Network's don't cover it. And if the Network's don't cover you see the Domino's effect of the (00:31:17) Three Musketeers The Wall Street Journal The Washington Post and the New York Times our country (00:31:23) diverse and giant as it is has an incredibly dangerous Reliance on three major (00:31:28) media like that and a very dangerous Reliance on what we call the White House or the bully (00:31:33) pulpit Reagan gets elected and then everything stops and Washington (00:31:37) because Reagan up against Carter a few variables enter in like the Iranian (00:31:42) hostage situation Etc. Suddenly the entire federal government comes under the (00:31:49) mindset of this corporate mannequin Miller time Ronald Reagan politics (00:31:54) and it's all over for eight years for eight years. The Dark Ages descends on Washington the solar research budget cut from 800 million dollars in 1981 to a little over a hundred million dollars the energy conservation budget almost wiped out the nuclear subsidy (00:32:10) budget growing and growing and (00:32:12) diversifying all because of one vote voting pattern on (00:32:17) one day in (00:32:18) November. We just cannot have the future of our country have such a centralized dependence on this kind of collected aggregate power that is very heavily sold to the public through imagery and symbols and It (00:32:33) ultimately less rests on the two candidates and their personalities and what they look straight in the eye and they have the right smile or they're Shifty looking or they pause for a deadly for seconds on network TV during the (00:32:45) They (00:32:46) I mean what will future Generations say to (00:32:49) us when we're pivoted on such a (00:32:52) perilous narrow (00:32:54) perch in terms of how we can affect the world and future Generations. The answer is the diverse empowerment of the American people so that they have the right to initiate their power. That's the real definition of power. It's not something given to you that can be pulled away from you. It's something not something you could have to beg a regulatory agency to set a drinking water standard on its the power to initiate change because people believe it is necessary (00:33:25) and I just want to run (00:33:26) through the kind of empowerment agenda that we're now working on so that 19th century techniques of citizen action can come up to the (00:33:36) 21st century bureaucratic corporate (00:33:39) State not all of these are immediately realisable as (00:33:45) That the will of the citizenry (00:33:47) some of them are derivative. Let me just point out start with the media Audience Network. There'll be a hearing on this and probably in two months in the House of (00:33:55) Representatives. We've been proposing this now for 10 years. It's (00:33:59) very simple Congress and the Supreme Court said the people on the media the public Airwaves. It's the public areas are licensed by the FCC to radio and TV stations the radio and TV stations of the tenants where the landlord's the radio and TV station tenants pay no rent for their auto license and they decide who says one on TV 24 hours a day some tenants. Every time someone wants to get the electronic media to shape up have a little more local programming cover this area the town that's been ignored deal with a powerful industry that advertises on TV the broadcast industry cries First Amendment (00:34:39) big government Etc. (00:34:41) So we're going to completely (00:34:42) design around that the (00:34:44) proposal of Audience Network and it's got to go through Congress. Of (00:34:48) course is to revert back one hour Primetime drive time to a congressionally chartered nonprofit entity called Audience Network open to viewers and listeners (00:34:59) who will then (00:35:01) support the programs in the studios and the reporters (00:35:04) as an independent Network (00:35:05) on the one hour that is reverted back to the true owners of the public are ways that will put the responsibility of electronic literacy on our back. (00:35:14) It'll be rough going at the beginning. So how we (00:35:16) sort out the local Regional National and the choices that are involved (00:35:21) but it's something we have to confront. Because Electronic media now is 90% (00:35:26) entertainment 10% redundant news. And that's it. We don't (00:35:30) have media for mobilization. We don't have media to connect ourselves to help us band together to take the evidence of successful (00:35:37) solutions to problems in one part of the world our country into our area where these problems still (00:35:44) faster. The second deals with taxpayer assets taxpayer assets are what is left after the money is spent that you sent to Washington. It can be highways. It can be critical research and (00:35:57) development from environmental to (00:36:00) healthcare. It could be inventions. It could be any number of things that are now controlled basically by corporate leaseholders (00:36:10) or corporate recipients of government (00:36:13) giveaways. I submit that focusing more on taxpayer (00:36:17) assets will give us an important lever to change some important things in our country (00:36:23) just Give half of the R&D budget United (00:36:26) States is your tax dollar (00:36:27) and all of that inventiveness is either suppress not used or given away to corporations including the AZT (00:36:36) drug for (00:36:37) AIDS developed by tax dollars for clinical uses by the National Institutes of Health. It was given a Lock Stock and Barrel without any price restraints under a 17-year use (00:36:47) Monopoly by the NIH to Burroughs wellcome Corporation and their spending the charging 42628 thousand dollars a year per patient for the treatment (00:36:58) third deals with a procurement armed local state federal government by (00:37:03) almost everything. We buy plus assorted InterContinental missiles (00:37:08) Etc. They are purchase 18% of the gross national (00:37:13) product. Just think of that local state federal. (00:37:17) They buy light bulbs. They buy fueled by telecommunication. They by Building (00:37:21) Materials. They by Motor Vehicles batteries tires (00:37:25) Pharmaceuticals. They can buy solar (00:37:27) energy. They can by recycling Mark they can create recycling markets (00:37:32) with a half a billion dollars the (00:37:34) government could dramatically drop the price of Solar (00:37:37) photovoltaics. We got the air bag because we got the (00:37:40) government agency that buys cars to ask for a bid for 5000 airbags equipped cars. They were delivered by Ford which accepted the bid in 1985 and all the other companies now are moving to install airbags including Lee Iacocca who's on the Evening News everyday touting Chrysler's airbag (00:37:59) that was done after Reagan wrecked the (00:38:01) regulation that would have given us airbags, but procurement got it. So procurement is a very important lever at the local state and federal level. (00:38:10) Then there's the elaboration of direct democracy when representative democracy (00:38:14) belies its name Congress style State Legislature style. Then direct democracy initiative referendum recall (00:38:22) becomes an option. It becomes a much more democratic option when it's connected with access to the mass media as through an institution (00:38:29) such as Audience Network (00:38:31) the half the states don't have (00:38:32) it and the states that do often are overwhelmed by the money that's (00:38:37) spent but there are some interesting breakthroughs (00:38:39) in California elsewhere where the initiative and the referendum have worked to the Public's interest. (00:38:47) Then I think we need more political parties. Don't we even if they only get one (00:38:51) or two or three or four percent of the vote? We have a winner-take-all situation in this country, which obviates the kind of power that the greens party had and has in West Germany where they get 5% of the vote to get 5% of the parliament and this country you get 5% of the vote you get nothing except a littered offices the Day after the election (00:39:12) so we do need new political parties because for people especially young people who are blocked (00:39:19) because they don't want to participate in Tweedledum Tweedledee Republican Democrat parties. (00:39:24) They are entry levels where the skills can be honed. And who knows they may become big parties and if they're not big parties a whole quart of young people especially can be trained in issue (00:39:35) politics Grassroots mobilization and perhaps the Takeover of parties at various levels of government of the of the major parties (00:39:44) any movement that does not have all kinds of (00:39:47) open doors for young people is (00:39:49) doomed to failure. I submit that you could go through three days here and not here the the words the Trade union (00:39:55) mentioned once as a lever for Change and unfortunately, you're probably right (00:40:01) except for a few unions. (00:40:03) These have become (00:40:04) cowering defensive dwindling institutions (00:40:08) whose historic hopes have not been fulfilled. Old and tinged with all too much corruption and self-perpetuation in their leadership, but (00:40:16) that doesn't mean it has (00:40:17) to always be that way. There are some parts of the labor movement which are alert and awaken the 0 CAW for example being one of the Prime examples of oil chemical and atomic workers. (00:40:28) I might add those of you who are looking for media Outlets asking your city, whether they're any low-power TV stations about to be licensed (00:40:36) or you can apply for or that they have been licensed but they are ready to be sold at a very cheap price. There are 4,000 low-power TV stations with a 10-mile radius, which means 20 miles across (00:40:49) that will be licensed in a few (00:40:52) years all over the United States. A lot of nonprofits have these licenses. (00:40:56) They're struggling to make it a community (00:40:58) mobilizing TV. So they're not all full of home shopping programs, but this is a very important Outlet its first there were the networks and the regular television station, then there (00:41:09) was the hope of (00:41:10) Cable now, there's the hope of low-power TV. And since it's very hard to make money on low part TV the commercial interests that have not yet taken it over and look into that as a form of a very very effective communication for a very very small price. Some of these stations already licensed are selling for a hundred fifty two hundred thousand dollars in significantly sized cities (00:41:35) buyers groups is a next lever if we band together and buyers (00:41:40) groups and to a cable and home computer networks and other ways can facilitate this (00:41:44) then we can move in and out of buyers groups, depending on what kind of product we want to buy so that the negotiators (00:41:51) of the buyers group who (00:41:53) are on the staff can sit down and establish the specifications in the (00:41:57) materials contents for the products. We want to buy we already set up fuel buyers groups on the East Coast which develop a more intelligent fuel buyer with a newsletter with a staff which can Advocate on Policy (00:42:11) and they save 20 (00:42:11) cents a gallon for home heating (00:42:13) fuel simply because they put $20 in the kitty in October and they got a staff that negotiates (00:42:19) discount contracts with willing heating oil distributors, (00:42:23) finally, and I know we're running out of time. Finally we need to develop. Class actions and access to (00:42:32) Justice procedures (00:42:34) which can increasingly Finance the citizen movement (00:42:38) Whenever there are class actions on small (00:42:40) crimes the Judges usually say well people just being cheated average of (00:42:44) fifteen dollars. Don't bother the courts with that (00:42:48) but people are being cheated $15 millions of times over (00:42:53) hotels for instance is to take a contemporary (00:42:56) example hotels in America will sir charge you 30 to 40% on your long-distance call without even telling you sometimes now they tell you there's a charge they don't tell you how much millions and millions of dollars a week down the drain what we're looking for class action and other (00:43:12) access to Justice modes, (00:43:14) which when the recovery is made knowing that it doesn't pay to try to locate (00:43:19) each consumer and send a certified letter and send a check for seven dollars (00:43:24) that there be a fluid recovery and the money would be put into trust funds which would advocate (00:43:30) Against the repeat of the same abuse that the class action was targeted for. (00:43:34) This is being done in California in the Levi Strauss case where Levi Strauss was caught price (00:43:41) setting in violation of antitrust laws of the price of (00:43:44) jeans and something like 8 million dollars out of the overall settlement is going into a price into a trust fund to attack anti-competitive (00:43:52) practices in the business Marketplace and that's in perpetuity. As a money is comes off the (00:43:58) interest of the investment when you get a 300 million dollar refund from the telephone company (00:44:03) because they overcharged (00:44:05) or 13 billion dollars in refund from the energy companies that went to the states or that went to supposedly lower temporary fuel prices as the gasoline pump. Imagine if that went into permanent renewable energy advocacy groups with a market capability because of the size (00:44:24) of the refund trust funds that are repatriated (00:44:27) now, those are real empowerment issues. I look at someone like a memory and Hunter Lovins and see the great incisive materials that they have put out on energy and energy Alternatives and and you see that Years Ago by and their message doesn't get on TV. It doesn't get in page one or anywhere in the newspaper because the report is all say, oh that's old stuff. I mean Lovins reported that in 1977, but you say but it's even more current than ever but we've already done that. What do you got this new we say well, this is rather Eternal. This is a Verity this this is a continual observation. That is relevant. Oh, no. No, what else is new? So I was once thinking of starting a national (00:45:16) Civic and Civic month club, you know, you have a Civic Crusade of the month club. So when the price goes up said what's new you say? Well, it's May well here give you this rare. It's are dumping feces on tracks and they're getting into the oil. There's one for you. Now. (00:45:37) This is and this discourage you see this discourages people because people say look at all this was documented by Amory Lovins on (00:45:45) utilities. He's got a couple Utilities in Southern California doing taking wind power and doing Energy Efficiency and it pays off on the bottom line (00:45:53) of the utility. Why isn't it spreading? Well, it's old stuff. That's why we have to have our own empowerment mechanisms and institutions to propel at the community level this kind of knowledge into a reality and not simply frat and wring our hands over why the New York Times doesn't do this or why NBC (00:46:15) doesn't do (00:46:16) that by that. I mean, we need to develop a displacement economy an economy that displaces (00:46:22) the the the resistant (00:46:26) offensive (00:46:28) and sometimes outright Criminal (00:46:30) Impacts of (00:46:32) Corporations who want their way and so often get it. We (00:46:35) have lost the sense of sanctions in (00:46:37) our legal system on Corporation. Look at Union Carbide, which was mentioned earlier today ball pal. What (00:46:43) kind of sanction is that? It's hardly a flip, you know what the out-of-pocket expense of this massive (00:46:48) explosion near Texas City, excuse me, a Phillips petroleum near Texas City some months ago were several dozen workers were killed. He was about four or five hundred million dollars worth of damage. The out-of-pocket for Phillips was a hundred million and it was deductible. (00:47:05) Aah Robinson stockholders made out like (00:47:07) mad when American Home Products took them over even though a throb is had to put two billion dollars into the dalkon Shield payment for tens of thousands of mutilated women and what is exons penalty for the Valdez spill their flying high (00:47:27) just look at their profits look at their stock. And so we You run out of sanctions for (00:47:31) these corporations you're in deep trouble and we've got to think of displacement with our own forms of technology and economic activity and let's keep always (00:47:42) an eye that it's not simply benign (00:47:44) economies. It's properly distributed economies and for a (00:47:49) more equitable (00:47:50) distribution of wealth and income and opportunity and future and respect without discrimination. And the rest of (00:47:57) it we have to have an (00:47:58) equitable distribution of power. That is the essential message of politics in a democracy, which is so often ignored by our by our candidates and Equitable dispute just distribution of power. (00:48:12) If we don't develop the tools (00:48:14) of empowerment all the data from the a marine Hunter Lovins and all the insights and all the publicity simply will lead to a doubling of the public mind frustrated because it doesn't have the livres of change. In his hands and I hope that when we talk about the media and we talked about how it should cover the environment. Let's talk about the empowerment agenda so that the media reflects the growth of the Civic movement. It is one of the interesting lessons and final conclusion of consumer history. Is that the stronger consumer organizations become the more the media tend to drop their own taboos when I start criticizing the Corvair the TV would report it after a long period as a criticism of a medium-sized rear-engine American car, they would never mention the brand name. And now whenever there's a recall they mentioned the brand names if not, almost the serial numbers on the corporate media. So they to understand what power is and they too will begin to bend or be displaced by the rousing. Meticulous persistent power of people of all ages who know that the ultimate burden of democracy rests on their shoulder and their commitment of time energy and strategic Innovation. Thank you.