February two WHO RULES?
There are a couple of things that need to be clarified where the Interfaces are concerned--especially on the groups in Interface III of ESSAY #
Actually the clarification isn't too much I'm not going to. Some of the lecture
may help today at least some of the later questions, most of the stuff is in the
book but some groups you may not be familiar with which is understandable. If you
see a group on Interface III from ESSAY # I  that you are not familiar with, they are probably in the text book. You may not find
it in my chapter. So what's the first thing you should do? Ask a
question? No, I'm not there when you're doing it. Look in the index of the book?
Doesn't hurt. So, are some of those groups that you did know in the index of the
book? Yup--but, not all--so why not Google them? Or, go to Dictionary.com.

Will that help you a lot? No. Yes. I mean, everyone wants total details to
try and understand, but that's not the purpose. You're not graded on this, so the
little information that may be available should at least direct you to how you
place it in the chart. Well, you are graded--in a sense.  You have to try and answer the question--leaving

nothing blank & no--absolutely no--I don't knows.

Okay?

Um, there may be one or two groups there that are
not in the text and that may be because I did my silly thing. I assumed that you
had heard of let's say the word communism. But now that I know that there is no
Soviet Union, most of you probably never heard the word communism, right? Like
hell. I'm going to by that? Well, it says communist worker's party. For get "Worker's Party" just do it as
communism.

Oh, by the way, Alex, one of your buddies told me to say hello to you like this.
Now, it's true you know who I'm
taking about. right? Big fat guy? Yeah, the fat guy. He
says that's the way you always greeted him, so he figured -
make sure I did it in front of the class. So let him know.
Um, meanwhile, the Sierra club, well most of you have heard
of the Sierra club. Who's heard of it? Anybody? Nobody's
heard of the Sierra club. Very possible. You hear the word
Sierra, what comes to mind? Nothing comes to mind when you
hear the word Sierra? Mountains. For some of you it means
water. Isn't there Sierra bottled water? So mountains come
to mind. So mountains come to mind. Club with the
mountains. So what would you think of it? What kind of a
club would it be dealing with the Sierra?
A Hiking club, maybe.
Q What other kinds of clubs might it be? One concerned
about the Sierra's? One who wants to deal with the Sierras.
Preserve something in that nature that should be enough
information. Following me? And how to approach it. So, I
was dealing basically and trying to respond to the people
who had looked at the interface and understood it. For
tomorrow. Otherwise, you know you are lost and I apologize
but that's why my suggestion generally is to do the readings
when they're assigned that day rather than wait and, okay.
So we'll try and clarify things, but it will be easier, you
know. Please, again, the chart gives you a reason. It
tells you when the readings are due. It will make a lot of
things easier for you. All right.
So there are some of -- were there any other questions on the interfaces for you?
We'll get a chance to go over. Did any of you send them to me by E-mail already
in this class? I don't think I got a Tuesday/Thursday in, but from some of my
other classes. I had one person that did have some troubles for some reason. Um,
they won't be saved there as I told you on E-mails. So if you send them off they
might get lost, but generally now has a screen that appears that tells you what
your answers were that you should keep somehow.

Well, I guess that deals with the procedural material. Unless there are some
other questions about the court at this point?

We will move onto -- I guess what we were attempting to talk about previously.
Did we go through all four definitions of politics last time and the way you lead
your life is the last one? And then we talked a little -- did we talk a little
about smoking and abortion? No? I don't remember dealing with that part of it. I
was trying to identify to you in part that in teaching political science,
instructors differ. Approaches differ. And mine is to get you to deal with
yourselves and improve your own feelings about yourself by in a sense be willing
to stand up for politics, if you will. Stands up for yourself. Get involved in
those things that are important to you. What that is, is up to you. And I
identified also another reason
-'or this course in my so to make -ou understand Is that


the political system is not such a simple one but is complex and more than
anything else it is amazing that anything ever gets accomplished. When you really
think about it. And then we talked about my coming from New York to California
the first time and wanting to flood the grand Canyon? Did I talk about that in
class at all? Or chopping down the Redwood Trees? I didn't talk about flooding
the Grand Canyon? I talked going not giving a damn about the birds in oil. Create
cheap electricity. But as my point was, I was a New Yorker and liberal who cared
about helping people. I got to California. I live here now. I am a California
liberal and I don't care about people anymore. only about birds and trees and
beaches. To hell with people. I'm a typical Californian. So our values change
depending on what part of the country we're from, but just in also the class has
different values and sometimes those values among you are dramatically different.
Your values change with time, Our attitude to what we want to do changes with
knowledge politically. There's a sign somewhere in this room that says no smoking
no drinking no eating. Okay. It's behind the projector. So most of you have
drinks and some of you have drinks and some of you are eating and you ignore the
sign and I know there's probably one or two teachers that scream at you. Are
there many that don't let you drink something in the class or get upset if
I you eat? We will take care of our stuff. We won't pour our coffee on the floor
like you people do? I'm sorry. As I say, we're all hypocrites and I'll condemn
them.

When I first started teaching in the university, I -now I wasn't a smoker, but,
you know, it doesn't bother me particularly. We didn't know anything about after
effects of smoke or what it meant. Nobody complained. They just sat there and
they took it. Was it was the privilege of smokers to smoke? The tobacco companies
still do, but they -- they haven't improved any. But at the end of the meal with
the meal tray then came there a little box of four free cigarettes. And when
everybody was done with the meal they lit up. Ali over the plane. Just part of a
different world and sometimes, you know, we've gotten used to because most of you
have been Californians now for at least two or three years, the fact that you're
limited in the places you can smoke. Now it may bother the hell out of you. I'm a
nonsmoker when Ohlone College to prohibit faculty members from smoking in their
office. I felt if there weren't students present -- and the fact was that I didn't
have any problemwith smoking sections in areas which were cut off, but I can
understand where people would and the pressure can be put upon people to make
those choices. There were people who would like to create nonsmoking areas but
then again what about bars that want to have smoking bars? okay. People want to
go bowling, I mean, how do you go bowling
1 without polluting your lungs? It's not fun without having a cigarette or cigar or
something. But you know 1 may not agree with that personally. But there are
different choices. And at this particular juncture in time we are aware that
people are concerned enough in California to wipe out some of those choices for
the smoker now. Right or wrong. Times may change. Laws changes. But it is strange
to go to other countries, even other parts of this country, and see people
everywhere, you know, sitting down and smoking. 1 mean as I say, in parts of the
world, in fact, most of the parts of the world you don't have restaurants that
are non-smoking. in fact, I don't even have a smoking sections in those
restaurants. most airline is going internationally they have smoking sections,
its not like you can smoke anywhere in the plane, but those kinds of changes do
come about and there were lots of fights on the plane when those regulations were
first put into effect. One airline pilot landed it's plane a few hundred miles
from where he was supposed to. He got so mad at a fight between a smoker and
nonsmoker.

So, as I say, those issues are there and 1 think back to myself when I talked
about hypocrisy it wasn't -- 1 go back to when I was in college. As I said I've
been pretty -- but I have smoked. And in college, about a month before exams, I
would smoke because that's when I would start my finals cramming. And when I was
smoking, I didn't want anybody to
tell me not to smoke or when I could smoke. I mean it was important to me to
smoke. I was hooked on smoking. And when exams were over, I stopped smoking. Went
to the beach. Felt I was clearing out my lungs, and then I didn't want anybody
around me smoking. I didn't want the smell of my smoke in my hair. I had hair. On
my clothes, you know. Not a lot, but, you know.

I was hypocritical for at least those periods of time but that's the reality of
our system. And the politicians have to function under those pressures from the
people that are their constituents. The the word is probably the most used word
by politicians. It's a word that many of you may have heard but not use. In fact,
I doubt if any of you ever used the word constituent, but politicians and people
in office constantly use the word constituent. What does it mean? Anyone? People
who vote them in. Close, but not on the target. Who represents? Anybody that they
represent, yeah. Whether they voted him in or not, it's the people they
represent. So they're constantly talking about those people as constituents and
some of those may be heavy money givers. Campaign contributions. Some may be from
outside the area. And maybe the tobacco companies. And so they have to wait. They
get reelected, the funding based upon how many votes they get and whether they
can get the vote out and that's not an easy task. To make a decision. And they
have to deal with their open conscience as well. It's
true on most issues not without people, but with themselves.

Abortion, Touchy subject. Many times we see it as black or white. Pro
choice, pro life. No in between. Well, the reality is that there's a big gray
area in there with various points of view. on both sides. Not all anti
abortionists believe that masterbation is taking life and that you should be
charged with murder when you masturbate. But there are those that make that
argument that there are gods given and that you're taking a life. You got to
watch these guys.

Have you seen the site on the internet that was put out by a group of people that
were pro life who have actual wanted posters for the doctors? Yeah, not every pro
life person is going to go out and shoot an abortion doctor or blowup a clinic.
In fact, very few -- and it's not a position that many of you would necessarily
hold. Again, but sometimes, you know, people get this view that that's the
position that pro life people are. They're going to block clinics and shoot at
doctors and going to ask for their death or come up with Ohlone College and call
every woman on campus a whore. Did anybody see the guy who used to come up here
with the sign and the fetuses and the aborted -- screaming at women? Nobody?
Usually they came up in the afternoon. But it did cause a stir? Um, in tact we
used to have a free speech area here, and tragically they
moved too an area from here because some people -- it was disturbing classes. But
it's the students -- basically got real upset with them, but I was very upset
when they took the free speech area here and put it at the bottom of stairs. I
think the concept of free speech and to have somebody to speak to and I think
they could have dealt with that issue. That's a personal commentary.

The thing that I thought was weird about this actual site was that the fact that
one of the doctors listed in their site gets killed, or whatever, they put a big
red X through the picture, and underneath it the name of the person that is being
charged with murder of the doctor and to plea. It seemed like there was a big
debate about it on politically incorrect and Bill Maher was talking about the
fact that by putting this big X and putting the person's name underneath it, it
was almost like the entire thing with the kids who were breaking into the
Pentagon trying to get their faces in the newspaper so that they would be just
like the whole publicity thing of it trying to get known because you killed
somebody. Yeah it's one over those they did charge one of the individuals with
inciting people to commit murder from that organization. But, you know, you do
run into all questions of where you do have the right on free speech and what is
incitement and what is not and what is a clear and present danger? And we'll get
more into about that in civil liberties.
I, and it will come through, I have trouble dealing with censorship, but that's
another story. Jessie Helms every year introduces legislation that life begins
upon conception and that any taking of a conceived life is murder, Well that
would actually mean that some women who were using certain kinds of birth control
devices would be charged with murder. Because they would be taking and certainly
what is it? The RU486, is it? is that the number of the pill? Aren't we up to 686
on the computer? So the pill may riot work fast enough.

That's interesting. Now thinking about it. It's got one of those -- well, on the
other extreme, pro choice. We have women who believe and argue that you have the
right to take a fetus, abort a fetus, if you will, right up through you~re ninth
month of pregnancy at any time because that's you~re choice. Now i'm not sure
that thats a position who support abortion, but there is a big Stir and has been
since Clinton changed Bush's regulations by partial abortion bills. it was an
attempt to ban partial births -- abortion have it's during the ninth month or
eighth month when the mother's life may be in danger. it's determined that
mother's life is in danger. Doctors in those states that allow for partial birth
abortion can induce labor and then suck out the brains of the infant and that
saves the motheCs life but takes the life of the infant for the sake of the
mother. Now that is a legitimate procedure that
doctor, support. Obviously in violation including the
Catholic church because of the concept of burn an original
sin and Lite need for baptism. So we run into real kinds of
conflicts on the extremes, but must people don't necessarily
fit really all the way to one extreme or another.
in the early years of our colonies, it was just
something that nobody dealt with, but through the end of the
19th century must states enacted laws banning abortion. ill
1973, a woman by the name of Norma -- sued the state's
attorney general in Texas and went under the name of Jane
Rue and her attorneys brought it to the Supreme Court that
she had a right to an abortion: That right was being denied.
She had a constitutional right of privacy. The choice of
her body.
in 1973, the Supreme Court did rule that under the 9th
Amendment she did have a personal choice of privacy of her
body. Now Lite Ninth Amendment does not say that. What it
says basically translating it is that any right that the
framers of the constitution forgot to put in there or the
Bill of Rights you the people have. And so the Supreme
Court did rule that they have the right to privacy of an
abortion. But as I think I noted the other day, the Court
ruled five Years ago that you don't have the privacy of the
sex acts that you want to. That oral sex, anal sex, and
bestiality are outlawed in 22 states. Bestiality probably
is outlawed in almost all the states. Um. it was an
4

interesting decision as to when life begins. Obviously for many religious
people's life begins upon conception. Life begins with the need. The seed of the
male or the female. But Life Court could not come up with a legal definition.
They can um up with a legal definition of sexual relations that Clinton can play
with, but not one for life. And since they could not, come up with one, they
decided that their own choice was Lou to deal with life when it occurred, and
they determined that life could occur when life could sustain itself on it's own.
Outside the womb, and so when a baby was able to survive outside the womb of the
mother itself, it was flu longer part of Lite mother, and therefore was a life.
Determination that within the first three months and therefore a woman had a right to
an abortion.

By the way, 1 would say is that Roe versus Wade, two or three Court decisions in
the United States in the 20th century because i think of the impacL its had on
our atmosphere generally. One of the others is also on your word list. We'll talk
about it more and that's Brown versus the Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas.
Those are probably two that everybody should know, if they haven"t already.

What was Brown, or what did Brown deal with? Segregation, Desegregation in the
school systems. And so it's the kind of decision that really has changed the
atmosphere life in the 20th century in the United States. Okay. The Supreme Court
then ruled that in Lite second
trimester between the third and six months the choice was between the woman and the
physicians and that it was possible because it was unlikely that a fetus would survive at
under six months. It did allow states to ban abortion between six and nine months. Notice
it said they could. Not all states did, which is why partial birth abortions exists in many
states. In some states you can get an abortion right up through the ninth month. Obviously
a lot of protest, demonstrations, activity, a lot of debate as to how to restrict. Whether
it should be restricted and what level.

One of first things that was accomplished by pro lite people was to prevent the federal
government and many states from funding abortion clinics for poor people or giving money.
In tact, when the republicans were in power, they wanted -- they refused to give any money
to abortion clinics that were outside the United States or any clinics that gave
information about abortion whether they performed it or not. Trying to prevent abortions
outside the United States yet they couldn't do it inside the United States which was
interesting.

The 1989 Supreme Court decision Webster versus Reproductive Services, Missouri, was a major
court decision in that various states have begun to take certain restrictive action on how
they are carried out. Not banning abortion, but restrictive action on how they could be
carried out. And states proceeded to place certain restrictions on abortion. Some states
require a waiting period of 24 to 72 hours, some require counseling. Many states stopped
funding. But the real question that people raise is it you're going to stop funding for
poor people or abortion are you going to fund their children to have day care or healthcare
or other kinds of factors or put up for adoption, you know, begin to raise -- it's one
thing to say I'm pro life, but once the baby is here they leave it to die after it's born
and that raises questions that some people have as well and it's one -- you know -- you run
into all these little issues that pertain to it and again as I say people pro choice, pro
lite disagree.

Ronald Reagan felt it should be banned. Nancy, she was pro lite. She believed that there
should be abortions in the case of incest and rape. George Bush believed that abortion
should be banned, but he believed in abortion in the case of incest, rape, and mental
retardation. George Bush's wife said nothing during his presidency, but when he was no
longer president, she came out and said abortion was a personal choice and it should not be
within the political realm at all. Shouldn't be decided by politics, which was again a
different conflict.

The most interesting to me between antiabortionist was between Dan Quale and his wife. Do
you remember the guy who had trouble spellinq potato? Got this as a male bamboo
Maybe he was. It was so sad the republican party put Dan Quale up to run. And women have
traditionally voted for more democrats than men so he thought that he looked like Robert
Redford and that it would attract women to the republican party. Well women can tell a male
bimbo just as well as temale. So it didn't work. In any case, I gained a lot of respect for
Dan Quale at one point when he was asked something dealing with whether his if his daughter
had been raped or became pregnant what would he do. And he said that he would sit down and
talk with her and try and counsel her to have an abortion. However, the choice would be
hers. His daughter was a teenager. Now personally I think that's the right way to approach
it. However, his wife went nuts. She shut him up totally because it was anti -- the concept
we would not let her get an abortion. Because of the difference in the prolife position.
It's one thing to say things and you don't know what you're going to do.

That it I were to get pregnant I wouldn't get an abortion, Very easy for me to say. I know
it's not so easy for me to get pregnant. Too old now. However, you know, it's one thing to
talk for others and such crazy things under circumstances it it occurred. You think you do
sometimes, but you know it's not always the case.

I had a woman working for me who was 38 years old she had three children she was catholic
and definitely against abortion. And was told by the doctors that she -- it she
Maybe he was. It was so sad the republican party put Dan Quale up to run. And women have
traditionally voted for more democrats than men so he thought that he looked like Robert
Redford and that it would attract women to the republican party. Well women can tell a male
bimbo just as well as female. So it didn't work. In any case, I gained a lot of respect for
Dan Quale at one point when he was asked something dealing with whether his if his daughter
had been raped or became pregnant what would he do. And he said that he would sit down and
talk with her and try and counsel her to have an abortion. However, the choice would be
hers. His daughter was a teenager. Now personally I think that's the right way to approach
it. However, his wife went nuts. She shut him up totally because it was anti -- the concept
we would not let her get an abortion. Because of the difference in the prolife position.
It's one thing to say things and you don't know what you're going to do.

That it I were to get pregnant I wouldn't get an abortion, Very easy for me to say. I know
it's not so easy for me to get pregnant. Too old now. However, you know, it's one thing to
talk for others and such crazy things under circumstances it it occurred. You think you do
sometimes, but you know it's not always the case.

I had a woman working for me who was 38 years old she had three children she was catholic
and definitely against abortion. And was told by the doctors that she -- it she
went to term she would die. And she made a choice to live with her children, in
violation of religion, and she got an abortion. She had trouble living with
herself and felt she was damned, but she still had no choice. That's a tough
choice. It's one thing to condemn people, but I think that's why those Christiana
who others -- who say that the choice is not mine, I do not judge. I leave the
judgment to Christ. I think that has a greater respect because I can't judge a
person based on those kinds of decisions. I shouldn't have to nor could I judge
the woman down the street from me as a hypocrite because she was dealing with
another situation. She was pro choice. She had five children and she said that if
she got pregnant again, there was no way, and she said get an abortion. And when
she got pregnant, she couldn't get another abortion. So she bore the child, much
to her regret, in a sense. Kid turned out pretty good, but the fact is that she
was absolutely convinced that she was going to get an abortion and she couldn't.
Choices are there. And sometimes you know they hit you at home and you don't
realize it.

Um, a number of years back, my father who was at the time in his late 60s or
early 70s, his mother had died when he was thirteen. He never knew why, and it
was never very clear. However, he found out at that point that from another aunt
that she died from an illegal abortion when he was thirteen, because in those
days obviously abortions were
illegal and they are went to these people in back streets. Millions of women died
from illegal abortions. Sometimes performed on themselves, sometimes done with
coat hangers or drinking strange medicines or trying to abort the children.
That's not a rational people who were pro life people are doomed and should die
because they've taken another life. But those are choices that I guess others
make about other people.

What about such things as the male's right? Well most courts have ruled that the
male has no say. It is a woman's choice. But not all courts. In a mid western
state about four years ago, a 16-year-old girl was impregnated. Now she kept it
from her parents until about the sixth, seventh month. I'm always curious how you
hear about girls who keep it -- the prom queen who -- she was out at the dance
and they flushed the baby down the toilet or something. Remember that last year
or the year before? And parents didn't know7 I don't have any daughters so it's
hard for me to judge how I would respond. I only got three sons. I always wanted
a daughter. I have been considering whether I should turn one of my boys gay so I
have a daughter. Which one would you choose? I bet you there are some of you that
really believe you could turn a kid gay. Come on. Gay7 I said that one a couple
years ago and my oldest son -- this friend of mine told me what you said.

In any case, but the fact of the matter is that the
parents of the by impregnated her because her parents had put pressure. That
state allowed abortion. Well maybe that state didn't -- why state allowed
abortions, so she was going to go over there after the sixth month. The state
that she was living in did not. The boy's parents got a restraining order from
the court based on the state law of that state and when she tried to go and leave
the state, the police came in and cuffed her and took her into a hospital until
she gave birth, and then the baby was turned over to the boy's parents to raise.
The parents of the girl and the girl -left the state. So in this case the state
ruled that not only was there a law being violated, but the male did have, in a
sense, a say and that does raise certain questions debatable, if you will, based
on view points.

And there are many other issues that arise. What about the use of fetal tissue?
ls that like performing on murdered children? 'As they did during the Holocaust when
the German concentration camp doctors did all these experiments and that may have
helped people because it was performed on human beings, ginnypigs, it you will.

Well George Bush banned the use of fetal tissue. however, Clinton has reversed
that ban and is allowing it so we get into other kinds of issues what with young
girls under eighteen? Should she have a right to an abortion? And if they do,
should their parents be notified? Both or just one parent? Some states require
both one and in some
states a judge can intervene on behalf of the young girl,

So we have all of those differences within the states as to how or why it should
be done. I have just taken and probably touched the surface of alternatives. To
give you a picture of what politicians must confront in his even district right
higher in Fremont, if the politician is from Fremont, if he is to be involved.
And let's say that is himself a Catholic, what happens? Well we have some
examples, Geraldine Feraro who ran for vice president in 1984 was asked as a
catholic and she said I am very much opposed to it. However, if elected, I have
to obey the law of the land. She was condemned by the Catholic bishop and they
were almost at the point, some excommunicating her for her sometime because they
felt it was the poor kind of role model to inspire young catholic ladies. Again,
the conflict between my personal values, your values.*

As a politician, let's say versus the people we represent. And how do we carry
out that responsibility? A woman in San Diego, a nun, who worked in a clinic that
helped people, and one of the things that was tied to the clinic indirectly was
an abortion counseling process, and it was a private clinic that the sister
worked in as part of the social responsibility, as she called it, and she -- when
she was ordered by the bishop to leave the clinic she refused even though she
felt -- and she said I'm not involved with the abortion counseling. But the
clinic is
involved and she was excommunicated. She was removed from the church.

So, you know, it can certainly effect what you did and how you do it depending on
the impact of it. So it's a complex issue. Certainly one that causes and has
caused for what forty -- thirty years, or 35 years since 1976? Oh, well. Well my
point again is that it's a complex process. it's not simply black and white, but
to give you an opportunity.

Does anybody -have any questions on any element of the

abortion issue or any comments you'd like to make? I guess
I dominated the conversation. It just seems that it's hard
to believe that they would excommunicate a nun for working
in a clinic of some sort, when they have all these priests
walking around and molesting kids. These preists who have
brought to trial for molesting, they don't excommunicate
those people. They just give them a leave of absence. Bye.
This nun is working for a clinic where they do. I think
there may be and I could make a rational for that -- if a
priest is molesting children, then they're sick and they
need psychological- counseling as a person. Where a nun who
was working knows what she's doing, she's not
psychologically off the open ends, and she's making a
personal choice where the other person has a sickness and
that's a given way of approaching it. I don't think --,
don't get me wrong here. I would hang up those priests by
their -- the issue is that you would make that different choice.

Any other comments or questions? well, another element

that we need to be aware of as we go through this topic here
involvement is the fact that many of you are involved right
now in politics and aren't aware of it. You are actively
engaged or have been without knowing it even though you
really weren't and that's the amazing part. How could I be
actively involved or not know it? The reality is that it's
the way or system works. in -- a guy named de Tocqueville (sorry
about the spelling). On a French mission to study our
prisons. it's on your study list. when he returned to
Yrance after traveling through the United States he wrote a
two volume study called Democracy in America. That two
volume study is still required reading in many political
science courses in this country. with the belief the
feeling that that personality of the United States has not
changed dramatically from the 1830s to today and that's
understand why we feel Tokeville (sorry about the spelling)
is a good source. And there's some truth to that. There is
something in the American personality that enables our -
one of things that he suggested that he found he said
that Americans were a nation of joiners that of all the
people of the world that he accounted Americans loved
belonging to groups more than any other. We love belonging
to organizations, association. But he said because we did
and join groups, that democracy worked. And you say how'?

One, he said that in the groups people learned how to compromise. how to workout the
problems. And therefore, on the bigger scale politically, statewide, locally, nationally
they could learn to compromise as well because they learned it in their groups.

Two, okay, he basically argued what we today called pluralism. Democratic pluralism. By
American -- by joining groups nave something to set and protect them and present their
position on a political level that while politicians in the government may not listen to
us, they do listen to the power of groups and that the pluralism stick is that groups are
competing against groups. That groups compete against groups working things out,
compromising or is that competition has to be developed by the political system and
therefore the politicians have to come up with compromises or the politicians have to take
a side. One side or the other, and so in a sense, we are a group democracy that the works
in the United states through the groups not through individual action.

In translation he's saying that we are not listened to personally. Our points of view
individually are not really listened to, but when we are members of groups, those groups
are heard. National Ritle Association against banning a hand gun. Okay'? Sometimes one
group may represent more people, but they -- or less people that are said with Vou
they're better heard, but that's part of the democracy and

A net
the other group keeps fighting away to try and g .its
position here.

Well I then what am saying here about- your

participation*? Most of you have been, are, and will be
members of -rou-s-. You don't even realize that you are

that you -- In

many cases didn't join them for -authorize political
activities but because You are a member or have been a
member that number Is counted when the politicians think
about making a decision that is for that group or against
that group. So let's look at some of the groups that some
of you, not you're parents, but you nave joined or do belong
to. Not what you will, some of them you may not think of
political, but yes, in many ways you are. Can anybody
,me a group that they're a member of',, Union. You're a


member of a union'? Where*? Just like the United Eood and Local Workers Union. okay.
Obviously unions have to be political to protect worker's rights. Now you may not give
money to the political action fund, but most people do and money that they -- dues from
this political action came out

y

of your dues. Okay. Most of your money given to those

I

fund-- are used in campaigns. For politicians who
union causes. Now Many of you may not agree with unions.
but to hold the job you hold you have to join the union and
your number is counted whether you agree with. them or not
Any other groups that you belong to! Do you, you're
just not telling. Or have belonged to in the past I? I don't think I've been in any
communities or groups or anything. Nothing ever'? Never been a girl scout'? Ever
play any sports'? What'? Basketball. For your school or for a club'? School. Any
of the youth group organizations? You may not have yet. But many of you have.
Soccer. Baseball. 'Little League? Are they political? Yeah. Hey, a couple of
years ago in Little League they got really upset because the professional teams
wanted to charge the Little Leagues for the use of their logos on the uniforms
and boy did they put pressure on the political system and boy did the
professional leagues back down. You don't screw around with Little League. A few
of you -- any of you play for Mission San Jose little league? Well it was here
for years so they decided to divide it into two and Mission San Jose and Warm
Springs, but they had a little league, but no places to play. But there was some
park area over there that had been decided for building a citizens center, The
Warm Springs convinced that city council, why? Because there are more little
league players than senior citizens in Fremont. Now that's a political issue.

I think the Brownies is also really political because I got kicked out for not
being girlie enough to be in the Brownies. Not being girlie enough? Me and my
little friend would sit there and talk about, I don't know, like usual boy
things. And it's not girlie to talk about boy things and
they kicked us out. boy are they perverted. well, that sounds like a personal -
I'm not sure that's political in one sense. Because they have to -- there's a
greater sense when we get down to these organizations or not.

For example, 1 don't know about the girl scouts thesis but the boy scouts have
banned homosexuals and atheists and that has caused quite a stir. Now I
understand the -irl


scouts try to -- was the federal government was -Iv-in- them

money. So they were considered not a private agency the

2

federal government decided to cutoff funding so they backed

away. So those are more political actions local!,- or more

this directly a number of years ago Girl Scouts tried to get this poster banned and
the poster had a Be Prepared on It with a pregnant girl scout. But. with the
Brownies many go around selling girl scout cookies and stuff. it was two years
ago that two cities had been selling cookies or soliciting girl scouts went nuts
and brownies organization so they are political in a more formal sense which
you're talking about an informal sense and that's setting up internal values that
may be false values to what a young lady should or should not do.

But those are choices and I would say more -formal in this case. Any other groups
that now we've opened the door that you have belonged to that are political'?
Kind of going back.to the boy scout comment, I've read a lot of things that the
local council has commented on the whole gays being
around boy scouts and atheists and everything, and the big
concern was the fact that a lot of the things that you need
to go through in it was requires certain beliefs or certain
things and they are what counsel is saying now I think
because of the amount of money they're no longer getting
from the United Way also pull the a big stamp on -- in this
area, sure -- but also they're saying now that it one is an
atheist who wishes to join boy scouts as long as they
continue to follow through with what needs to be said. I I hey
don't need to openly claim that this is they don't agree
with the tact that-this or that, but as long as there's a
certain required things that you have to do as a boy scout
there's -- a boy scout is supposed to be clean, brave, and
(reciting the pledge of the Boy Scouts) But they've also
added a section 'in the handbook that talks about being
reverent for yourself not necessarily ma king a place for God
in the -- whatever, but also the tact that there's a thing
that makes being a place for yourself. They've added a
bunch of items to make it not so much. I will do my best to
do my duty to God and your country -- you still have to say
it, but it's not such a big deal.

Any other groups? Groups? Speaking of God? What groups do you belong to? Every church now
obviously some of you belong to church so that's not an issue. I made the mistake one time
of asking a class how many people belonged to churches and nobody raised their hand. So I'm not
going
to ask you now, but most churches, synagogue, temples get involved in religious
organizations and they've become political not just national levels. When you
vote and you mark what party you are, does that make, you know, because that's
going to make you an association, but it's not neglegently directly putting your
involvement. That's pretty how do you become a member, by marking it, period.
Yeah, all you do is mark down on your registration and that's basically it. Now
there are direct party organizations that you may go to the meetings and work at
those meetings and that's more formal. But yeah. Kind of talk about churches,
religious groups, organizations. We constantly had pressure placed on the campus
here from politically religious groups we had a Bahai. Has anybody ever hear of
the faith? They were organized in the early part of the Ruth century in Persia.
Iran and that's sort of the on-set of an ethical religion based on world religion
world peace big emphasis on world peace, have some big temples in the united
states, but many Anglos. There's one off of 101 in San Francisco and we had a
against Bahais there and she was very upset with the Muslims and the attitude she
felt towards women and she organized on this campus about four years ago against
the Muslims and their days on the campus.

Now that's a little different because, you know, but the Christians here. we at
least have a Cornerstone Club on
campus and they opposed the student government trying to sell prophilactics in
the restrooms. The student government was, but the Christian's in the club felt
that that was an immoral activity and was student government because the state
law could be done. We had a whole group here various religious groups and people
from the community protesting what the community services courses included a
course teaching about the occult. They thought they were teaching the devil
worship. my favorite was the LSD -- i'm sorry, the LDS group. Decided to try and
get the bookstore to ban Penthouse and Playboy magazines. They even took a copy
down to our board of trustees to show them what kind of pornography was being
sold, but we have pornographic board of trustees at the time, but apparently
they're not selling it anymore. So, um, the decisions were made by the bookstore
manager. So a think they were demonstrating.

There are thousands of these kinds of things, Where are the groups? Well some of
you get your car insurance from Triple A. Why is Triple A more of 8 political group
than All State? Anybody? How many of you have Triple A insurance? Okay. Triple A
is a cooperative which you get a vote if you're a member you get kickbacks,
financial --depending on how many profits you have made with their magazine and
coverage and with their sort of the sense of being they send you information
about how to vote and what you should vote for politically what's going on. Okay?
So
it becomes -- now you didn't join it for its insurance rates. Or because of the
company, but yet here you are a member of an organization that is influencing or
attempting to influence you politically and certainly is.

Any other groups anybody! And I grant that there are some of you that have not
been part of an organization to any of those kinds of groups, but some day maybe
you will be a member of a par-ent/teacher or a union for whatever reason and
Americans do become very active in those groups and they become very political.
And so maybe democracy does work through groups and that's basically what
pluralism and the people who believe in pluralism argue is how our government
works. How policy is made and what I call who rules, if you will.

Any questions about pluralism? And how it supposedly works') Now there are those
who have argued in recent years than in reality we invented a stable of a of
plural but of hyperpluralism. What does hyper mean when you use it? Excessive.
That has become too excessive because instead of just a few groups, we have many
groups. They've exploded on the scene to the extent that nothing is being done
and the argument for hyperpluralism is that nobody rules until policies are being
made. Why? Because each group has a more narrow perspective. And because of that
narrow perspective, they will not compromise. Where years ago you had a large
group with lots of different people who learn
how to compromise and they could wait for their turn. Now you've got these little
groups who were not willing to work and they are also contributing to campaigns
and politicians are attempting to got their support and the politicians will
agree to offend each little group and so politicians don't want to take sides or
can't come up with compromises and so the argument is that we invented a grid
lock stage of -what does grid lock usually mean? When on the freeway you just
can't move, everything is backed up. And now we're saying that the same thing is
true. Political it is grid lock. The legislatures, well, if anything, if it
doesn't grid lock today, it certainly has become far more partisan and that's
another story we'll talk about. And I think myself included would argue that it
isn't hyperpluralism about that it is true that we have excessive groups today
many of whom have narrow points of view that it is leading to participatory that
that word is redundant. Democracy has to be participatory. Was a word that was
blown out of proportion that was pushed out of this country as real democracy of
each individual having their say each person being listened to in the late 1960s
and early 1970s among the groups that were pushing was a very violent group
called the SLA And if you look at today's paper they did a story on Patty Hearst
this is the 25th anniversary of her abduction or release from abduction I can't
remember which it was now. But Patty Hearst was abducted and she joined
the SLA and got involved in a bank hoist and everything else and she was the
daughter of the guy who owns all the newspapers and the SLA demanded for ransom
that he spend a million dollars feeding the poor of Oakland. Okay? Was best
expressed at this time by a man name Tom Haden that some of you may have heard of
him. Any of you heard of him at all? it shows you a different times have changed,
yeah. He was used to be known as Mr. Jane Fonda. Um, Jane Fonda was known as
Hanoi Jane why? Because at this time we were in a war with -- it wasn't an
official war with Vietnam in other words against south. Supporting an ally in the
north with tremendous protest demonstrations and traumatic opposition among
college students and in the United States and many others that we were acting
illegally and immorally and Jane Fonda -- and she actually visited Hanoi against
the Americans. She became extremely hated by many conservatives and
ultraconservatives in this country and she married Tom Haden, a radical who was
involved with the Radical Seven and also Abbey Hoffman. They got divorced but he
became a senator in the state of the California in Sacramento for the area around
Santa Monica. And she married Ted Turner. And now keeping a little low profile as
Ted Turner CNN, politically active I guess. In any case, Tom Haden argued for
participatory democracy which means giving power back to the people. To the
people. And one of the arguments he made to achieve that was to create a
representation. Some
countries have proportional representations. Germany. The Parliament, they will
allow parties to have seats who have not won an election. But if on the national
level, they get a certain percentage of votes, they can sit as an official party
and have votes and I think for example the Green Party who has never won an
election has about 12 seats in the -The concept is that various points of you
should be represented and more so various ethnic groups should be represented
based on their proportion.

So for example if you have a ten percent black population your city council
should represent ten percent of the blacks. Okay? And that way, supposedly they
will be representing more directly the people and people would be directly
participating in the process. The people should also live in the community and
power could be returned to the people regardless than the communities that
control it. That was his original argument. He was from Santa Monica and in there
they develop all kinds of actions and it was funny because people used to have
bumper stickers saying I am from the Republic of Santa Monica.

However, in more recent years the most vocal advocate for participatory democracy
was Newt Gingrich. Obviously from a different political perspective. Some people
believe was very much typical republican. Because he was talking about returning
power to the people. However, candidly, he was in some way very much in
opposition to the tradition of
republican party. The republican party traditionally returning power to the
people talked about returning to the states and taking it out of Washington D.C.
Which was something Newt Gingrich alluded to but by returning to the states they
saw it as returning power to the local. The power with the money, the real estate
agents, the real rise in California and so it wasn't a concept of returning it to
the people. Newt Gingrich had a real underlying sense of giving it to the people
from a futuristic perspective which is very interesting. His friends are the
Tofflers. He wrote an introduction to his -- they wrote the third waive. Very
much involve in futuristic actions and in their books, they emphasized that the
new world is decentralized. The internet is a good example. There is no central
location. It goes all over the rest at the same time. The preworld was moving
towards centralization. The future -- you have to move towards decentralization.
And the word that is used which is on your word list for this decentralization is
devolution. we evolve towards the concept and to de-evolve away from central
stations to decentralization but not to give power back to the states. The states
wanted the civil war, but did have it directly to the people to break down
Washington. The advocate in our early history of decentralize was Thomas
Jefferson. And it is fascinating that when Newt Gingrich became the speaker of
the House of Representatives in 1984, in 1994 -- by the way, last time I
made a real boo-boo, and I didn't catch me and that was I guess refusing to admit
to my age, um, I said that Kennedy was president in 1980. It was 1960, and I'm
sure some of you caught it. But I screwed up.

In any case in 1994, Newt, when he became the Speaker of the House created an a
computerized internet system where people could find out everything going one in
the Congress called Thomas. Named it after Thomas Jefferson, the advocate of
decentralization. The democratic party likes to go back to Thomas Jefferson as
their inspiration and founder. And yet, it was the republican Newt Gingrich who
named the internet system not Abe Lincoln, but Thomas Jefferson. so we'll talk
more about that interface.