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Audio Quotes From ForeSight20/20

These are compressed .wav files linked to the names of the people speaking, below. The audio quote is printed, so you may wish to just read the quote, or listen by clicking on the speaker's name. The emphasis was added by me.

Arlen Erdahl (Congressman, Retired; Former Secretary of State; International Affairs Consultant)

Arlen Erdahl - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"Now we're seeing multi-national companies with tremendous economic power, and with that economic power goes political power."

Arlen Erdahl - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"For some people, in our society, in the richest country in the world, we have people who have to choose between eating (so to speak) or buying prescriptions. And that is something that this rich nation should not tolerate."

Arlen Erdahl - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"At the present time I think we have a unilateral foriegn policy in a multilateral world. And the United States must play a bigger role in the world in participating in the various treaties, and things like that, we've kinda backed up, looking inward, and I think that is not realistic."

Peter Erlinder (Professor of Law, William Mitchell College of Law, St. Paul; Past President, National Lawyers Guild)

Peter Erlinder - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"While it's true that in history there have been times, during the civil war for example, where Abraham Lincoln exercised some extraordinary poweres - the powers that are being claimed at this point are far beyond any of those claimed by a previous president. The problem that presents is that it reduces the ability of the American people to exercisse democratic control over the government actions that may effect them."

Peter Erlinder - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"The case can always be made that if the government has more power it can make us safer - that's the argument at least. I'm not certain the case has been made here yet. And even if it is made at some point in the future, the grants of additional power need to be very carefully considered before they go into effect because once they go into effect taking them back, whether the government is democrat or republican, is a very difficult undertaking."

Michael Krause (Executive Director, Green Institute, Minneapolis)

Michael Krause - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"We are at risk in this century of hitting the caring capacity of the natural systems to support life on the planet as we know it. And so we've gotta start turning that around, there's a lot less time left to do that than we think. and every 4-year increment - every 4-year election cycle - is a critical amount of time."

Michael Krause - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"Minnesota, I think, is incredibly vulnerable to a lot of the potential climate change issues, it's mostly because we have a coming together of different kinds of ecosystems here. You know, we have the woods with the prairie. It wouldn't take a great deal of climate change to see those boundary areas, those fairly dynamic boundary areas between those diffent kinds of ecosystems shift dramatically, perhaps moving hundreds of miles."

George Latimer (Professor of Urban Studies, Macalester College; Former Mayor, St. Paul)

George Latimer - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"We have to be vigilant, not only against abuse of power by government, but also abuse of power by corporations."

George Latimer - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"A lot of intelligent, thoughtful people have said 'money alone won't do it.' I accept that. It's not sufficient, but it is essential."

Lisa Ledwidge (Biologist; Organizer and Advocate for Environmental Organizations)

Lisa Ledwidge - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"The general scientific consensus out there is that global warming is happening and there may or may not be catastrophic consequences down the line from the production and consumption of fossil fuels which is fueling this global warming."

Yusef Mgeni (St. Paul Public Schools; Former Executive Director, Urban Coalition)

Yusef Mgeni - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"The multinational corporations learned decades ago that they could increase profits, decrease wages and throw environmental and safety concerns out the window if they exploited natural resources in third world countries and then exported those resources to other third world countries where they were manufactured and produced into products that were then disseminated globally."

Yusef Mgeni - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"What doesn't get talked about is that the federal government has recalculated the method by which those funds are expended and ten states this coming school year will lose 10% of their title 1 funding - including Minnesota. And if you use the government's own definitions - first of all, the huge funding increases that they talked about only represented an increase of 1% in the total amount spent on public education by all sources."

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer (Faculty, Justice and Peace Studies, St Thomas University; Author, Lecturer)

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"The role of government in the corporate mind isn't to provide education, healthcare and other services, it's to establish rules that allow corporations to penetrate these new economies. So that's what I see corporations doing and that's what they will continue to do. Now here's the problem. The problem is that in them doing so, we undermine a tremendous amount of our economic wellbeing at home."

Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"..for example, if we have the same "miles per gallon" efficiency as present cars do in Europe, the United States imports - or would have to import - no oil from the middle east. If we produce our goods and services with the same energy efficiency as Japan and Western Europe, we need to import no outside energy from anywhere. If we just rely on the harnessable wind power of 3 states - there are many other states we could do, but let's just take 3, Kansas, North Dakota and Texas. Harnessable wind power of those 3 states - we meet 100% of U.S. electrical usage today."

Colleen Rowley (FBI Agent; Speaker and Author, Numerous publications including "Civil Liberties and Effective Investigation" in Patriotism, Democracy and Common Sense)

Colleen Rowley - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"Many of the provisions by the letter of the law of the patriot act are not really dangerous. There are other things that have occurred - not the patriot act - for instance the detentions. The post 9/11 detentions and even some continuing detentions that have nothing to do with the patriot act - this is by pre-existing law - and law as it has been evolving and being interpreted by courts."

Judy Schaubach ( President, Education Minnesota)

Judy Schaubach - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"I'm worried about Minnesota and where it's going because we've always been looked to as the leader in education, and as the leader in many of these social kinds of concerns and yet we seem to be not doing what a lot of other states are doing and that's investing in our people. Investing in our children."

Judy Schaubach - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"Schools are struggling to try to meet new standards, to attract people to the profession, to meet the challenging needs of the student population - with less resources and more expectations placed on them."

Joe Schwartzberg (Professor Emeritus of Geography, University of Minnesota; President, Minnesota Chapter, Citizens for Global Solutions)

Joe Schwartzberg - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"What troubles me in particular is that we make very little effort, as voters and as candidates, to see how others look at America and see how others view the world and the world system of which they;re a part."

Kip Sullivan (Health Policy Writer, Consultant; Steering Committee Member, Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition)

Kip Sullivan - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"There's the large issue of what to do about the 44 million non-elderly Americans who don't have any health insurance. There's the question about what to do about overall healthcare inflation. How do we keep costs down. And then there's the more targeted, and somewhat hotter question: what do we do to reduce costs for medicare, preferrably by the next decade when the baby boomers retire - and then within that debate, there's a very hot, very current debate, about how to extend drug coverage to seniors."

Kip Sullivan - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"Presidential election really aught always to be about important unfinished unsolved issues. And the healthcare crisis in this country right now is definitely in that category."

Kip Sullivan - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"For years, both parties have avoided addressing the huge cost drivers - and don't for a minute think that malpractice costs are a huge cost driver. Malpractice system is a mess, it needs reform, but all malpractice costs put together, plus defensive medicine - which is something doctors do because they fear a law suit - you put those two costs together ..(liability and defensive med)..it comes to a total of 2-3% of 1.6 trillion dollars we're spending on healthcare in this country."

Kip Sullivan - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"We have gridlock in part because the insurance industry, the drug industry and to some degree the hospital industry are so good at - and so powerful and influential with congress. The only way that's gonna change is for citizens to get on their hind legs and to participate in this democracy in all the ways that are available to us."

Larry Weiss (Executive Director, Citizens Trade Campaign)

Larry Weiss - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"We not only have the actual loss of jobs but you have documented downward pressure on wages because employers can go to workers and say, you know, 'You're not gonna get a raise this time around and don't expect it in your contract because if you push too hard, we will close the plant and move it to Mexico.....' move it to China, move it to wherever."

Larry Weiss - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"Now we've gone into a new phase where this type of corporate globalization is beginning to take away white collar jobs - IT jobs, call center jobs, data processing jobs, etcetera, and use the same logic."

Ginny Yingling (Hydro Geologist; Chair, Sierra Club Political Committee)

Ginny Yingling - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"We've seen at the federal level, good laws and good regulations being undermined in very insidious ways. We see people being - we see commissions being appointed that are slanted toward industries that have a vested interest in the outcome of those commissions."

Ginny Yingling - listen (Windows Media) (Real Audio)
"We have about five to ten years to really make significant changes in our carbon dioxide emissions and our green house gas emissions if we're really going to turn around climate change."

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2004 Hip Hop Festival - U of MN Campus

Burt Berlowe took some pictures (below) at the Twin Cities HipHop Festival in August. Some of the "people on the street" interviews in ForeSight20/20 were done at the event. Here is an excerpt from the Star Tribune article that ran the next day - (the full article has been moved to their pay archives):

Missy Elliott, Wyclef Jean, Mary J. Blige and others have cut an all-star single to influence voters. Def Jam founder Russell Simmons has started a national organization for it. Sean (P. Diddy) Combs even delivered a David Letterman Top 10 list on it.

Among Diddy's ideas for turning hip-hop fans into a large, influential voting bloc: "No. 10: Put velvet ropes and bouncers outside voting booths."

Rappers and R&B stars are more serious than ever about politics this year. Simmons' Hip-Hop Summit Action Network and Combs' Citizen Change each has registered tens of thousands of voters already. The national movement took a local spin Saturday during the Twin Cities Celebration of Hip-Hop on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.

Here are some of the photos taken by Burt.