Transcript: Agriculture is, frankly, one of the reasons why many of the developing nations of the world continue to kind of depend on handouts, because they do not have an agriculture infrastructure that allows them to be self sufficient in food production. And in the area of global trade, we really do not have very much free trade in agriculture, because it’s an interesting phenomenon. No matter how rich your country is, most farmers will want to protect what they have inside. This is true of America. It’s true of the UK. It’s true of Europe. It’s true of China. It’s true everywhere else. So agriculture is probably the reason why we cannot move very aggressively on a new global trade ground. The agricultural interests are pretty down on that.

Well I think in the area of agriculture, you know, what we as a nation have to do is to recognize vast areas of the world have subsistence agriculture, and our policies tend to hurt that because of the way we subsidize our products. I don’t want to make an overall statement because some are more in that area than others, and not every one of our programs is bad. But agriculture is unique. The politics of agriculture is unlike any in the rest of the world. You can be talking to the most liberal, progressive, politician in America, or Japan, or in Europe on anything else and you mention dairy, or cotton, or sugar, and it’s like they turn from Doctor Jekyll to Mr. Hyde. It’s just the way of the world and it’s probably always been that way. And part of it is the natural predilection to protect your farmers and your food supply.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: You know I spent a lot of time in politics. I was an 18-year member of Congress. And I was in the Clinton Administration for a while. And then I ran a program at Harvard at the Institute of Politics at the Kennedy School. My biggest concern is the lack of vitality in the American political system. Both the level of civil engagement on the part of the citizens is low, and the way our politicians deal with the citizens is also very low. And the rule of money in this process as being the dominant factor as opposed to issues. I’m reminded there was an architect named Daniel Burnham who was very famous in Chicago. If you ever read the book “The Devil in the White City”. And he built the Tribune Building and the Wrigley Building, and did a lot of the train stations around the country. But he once said, “Make no little plans, for they do not have the power to stir men’s souls.” And it strikes me today that our politics is the politics of little plans. No big plans, because the political system doesn’t encourage anybody to go down the road of making big plans. They’ll get their heads chopped off. They also will be too frenetically engaged in the money chase as well. And I’m not demeaning people in the world of politics. There are a lot of good people there, and this is not a patrician issue. But the truth of the matter is our system is only as good as . . . Our system’s fragile. There’s nothing to say the American political system will last forever. We just . . . We don’t give it the attention, and it doesn’t have the excellence that it once did. I think that’s the biggest problem facing America.

Question: Can anyone fix it?

Transcript: Well you know, I don’t want to talk in the current political system of who’s running for president or individual political leaders. I think it’s just that politics tends not to be the business that talented, innovative people go into. Money tends to be the thing that draws people once they get out of school as opposed to public service. And the one thing . . . And there’s nothing wrong with making money. I’m glad I make a nice salary right now, and I was in public service for a long time; but I do think we have not given enough attention to how and why we can get more people – talented, competent, young, people – to look in the political or the public service world rather than being automatically drawn to the world of money.

I think we need politicians who are not afraid to speak out and risk a little bit of personal security in their positions. I think that would help a bit. I think that this is much more being done at the state level, by the way, and the local level than at the national level. There are actually some very positive trends at local and state levels. Many leading governors of both political parties are vital in trying to develop a dialogue in their own states. And there are a lot of laboratory experiments on medicine, and health care, and education in the states that are not existing at the federal level. But we can’t ignore the federal levels because that’s America’s link to the rest of the world. We can’t have 50 state foreign policies. So we’ve gotta figure out a way to get our national governments to be more resilient than it is right now.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: Actually I think the more stuff that’s there can be a positive factor, can be an enhancer of the industry; but hopefully quality will prevail. There’s a lot of stuff produced on user-generated content, but most of it I don’t think anybody would buy. But what that does do is get people interested in entertainment and production. And so it may get more people to enjoy film, or television, or other forms of paid entertainment.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: Well you know, I mean the film industry as a whole has had this remarkable impact on American culture and psyche. It’s spawned an almost . . . everything that we think about America. So that . . . Just look technologically, that has been profound from advances in all the technologies until today. We have video on demand and all the ability for average people to watch our product. This is the one thing . . . this is the great democratizing industry. You don’t have to be rich to enjoy what we do. You go into a theatre and you’re gonna pay $9 or $10. You’re gonna sit there with 300 or 400 people; diverse backgrounds; people you wouldn’t otherwise be friends with necessarily. But for that two hour period of time you’re collectively watching one thing. And I think that’s something you don’t find in virtually any other business. Maybe sports a little bit, but not in the same concentrated fashion that you do in this business.

Recorded on: 7/6/2007 at The Aspen Ideas Festival

Transcript: Well I think Clint Eastwood is probably the most interesting and historically successful film person, both acting and producing. You know he’s gone through “Mystic River”, the “Million Dollar Baby”. There’s this whole series of these modern movies, and he seems to really . . . Everything he touches tends to be really high quality stuff. And obviously Steven Spielberg has been, overall, one of the greatest producers/directors of all time.

Recorded on: 7/6/2007 at The Aspen Ideas Festival

Transcript: You know, the movies like “Gandhi” inspired me and “Chariots of Fire”. “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart was a great inspirational movie about politics. It had a tremendous impact on it. But movies like “The Godfather” series inspired me. I think “The Godfather” I and II are two of the greatest movies probably that have ever been produced in terms of total thing.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: America is known throughout the world largely by its film and television stars, and sports heroes. I mean you’d like to think that the politicians have that kind of impact, but the truth of the matter is that this is an industry that America has become identified with over a period of many, many, years. One of the reasons why, to be honest with you, is there aren’t very many other places that produce very many movies or television shows. I mean they produce some in other countries, but our industry is still the dominant force in terms of amount of product that’s out there. So people see often what we’re like by reason of the movies. And I recall that whenever Arnold Schwarzenegger used to travel around the world – this was before he became governor of California – he would be swarmed by people throughout the world wherever he’d go largely because of this factor. And so good and bad, America is known often by its entertainment product. And I think it’s more good than bad to be honest with you. And one evidence of that is in the last few years when we’ve been fighting this war in Iraq, and when there’s a lot of negative feelings about American foreign policy in the world, sales of American movies overseas have not been appreciably hurt by any of that. That is this overseas sales of American film track, the domestic sales of American films notwithstanding that a lot of people may not like our foreign policy. So that’s a very good sign that not only do people like our movies, but they still like us, America as a country.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: In China there are basically two major issues. The first issue is there is not a lot of intellectual property enforcement on the streets or in the web rooms. And so there’s . . . you can find pirated material all over China. And there’s not been a very effective way of enforcing that. We’re working on that, but it’s very, very, slow. The second problem is market access. The Chinese severely restrict the amount of foreign product – including American product, film product – that comes into China legally. Not only is that bad in and of itself, but it then encourages more pirated material to be on the street. Because you can find almost anything that has ever been produced in the human race in China that’s on the streets illegally.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: I think that as citizens, we probably need to ask, “What sacrifices are we willing to make in order to make the country a better place?” We have a lifestyle that many generations to come will be able to have as good or better life than we do right now. And I think some Americans are asking that question, but not as much as we should. And I think the other question is, “What role do we want to be in the world of the future?” The world is changing, and I’d like to say that America is gonna dominate the world in the next 100 years; but I don’t think so. I think that we’ll have many competitors; but we still have a special obligation to be a unique force in the rest of the world. And I think we have to ask ourselves a question: “What do we want to do to achieve that kind of leadership status?” That’s where I want to go back to the American entertainment industry. There are really very few places where America can put its stamp on the world. So we do have a kind of special obligation there.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Question: Collectively, what should we be doing?

Transcript: Well I think that we as a country . . . we should be a) reforming our political system to minimize the role of political contributions into the system, because I think it paralyzes the American political system, and makes it so our system doesn’t deal with some of the bigger problems quite as easily as we should do. I think we should look at our educational system and . . . It’s not just a resource question, but it is a serious public policy issue about how we can make dramatic improvements in our public school systems in America. Because that relates as much to the future of our businesses than anything else – having talented people.

Question: What are we doing right?

Transcript: I think that there is a much greater tolerance in this country than there has ever been before – tolerance in terms of racial tolerance, and other tolerance of religious and sexual preference, and racial disparities. I mean I don’t think we’ve reached perfection in the country. But by and large our population base has made a dramatic move toward a much more tolerant society than we used to have.

Question: How can we encourage dialogue on these issues?

Transcript: I think we need politicians who are not afraid to speak out and risk a little bit of personal security in their positions. I think that would help a bit. I think that this is much more being done at the state level, by the way, and the local level than at the national level. There are actually some very positive trends at local and state levels. Many leading governors of both political parties are vital in trying to develop a dialogue in their own states. And there are a lot of laboratory experiments on medicine, and health care, and education in the states that are not existing at the federal level. But we can’t ignore the federal levels because that’s America’s link to the rest of the world. We can’t have 50 state foreign policies. So we’ve gotta figure out a way to get our national governments to be more resilient than it is right now.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript:  Well I don’t think you can be pessimistic, but I think that there are some pessimistic trends that I don’t like.  And one of them is the lack of resiliency in our political system.  That does worry me a lot.  And if we continue down that road we will not have the best and brightest going into politics, and that’s harmful for America.  On the other hand I think we’re gonna have a more educated world than we did before.  I think the Internet offers great possibilities for democratizing education.  We get more people learning more things.  So you have to be optimistic.  I mean I think we have some serious challenges from the global environment to wage and income equality which exist, to disease – various diseases – and energy, and other kinds of things.  I’m not sure there’s anything that can’t be dealt with if our political systems are resilient enough to deal with them.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: Well you know, I mean the film industry as a whole has had this remarkable impact on American culture and psyche. It’s spawned an almost . . . everything that we think about America. So that . . . Just look technologically, that has been profound from advances in all the technologies until today. We have video on demand and all the ability for average people to watch our product. This is the one thing . . . this is the great democratizing industry. You don’t have to be rich to enjoy what we do. You go into a theatre and you’re gonna pay $9 or $10. You’re gonna sit there with 300 or 400 people; diverse backgrounds; people you wouldn’t otherwise be friends with necessarily. But for that two hour period of time you’re collectively watching one thing. And I think that’s something you don’t find in virtually any other business. Maybe sports a little bit, but not in the same concentrated fashion that you do in this business.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: My personal philosophy pretty much emanated from my political work, which is treat everybody as if they’re important. Do not be arrogant, if I can avoid being that way, in terms of differentiating between people based upon their class and their status. I find that to be a useful tool. Not only is it the right thing to do. It’s also good business because you never know who’s going to end up being the head of a studio or the head of a company. In this particular business you’re up today and down tomorrow. So you never really know where people are in the scheme of things. But I’d say that my basic philosophy is be a friend to everybody and try to exhibit decent, interpersonal skills. And then the other thing I try to do is to use my imagination wherever I can. I’ve always found the difference between mediocrity and excellence to be imagination. There are a lot of smart people in this world, but some of them can’t do anything because they don’t envision what could be. They just take what it is.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: Good movies. I like movies. I mean some people might take the job because it pays a fair salary, and that helps. But the main thing is I’ve always liked movies. And even before I had this job, my wife and I would see probably about 100 movies a year. And I also have a son who is a film producer in Los Angeles. He’s with a company called Spy Glass Entertainment, and he actually was in the business before I was.

Question: Which films inspire you?

Transcript:You know, the movies like “Gandhi” inspired me and “Chariots of Fire”. “Mr. Smith goes to Washington” with Jimmy Stewart was a great inspirational movie about politics. It had a tremendous impact on it. But movies like “The Godfather” series inspired me. I think “The Godfather” I and II are two of the greatest movies probably that have ever been produced in terms of total thing. I mean there are big movies and small movies. I saw a movie that was actually made in Germany called “The Lives of Others” that won the Best Foreign Picture. Outstanding movie. So I don’t have any one set of movies that are my favorite more than others. But there’s a great diversity movies out there and I like most of them.

Transcript: Well I think Clint Eastwood is probably the most interesting and historically successful film person, both acting and producing. You know he’s gone through “Mystic River”, the “Million Dollar Baby”. There’s this whole series of these modern movies, and he seems to really . . . Everything he touches tends to be really high quality stuff. And obviously Steven Spielberg has been, overall, one of the greatest producers/directors of all time. But in terms of the acting side, no. I don’t really have one particular actor or actress that I’m that fond of one way or the other.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Question:   What impact does your work have on the world?

Transcript:  Well it has a lot of impact on the world.  And the first place . . .  America is known throughout the world largely by its film and television stars, and sports heroes.  I mean you’d like to think that the politicians have that kind of impact, but the truth of the matter is that this is an industry that America has become identified with over a period of many, many, years.  One of the reasons why, to be honest with you, is there aren’t very many other places that produce very many movies or television shows.  I mean they produce some in other countries, but our industry is still the dominant force in terms of amount of product that’s out there.  So people see often what we’re like by reason of the movies.  And I recall that whenever Arnold Schwarzenegger used to travel around the world – this was before he became governor of California – he would be swarmed by people throughout the world wherever he’d go largely because of this factor.  And so good and bad, America is known often by its entertainment product.  And I think it’s more good than bad to be honest with you.  And one evidence of that is in the last few years when we’ve been fighting this war in Iraq, and when there’s a lot of negative feelings about American foreign policy in the world, sales of American movies overseas have not been appreciably hurt by any of that.  That is this overseas sales of American film track, the domestic sales of American films notwithstanding that a lot of people may not like our foreign policy.  So that’s a very good sign that not only do people like our movies, but they still like us, America as a country.

Question:   Should the entertainment industry be held responsible for the content it produces?

Transcript:  The entertainment community I think does have some obligation because our work product goes out around the world and does reflect on American values.  I think that’s one of the reasons why there’s such an enormous diversity of content.  You know you’ll see big blockbusters.  You know, like Transformers, or Harry Potter. or Pirates of the Caribbean that are really liked almost everywhere.  You will see edgier movies that might stretch the limit on sex or violence.  You will see a far amount of ultra violent movies, and I think there are some parental concerns about some of these shows.  You’ll see very serious low budget movies as well.  So I do think that when you look at the whole category of movies that are out there, I think the product is diversified and frankly highly competent professionally.

Question: What is your proudest achievement?

Transcript:  Surviving probably, but beyond that . . .  No.  I think that it is doing my best to promote the economic position of the American film industry both at home and around the world, because everything that you do – whether it’s tax laws, or piracy, or the other legislative items, or even using modern technology – is all based upon a strong industry.  And so my role is as much as to be an ambassador for that as anything else.

Recorded on: 7/6/07

Transcript: My name is Dan Glickman. I am Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America.

Question: Where are you from and how has that shaped you?

Transcript: I was born in Wichita, Kansas and I lived there through high school. It has had a remarkably big impact. I mean I was always, you know . . . I came from not such a small town, but I came from a Midwestern state; a farm state; rural. I think it had a lot of impact in terms of Midwestern values, how I deal with people. I still consider myself a Kansan even though I haven’t lived there for a very, very, long time.

Question: What did you think you wanted to be doing professionally when you were growing up?

Transcript: I think growing up I always knew I wanted to be in politics. You know I’m not sure why. I think when I ran for president of the sixth grade, when I was election commissioner in high school, and I went to college and became president of the senior class of the Liberal Arts College at the University of Michigan, and I worked for the United States Senator when I went to Law School. I went to Law School in Washington to be there. I came back to Kansas where my family was in business, I think largely after law school, because Kansas offered me an opportunity to run for office. So I think I was probably always rather preoccupied with a political future.

Recorded on: 7/6/07