The phenomenon of the Internet is one lesson that America’s youth teaches well, Mike Gravel says.

Question: What can you learn today from America's youth?

Mike Gravel: The phenomenon of the Internet. The phenomenon . . . If I told you that one of my IT persons was a 17 year old kid working independent – he’s out a distance – and whenever I got a problem with my computer I pick up the telephone and I call him. “I can’t do this,” and he walks me through it. And I’ve got a lot of problems because I’ve got a PC that I’ve been using for a long time, and I just moved to the Apple which I find out is a better instrument. And so I’m stuck in between the two. So what can the young people . . . We’ve gotta be mature about this. Young people can be sort of sophomoric. You know they’ve got all the answers. No well what we have to realize is that it’s their world. And whenever I speak to the young people, hey I’m long gone. It’s your world. It’s presently getting screwed up. If you don’t do something about it, you’re gonna live with it. You know maybe 10, 15 years I’m gone. It’s your world. Pay attention. Reason. Reason it out. Don’t just take the given information by American media that this is really what’s going on in the world. American media can be very good, but it can be very lousy, and very biased, and sold out. If our political system is sold out by the pound, American media is sold out in the same way. And that’s the difficulty we have. And that’s . . . and the only solution that I know to that problem is to empower the American people; to bring them into the picture with real power. And the only real power that counts is making laws. And I don’t buy this language that people gotta take back America. People have never had America. We got pushed out of the picture from the get-go in the hot summer in 1787 in Pennsylvania.

Recorded on: 10/23/07