Get Used to It: Ep. 82, "State of the Community"

what's up [Music] so [Music] hi welcome to get used to it i'm sheila cuell your host and um just by way of preamble our last show we got together a group of very smart people to talk about the 10th anniversary of the uprising of the gay and lesbian community in l.a over a veto of an employment rights bill but our show was filmed only a few days after september 11th and we just couldn't help but talk about the issues much as we tried not to so i thought hey let's go with it and there were a lot of things that we wanted to discuss related to the gay lesbian community and some of it just to us as americans so i've invited one of the guests back and augmented with two other really smart people and i'm very happy today to welcome back tori osborne who's the executive director of the liberty hill foundation here in los angeles county which makes seed grants to wonderful grassroots organizing organizations and torrey's been a longtime activist and author welcome glad to be here and to torrey's right and i guess the cameras left is roland palencia who's the executive director of clinica monsignor romero in downtown los angeles and also who just received the local hero of the year award from our local although in l.a local is pretty big pbs station and i think one of our fabulous banks as well has participated in the prize congratulations and welcome roland thank you and finally last but never least my favorite david mixner who has joined us a number of times talking about a variety of issues david of course is a published author and well-read and respected long-time activist in our community but has just said yes to the democratic congressional leadership in washington and is leaving us to move back to washington and provide some counsel and wisdom we hope on these international issues welcome david thank you very much and congratulations on your new job and condolences i think yeah are also somewhat in order i'll miss los angeles a lot well we'll miss you too although don't think you're getting away well tori let's start with you because we sort of started this conversation last time and it was uh because of that and i think what we started to talk about that i thought well let's keep going with this we had mentioned a few things and we should probably start afresh about ways in which the gay community might be uniquely placed to react to some of the issues around september 11th or maybe we're just a you know sort of an ordinary set of americans like everybody else having lots of fights around the thanksgiving table what do you think um well when we did the show a month ago the whole world was in a different place the whole country was in different place i think the trauma was fresh and the feeling that we had around this table at that time was kind of exploring in that emotional rawness of grief and trauma and questioning and a little bit of shock the some of the parallels with the aids epidemic with a community that has um that that has grappled with trauma that has sort of been tested our fiber had been tested and kind of could we reach if i recall some of the conversation you know could we reach for this was before the bombing started remember so that's right so could we reach for kind of love and healing uh at a time of where anger is easier to go to where what are the what are the questions uh when you've when your dignity and your when you've been when you're insecure when you're vulnerable when you're physically and psychically vulnerable you know uh we we talked a little bit about kind of some of those issues people's tendency to become to become angry people's tendency to you know what do you do with all that so it's a little bit of a different question and it felt very much as if um we had a critical mass of americans traumatized uh not everybody by any means and but and certainly new york is where is harder hit than other people but we have seen the waves of um of shock and of the the myth in in effect of invulnerability shattered for this country i think some good questions national questions that everybody participates gay and lesbian and beyond in you know why did this happen why do they hate us uh perhaps i hope a national conversation will let the teach-ins begin and continue on american foreign policy and what in our you know the cia trained bin laden the cia installed saddam hussein sort of what are the history what is the role in the united states in the middle east you know all of those kind of macro geopolitical questions and then just the daily life questions what does it mean for us i mean you know each of us has kind of experienced uh the shock is we realize that there were gays and lesbians you know that there was mark bingham who helped to bring down the plane we had gay heroes we had gay and lesbian firefighters and and the fact that the heroes in new york were healers and were were people uh not warriors but healers and that suddenly there was kind of a new respect for that that we were not only victims um and would are with domestic partnership rights be given to those people i i was talking to somebody who's a union organizer who was just telling me you know suddenly as they begin to dole out the money all these this billion dollars that's been raised there's questions like well undocumented workers well do they have as much of a right to it as like the real americans and with the whole uh the whole flag waving and god bless america and patriotism piece which which i feel a part of i mean let me just say although i feel very much a citizen of the world i also have been incredibly proud of of the best of america as i was with the gay and lesbian community around aids you know crisis brings as my mom would say the crap and the cream rise to the top and so you see the finest of humanity as well as you see the kind of crisis profiteering that i would say the corporations lining up for bailouts and the right wing slamming through their agenda through congress and and you know all of that stuff you sort of see the best and the worst and i think the and we saw that in the gay and lesbian community and we we built from the best of our humanity uh after you know the genocidal neglect of the reagan bush years we built this extraordinary community response to aids we kind of re recrafted the fabric of activism a vision we we made our community's vision truly much more diverse gay men and lesbians came from their separate corners there was much more multi-racial work we we really crafted in good faith a new kind of a vision of what the what community meant but in a sense i think this country could if it could break through the fear whether it's anthrax terror you know whatever and break through the the slight to its indignity i would say even perhaps the arrogance hopefully would topple a little bit some of that same conversation could be because unless we talk about the root causes of terrorism you know eventually you can go smoke out bin laden and you can bomb afghanistan back again to the stone age but until you really start dealing with the poverty and hopelessness the unequal resources and questions of fundamentalism so you get back to a conversation about pluralism democracy and what your vision is for america and for the world i think i think it's a global question i think it's a national question and and i think gay and lesbian community brings some leadership and wisdom to that question whether it's can you forge something great you know love ultimately and vision go farther than anger now it doesn't mean you don't get to get angry we've had our act ups and queer nations too there's always a place for fighting back we were on the streets 10 years ago against wilson but the the deeper lessons have been learned through our own truth-telling through our own building of something and through our own weaving of democracy and i know that sounds a little abstract but that's what i really think is on the table well but the people of america were deeply ambivalent about us and still are right in terms of you know before all of this happened when how they were going to respond to the immigrant community the gay and lesbian community the people of color community the everybody community how were regular people going to think about their own prejudices etc there was a there was this kind of ambivalence and a kind of struggle and again it was a it was a struggle of fundamentalists who were identifying uh you know join us and hate them or people of sort of other uh virtues who were saying no no pluralism uh tolerance some of them would call it etc and there was that kind of a fight now we've been in the middle of that kind of a fight that ambivalence seems to me to be pretty rampant to the united states right now because people of good will even are ambivalent in themselves where we're trying to figure out how the heck are we going to relate to this um but i wanted to ask you a really a difficult question one that i i think we will try to continue as we go along you said we're engaged in this struggle of trying to figure out why do they hate us i mean a lot of people have said why do they hate us why do they hate us and i remember when you were the head of the center in los angeles we had a bill of rights celebration and a young gay white man stood up to the microphone after we were talking about the bill of rights and said well i understand why people discriminate against women and people of color but why us remember that yeah and so we've been asking why do they hate us too and i'm i think there's a qualitative difference because when we ask why do they hate us and we're just victims but america asks why do they hate us we've been victims but now people are saying we're actually aggressors how do we think about this well i don't think i've been trying to figure out the analogy because i was thinking exactly that that the last time that question was on my plate in an ongoing way it was as a lesbian you know why trying to figure out homo ignorance homophobia and the hatred spewing across the airwaves by the right wing at the gay and lesbian community and at poor women and immigrants we're not the only victims of that hatred but it is interesting but it is different you know it's it's it's kind of the flip side of it but here's what i do think i think that our capacity to educate the public to be better organizers activists and spokespeople for for our own rights and for our own you know gifts that we bring to the diversity of humanity was deepened when we asked that question to ourselves so that's the only analogy that i can see because i think the why do they hate us that americans are asking or from are mainly kind of the people are asking it are kind of pretty you know mostly i think privileged white middle-class americans who haven't kind of gotten about america's arrogance and smugness and so so but any kind of self-reflection so that you know what we really were the victims of homophobia but when we took seriously that we had to educate we couldn't just act out you know we had to take our case to the american people in stories and building our in doing media advocacy and building our institutions and taking seriously that we had to do that work that our footwork included making the case instead of you know that we had to do that and that was when our matu our and i think it was during the aids crisis and i think it's when we took we we grew up as a movement well and also our own racism which we hadn't taken into account so that we're saying why isn't everybody for us and people of color in our community were saying hello you know you never paid any attention to us at all which if you'll excuse me for this for a segway roland it's since you know clinica has done some wonderful work in the community and although you can talk about obviously anything you want this is an issue that i know um is also of importance to you how have you seen some sort of responses to this well i want to go back to the question of why did they hate us because i think it's a very naive question but it's not a faulty question you know and the best way to probably explain it is you know to realize the great american paradox you know which is relatively domestic democracy but you know a foreign policy that is extremely regressive you know it's basically slash and burn um you know i was born and raised in guatemala you know i feel very much you know part of the social fabric you know this nation and so this situation is you know creating a quandary i think for people who have actually experienced a war in their home countries i think there's a tremendous romanticism you know as to what a war is because we never really had it here in the continental u.s and uh but you know that paradox in terms of uh you know the domestic democracy and the um you know on the you know a foreign policy that is you know extremely you know i would say you know conservative and very insensitive uh you know could explain you know why people say well you know we people we assume that everyone is treated once we you know that our foreign policy is as democratic as our internal policy and i think that that's at the core of that question but also you know in some ways it's not a valid question because many people love the american people um you know when wherever you go i mean i even been to cuba turkey they love americans but they also make a distinction that we don't make and they don't necessarily collapse the government with the people they hate our government they love the people and i think you know just seeing it through those lenses you know probably give a perspective that you know we collapse our government with ourselves well we do and we don't i mean look how the government is thinking about immigrants in this country who are part of the american people or not do you see a concern uh in the in our various communities about uh the anti-terrorism bill all of this notion of uh concern about loss of civil liberties and especially focused you know on people of color and immigrants well we you know for one i mean literally a few weeks before the september 11th uh tragedy uh vicente fox was providing himself throughout the united states and his um i would say his influence in this administration was so effective to the point that people are calling him the president of the usa um because he's a very convincing you know and just a different type of leader that uh latin americans you know have been used to uh that's dead his proposal is dead you know there's no as a matter of fact it's not even at all at a status quo level it's actually you know being is regressive every immigrant now is a suspect and if you don't believe that just go to the you know san diego tijuana border and latinos who look arabs or who look middle eastern and we're very mixed you know we go from the very light to the very dark i mean that's just the genetic pool and so i think that uh you know so and it's a very difficult question because the fact of the matter is that the people who attacked were not u.s born citizens and uh and not to say that we haven't had our homegrown terrorism you know but certainly this particular incident every single person you know was was relative you know was you know had only been here for for a few months so i think that that you can't ignore that so the question is are we going to go on a collective rampage where are we going to make distinctions you know those individuals who are suspects and have a much more refined intelligence rather than this you know brutal stereotyping do you see that gay and lesbian people in our various communities are any more at risk for any reason or are we all suddenly as far as the issues as far as the issue of immigration you know the gay and lesbian community has always been vulnerable uh you know you can't marry someone uh who is uh an illegal undocumented person if you're heterosexual you have that right we don't um you can if you're found to be homosexual you can't immigrate into the u.s so that that vulnerability already exists this accentuates that even more so and in terms of um the ability uh of entities that are uh pretty dependent on fundraising to continue on and we've all had experience certainly with you know 501c3s do you find either some real uh fallback in terms of people who were supporting uh clinica or do you see a sort of a renewed figure or are people just afraid of it i mean do you see that kind of fall out of what we're counting on the liberty hall foundation to save us and there they are hunter but um better forget that you know i i actually kind of go back to one of the issues you know in terms of where do we go from here you know when we had the aids crisis at the beginning of the aids crisis we literally could have gone one way or the other neo-fascistic or very compassionate caring tolerant and so forth i think we pretty much won that war people are still dying but you know but we have near the response that we wanted which i think was an amazing an amazing uh you know a struggle so we had to acknowledge ourselves for what we did and you know all of us you know were involved in that struggle the immigrant undocumented issue was another one where you know basically five years ago uh it was basically people literally feel that they were going to be deported the minute they were identified as you know latino looking and so forth and uh and and i think that various communities including the gala has been communicated rally around the issue of non-discrimination on the issue of of you know more of an umbrella issue of compassion and caring and so forth and i think that we have won that to some extent as well so i think that we maybe i'm being naive uh at least for the short term it depends on how long this crisis goes and i think that you know the temporality of that you know really will make a difference and uh but i think that you know there is even our president whom i have to say did not expect them to be all incumbents and in terms of different religious faiths and so forth you know is talking the conversation that we've been talking you know for a long time you know as far as inclusion and non-discrimination and and uh you know and basically not you know blaming uh people just because of the way they look and so forth so i think that our the um the repercussion that i will have will be economic um there will definitely be an element you know because it's an immigrant organization but i think the hardest part you know will be the economic part and you know and so given that we have we have been you know in in a situation where we could go in very divergent ways uh you know we have something to teach this country you know where instead of terror you know we were with compassion and caring and you know what that had a lot more impact that had a lot more impact you know in terms of uh you know dealing with that crisis then you know than the way you know we might go with this right i mean we used sort of the war on aids image but it wasn't really a war image that got us through well you've picked an interesting time david to move back to washington and i can understand why mr gephardt and mr daschle might want you back there right away i mean wondering what then of course maybe by the time this show is seen you will be there watching it at the other end of the country how do you see the the role that our community might have played or will play in terms of many of the things that we've been talking about that you've been involved in before i ask you in terms of how we may respond in congress generally i think this community has been pivotal in this crisis in a number of fronts one we have been among the heroes and they we have been openly acknowledged as among the heroes for the first time giuliani and pataki have been very articulate that when those firefighters went up the steps of the trade center people didn't stop and say what is your sexual orientation before i allow you to rescue me or as they're being dug out of the ruins of the twin towers no one asked are you gay when the passengers on flight 93 decided to save our u.s capital and the lives of our government no one questioned mark bingaman what his sexual orientation was they wanted his strength his vision his courage and i think that the country saw that and that we were part of that and it has dramatically impacted how people view us in many ways i think the second thing that's really important is that we are in a crisis like we have never been in before we are not dealing with classic geopolitical processes we are dealing with a war that has no boundaries you know it's it's like robert kaplan's book the coming anarchy that talks about boundaries becoming irrelevant that it is becoming tribes of people built around ethnic identity cultures or even ideology bin laden doesn't have a nation but he has as many followers that are contained in many geopolitical boundaries across boundaries and so george bush talks often to us as a nation that we must find a unique and different way to make war we also must find a unique and different way to do two other things to make peace because it is unlike any other piece that we are seeking and we also must find a unique and different way to protect ourselves here in the home front and this is where we are so good because in the 1980s at the height of the aids crisis when no one was there and at times we felt lonely and abandoned we did not give up hope we created institutions we created health care systems we took care of our neighbors we fed them we clothed them we took care of their children their pets we pioneered dramatic changes in health care and promising therapies not just for aids but for all diseases and open up the fda we know how to take in a crisis and create new ways and creative ways of doing things and that in this crisis where we are facing an enemy like none ever before when we are facing dangers that we have not faced since 1812 in our own soil uh we have that gift of coming up with the creativity the unique approaches we can think out of the box because we've had to for our own survival and this country in order to make peace to understand that the whole way we have looked at countries have changed have the ability to think out of the box to come up with that creativity and to not only be the heroes in the buildings and the planes but to be the heroes and finding peace and protecting our neighbors well we've had to think out of the box really because when you're not part of the mainstream it's a little bit easier to say though it still takes courage to say the emperor has no clothes where which no one else but this one i always thought little girl was saying um but that's a particular problem isn't it now in the congress where there is a conflict about no conflict about spending billions and billions of dollars to create an economic incentive to help businesses that may need help to help those who are unemployed to worry about all of the issues for americans but there seems to be a rad radical departure from our difference between the parties in terms of where they think those billions and billions of dollars need to go and the american people get a little information about the airline bailout bill they get a little information about the economic incentive bill which as we tape the show we don't know what the senate is going to do about that bill so obviously any current information may be out of date but just generally in terms of the approach well i think we've seen more legislation passed than we have since perhaps after pearl harbor or the great depression when there was a dramatic crisis in the country and people very anxious to do anything and not to perceive just being disloyal or obstructing our ability as a country we have to slow down we have to pause and see the consequences of all we're doing we have to make sure as we defend democracy we keep democracy uh it would be the greatest tragedy that i could think of as a nation if we surrendered our democratic values and ideas uh in fear bin laden would win he would have the ultimate victory if we surrender our civil liberties uh to it so it's really important that we pause it's also in these times we sign people who are take advantage you know corporations individuals who want to hook a ride on the gravy train and uh and the american people want to give their government i mean we're an extraordinary people in a time of crisis it's been shown repeatedly through our history we were extraordinary people in new york city you know courage that i have not seen compassion people bathing firefighters faces providing food like i a spontaneity of of of heart that i have never seen in this country in my lifetime uh we want to do what's right but i think we have shown some real maturity we have not rounded up everybody of middle eastern descent and put them in camps like we did during world war ii there has been some tragic exceptions to that and but our government has responded to that we also i think the american people are ahead of its government in many ways we are funneling around in our government to understand how do we protect ourselves in the home front for the first time you know because we've never had attacks on our soil since 1812 of this nature where the american people are rallying around uh uh putting together unique solutions to protect their neighborhoods and their families and their friends and demanding that all people be treated equally not only congressmen who are exposed to ant tracks but postal workers who are exposed and and there was a genuine concern that there was some inequality there and that came from the people you know and they got the message and so as long as we keep being vigilant and making sure that everyone's taken care of some of the more complex issues such as airline bailout which no one's read the legislation hardly and other corporations that are they're getting money and what will or will not protect our economy and keep us strong as we go through this difficult period we really won't get the people to focus on it until they feel safe so those of us who who value liberty and those of us who value a strong economic system must participate in the debate of how to make us safer we all know there's going to be more incidences in this country and we also know we're dealing with a very clever force well let me break it down a little bit then if everybody you know let me open it up so that we can continue it's a kind of discussion talking about health care let's start with that because each of us has had a different and varied experience about health care but let's talk about public health talk about people wanting to feel safe and kind of what we can do to do that but you know nobody feels safe everybody's starting to wonder when i open my mailbox you know is it going to be me and of course no one has any reason to believe that it's going to be them except for maybe an elected official but i'd rather not think about that you should think about that well but we've got a public health system now remember when we were talking about aids and they weren't saying that any of the drugs would be approved and they weren't even giving us any help at all we lost an enormous amount of faith in the public health system or the government's ability or willingness to do this do you see a difference now in terms of everybody buying gas masks and cipro and thinking penicillin isn't the answer and the fda is saying it is and you know i saw two things that were interesting i saw a republican president insisted bear lower their price in half when it should have been lowered by two thirds or three quarters on cipro which i never thought i would see and threatening to break the patent but the other thing is is is that as far as health care probably more important than any corporate bailout probably more important uh than any of the economic measures we're seeing and placing a priority on is are we going to get smallpox vaccine you know i mean we have to really genuinely worry about that and there is enough for like seven million doses you know for the whole country and where we need the leadership and where we need the public to speak out and protect and again it's like aids you know we had to demand protection and care and knowledge you know and we have to say what are you doing to create that vaccine and what are corporations doing to do their part to get it to the american people and how soon will it be ready and how will it be distributed you know in an equal and fair way those are issues that we must be discussing now well you know the um health care as as far as the public healthcare infrastructures you know they're very fragile to start with incredible so we're not coming from from a standpoint of strength so i think that that was a tragedy you know long before september 11th and in some ways uh you know one of the criticisms and i think the descent is so important in these times is that we should be investing this is a great opportunity for us to see the vulnerability of those healthcare systems and also a great opportunity for us to invest in those systems uh you know ultimately that's one of the you know many uh you know many strengths that we're going to have keeping people safe and talk about it as a national safety measure exactly as a national you know and one of the things is you know on what is uh what i think is is a win-win situation in this case is you know we're talking about an economic stimulus package well this is one sure way of you know literally killing two birds i'm sorry about the vegetarians but killing tubers one stone where you actually infuse funds into an infrastructure that desperately needs it but also that will create jobs that will create the atmosphere safety so i think that you know we have to uh you know and that's what is so important to have some descent you know as far as how things are going because of what david said we have to look at what are the uh you know the long-term um you know uh repercussions of the decisions that we're making today the future is built today well you know i'm just pissed off about a lot of things in all of this but but the main thing is that that the real conversation needs to be about priorities about really strengthening democracy i mean ultimately ultimately ultimately strengthening democracy will be yes we have to deal with some of the with being able to respond militarily yes we have to deal with building up our intelligence capacities but ultimately it's the infrastructure of democracy and that means equity and that means some different priorities well i can tell you what's in that airline bailout package because i just had congress congresswoman jan sachowski outline what was in that bailout package and it is outrageous and i'm telling you most americans gay or straight don't know that built into that airline bailout package is is uh you know golden parachutes for ceos up to double making three hundred thousand dollars and more up to double what their salaries are so that the head of delta if he chooses to leave or if the airline goes under he will make double he will be able to walk away with double his 35 million dollar annual salary that's what you guys are paying for that is our tax money going to that or star wars boom right in the shadow of 9-1-1 star wars or the missile defense this ridiculous ludicrous thing that never would have saved us from box cutters on those hijacked planes goes through i understand real politics but i do think that if we're talking about uh about rebuilding a robust country that that has that walks that that changes its priorities away from frankly you know money has become god whether it's money in politics or whether it's the rich and idolizing the rich and big superstars wealth and celebrity have been our gods for the last 20 years we've seen the greatest upward transfer of wealth in human history the top one percent in this country which by the way would get most of the money if this republican congressional package goes through and i know it's not going to go through but it will be one end of the debate it is now on the table it will be one end of the debate it it is it is immoral and and so what i'm saying is yeah that the health care system the public health you say the public health care system is very very very fragile the gay and lesbian community was lucky to have to be a middle-class movement that could that had in that had that had middle class and wealthy individuals who basically individually funded and then leveraged private dollars to get uh to get government dollars at state and county and local level and then eventually federal amount but we were lucky we had some money we had some generous people we had a tremendous spirit and we had a vision of taking care of each other that triumphed that was able to leverage now the reality is if you saw the picture in the new york times you know with those 10 000 people who are out of jobs as a result of the immediate impact of 9-1-1 deepening the impact of an already existing recession on new york city and the ripple effects on that we are seeing in los angeles rising homelessness half the workers in the most dynamic organ one of the unions in the most dynamic sort of renewed new labor movement you know the hotel and restaurant workers out of work the living wage movement which had gotten into the ivy covered halls of harvard university and actually the front page of the new york times was talking about an economic justice movement oh my goodness set way way way back you now have worker relief centers the low-wage workforce which if you read barbara aaron reich's brilliant book nickel and dimed where she went out and worked as a low income worker we talked think of the poor as skid row poverty in the united states of america the richest country in the history of the world you have 30 percent of the people living on eight bucks or less an hour that's 16 000 a year who the hell can live in this country on sixteen thousand dollars a year or less and that's the poverty line for a family of four for one it's only eighty eight hundred dollars so when i look at when i quote i'm not quoting fdr because i think we need a new deal and now that even george bush is a keynesian and we'll spend government money on something i think it's time to start talking about what the priorities are of what we need this money to be spent on and when i quote fdr i go to those four freedoms which i'm proud of and i'm proud of this country and i love this country and you know i look i've learned that you can't make change in a country you don't love and i love this country i i want to make the promise of democracy really real again and not just you know rhetoric the four freedoms fdr in the 1940s freedom of speech freedom of religion freedom from fear and that goes to the security issues that david is talking about very eloquently and freedom from want when did freedom from want and kind of equal opportunity you know the the the promise of a middle class for new immigrants or for low-wage workers in this country when did that disappear from the american agenda i would argue 25 years ago or so when this when the right wing took over the political debate and at the same time when this economic uh massive shift the change in corporate taxes the change in minimum wage law is not keeping up uh basically the the the the political and economic discussion of the 60s uh was was destroyed and i understand that some of those programs were not perfect and i understand that that it that that big government can be bureaucratic trust me i've run organizations that had government contracts and i and i hate bureaucracy and i hate i hate the abuses of power that big government programs can do but i've seen how public-private partnerships can work i've seen and you need government in the mix the notion that foundations or non-profit organizations are going to somehow pick up the slack of devolution the notion that the inequities of a new global economy the new economy is based on inequities it is based on a huge gap between rich and poor and i am here to tell you we're going into the 10th anniversary of the la riots this year this spring and i hope we have a real conversation here we're in los angeles i know this is a national show but about what those roots were what the roots of those riots were and the despair and the poverty in the midst of you know this wealthy country and hopelessness and participation and civic despair and i hope that that conversation because the roots of the riots in la in 1992 are not unlike the roots of terrorism and fundamentalism is one part of the equation and thank god jerry falwell got marginalized that's the best thing to happen out of this whole thing but the roots of terrorism internationally have something to do with the inequalities of the global economy well and that makes this this question of what an economic incentive package should look like even more obscene in terms of the house version that passed by two votes three democrats and all the rest republicans nine republicans voted against it and the obscenity of it really is that unlike using the excuse of national defense to do something good like give me a scholarship to go to law school for instance the national loans ndsl 3 i mean that's what i mean my folks had no money i went to law school on a national defense what i had to do with national defense going and studying women's you know rights in law school don't ask but it was about equality but the obscenity of this house version to me was that the 20 largest corporations got such a break not related in any way to economic incentive except in someone's trickle-down theory which to me was always not trickle-down but piss on it's crisis profiteering and it's immoral and people need to speak out about it including gays and lesbians and one last thing and then i'll shut up i'm i worry about the gay and lesbian community i really do because often the newest immigrants uh to the american mainstream are the most can be the most conservative and in california we saw something very interesting within the latino community because there there there had been some movement towards the republican party and towards conservative politics within some of the the latino communities including some of the sort of newest citizens and proposition 187 changed that equation tremendously was an anti-immigrant a really conservative right-wing thing and it changed the political equation uh and and i worry about the gay and lesbian community because some of us you know are going to be have have some some are going to be like holding on to that american flag even more tightly holding on to our newfound statuses kind of mainstream you know middle class good gays and i worry about it and i beg the game that it stifles dissent to some extent from a community that might be more self-stifled because we want to show that we're the best little boys and girls in the world with the newest arrivals into the mainstream uh and and i and i think it's going to be really important that those lessons we learned from aids and those lessons that we've learned from being kind of on the outs that we that we remember those lessons at the same time as we remember our new found kind of i agree i think one of the interesting things is is that on economic stimulus packages our new heroes paramedics firemen and god are they our heroes and isn't it wonderful to have lifesavers and healers as our heroes are the worst paid group in america and they're public servants and they're public servants and and no one is talking about what we are paying them or what are we paying 19 18 21 year old soldiers with three children who are defending this country right now and eventually we'll mourn to a greater degree unfortunately be given their lives i can't help but think if we paid our heroes more our service people more that people find jobs for the people who've been put out of work uh you know you talk about uh corporate airline stimulus packages thousands of airline workers have been laid off and initially were excluded from the legislation all together that's right uh tom delay and the crowd from texas excluded them all together why everybody else was taken care of that's economically stimulus too they get paid they get money we pay our heroes a decent wage we pay our soldiers a decent wage for defending and giving their lives for this country they'll put the money back into the economy just as much as anyone else and so we have to look at it in that sense i also think though that i have a problem with the word descent right now i don't believe i'm descending when i think differently because nothing's set right it's all new what we're doing is contributing to the process to find the best way to come up with solutions in america to deal with an unparalleled crisis it's not even near the point of descending from anything we're creating legislation now we have ideas like anyone else for me to offer my ideas is not a dissent but i am a contributor you know to to to the process of trying to come up with the best way to survive this horrible crisis so create an atmosphere in which if you do anything that says i don't think we should bomb the hell out of somebody or you know well of course this economic stimulus package is the most important thing in the poor airlines that somehow i mean is barbara lee an example of someone being out there all by herself voting about giving the president you know unparalleled authority you know i don't know if i would agree with barbara's bro but i think she's a profiling courage i think she is a terrific person but it was viewed as descent exactly you know whereas maybe in a more thoughtful crowd which would have been maybe the same crowd months later people might have said i mean i serve with barbara in the state assembly it's she's a wonderful woman but she never voted was the only one to vote for something you know i mean many of us were always with her on the things that you know that counted well i i just want to say we have social long history and cleansing wars you know they were queer i mean you could early i mean you know that was basically psychological lynching someone would say that to you we have cleaned that you know so i think that we need to clean the world this end uh-huh i really think that we need to do that because uh it is uh dissent when you were saying what tori is saying and i don't want to have a fight wars you know but but but basically i think that you know democracy was built on this end i mean the tea party was not just a dialogue it was not a conversation you know the uh you know the stonewall uh that's right you know riot was not a conversation it was clearly people literally put their physical beings you know as a dissension to the homophobic you know system that we have um i think that we have um you know two issues in terms of uh you know what kind of economy are we gonna fight for is it gonna be a human capital economy or is it going to be a military economy and and i think that you know that's you know kind of like the level of conversation that we need to start having and the fact of the matter is that you know we should send as many peacemakers as we're sending bombs you know to the middle east you know and i think that we um you know instead of uh you know bombarding them with missiles i think that you know we need to bombard them with health care you know with food we're kind of doing that uh you know with uh you know other type of humanitarian if i trust a package of food that came out of the sky with an american flag on it even most likely in california but one thing is i'm not naive about war i was born and raised in a country that was a war so sometimes you have to say enough is enough and what happened you know here on september 11th you know is not justified i don't care what the roots are it's completely not justified the question is a question of a strategy and the fact of the matter is that we're not going to find this man by throwing missiles you know it has to be a much more refined intelligence kind of a strategy and but also we have to work long term because we let's suppose that we get him we trial him he's going to have a forum to speak his viewpoints let's suppose that we kill him we're going to create thousands and thousands more billions so you know so we have to start thinking strategically you know in terms of and really giving peace you know some acknowledgement for being a strength you know in terms of actually getting to the root of many problems i really do want to explore though further this question of public health as national defense because we we've talked about what maybe we don't want money invested in or how we don't want things to go and people say to me well yeah yeah well then what would you do and of course i don't know if i have any great ideas about what to do either but i do know that around a lot of dinner tables people do talk about it and the reason i brought up this national defense loan notion as we were talking about the fragility of our health care systems just alone this is not only going to be about our community obviously but don't we have an opportunity now maybe it's not the right thing to do but people are afraid for their health they're afraid about whether public health will be able to respond or not if we are attacked with some i won't say biological weaponry from the sky but the kind of thing that everybody's talking about in your you know in your mail in your air conditioning system whatever it is isn't this an opportunity maybe for us to say this indeed is something that we should throw money at and its national defense well i mean i think the problem is that there are people who really don't care if a lot of americans have good public health and so the reality is it's just like aids you know when aids had the gay the middle class gay mostly white men's community it was a really different thing than when it became like the number six thing on the list of things that the african-american woman living in poverty or on the streets of washington dc was facing it was like you know she didn't have any money for rent she her kid was taken away from her she was addicted to crack she wasn't then oh yeah by the way she was hiv positive and the reality is that in the richest country of the history in the history of this world we have in los angeles today 850 000 children and teens living under the poverty line and i remind you the poverty line is 17 000 for a family of four so you could double that if you want to talk about the working poor you have one in four people who's employed who can't make ends meet you have 30 percent of the people in this country living in poverty basically outer you know forget about what the poverty line is can't make ends meet you have lots and lots of social problems so are we going to invest in rebuilding a public health care system not just to distribute penicillin you know i keep wanting to not say cipro because that just gives it because there's a lot of ways things that can deal with facts it's not just that one product are we going to inoculate people against i mean so if this crisis again let's take this crisis and have it build an infrastructure that can also you know raise decrease the infant mortality rates increase the real health of this country and build his role in set kind of the human capital so that democracy can be robust again because the real contradiction is that what this country has become whether you look at the values placed on money as opposed to life and and and you know and and what i mean what is the real meaning of life that was the good thing that came out of of new york and and are you going to actually create a country that works for everybody um or and you know or are you going to continue to and if we could invest in public health that would be a really good start but you're going to have to look at private talk about what we might build i'm sorry go ahead i think that this country has had a myriad of problems for a long time that tory has outlined very articulately but the question is given the political realities of today how can we take this and build something that is long-lasting and positive for this nation you know clearly people are concerned about public health and clearly it is a priority on everyone's list right now you look at the polls they run up over 80 percent of people who are concerned not only whether we get in vaccination but whether our health care system can handle a serious epidemic of any magnitude that might be a result of biological chemical warfare so what we can do and the first thing we have to do is is make sure that people understand we're taking care of their short-term needs and fears because if we don't get past those fears we can let you know talk about all we want about what else needs to be done in the nation they want to know that their child if smallpox comes into this country is going to be safe they want to know that their health care system is going to work it is a perfect time to educate about this healthcare system it's a perfect time to pass legislation to train more nurses train more doctors build up our rural hospitals which have disintegrated where you know there's a hospital every 200 miles in some states right you know to deal with this crisis my daddy used to say before you can take care of your neighbor's barn if it's burning down you have to make sure your house is safe you know and if you don't feel your house is safe you're not going to go over to your neighbors and we have to both make sure our own home is safe in this very unique crisis and take care of our neighbors you know there's only three minutes left in the show i can't believe it and i wanted to ask a question about personal changes and i don't think there's even enough time but i wonder david we know you've changed your entire work and off you go to washington as a response directly as it is have you have you seen or in your own lives i mean you're both engaged in the kind of work that everyone is talking about changing to have you seen changes in terms of people's direction certain things become very trivial and for me certain material things have become very trivial if you can melt the twin towers you know your car doesn't really mean a lot you know the clothes that you wear don't really mean a lot so i think for me it was more of a shake-up in terms of you know what is ultimately important i talk to my mom a lot more than i ever have you know and i think you know that's that's good i would say something similar at the height of the aids epidemic i felt called i felt called on by my dying by the fact my friends were dying to live life more richly and to have more courage and i feel right now i mean i'm in the kind of adamant passionate phase of it but i feel as if i have to tell truth more to more people and not in an obnoxious way but to to speak out more about it i feel to me that that is that the gay and lesbian community has to wake up and be part of a world community part of an american quilt not just an aids quilt but an american quill and has to bring our talents to this discussion i agree with you we have to take our power um but we have to see ourselves identity politics must be part of human rights not just our rights and and part of and part of a conversation about justice and for me that has to be about economic justice and not just civil rights it's a broader conversation and david i guess i didn't mean to say to speak for you did you make this decision i just think you know we all as a people have learned to love more intensely and love our family and love our friends and value we pick up that new york times page each day and see the profiles of america you know high-income low-income white black hispanic asian it's america that that's to quilt it's that new york times page every day and i i'm addicted unfortunately to that page because it tells the story of america suffering right now and and for me i just try to love more and the more violence that occurs i think we all have to band together and love each other more take care of each other and most of all don't panic don't live in fear and do what the british did during world war ii a stiff upper lip and a giant finger to him good advice well i'm glad you were with us for this hour and hope that you will engage in these kinds of discussions around your living rooms around your work lunch rooms around heaven knows the thanksgiving table is going to be really interesting this year and i think we're in the throes of having these kinds of dialogues and i hope america we get used to it [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you