I see [Lyndon] Johnson as the war in Vietnam, and the invasion of the Dominican Republic and so on. So I'm not a liberal in that sense, because i think of liberals as part of that establishment.

What was on the agenda was school and social life and those kinds of things. So I was the middle of five kids. So I had the great advantage of being able to play up to the older kids and play down to the younger kids and I think that's part of what propelled me to become a teacher at some point in my life. But it was a comfortable childhood. It was a privileged childhood.

When you go into a college of education you've got aspirations of making a difference in people's lives, of loving children, of working with kids, but none of that is affirmed in your college of education. Then you go working in schools, especially in places like New York City and Chicago that I'm most familiar with, and you find these huge aspirations are beaten out of you in a very systematic way - and still people persevere.

I find some unity with Ron Paul.

That's where we all kind of were in the mid-1960s. Students for a Democratic Society grew from a small group of socialists at the university of Michigan into a national organization, and in many ways, its growth was driven by the Vietnam War.

I mean the prime case that you can look at is Martin Luther King, who was only an activist for 13 years. But every year, he became deeper, more concerned, connecting more issues.

In terms of my own behavior and activity, the funny thing about regrets and saying "I'm sorry," is that there's so much I would do differently and want to do differently moving forward.