Reach a level of integrity, honesty, and decency, has a longdistance runner, you have to kill something in yourself, fear. You have to kill something in yourself, europe session with position in status and wealth. Announcer followed by john did forth honor author of the religion does point is beyond ourselves. People, to the, you know, what is it ever may . It is not central. Announcer at 10 00, claire talks about her book. A memoir about her Life Experience in local state and federal government. I dont think we do anybody any favors by trying to dress up politicians as if we are not real human beings that have made major mistakes. And have major problems in our lives. Announcer saturday evening, it is cut in on National Review founder William F Buckley juniors run for that mayor of new york city in 1965 and at 11 00, Winston Groom discusses his latest book. One of the first questions im usually asked when i do a tv or radio show is why did you choose these three men from the Second World War in my answer is believe, embodied, i oftain characteristics courage, character, and patriotism. On sunday, David Patricia looks back at a turning point in World History 1932, the rise of hitler and fdr. At 11 15, alyssa katz discusses her book the influence machine, the u. S. Chamber of commerce and the corporate capture of american life. There is a reason that i chose the chamber of commerce as a subject for my book. It is because this Single Organization really sums up the story of how we got here to this place. Announcer this weekend, watch book tv on cspan2. In 1865, the nation is americas oldest magazine that is still in circulation today. To mark the anniversary, their editor and publisher katrina. Anden hoover joins robert rice and a number of others to discuss inequality in america. This is about one hour and 40 minutes. Thank you. Can you give me . Thank you. It is terrific to be in San Francisco. So many readers and soontobe readers, subscribers in this gorgeous theater. This is the last stop on our trip. 2015 marked the 150th birthday of the nation. It is daunting. [applause] host this is our last stop in introducing a new generation to the next generation. Some 3 Million People come to the nation now every week in different forms, so we are proud of that. Tonight we have gathered some of the great thinkers, activists on issues of fairness, fighting inequality. For a panel, i think that is vital at this time, at any time. It is a transcendent issue of our time. Let me introduce our great moderator, and we shall begin. Ladoris Hazzard Cordell is a retired judge of the superior court of california and former independent Police Auditor. She is a long time advocate for repairing transparency when it comes to police misconduct. She was assistant dean at the stanford law school, where she helped develop a program to increase minority improvement. During her tenure, it went to first place for africanamerican and hispanic students at law schools. She has received prizes for breaking race and gender barriers. She was the first female africanamerican judge in Northern California, the first female africanamerican superior court judge in santa clara county, california. Please welcome judge cordell. [applause] host its like you dont need it. [applause] judge cordell thank you. Thank you so much. Good evening, and welcome to todays special program of the Commonwealth Club of california. Tonights program is cohosted by the nation magazine. I am ladoris cordell, former judge of the superior court of california, former Police Auditor of the city of san jose, and your moderator for this program. 2015 is the 150th birthday of the nation magazine. To commemorate this historic anniversary, we are proud to present a conversation about our countrys inequality crisis, a pressing issue impacting millions of americans, and a core nation issue on which the magazine has long been sounding the alarm. The wealth controlled by the top tenth of the top 1 has more than doubled in the past 30 years in the United States, approaching unprecedented levels. San francisco most certainly symbolizes the inequality issue. The city has been wracked by battles over development, a Homeless Population that spills onto its sidewalks, rocketing housing costs, and increases in crime. With its gleaming New Buildings and influx of Silicon Valley wealth, San Francisco has the Fastest Growing income inequality gap in the nation. So what does this inequality mean for the political process . For the environment . Living wages and immigrant rights . And in turn, for Civil Society and the future of our democracy . Tonight you will have a conversation with four prominent experts about key problems afflicting america, through the lens of the unprecedented wealth in the United States today. First, a senior fellow at the blum center for developing economy. He served as secretary of labor in the Clinton Administration and was named by Time Magazine as one of the 10 most effective cabinet secretaries of the 20th century. His latest book is saving capitalism for the many, not the few. Please welcome robert reich. [applause] sec. Reich oh, wow. [applause] judge cordell aijen poo is director of the National DomesticWorkers Alliance. She was a 2014 macarthur genius and was named one of the worlds most 100 influential people by Time Magazine. She is the 2013 World Economic forum young global leader, an author of the age of dignity preparing for the elder being in a change of america. Please welcome aijen poo. [applause] judge cordell van jones is an environmental advocate, civil rights activist. And he is the cofounder of four nonprofit organizations, including rebuild the dream, of which he is president. He is also a cnn political contributor. Van is a yale educated lawyer, and in 2009 worked as the green jobs advisor to president obama. He is the author of the New York Times bestselling book, rebuild the dream. Please welcome van jones. [applause] judge cordell our final panelist, katrina vanden heuvel, is the publisher and editor of the nation. She is a frequent commentator on tv and radio and the author of numerous books. Her blog appears at thenation. Com. Please welcome katrina heuvel. [applause] judge cordell we are going to start our conversation with a question i am going to throw out for all of you. In a 2014 survey, inequality was the top choice for greatest threat to the world. All of the president ial candidates are talking about inequality. I give you a quote here, the rich have gotten richer, income inequality has gotten worse, and there are more people in poverty than ever before. Those words are the words of mitt romney. [laughter] judge cordell so panelists, are we finally at the Tipping Point . Are americans left and right, rich and poor, all in agreement that our economic and political systems are rigged and have to change . Has all of the anger about inequality become a great unifier, or are we about to tip . [laughter] sec. Reich no. [laughter] [applause] sec. Reich should i explain . [laughter] sec. Reich after years of seeing inequality widened, the median wage stagnates. With the rich getting richer, finally we are getting to a Tipping Point, even among republicans, where it is expected to be fashionable to Say Something about it, but we are not anywhere near doing anything significant about it. There is one candidate who is talking seriously about it, and a few others who are being influenced by him [applause] sec. Reich but i dont want to make this into a partisan forum. My biggest fear is that we may be as a nation heading into a world war. War can bring out either the best or the worst in nations. It sometimes can lead to a great deal of social solidarity, and some very good things can come out of the horrors of war in terms of the issue of inequality, but it can also bring out ugliness. We have to watch that. Judge cordell anybody else . Aijen i think there is other good news, which is that everywhere i turn, i see lowwage workers in motion. I see incredible organizing along fast and workers, health care workers, Domestic Workers. Fight for 15. Walmart workers, retail workers, even the baristas at starbucks. People are coming together, and i think that combined with the vibrancy of the movement for black lives, there is a sense of collective selfconfidence that people who are on the frontlines lines of inequality in this country are starting to express. We actually can turn the tide on this, and we are going to come together and build the kind of movement necessary to do so. That to me is the best news in this situation. A great historian of social movements told me not long ago that she does believe we are in the early stages of what will be the next great social protest movement of this country that will fundamentally transform democracy for all of us. She is right about a lot of things, so i am going to go with that. [laughter] [applause] van first of all, congratulations. I think that you are right, there is an agreement about the problem, not the solution. But there are rightwing populisms that are very interesting now. In their willingness to take this on. They use terms different than are familiar to us, but you hear rightwingers now talking about what they call crony capitalism, and that is their way of talking about the way that the government has been captured to protect big corporations at the expense of working people. I think there is a growing militancy on the right and the left. I also think that when you listen to the orange guy, trump. [laughter] judge cordell john boehner is the orange guy. Sec. Reich who else did you have in mind . Van when you listen to him, there is Something Interesting where there is a style of politics that could be a precursor to something. In other words, i just dont give a dad gum anymore. There is something that is happening where people who felt constrained, there is just not enough cookies on the table now for people to be polite. The temperature is going up on both the right and left, so i do think the income inequality debate is something we should be very observant of for opportunities on the right. Katrina i think the rules are being written in different ways on the left and right. At the heart of it, we are experiencing a failed status quo of deregulation, of corporate trade agreements, of failure to make public investments, of mandatory sentencing. All of this is coming under scrutiny and questioning. You see it in Bernie Sanders campaign and Donald Trumps. Around the world, there are movements like you are describing, both hopeful and not hopeful, whether it is in spain or canada, where it will end will require political power and movements. Judge cordell lets pick up on the political power issue. First of all, this talk about inequality has been around for years. In the 1930s, Supreme CourtJustice Louis brandeis once noted, we can have a democracy or great wealth in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both. In 1956 the nation published an article written by w. E. B. Dubois that says we turn over funds to National Profit and have few funds left over for education and health. If we talk about politics, there is a boatload of money left in the lobbying industry. In 2013, apple spent 3. 3 million in lobbying. Amazon, 3. 4 million. Facebook, 6. 4 million. Microsoft, 10. 4 million. Google spent 15 million, all to lobby. Dont we have to hit lobbying to achieve income equality, and how do we do that . Sec. Reich clearly we do, and we have to get money out of politics. We have to reverse Citizens United. [applause] sec. Reich we have to make sure there is Public Financing of all campaigns and make sure there is full disclosure of where the money is coming from. It is easy to say what we should be doing. It is extremely hard to get the power to do it because it paints a chickenandegg problem. The people in power do not want to lose power, and it they fear that any fundamental change would be a threat. Lets go back to the issue of populism, because it is the core question. We see on the right and left upheavals and angry people, all around the world. This is not just an american problem. But how is that anger utilized . What Political Organization will do with that anger . This is a great challenge, it seems, because if we are facing a Common Threat in the form of radical jihadists and, whatever you want to call it, that anger can be turned into something positively creative, or it can be turned into fierce xenophobia and racism. And ethnic exclusivity. We have got to take a leadership role in making sure that anger is channeled in a positive direction. Everybody this fall has to do exactly the same thing. Judge cordell anyone else . Van first of all, from an africanamerican perspective, the conversation about inequality starts with mass incarceration. It starts there [applause] van and then moves to the rest of it. Aijen mentioned black lives, i think this is the most Important Development of our time. A lot of people got mad because kids grabbed their microphones, and that is their only point of reference, missing the entire movie. You now have a generation of African Americans who are coming on the scene, they were 12 years old when obama got into office. They are not impressed with having a negro president. They are not impressed with having a Democratic Party that will say stuff. They are facing incarceration rates that are six time their peers when they are doing the same things. In other words, black kids and white kids do drugs the same amount, but black kids go to prison six times more than their white peers and no one is saying anything. And you have a view of the state that it does a better job of punishing than protecting, that they do a better job of hurting people than helping. The sea violence from the government inside their borders in the form of mass incarceration. Their peers see it at the borders in the form of mass deportations and all people see beyond the border in the form of militarization. You have a seamless web of violence from the government that does not protect from street level violence, it enhances it and nobody is speaking for them. And a Democratic Party that wants to talk about equality. But wont speak of these issues as enter goal to the fight integral to the fight. You cannot have a quality if you are labeled a felon. For doing what you are doing right now or what some of you were doing this weekend. [laughter] you cannot have incoming equality if you cannot get a job, a student loan, a business license. So for those young people to hear a Democratic Party still not dealing with it. I was very impressed, by the way, the only force besides Hillary Clinton that both Political Parties had to address in their debate was black lives matter. Which was started by three and women young women, with nothing but a and they forced both parties to deal with them. We should celebrate that. [applause] judge cordell it appears that race is the weapon of choice for those who want to maintain a status quo and draw attention away from any quality. If you look at donald trump and making America Great again, that is politics, that is code for lets make America White again. So the question is, is the black lives Matter Movement focusing enough on income and wealth inequality, should it be doing more in that area . This is for anybody. Sec. Reich no. Van no. You have a Democratic Party. Judge cordell i think what has emerged postoccupy, postcrash, postobama, there has been a war war within the Democratic Party, the wall street wing and the corporate establishment wing, which often both have failed to take that into account, you could argue that the sticks apply rightly to Bernie Sanders. And consciousness raising done for senator warren, people are speaking in new ways. That battle goes on and it will determine the inequality discussion in this country. Van the way i see it is that the visible fight of the party is between the wall street wing and white economic populists, i mean if you look at reality, there is a white reality. The problem you have is that at the end of the day the republicans and rightwing democrats want black people to settle with trickle down economics and the left wing wants us to settle for trickle down justice. In other words, you shut up, we will not say black, we will not talk about your issues. Shut up and we will talk about taxing wall street, Social Security and income inequality youll get years and youll get yours, dont worry. Katrina and not schools. Judge cordell and not raising the slogans of mass incarce