{back from break--Issues At Hand logo, dissolve to Richard}

{screen images behind RICHARD: family sitting in living room, watching Williams on screen.}

The Information Agenda was presented to the American people in a series of ten half-hour addresses, each beginning at 10:00 pm. Williams, who had used "No More Sound Bytes" as a paradoxical slogan, made his intention public only four days before the first address.

{cut to: TAPE #GA96314535-166, FDR speaking, family huddled around the radio.}

Other presidents had used the direct appeal to great effect--Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with his fireside chats, was the first to use a mass media for direct political effect.

{cut to: TAPE #GA96314535-198, Ronald Reagan giving State of the Union address.}

Ronald Reagan was another master. But Williams, with his engaging telepresence, made use of television like no one ever had before.

By appealing directly to the American people over its prime medium, television, Williams proved that those people were willing to make personal sacrifices if the goals were suffiently clear, and proved that complex ideas could be communicated to, and understood by, the average American.

Williams' first eight addresses presented the American people with straightforward explanations of the crises confronting the nation, and followed those explanations with proposals for making changes in the national structure. He concluded with two final addresses consolidating the previous eight.

{cut to: TAPE #GA94634544-342, footage of demonstrations in support of particular proposals--marches with signs calling for "True Cost for True Grit," etc.}

Much of the success of the Information Agenda stemmed from Williams' ability to inspire powerful support by explaining his policies both in detail and in ringing rhetoric. Had he tried to push through the legislation piecemeal, no doubt the objections would have been too strong to overcome. As it was, he managed to get a majority of the American people behind him on a wide range of interconnected legislative changes and public initiatives.

{footnote caption:}

RICHARD:

Williams began with what he termed the Ecological Truth address. Never had anyone of such high office stated the truth so baldly, without equivocation, and without avoiding naming names.

{cut to TAPE #GA9623111-102:119 Williams face-on, with graphics chromakey screen behind him showing occasional graphic images of particulars}

{caption:}

Over the last two hundred years industry has given us prosperity, technological advancement, and a blossoming of quality-of-life for the vast majority of the American people. "Unparalleled prosperity," it is sometimes called.

We have been the envy of the developed world by being the leaders in that development.

{behind Williams the screen is showing images of toxic devastation, of dead lakes, of poisoned land.}

But that very development was often made at the expense of the future. The U.S. Government itself for generations has been despoiling land as a proving grounds for artillary, poisoning its own citizens with spilled radiation, dumping solvents and cleansers and paints, and cheerfully ignoring the basic human rights of the communities around many bases and installations.

Private industry is at least as bad. AT&T, Westinghouse, GE, Proctor & Gamble, EverReady, and thousands of others have released hundreds of thousands of tons of toxins nationwide. Dow, Dupont, Fisher, Booker, and other chemical companies have poisoned fish, fowl, humans, water, air, and land alike. Amax Coal has stripmined huge tracts of fertile soil. Weyerhauser, Georgia Pacific, and other lumber and paper companies have stripmined our forests.

And we let them do it. Often asked them to. And almost always, we paid them to do it. Yes, paid them to do it.

We've allowed our desire for profit to overwhelm our desire for a healthy world. And our economic system has allowed those factories, those industries, those labor-saving devices to penalize our future. Our economic system was simply not designed with the long-term environmental point of view in mind. Our system, more often than not, was carved and shaped by those very people who benefited from the rules--the industrialists, the financial barons, the bankers.

Let's look at the development of our environmental policy over the last fifty years--and let's pay particular attention to what federal policies were involved, who benefitted most from the policies, and how the legislation came about...

{cut back to:}

Williams' "Big Risk," taking the chance that people would be willing to listen to more than just a two-minute summation of any problem, was a risk that paid off. People listened, people talked. The public response, though surprised and somewhat confused, was was nonetheless positive, as was the news media's. Dozens of followup stories appeared in the following day's papers, as well as a White House-supplied transcript of the address, a tradition carried from that day forward.

{cut to quick montage of commentators, TAPE #GA96255166-2}

... refreshingly honest....

Ted Coppel:

... surprising candor from a president ...

Bob Rosen:

... directness bordering on the shocking ...

Freda Parker:

... perhaps overharsh condemnation of the industrial world, but honest to the point of painfulness ...

{cut to IH2-18/I331, images of newspaper headlines, articles, editorials after the first address}

The consensus was that Williams had painted an unvarnished, straightforward account not only of the ecological devastation in many areas in the US and the rest of the world, but also that he had successfully showed how current economic tenets and policies maintained the habits that led to those horrors.

{cut back to RICHARD, face on; behind him the words TRUE COST in large letters over graphics of skull-and-crossbones poison bottles: See IH2-18/I214}

Address Two presented potential solutions to the problems presented in the previous night's address. Primary among the possibilities was what Williams called the True Cost Taxation policy, which later was renamed the Damage Tax legislation. Given what the citizenry had heard and seen the night before from their President, they were primed to accept the premise that unfettered business often made nonethical decisions, and accepted that there might be room for taxes apportioned as a factor of the damage a business or product wrought upon society.

{cut to TAPE #GA9623111-103:102, Williams}

{caption:}

The best qualities of the capitalist system--freedom, freedom to prosper, freedom to know--can be blended with the best elements of democracy--the government of the people, by the people, and for the people. I am proposing an addition to our tax system for the sake of our future: the true-cost tax.

In its simplest form, we are pre-emptively charging industry for the damage a product wreaks upon our world, however we define that damage.

{behind him is Silicone Valley toxic waste graphics}

If computer chip manufacturers, in the normal course of events, produce and dispose of gallons and barrels and tankers full of heavy metals, those metals go somewhere.

And eventually, they will need to be treated, for they are viciously poisonous.

One way or another, we pay for the cleanup. I am proposing that the cost be charged first, rather than last, so that the damage can become a market force in itself. The price can be paid at first, or the price can be paid later in higher income taxes to pay for the EPA to clean up a mess. Somehow, our dollars will pay for it. The corporations say "don't overburden us with regulation and fines, or prices will go up and commerce will suffer."

I say fine. Make that kind of commerce suffer, and a different kind of commerce will rise up to take its place.

If damaging commerce is penalized, then benign commerce is benefited.

The taxes raised from particular classes of damage will be applied to restoration in that same class. Petrochemical taxes will be applied to petrochemical-damage projects--oil slick damage, air pollution, and the rest. Societal economic damage taxes, human-life damage taxes--from such products as cigarettes and alcohol--will be applied to a Superfund for human skill and enrichment projects--as I'll talk about soon.

Will every item, from the McDonald's wrapper to the handmade jewelry at the bazaar, be taxed? Probably not.

Individuals likely will be ignored at first; probably businesses with gross revenues over $100,000 will be the first ones addressed, if not the only ones addressed.

Certainly, it's complicated. But as I said last night, the existing system is killing us, and then charging us for the favor. Surely we can devise techniques for fairly assessing true costs. Surely we are smart enough to save ourselves.

I believe we are smart enough to let the free market help us determine a better life and world. To use the best aspects of capitalism to influence our society in beneficial ways. I believe we are smart enough to find a way to make the least costly products in the largest sense also be the least costly in terms of pocket change.

{cut to later in same address, TAPE #GA9623111-103:167}

{caption:}

We are saying to our foreign trade partners: "Clean up your act, or the True Cost Tax will be assessed on your products." We are saying to our own companies: "Clean up your act, or you'll pay for it." We are saying that it is unacceptable for an industry to take risks with the lives and welfare of the people--without paying for it. We are saying that we will no longer pay--with our tax dollars, with our health, or with our lives--for the unethical decisions of unfettered business.

We are saying to consumers and producers alike, "Pay for your own irresponsibility. If you choose to make a mess, clean it up, or pay to have it cleaned up."

{cut to:}

Address Three was termed the "Economic Truth." The S&L debacle, the insurance fiasco, and the bank bailouts all were recent examples of the malfeasance of big money and big business. His listeners, over the previous two years, had been told that a great deal of their wages were already spent in the Big Bailouts. Most people were angry about it, and President Williams used that anger, and didn't pull any punches. Dollar amounts were named, specifics given of who benefitted most from those bailouts.

{cut to image IH2-18/I731 showing Williams with chart of dollar figures behind him.}

Again, names were named, and the previous administrations of Bush and Reagan received a great deal of condemnation. What Address Three did was spell out the scope of the economic wreckage that the administration was inheriting.

The stock market, which had been mixed after the first speech and fluctuating after the second, became wildly unpredictable the day after the third speech, a Thursday.

Many pundits commented that it was a good thing there were seven more addresses to listen to, to prevent a run on the banks.

Discussions, editorials, and coffeeshop talk buzzed throughout the country. The people were all listening as Williams proposed, in Address Four, a number of initiatives, chief among which was the Direct Grant Initiative

{cut to TAPE #GA9623111-104:167}

{caption:}

If we cannot invest in ourselves, we are no nation at all.

If we cannot repair our own damages, then we are no stewards of our own world. We have seen that we cannot put uncritical faith in our financial institutions, because power and greed corrupt in ever larger increments as the stakes get higher and higher. Why then can we not put faith in ourselves, in the individuals that make up this nation?

Why can we not provide the opportunity for individual effort? Why can we not put our faith in individuals? In small groups of entrepreneurs? In people with vision and desire and the will to get a job done? I say we are a great people, and I want everyone to have a chance to show how great they truly are.

{cut to later in the address, TAPE #GA9623111-104:288}

I am proposing direct grants to individuals, paid out from the Superfunds that the True Cost Taxes raise, as well as from normal, domestic funds.

A few possibilities that seem self-evident:

• Information services--programmer's cooperatives might get funding to write useful specialized information-access software, the sort of complex search-and-retrieval systems that allow creative minds to find information necessary for resolution of a problem.
• Investigation services--grantees might investigate the corporate responsibility of major multinationals, expanding on the example of Ralph Nader's "Public Citizen." Using true-cost taxes to fund the investigation of abuse is absolutely appropriate irony.
• Cleanup services--everything from infrastructural development, such as grant-funding the subcontracting of doing bridge repairs, or grant-funding the training of toxic-waste handlers, to community development, such as grant-funding community gardens, or grant-funding building and installing diesel filters on community buses...
• Community development--education, literacy projects, leadership projects, barnbuilding, playground development, childcare, things like HeadStart.

The electronic grant files can be simultaneously read & judged by three or more "peers" in fields similar to that which the grant pertains to--the granting agency would receive independent judgment from an objective jury of their peers. This means that one could have a profession as a grantfunded Citizen, doing good works that needed doing.

What about those who don't know how to write a grant?

Public-payroll assistants might help less literate folk write their grant proposals--in a manner similar to Public Defenders for the poor.

What I'm proposing is no less than a revolution in the existing social services. But I believe such a revolution is in order. Nearly everyone I spoke with who receives Welfare, or ADC checks, or public funding of any kind, wanted a way out of the cycle. Wanted to find a way to feel good about themselves. This is one way to achieve that goal. Education by doing. Engagement by actively involving the population in improving its world.

{cut to:}

Williams' Direct Grant Initiative received enthusiastic support from nearly all nonprofit groups and educational organizations, and engendered consternation among conservatives as being a handout for the poor.

{cut to:}

{footage from Head to Head, news commentary, TAPE #GA9313140-233:103}

{this interchange fits in well with the theme, though doesn't directly address the Direct Grant Initiative}

{caption}

Commerce just can't be burdened with any extra expenses in a fragile economy like we have now. And the implementation!

Impossible. Applying taxes to individual products based on how much they damage the world? According to whom? This "citizen jury" he's talking about? The "expert jury" he's also floated? Can you imagine the complexity of this fiasco?

The population simply won't support having things like beer, and gas, and cigarettes going up in price, much less computer chips, or potato chips, or buffalo chips.

Craig Wolter
Assistant Editor
New Republic

They may if they know they're getting an income tax reduction as a consequence. And I think they will support it if they understand how it works, why it works, and how it will improve their lives. If Williams can generate enough support, and can also immediately put in place the Direct Grant Initiative, then I think the Damage Tax will fly.

Voters in several states--first California, of course--have supported amendments that allowed, for example, an extra dime or fifteen cent rise in the price of gas provided that money was allocated to environmental repair. That's the key, you see--revenue applications.

James Barrett:

So you believe that the average taxpayer, Joe Sixpack, will put up with everyday items going up in price? That people will be happy to be forced to "buy green" at inflated prices?

Craig Wolter:

In truth I don't expect prices to go up dramatically. There are some places where they should go up dramatically, and petrochemicals is one of them. However, overall, most of it won't be particularly noticeable.

Just one small change will make a drastic difference.

By mandating that Damage Taxes be assessed on products that the government buys--a small but vital aspect of the proposed legislation--you then have a new tax base--trillion dollars of purchases annually. A trillion dollars spent by the federal government, being forced to buy smart.

By making the Damage Tax legislation apply to government purchases, Williams makes the government practice the sort of ethics that it preaches. It will have the same economic pressures to "buy green" that the rest of us do--if that's the way you want to describe it.

I think this would be very good for the economy, James, and will end up being very good for business.

James Barrett:

I think you're hopelessly naive if you think that people will really support raising taxes, when all is said and done, regardless of the amount of support Williams is getting right now. It's that after-election glow, and it's his fireside chat telegenic presence of his. He could sell busts of Lenin in Prague.

Craig Wolter:

It's true that he's speaking directly and engagingly. But I think you're underestimating that support. I think he's doing something that the cynical wags have said was impossible--communicate complex ideas to millions of people.

I think most listeners know that they aren't being talked down to. I think most listeners are listening, not just watching.

The way I read the poll data that's coming across my desk, there's not just awe and amazement. People are talking in bars and coffeeshops and lunchrooms all over the country. There's analysis in all the papers. There's talk of it on TV. And people are thinking about all this. If they were just starry-eyed it would have worn off by now.

James Barrett:

Bah. He's sabotaging what could have been a worthwhile presidency by foaming at the mouth about utterly idealistic impossibilities. We've only heard five speeches. There's still five more, but quite truthfully I can't see how he could possibly redeem himself.

{cut to:}

What Williams did in Address Five was present a proposal that benefited business in a huge way, though it wasn't apparent at first.

Address Five presented Williams' viewpoints on the Information Age, and ended with his reiteration that the federal government had a responsibility to make its information available to the owners of that information--the citizen.

{cut to TAPE #GA9623111-105:211}

{caption:}

... and let me make another point that is both radical and true: Public information is public property. Think about that for a moment, and the implications begin to resonate.

The government has a responsibility to make public information accessible to its owners--the public itself.

Tax dollars fund research that might be useful to you. The government has reports on all sorts of data on all sorts of topics. Everyone would benefit from easy access to that research. Hearings are held routinely where important documents are entered into "the Record." That record should be easilyaccessible to every taxpayer.

If the public had had access to the guarantees the government was making in its name, and had access to the facts and figures of the savings and loan collarpses, I daresay we wouldn't have had the stupidities that compounded the mistakes, and cost us billions of dollars, for we would have had economists all over the country analyzing the data.

If the public is paying for it, the public has a right to know. Why, for example, is it so difficult for us to find out specifics about what the S&Ls that we have purchased did? Why can't the average citizen easily find out the credit rating of financial institutions? Why can't the average citizen get easy access to the information the EPA has collected about the factory spewing toxins two blocks over from her house? It is our information, and we have a right to it.

{cut to:}

At the end of his fourth address, Williams asked viewers to call or write or e-mail their representatives in response to the Agenda he had presented so far. The phone system was overwhelmed for over forty minutes.

{graphic of operators, phone control rooms, etc. Rhoda is working on it.}

The next day, he apologized for initiating such a huge telecommunications snarl, and continued by addressing the nation about the need for a massive investment in communications technologies. Unbidden, another fifteen million messages were received by senators and house members, 82% supportive. E-mail messages numbered almost a million, and were 96% supportive.

To jumpstart the industrial/information economy on the macroscale as well as the microscale, Williams made what was probably the most controversial of his proposals: to fund the manufacture, distribution, subsidization, and long-term sale of a base "information system"--a fast processor, a local floppy drive, 6 megabytes of RAM, a SCSI interface, and a communication box. The graphics would run on the American-defined standard for High Definition TV; if that was unavailable, the base system would include a high resolution monitor.

{cut to:}

Paul Wodder, Economist:

Bob, it's not a gift. It's a sale. What the government is doing is not giving you a machine, it's selling you the machine. But on time, and with credit, merely because you're a citizen. Fifteen dollars a month, whether you're getting the machine or not, for the hardware, software, and everything.

{caption:}

{impatient}

Paul Wodder:

It's not a gift, Bob. And because it'll be awhile. Or because you want more than the base Star system. You want a wide-screen HDTV monitor. Or you want Virtual Reality goggles. Or you want a superfast machine...

Robert Patterson:

{interrupting}

Paul Wodder:

{continuing}

Robert Patterson:

You can't get around the problem of saturating the market for low-end machines, Paul...

Paul Wodder:

More machines will be sold, Bob. Not only those base machines the government buys--which will be an incredible boost to American manufacturing, since we'll be buying American. Not just the Star systems, all technological systems. Low-end systems will still have their niche. The peripherals that attach to the base system--the hard disks, or the superfast modem, or your PowerGlove, these things will sell whether attached to a Government Star or to a top-of-the-line Compaq.

{cut to IH2-18/I16, image of the base Star system, with full-page VGA monitor}

Along with this base system, he proposed establishing the Communications Agency as a department connected to the US Post Office, in whose buildings most of the large "information node" computer systems would reside.

{cut to address 5, TAPE #GA9623111-106:67}

{caption:}

We cannot live in an Information Age without extensive communications capabilities. What I propose we do--to enfranchise everyone, and to provide access for everyone to public information--is to federally fund the creation of the Information Highway system.

Picture a road map of the US--you see the interstates, the state highways, the county roads, the city streets, the gravel roads. All paid for through a mix of federal, state, city, and local funding. All interconnecting, giving continuity to commerce and community.

{behind him, a map of the continental US shows the web; connection lines pulse and glow}

That is what I propose with the Information Web. There will be a common protocol, a common structure for the information to flow through. Common pathways, common interfaces, common graphical standards.

A national information system, connected by the post offices and phone companies of the country--which become information interchange nodes for the distributed data.

Very likely will it will demand a unique design, and I haven't the expertise to spell out the technical approach to information distribution on such a huge scale. Will it be satellites? Will it be wires? Fiber optics? Digital radio? I don't know, but I do know with certainty that we have the ingeniuity and the technical expertise to create a viable system uniquely suited to this task. Building on a national scale ensures that the unit cost will be low, which will then make the local, city, county, and state costs equivalently low--and assistance will be provided for those municipalities and communities who cannot afford to pay.

What will this do? It will transform American society into an Information Society. Is this good? I cannot say that I want to spend all my days looking at a screen. Nor do I think anyone should, who doesn't want to.

{graphics behind him of modems, networked offices, computers, etc.}

But this change, from an industrial society to and information society, is happening anyway. We are entering the Information Age, like it or not. But right now the big boys are controlling it. The big boys already have this sort of information web, though on a smaller scale.

Nonetheless they are profiting directly from it, and we are not. I'm proposing that we take charge of the information age before it takes charge of us. I'm not saying it's wrong for those with wealth to use that wealth--far from it. But what I am saying is that we must insist on including all our citizens in this transformation.

Beyond even the inclusionary power of the system, and the larger sense of national unity it will create, the public savings will be astonishing. Much mail will be unnecessary. Much travel will be unnecessary. Much commuting will be unnecessary. Huge efficiencies can be realized when everyone in society is connected. And huge inequities can be addressed. And the public can become informed on a scale undreamed of in Jefferson's day. What I'm saying is that we are being transformed already, but the majority of the citizens don't have access to the transformation.

I insist on public influence on public affairs. The Communications Agency can allow that sort of public knowledge, public influence, and public communication.

{cut to:}

The Communications Agency, along with the national Information Highway system, led naturally into Address Six's topic--the Information Market.

Williams clarified what tying together all American citizens--along with all public and many private information systems--would do: it would make the US, which was already the biggest single market in the world, even more interesting to the commerce of the rest of the world. By establishing the unified "Information Highway" system, that information base then could become, for all practical purposes, a measurable, saleable database--a commodity on the international markets. As such, it would become a significant form of international trade that would raise federal funds--leading to lower income taxes.

In order for that commodity to be the most valuable, we had to have a well-educated population, and that need led him into Address Seven, what he called the Education Truth.

The need for more equitable, more flexible, and more portable education systems was hard to deny, and the public hardly tried. The Window, as the interface to the "Information Highway" system was being called, could clearly become good tool for filling those educational needs. With technological tie-ins to Integrated Services Digital Network--ISDN--cabling and High Definition TV, it could potentially become a virtual closed-circuit television system. Even without the high tech, it would be an ideal medium for presenting self-paced education in any environment--at home, at work, or at school.

Especially with the Direct Grant initiative in place, there were many avenues of development of educational tools for the Window system.

The end of Address Seven and most of Address Eight made the Windows educational system, and its individual equivalent, the Educonomy, something that could be imagined, and something to work toward.

{cut to Address 7, TAPE #GA9623111-107:11}

{caption:}

Picture this: The education nexus. Educational barter, supported by the community, which is then supported by the state and federal communities. True community access education. Use the Window to look for something that another person is willing to teach you in exchange for edu-credits. Or earn those credits by bringing up messages from those wanting to learn from you and teaching them something.

Edu-credits can be earned by teaching others, either one-to-one or one to many. The utility is obvious, and what's more, everyone has something they can teach. Jane, for example, might be thinking about buying a house. What a lot she'd learn if she could use some of her balance of edu-credits by spending half a day one-to-one with a real estate agent, not as a client but as a student, following her along over the course of an afternoon.

Tolerance of this on a business level would need to be legally supported, in the sense that both Jane's boss and the agent's boss would both have to sigh and shrug--perhaps they would get tax credits along some line or another for the time an employee spends educating others. But I think it will end up being a kind of advertisement for the companies, the individuals, and the available services.

Limits would need to be placed on both ends, of course, and fine points will need working out, but the premise remains powerful. My real estate agent-teacher earns edu-credits that she can give to her son toward state college courses, or to her daughter for glassblowing lessons at the glassblower's, or use it herself to learn how to ride a horse from another woman who has two horses.

{graphic of horsemanship}

In an ideal world, one half day a week would be expected as an education period. Half a day of enforced education hours for everybody. Edu-credits could also be earned by a long telephone call to someone needing instant help, or by in-person time communicating via the Window.

Those that had less "salable" skills could easily barter pleasant time for education--or might teach a preschooler how to do somersaults.

I would expect that a great deal of donated time would be available for those most in need: most people like to be a teacher if given the freedom, and I think that nearly all people have skills that would be of interest to another.

Or, along with food stamps might come double edu-credits so that people could help themselves out of a bad situation by learning particular skills.

Education credits would necessarily be non-value-added--meaning that janitorial expertise would be credited the same as banker's expertise-at least as far as this educational system is concerned. Nobody is going to learn to be a banker in one day, or even in a week. Nor can they learn all the ins and outs of janitorial expertise in that much time. But they can learn what they'll need to learn to be a banker, or a janitor. Or what they'll need to know in order to drywall somewhat seamless walls. Or what publishing entails. Or how to cook a Vietnamese dish. Or what discriminates good meat from mediocre meat. Or how to cartwheel. Or how to play. Or how to read. Or how to draw. Or how to smile.

I believe this sort of egalitarianism of education could work.

Sure, there are headaches: what about those whose calendars are booked up--those with skills lots of people want. Options: the individual also offers edu-consulting for pay--weekend, overtime hours. Most people interested in toilet repair will go to another plumber from the same index, though if the first one is really good, then some people will be willing to pay dollars. To which I say fine.

It becomes good for business; your skills become your business.

What about people who don't care, who sleepwalk through a teaching session? One suggestion: A grade-database is kept by participants, like I proposed earlier, grading the businesses on the Window. Perhaps in order to receive and give edu-credits after a particular edu-session, a brief set of questions must be answered about the previous educational project. A prospective student can thus peruse some of the previous students' responses.

How are the connections made? A yellow-pages sort of index of individuals, I suppose--on each individual is kept the information that the participant gave the system pertaining to skills, interests, talents, traits, and leanings. Were I interested in finding someone to teach teach me about drywalling, I might call up onscreen information on the four nearest drywallers listed by the system, two of whom are amateurs, two of whom are professionals. I would choose according to my own preferences.

{graphic of early Window screen}

Of all the drywallers, for example, the one who identified himself as a science-fiction reader would appeal to me, and would likely teach me better, amateur or not, than the KKK member who likes guns. I would call up the person (first names only) and set up tutoring, or have the system leave a message for the individual. The edu-credits earned by the drywaller could then be used by his son to learn about butterflies from a collector, two months later.

By commodifying education in this way, and personalizing it, we change the perception of self-development.

Information, knowledge, and perspective are placed on a different plateau. Literacy is encouraged. Question-asking is encouraged. Communication is encouraged. Self-satisfaction, from being both a teacher and a student, develops in us all.

We broaden the desire for information. We broaden the possibilities of interpretation. We disseminate information by encouraging communication. We provide a structure for community interaction and involvement. We empower individuals and empride them as well. We encourage cooperation without forcing it. And we become the best-educated nation in the world, further enriching ourselves and further enhancing the value of our national information-base as an international asset.

{cut to:}

Address Nine was what Williams called the Governmental Truth address. As he had presented in his earlier speeches, the previous two administrations in particular, and the congressmen on both sides of the aisle as well, had shown the population such bad faith that a majority of the population did not trust their elected representatives. By allowing the population to be closer watchdogs on its congresspeople and Federal agencies, Williams expected to facilitate behavioral reform.

What the final address did was synthesize all these previous points into his call for the Information Agenda--a unified vision for the future.

Some called him a great salesman. Others called him an idealistic simpleton without "real world" understanding.

Still others called him the most destructive element to enter American business since Eugene Debs.

But after the ten addresses, the last five of which each recieved as large an audience share as the World Series, popular support for the Information Agenda stood at an astonishing 78%.

The legislators heard the message being sent by their constituents. They couldn't help but hear. During the last five addresses, Williams was also addressing the legislature in a tradition-breaking series of pressure-politics lawmaking. During what was called the February Flurry, nearly every elected official voted for some piece of legislation that he or she would later try to pass laws to circumvent. Many now say they were voting as they were being forced to vote, not as they wanted to vote.

{caption:}

{this guy is pretty crusty, down-to-earth}

Every class of people seemed to think they had something to gain out of the Information Agenda.

{cut to TAPE #GA962351167}

{caption:}

{You know Galliman--as wide as he is tall. Unpleasant to look at, but a pleasure to hear.}

{cut to:}

But they didn't raise hell--the voters did. By the last address it was clear that Williams' Big Gamble had paid off.

In the legislative sessions, the question was what to do next. The pressure was on Congress to either adopt Williams' solution, or come up with a better one--and not just a bill or two, but a better comprehensive plan.

The American people had been convinced that comprehensive changes were necessary. Over these ten days in February, President Williams put forth before the American people a comprehensive, interconnected agenda for change--the Information Agenda. By presenting it in such detail, he had told the American people that their opinions mattered, that they had the common sense to recognize the need for change, and that they had the vision to make the necessary changes happen.

{chromakey behind Richard shows main points in bulleted list}

The True Cost Initiative, soon to be called the Damage Tax Initiative, was designed to do three things: First, it would create market forces that would encourage environmentally sound production practices both nationally and internationally. Second, it would raise the national awareness about the actual costs of its choices. Third, it would create Superfunds that could be applied to the repairs and cleanups so desperately needed.

{again, a graphic with bulleted list for next section}

These Superfunds allowed the development of the Direct Grant Initiative, a quick-turnaround small-grant system that would let individuals, community groups, and small businesses apply for grants that would help the general good in a direct way--cleaning up toxic waste, repairing crumbling infrastructure, educating individuals, or becoming watchdogs for the public good. This system of grants would necessitate close record-keeping, which could only be done with the assistance of a national computer system.

{now the glowing map used later--#IH2-18/I944, showing glowing, pulsing highways webbing the nation}

This system, the Information Highway, filled far more national needs than just keeping track of the Direct Grants.

It would also serve to disseminate public information to the public, to decrease energy expenditures nationwide, to facilitate interstate and international commerce, to create a saleable databank for international trade, and to enfranchise and educate all citizens.

{Graphic of the Star--the base Window unit, #GA9312304:106}

Williams' Agenda also provided a plan by which everyone could have the service at a rate that individual could afford, and began the purchase of five million systems for government use and public distribution.

To make the Information Highway succeed, the roads had to be passable, if not well-paved. So Williams proposed founding the Programmer's Consortium, an army of small groups of programmers all creating objects for incorporation into the Window "overface," as it was sometimes called.

Through the Window, all public records were available. And through the Window, via the Highway, new forms of communication and commerce could blossom.

Finally, the Window's educonomy would assist volunteerism in educating everyone about whatever he or she wanted to know. A structured system--a Yellow Pages of individuals--was to be created that would encourage communication across cultural lines, and would help every involved citizen develop his or her own own interests.

{cut to Address 10, TAPE #GA9623321-110:123}

{caption:}

I have heard the criticism. I know that I am proposing an uncharted course. And I know that any individual proposal might be criticized as being too radical. But we have seen in the last five years the entire civilized world undergoing a revolution of freedom. And what I propose is a revolution of empowerment.

The already powerful may object to these proposals, because it may threaten their power. The already rich may object because it may threaten their wealth. Those who poison the land, who befoul the water, who despoil the air may object because it may threaten their interests. And those who think that everything is hunky dory may object because what I'm saying makes them face an ugly truth.

But I can find no objection to giving a voice to those who are voiceless, when we know voicelessness often turns to rage. And I can find no objection to making those who damage our world pay for that damage, just as I can find no objection to funding to those who can help repair the damage. I can find no objection to giving education to those who want it, and information to those who deserve it, when we know that information begets knowledge, and that knowledge begets understanding, power, wealth, and truth.

The future I propose is one more intricate than I can imagine, where there are more voices, and more ears, than ever before.

I am asked, "Aren't you asking for chaos?" And I answer, "No, I'm asking for a choir."

What makes a choir? Not just many voices shouting--for that is just cacaphony, a raucous noise without meaning.

What makes music is the structure of the sounds, and the recognizable diversity within the structure--the notes, the rhythms, the rests, the counterpoints, the interactions of voice upon voice.

If we are to call ourselves a nation, and make a choir out of chaos, then first, everyone must have a voice that can be heard. And every voice must know that their voice is valuable, so the voice will sing.

We can find a way for the disenfranchised to feel part of the larger community. We can find a way to have our nation becomes as rich as its diversity, where our uniquely mixed society becomes our unique strength in the world economy. We can find a way to meld our voices into music, until we have a choir the likes of which the world has never heard, a glorious choir whose singing makes every voice more full and more rich.

We can find a way, and we will find a way. If not now, then tomorrow, or another tomorrow down the road. But I believe our moment is now. And I believe we will do it.

Thank you.

{fade to ISSUES AT HAND logo; dissolve to AD BREAK}

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