Sort of the frenzied pace, but it was beautiful. I learned so much in i was nurtd by all of the generations of people who came before me and helped me understand the world. Youve written a biography of the song. May we forever stand is the name of the book. James johnson and john rosa monde they are the author and composer. They were brothers born in jacksonville florida. Renaissance men and of course back in the day they were called race man. People who thought every achievement they had as being in the service of the race. He became the first secretary general of the naacp. Really extraordinary. One of the signature accomplishments was the accomplishment of the song. They were firstgeneration freemen. Born in the 1870s . Yes, they were of that generation that emerged from slavery with these hopes and dreams and aspirations that were so quickly dashed with the end of reconstruction. What was extraordinary is that the song caught on like wildfire. It was the most immediately embraced as an anthem of black america. The United States did not have a National Anthem at this moment. Even this really on, people were referring to it as an anthem. They left florida and moved to new york to work as songwriters in part because there had been a terrible fire. So they actually werent there as the song caught on. Schoolchildren passed it on, black club women. It began to be printed in the back of hymnals. So it was sort of an anthem of the communitys making. They did not describe it as an anthem. But black communities said this is our anthem. If we had continued playing that video, we would have seen then president clinton. Who knows all three verses. I think he may be the only president to know all three verses. From your book, may we forever stand, hiphop ordered its farewell to the black National Anthem. One of the things and i talked about this in my first book is that there is something that happens in the 70s and 80s which is a transformation both of some norms and black social and political life to deal with civic engagement. And also through industrialization. I quote reverend Joseph Lowery where he says black people were once the moral conscience of the nation. Hiphop is a refusal of that position. Particular a reveling in the outlaw. 28which is commonplace in american culture. 29but its a different kind of public presents for so that departure was significant. It keeps coming back. There were various moments where it seems like it would be the route completely. Even though the kind of institutions and communities in which it was sung on a weekly or daily basis dont exist in the same way can you draw a direct line from blanks to hues to Biggie Smalls . Absolutely. In so many ways, both of them took the beauty of vernacular language and they crafted it to tell stories that were pointed, that often had a political content. And resonated deeply. Hey are different kinds of political subjects. Resonated deeply or were pleasurable to engage with. But their relationship to black language both in the u. S. And hroughout the diaspora and their desire to understand that as their foundation for the foundation of art. Absolutely directly connected. Part of what i talk about in the book is of course the process by which it became the most popular form of music in the country and had an audience that expanded beyond its initial core audience. But there is something i talked about that is something prophetic about it. Because there was from the very beginning, and exposition and elucidation of what postindustrial life in the United States was like. And in all of its complexity. Its not just this, its not an encomium to the hood. Hiphop is not. Its the next formation of it. You use the term mc. What does that mean . Its the word for rapper and hiphop. It originally comes from master of ceremonies. Many spell it, emcee. Almost like a title. Its absolutely a title. Mcs are rappers. Hiphops way of describing that role. I was interested in what made an mc, good. Whether its a reduction of history or moment and communities but what did the art consist of . So then the mc became important because i was doing sort of a literary analysis. From your book, profits of the hood. The historic construction of blackness in opposition to whiteness in which blackness is demonized, has become part of the art forms consciousness. Right. I should say hiphop has changed a great deal since 2004. Although i think there are aspects of the book that still 41describe the form at present. In meaningful ways. But there is a very overt play with the imagery of as black people of folks. The sense that the very long of american stereotyping of black as both prone to criminality and excess and gangsters and and violence. And hiphop has engaged that satirically. Critically. Played into it. Has really sort of play with that social reality through rap. Lets hear from our viewers as we continue to talk about your books. Charlie is in roslyn heights, new york. You are on booktv. Hi everybody. Im a progressive liberal. Ive been fighting racism my whole life. Ive seen the world is very complex and politics is a complex situation. I dont support black nationalism because thats just as bad as White Nationalism. And its feeding fascism. Feeding trumps basis. Theres good and bad in all groups. Black people are just people. Theyre not inferior and are not superior. Black nationalism is just as long as White Nationalism and i i cant understand why ms. Perry is supporting black nationalism. Im not a black nationalist. I a. M. Far left. Nationalism takes on many different faces. There are certainly conservative brands of black nationalism. That politically, are actually quite aligned in many ways to political conservatism. If we take an organization like the nation of islam which is politically quite conservative but advocates black nationalism and theres the version of black nationalism you see in an organization like the black panther party. Which are about revolutionary socialism. Third world politics, anticolonialism. That saw themselves as identified and aligned with colonized people across the world historically. So i should say that the single term actually doesnt mean much without the larger context. But i will say this, i disagree with the caller that they are equivalent. Because certainly people trying to find a way of a sense of control and autonomy over communities that they live in. After a long history of colonialism and enslavement and domination is not the same as celebrating the history of of colonialism and enslavement and domination. But thats not designation i would subscribe to. You say you are far less. What does that mean . I believe im against economic exploitation. I believe everybody should have access to safe environments, clean water. Good schools. A living wage. Healthcare. I believe in this extraordinarily wealthy country that we should have children who are poor. We should have People Living on the streets. I dont think the consequences are just the consequences and we should be okay 17i dont think thats a i dont think thats a decent way to organize society and i dont think people are poor because they are deficient. They are poor because they are exploited or have a lack of opportunity. So thats what i believe. In as much as i write and think about race, its never separate from the larger questions of the distribution of suffering in our society. Its an example of how the society has been organized in a way to distribute suffering an opportunity. My objective is not for black people to become those who dominate. Hats not the idea for me. The idea is to become free of domination. To have a real robust, thorough democracy which is only possible if you have a decent quality of life for all people in a society. This is booktv on cspan2 showing highlights from our in depth series. She joined us in november of that year to talk about them. Ou suggest that Justice Brett kavanaugh should read your new book. Why is that . I think is probably one of the most balanced books at abortions rights and womens reproductive rights. I worked really hard to make it balanced. I think it would allow him to see other peoples points of view 43with compassion and empathy and perhaps protective role versus wade a little longer. You say all points are represented in this book. How so . The book is actually about a shooting at a reproductive rights facility in mississippi. Its one of the states has only one clinic left in america because over 2080 lives have chipped away at reproductive rights since 2012. In my book, a gunman comes in with a grudge and start shooting. He kills patients and hostages and patient employees and he takes the rest hostage. And one of the people he takes hostage is the 15yearold daughter of the Hostage Negotiator on the outside. The people in the clinic are a wide range of people who have all been brought there at this one moment. They all believe Different Things about reproductive rights. Ou will see individuals who are prochoice and prolife. All of their points of view are easily and accurately represented. How do you storyboard a complex how do you do aall types of connections and things going on. Theres another little twist to this book. Its told in reverse. He first thing you see is the standoff between the gunman and the Hostage Negotiator. Every chapter goes back an hour in time until at the end of the book, what you learn is what brought these Diverse People to the linic at that moment. Hat was much harder than i anticipated it to being. I wound up writing a 48 page outline. Because i had to write it chronologically in reverse. But i also have to follow the storylines of characters. Most of mine are about three pages long. Because i want to make sure i leave a paper trail. In this case, there was so much going on in it was so complex that i needed to map it out. The real magic was not in outlining, but in the editing. I took little postit flags and i marked the book by character. Then i edited in reverse 10 different times following each characters thread to make sure each story was coherent and then i edited entirely going forward. How much time did you spend in jackson, mississippi . I spent about a week working in particular with a man named willie parker. Hes an africanamerican Abortion Provider who is also a devout christian and says he performs abortions not in spite of his religion but because of it. He heard a sermon about the Good Samaritan and thought who will provide for these women if not me. Now he goes all over the United States. He invited me to come shadow ham. 2526 bestselling books. I always get cover input. They say what do you think of it. That was not the original cover for a spark of light. The original one looked like small great things. I didnt want people confusing the two. So our amazing art director came back with that and that really caught my eye. I love the. Speaking of small, great things. What does that cover represent . When i look at that cover, i think of those plateaus of color chips that artists use. If you look at the covers, there are spots where color is missing. Where there is something not quite right. About the color. Theres definitely an absence. Small great things is about racism in america and metaphorically to me, that was such a beautiful illustration of what i was trying to talk about. Okay. Again, are you kennedy . I think any white person is kennedy. Its based off of reallife incident that happened in front, michigan. An africanamerican nurse with 25 years of experience in the labor delivery ward. Elped deliver a baby and in the aftermath, the babys father said her and he didnt want anyone that looked like her to touch his kid. Pushed up his sleeve to to reveal a swastika tattoo. They put a note in the file said no africanamerican is a bunch of personnel banded together, they sued. Supposed to touch of this baby. I hope she got a great payout but it made me wonder what if i pushed that envelope a little. I wouldve as a result, she wound up being brought up on charges of murder. What if she was defended by a white public defender. What if i could tell her story in the voice her voice and the the voice of the white supremacist dad and the voice of the public defender. To me, small great things is for white people. Its meant to say open rise a little wider. Its easy for white people to point to a white supremacist and say thats a racist. Its a lot harder for them to point to themselves and say the same thing. Yet race is about prejudice plus power. If you are white in america, you hold all the power. Although its easier for us to see the headwinds of racism and to know if youre a person of color, your life might be harder. Its difficult for white people to recognize the tailwinds and the fact that there are unearned benefits that come to us because we are born like this. That is something that is on white people to learn and to fix. Youve written 26 books. Any one of them a bestseller . Not by any means. I was a slow growth girl. I didnt have that overnight oprah moment. I started off very humbly. My first book had 3500 copies printed. That was it. What happened was people who read my book told their friends, you should read this and they told friends and it grew very organically. It was definitely after my sisters keeper. The Second Glance that first got onto the bestseller list by itself. Without a push. How quickly was my sisters keeper optioned for the movie . It wasnt optioned quickly at all. It took a while. And it was not a fun experience. [laughter] why not . Is the movie accurate to the book . You havent seen the movie. Dont. When that book was optioned, i said the only thing that was important to me was that they keep the ending. Because it has a monstrous twist at the end. They hired nick castleberrys and asked if i would talk to him. Im not going to change the ending and if it does, i will tell you myself. I said, okay. I worked with him for a year and a happy he would call me and ask then questions about character. I saw a script that looked like the book. Then i got an email from a fan from a casting agency and said did you know they change the ending of the movie . I called nick at home and he wouldnt take my call i went to the movie set and he threw me off the set. I went to the head of headline cinema and said you will lose money on this because i have eager fans and they will not want to see this movie. He said, we know what we are doing. Nick made the notebook for us. Sure enough, they lost money on the film. My fans were very upset. Ltimately, the great irony is that money is what speaks in hollywood. I was able to say you will lose money and they did. Now ive had more Creative Control on future projects. Did you have any Creative Control once you optioned it. I dont think most fans realize this but, most writers do not. Usually what hollywood will do is you want Creative Control, we dont need that. Thank you very much. Well go to an author that will take the money and run. Its a little like putting a baby up for adoption. You try to make an educated choice and hope you doing the best you can. But youre not allowed to call every day and say, did you feed her breakfast. Small great things has been optioned. How much Creative Control do we have . What we know is that ambling entertainment which is Steven Spielbergs company and viola davis have been attached. I am delighted so far. When i read ruth jefferson, i see viola davis. Shes incredibly talented actress. Before we get into the other books, before we get to the first call, have your books gone more 30topical over the years. I try to look at the trajectory of my career i think it spans where my brain is at any given time. My first book was about mothers and daughters but i was closer in age to the daughters that i was to the mother. Then i had a baby. Right before my first book was published. My second book was about motherhood. And how incredibly difficult it is because it really shocked me how hard that was. Then i got into marriage and relationships and whether they are 5050. Ever hen i had all my kids and i have a wide span of years for children . Three. Ll of the terrible things that can happen to your kids from sexual abuse to illness to kidnapping and all these things. Then my kids grew up and they got to a point where they were selfsufficient. I think i began to take a step back and look at bigger issues. That makes me sit up at night and worry. The nature of good and evil. Things like racism in small great things. What it means to grieve and lose someone. Reproductive rights and spark of light. In my sisters keeper use preface it with as a mother of a child whos had over 10 surgeries. My sisters keeper actually grew out of different places. One of the things i learned, one of these throw away facts was was that the original Eugenics Society was in cold spring harbor, new york. When they folded, the group that took over was of the human genome project. That seems almost too close for comfort. I had happened to read eugenics, a story of what they call modern eugenics. Which was the nash family in colorado. They were the first family to create a donor sibling to help their daughter molly who at the time had a disease named. She was supposed to die by the age of two. She was hanging by a thread by the age of three. They wound up designing a sibling who could provide a transplant through umbilical blood and she went into remission. I knew that was all different topic. I started to think a lot about that. Molly and her brother when i met them were five and eight, little kids. What would happen to a donor sibling in the teenage years. When thats all about who a. M. I . Am i here because of my sister. Do i have any worth on my own . I wanted to explore that. At the same time, i have been a parent of a child who had multiple surgeries. My son had it is a benign tumor that grows behind your ear. The traditional way is to take down that your wall and leave the child deaths in that year. My husband and i took a different approach with jake. One that would require more surgeries overall. Turned out he had it in both years and they were less than nine kids in america who had that at the time. He had marginal hearing in his right ear and had profoundly less hearing in his left ear. I remember what it was like during those surgeries. 10 surgeries and three reconstructions. How hard it was to keep the family balance because one child clearly had to take precedence at that moment. We as parents like to say we love our children equally but the truth is, sometimes circumstances arise that make you have to direct your attention toward one of your children. And what we really mean is we hope we can be there for all our children when they need us the most and that is why i wound up writing a point of view for sarah in my sisters keeper. In a quote from my sisters keeper, weve all got our scripts down pat. Kate plays the martyr. Im the lost cause. You are the peacemakers. A lot of familial relationships in your book. And that makes sense because i was watching my own kids grow up and forge a family. I found my sisters keeper fascinating on so many levels. Its taught and ethics courses at medical school and for nursing school. It really is something to consider. Because we tend to think parents can make the best decisions for their children medically but what if you have two children with competing medical interests. When it comes to medical ethics, we know that a patient and whats happening to a patient may wind up convening and ethics committing at a hospital. A donor is not considered a patient. So they wouldnt necessarily convene an ethics committee. And finally, it can be a weird and slippery slope. Choosing an embryo that has matching to help cure cancer is is very different than choosing a child that has brown hair or a child thats female. You just begin to wonder, how do we begin to monitor and keep it from spiraling out of control. It was really fun for me to write that book because its one of these examples that science has outstripped morality and ethics and every once in a while, we get to a moment where that happens. He joined us in august 2018 to discuss his books and activism. How do you describe your work to other people . People say what do you do . I say i write Science Fiction point they say what kind of Science Fiction . Most of it is very contemporary and mostly it deals with politics, surveillance, censorship and the question about whether or not technology will enable us to be more free or take away those freedoms. Is a hard to translate that into a sciencefiction format . I dont think so. The next question everyone asks is how can you write Science Fiction in this era of rapid change . Are you worried youll be left behind by the march of history . And like, i kind of feel like if you dont have seven ideas a day, youre not you were quoted in 2008 saying all sciencefiction writers are writing metaphorically about the present to extrapolate the future is to comment on the now. I think at its best, sciencefiction reaches into the world. When you go to the doctor and have a sore throat, she will swab the back of your throat and put it on a petri dish. And she hasnt been able to do that because she made an exact fateful replica of your body. She made this unfaithful replica were only one fact about your body was most important fact. Sciencefiction writers reach into the world and build a kind of toy world where Technology Takes on an outside importance. Its a way of servicing the latent properties of it. Especially the Emotional Properties of it. Before, 1948. We didnt have a way to talk about what mass surveillance was. Then George Orwell gives us this incredibly useful narrative framework for talking about the emotional impact of living under mass surveillance. Now we have this versatile word, or alien. We will just buy on everything everyone does. You can explain why that creepy without abstractions. You can talk about this concrete thing. Thats at best. At worst, sciencefiction writers fancy themselves oracles. They think theyre doing this future casting where theyve looked at the variables and theyve put them together. The predictions were so vague you could interpret them however you wanted. Dante, when he talked about what the fortunetellers would have happened to them. He stripped him naked and turn him around 180 degrees. So they would have the week down their backs. Put them in molten feces. I think he kind of gave them a break because the message of the fortuneteller is the future is coming no matter what you do. And thats a council of despair. If the future is coming to matter what you do, then why are we even here . I like to think the future happens because of what we do. As writers when we can do is intervene in the future. Which is so much more interesting to do that. How do you use your characters to do that intervention then . What role do they play for you . Often times what im thinking in terms of tech and policy are very abstract ideas. But they have these super concrete consequences. By writing stories that pivot on these abstract ideas like generalpurpose computing or strong cryptology. You can take these things that are literally math and make them into these emotional stories where the consequences of them become undeniable. How many books have you written . Thats another question people keep asking me and i dont know the number. Its in the 20s there are short story selections, some books that are forthcoming and other things. Like 25ish. Do you find yourself revisiting those concepts and characters in the books you put out . Anyone whos trying to communicate as this kind of platonic, irreducible thing in their head. They want to put it into your head. They try to reproduce and an activist telepathy through some medium. I write words and i write a story or i give i talk and i try to 28make it happen and then i get feedback. What people heard when i said it. From that feedback, i get a more refined idea of how i might put it into other peoples heads. The writers circle the idea through their whole career. Maybe like a walking vote fire toward their target. You change your elevation. In some ways, its all the same story. This is how i see the world. What worries me and what i have hoped for. Trying to reduce it to something that will transmit for you. I read that one of your novels grew out of a blog post you were constructing at the time. I think in some ways they all do. Everything that crosses my that seems like its significant, i try to write for public consumption. If you write something for a stranger. Writing notes for someone ive never met, i have to be more rigorous. Then that creates both a searchable database for decades of blogging. But also, it creates a kind of pneumonic soup of these fragments fragmentary story ideas. That are all rattling around in there. Then they crystallize into novels and essays and short stories. Starting with your latest book, walk away. Talk about those ideas that eventually sparked the book. [indiscernible] the majority of people pulled together to help each other and the enemy isnt the bad people who have just been waiting for the breakdown of law in order to eat to their neighbors. The enemy are the people who are convinced that in time of crisis, the bad people are coming. Specifically the racialized people, the poor people who are preemptively policing them to keep them from coming and tearing down their walled compounds. Its an idea that came from a lot of sources but particularly she has researched histories of disasters and how people behave in them and how we thought they behaved in them. Hether its the new york Power Outages or Hurricane Katrina or the haiti earthquake. [indiscernible] what you find is this incredible moment where the refrigerator background hum of petty grievance stops and this silence. People realize they have more in common with their neighbors than they had separating them. And more solidarity came the order of the day. Its about people who find solidarity in the bad lines of this spoiled territory. And who use stolen software and automated, zones to create automated luxury condominium these luxury resorts where anyone can take and do what they want. Whenever a rich weirdo says thats my spoiled her and garbage were using, they say thats fine, theres plenty more where that came from and they just walk away. Its a book thats a really good response. Eople read it and they say it feels like its nailing an intuition i had my heart that i couldnt give a word to and youre crystallizing it for me. Briefly introduce the characters and how they relate to each other. The main are a group of three young people who will walk away from what they call default society. One guy named hubert. Etc. His parents were members of a Political Group called the anonymous party. Policy like facebook where you have use your real name. They become infuriated that they give him the top 20 names of the u. S. Senses so he can fit in the database. His best friend is a young man named seth. They meet in this trust fund heiress. They become part of this collective. Theres a mathematician named gretel was part of a project to build practical immortality by allowing people to simulate their consciousness in computers was realized if she sticks around and others for the super rich, she will be complicit in helping [indiscernible]. Thats when things get hairy. When the superrich realize these smelly bohemians will be alongside them for the rest of eternity, thats when the hellfire missiles come out. Then there is this looming surveillance presents that sort of runs on rails. Its composed of people doing the best again or even doing good but that creates this totalitarian moment. Theres the farther of the young heiress who is a superrich very charming fellow but was also good at kidding himself that if he wasnt doing it then someone else would and why not him because hes such a nice guy. Then there are people who are moving to walk away world. Saying why shouldnt we find the best among us and make us leaders . One of the lines, ive been a walk away before i understood this. Thats what walkaway is. Not walking away on society but realizing is not a world for problems to be soft and not citizens. Can you expand on that . People talk about this idea you have a certain people who are unemployed. At a certain point, if you think automation is going to remove the need for a lot of labor and you dont assume we will do something redistributed as to that people who own robots cant do the things that robots are doing. Then you have so many people like a bad smell. Its way more than you need to suppress wages and it becomes itself a source of instability. There are problems to be solved. They are not people. How do we buy these people off or neutralize them so that we dont have to get rid of them. Heres a saying in economics, where is the balance point . 41 4243t44weve always had an equilibrium before guard labor, surveillance and cops and soldiers and shia workers and so on. Between guard labor and redistribution. At a certain point, his wealth accumulates into a small number of hands, the amount of money people need to spend to keep everyone else from building guillotines exceeds the amount of money they could spend just building hospitals and roads that would defuse the energies that might lead to guillotines being built on their 08lawn. 09one of the things. One of the things that mass surveillance made it so much cheaper to separate the sheep from the goats. It seems to have moved the equilibrium about where you see supporting wealth and start redistributing. Where the guard labor is cheaper than redistribution. Its moved that so far along that we are kind of storing up all of this resentment debt. All of these people who dont feel like they have a stake in society. I was thinking about this last week because i was speaking at a conference. People kept talking about how natural it feels. When the system starts to break down, people overrun the civic infrastructure. Why would they do that . It struck me when you see that in prison riots movies, that makes total sense. They burn down the prison because the prison exists in adversarial relationship to them. It is where they sleep and eat but that is where they are controlled and they have no stake in the prison. The fact that we can totally understand and it feels completely credible that the minute the lights go out, so many of our neighbors will want to burn down the city they live in. To me we sort of think of our society not as a machine for delivering dignity and the stuff on maslows hierarchy, shelter, food. But instead as a kind of cage. As soon as you think about that, it makes perfect sense that as soon as guards turned their backs, you burn it all down. Our look at past programs continues with deirdre mccloskey. The author of over 30 books on economics and Public Policy. Heres a portion of her appearance from this past february. How do you define your economic philosophy . Which means a free person. As contrasted with a slave. One very simple way of describing true liberalism is to say that everyone has the right to say no. Thats all. The right to say no. That means that if youre a woman, you dont have to agree to be raped, so to speak. If you are an employee and you dont like it, you can leave. Whereas i was reading a wonderful book by which grossman, which is a novel about the soviet union. The big thing there is that people couldnt say no. They were being bossed around by someone. Not voluntarily. You are an employee, i was an employee. We did what our bosses said we do. But we could always walk. And thats really fundamental to a free society. So, the other way of talking about true liberalism is, its a theory of an Adult Society and economy. Whereas many of the other options. Modern populism of the left or right. Or i dont know, fascism, communism. Even the social democracy of the welfare state wants people to be children. I think its good for us to be adults. It doesnt mean we should help people. I call myself a christian liberal. And back to why liberalism works. Quote, i can understand the progressive point of view. I can remember the attractions as one produces the pages of the nation or chomskys latest, it feels like one is doing good. Absolutely. Isnt that great. By just listening to i debated him last summer, i was a festival in england. They had no home on a big screen. Large tv screen and the three of us argued with him. Yeah i think people who feel a want to do something for the poor, should do something for the poor. Instead of just feeling good about reading the New York Times and thinking im a good person. I care about the poor. For example, they should help the homeless as i have, actually, in a small way. By having them come live with them. I had some Homeless People live with me for 4. 5 years, in my house. That doesnt make me a saint, just a person that wants to put who wants to put her money where her mouth is. But the key point is to let the poor people free. So they can work and travel and live. You told me before you started that you have two acres. Of lawn. Well, thats probably because in your town, you cant build a house without a large lot. Its in the rules. Thats to keep poor people out. Thats what its for. Thats true in many places in the United States. If people with their two acre lots are sitting there reading the nation magazine, i dont know. [laughter] i will say, im out in the country. No rules. No restrictions im going to go back to why liberalism works. This is a quote from stephen landsberg. And you tell us who he is in a minute but, you say that Public Policy should not be designed to advance moral instincts that we all reject every day of our lives. Yeah. Well, thats right. And stinks about not having to put your money where your mouth is. Not pushing people around. Look, ive not ever liked being a boss myself but there are people who are much, much Better Administration than i am. And if in a free labor market, of course, the person can leave if 05they dont like your management techniques or style. But in any case, people shouldnt be nasty. [chuckles] there was a bus driver this morning in the shuttle at ohare. He was real nasty. And i said to him, your life would be better if you treated your customers with respect. I taught there from 2000 to 2015. Since then my joke as i retired in order to work more. I finished my trilogy on the economic and social history of the last few centuries and i finished this book that came out in the fall on my liberalism works. Have a new book coming up from chicago from the university of president. Leave me alone and i will make you rich. You talked about your trilogy and this was the boudoir trilogy. What is the definition of that. Usually specialized in the leaders of that. And so forth. The common term for that in english before the phrase middleclass became comment common about 1800 they started calling them middleclass. Before the basic idea was they were priests and then everyone else. The third estate. It is only in the last couple of centuries that we started to make sentients among the various people. In my point is really to argue against my friends on both the left in the right who are contemptuous of business of people like my grandfather he wasnt contentious he was an electrical contractor. That is an honorable thing to do. If youre not cheating and youre doing your wiring of airports and being paid for it that makes for. What is odd about it is what makes for a sweet society. Its kind of a marxist tale especially in the history of the soviet union because anyone who makes money is evil. On the contrary you make money by doing things that people like. What exactly is the problem here. To go to the virtues however the christian gospels surprisingly harshly by the standards of the rest of the world and the religious canons. It is not surprising therefore that in the 19th century Christian Europe invented the idea of socialism. In fact, socialism is a secularized version of christianity in many ways. The apocalypse of the revolution its very similar to the Second Coming of christ the fervor of ideology with soviet communists. When they were sent to the prison camp they thought it was okay. It must be that the party knows there is a similar version in some attitudes. There is a certain protestant element to it as well. The left socalled which was most successful economically now it is spread to the world. Have this ideology of anti wealth thinking i have just read a new translation by a theologian named hart. Of the new testament. The whole thing. Its not that long. Its a short book. There is a socialist element to it. And among friends this kind of equality and consumption. It is very sensible but it doesnt make sense in a Large Society. And never has. When its tried and a in a Large Society it doesnt work when its about friends or family it works. You identify as a longtime agnostic. And now you are a christian liberal. What happened. I changed gender as your audience might want to know in 1995. And in the years after that i thought there was something more i needed to look into. So i went to the catholics and i didnt like that. I didnt like that. And then i found a pesky pillion because we can go on calling it that after the american revolution. It suited me very well. In fact, right from the beginning of that. The church of england has itself as the middle road between catholicism and pure schism. And that suits me. What about it that suits you. Lets talk about that. It is the whole spirit that i like. We are called the frozen chosen in the United States. Because in virginia especially the upper class and in new york for that matter the upper class was episcopalian. And in a joking way it has claimed that you dont really need to believe anything. But you do the ceremonies. You come to church we do the mass. Thats high church. I have a congregation in iowa and once a year we would do smells and bells was kind of fun incense. It was a very flexible framework for searching. Because its the journey you dont have to believe in the virgin birth to be a practicing christian. It is the practice that matters. And i think thats true of economic performance. You dont need to need to be a theorist of the economy to be an electrical contractor. You just do your job and you might learn from it after a while but there is a mutual advantage here. As i get older i keep trying to unify my thinking to see what press fertilization there is. I have a paper im working on right now about theological free will as you know is a very hairy and deep puzzling subject. I think they are connected. I think you dont have to be a socialist to be a christian. Lets go back to your trilogy and this is the virtues. I agree with my favorite marxist economist nancy nancy full break. The education should be financed from the center. It should be x expanded that the taxes should be state that corporate welfare should be eliminated. That expenditures the expenditures should be cut to tiny fraction that a modest minute minimum income should be given to every american that tax laws should encourage both men and women combined paid work with family and Community Work we followers are a gala terriens. Is there a butt in there somewhere nancy was an old friend. She is the at the university of massachusetts. When should get the nobel prize but wont. She was annoyed that i called her a marxist but she is upper left. I was a john biased socialist. I dreamt i thought joe hill last night. As i said i am a christian liberal which means i acknowledge a responsibility that we have towards the poor we cant just can just take a kind of Country Club View this again would be donald trump those are losers. On a lot of policy proposals that she makes from the left i agree i may not quite agree with the scale she wants to do them on we agree that we should help poor people and pregnant women and so forth that there should be not a fist in peoples faith but an open hand. And is perfectly consistent with what we call capitalism. When you think about it the ordinary group of catalyst transactions we buy a couple coffee and for one thing it was the sheer act of buying a cup of coffee that is neutral and advantageous. You will notice in your own life that if you make a habit of going to that coffee shop eventually become friends. The same way that church creates friendship. People get together theyre not hurting each other theyre not forcing each other to do things. Out of that comes the 18th century and they call it sweet commerce. The coalition is necessary. You have to pay your taxes if you dont were gonna put you in jail. The fret from the irs and having them minor nonlegal dispute. I dont like coercion ive never had. You say you dont like the word or the capitalism its not the philosophy its the word i dont like. The word capitalist is used and modified to mean not just investors which is what the word meant in french. This whole group of people who are the bosses. And then, capitalism in german became the characterization of our commercial society. Its a terrible wired academically and scientifically its a terrible word. Its convinced economist whether conservative or left or whatever and everyone else that capital accumulation is the spring of our commercial economy. And its not. You need investment in some lights. The spring in modern life its been enormously expanded. It is innovation. This is the view of economics that i am coming to take. Its misleading because it looks at the capital they call it k we want the other c for other things. We thought that capital was motivational. That it did things. I was speaking in brazil a couple of days ago. You choose among the creators but you are not the creator. You say okay this is a good idea i will make a loan to that. And its appropriate and important. Thats why freed people under liberalism first freeing poor men and then slaves and then slowly women immigrants catholics gay people whatever. Right down to the remarkable transgender people. All of that works to encourage bring courage to people to be creative. It has have this amazing effect. In real terms. The real ability to buy stuff it has increased by a factor of 3,000 percent. Not 100 3,000 percent. And that is from the release of human creativity and free societies. In a very general sense for him in a debate about capitalism versus socialism in this country. And this is not the first time that we had have it. It has been going on since the middle of the 19th century. The kids who say lets try socialism we love you bernie. Hes a very charming person. I was a freshman at harvard college. We didnt know each other at the time. We have the same opinion about this capitalism. Its a much more accurate word. We both wanted to overthrow capitalism. I have read half of that comments. I had have a good deal of marxist. He was a hearing hero of mine. With the same opinion. He has a same opinion he head in 1960. People say its consistent. Hes consistently wrong. We had tried a socialism as i said appropriately and efficiently works in a family. It works among a small groups of friends. And should. Thats what friends do. And a big society 330 million people. It is making everything into a family doesnt work. That doesnt mean you dont have charity and want to help each other. It doesnt mean that youre going to and claw. With blood running from his mouth. That is not how capitalist are. Which i think i establish in my first book. In the second volume. And it is not the future and past of our society. Also appearing on indepth. Sebastian gorka. His most recent book is the war for americas soul. Here is part of his discussion from january of this year. Not the idea the policy platform that ideology is irrelevant. That its the results of poverty. Or disenfranchisement the beginning of the Obama Administration think it was a cis. That he would become the cia director. Terrorism is the result of upstream factors if that was true. Half of india would be a terrorist half of china would be turn it dash terrorists and theyre not. They defaulted to this concept when we find the really bad guys we will kill them and we will win. The idea. Just the idea that the president of the United States have a secure tablet they have that disposition matrix he would decide that as is sheer insanity. Could you imagine churchill that is not the juggle of the president. When we arrived in the white house. 420 obama holdovers. You know how may people work in the National Security council. Twentyfive. Or that it was less complicated it was only 75 individuals. What they have done as they had replicated government at the white house what shouldve been strategic and tactical function and most important of all they miss the ideology. With the engineering students they dont become suicide bombers on september 11 because theyre uneducated they are people with an ace. There is an m. D. The Obama Administration said it was irrelevant. If you want to understand where were going read the president s speech. Read his incredible speech in warsaw. He talks about her and me being evil. Its not the poor. It is an evil ideology. It was an ideological threat. It was a threat with global g jihad his him. Its about those that subscribe to the jihad ideology and believe the only way for humans to live is under a global allocate. When you hear the broadcast about what happened to general solo money. There is a prediction that this could lead to world war iii it is quite stunning how in the last 72 hours world war iii hashtag world war iii was trending on social media. What world do these people live in. When someone, up with that criticism of an action. The best place to start is to take politics out of it. What is the individual talking about as the obverse. Are adverse. Are they saying we shouldnt had killed him how is it better a manse whose hands are drenched in the blood of at least 600 and three u. S. Men and women. With thousands of others. This man who we now according to insiders was on the cusp of initiating this in three different countries. Let along the allies. Leaving that man alone to do his business. Is better in what world. Anybody who is not cheering for when obama killed osama. For when we it was killed by a hell fire strikes. They need to examine their conscience. I dont care what god you pray for. I dont cut what your skin color is. You need to examine your conscience if you think that person did not deserve to become a pile of ashes. The mac how did you get to know President Trump . I was at the pinnacle of my career i was teaching the marines. I was in my third year teaching at the war college was preparing for a class and i got a phone call. I did not know from a hole in the ground. I will was a campaign manager. He said mister trump is preparing for the fall gop debate. What i consider a meeting with candidate trump i went up to the office. I sat down with him closer than we are. We have this incredible blue sky discussion on Security Issues from the civil war right up to crisis. They did a classic trump is in. He got him in the corner and said i like this guy. Lets hire him. He asked me to become a consultant. We have a problem policy papers in briefs. And eventually became part of them. And became part with the Transition Team and finally it was offered the job of Deputy Deputy assistant to that president for strategy which i started at 1201 on january 20. You would have to ask steve being in that. I was on vacation when a friend texted me and said have you seen the news. I would like not to be planted i went to an area where i could check the internet i said steve being and have resigned out of the blue. He was my immediate boss. Without telling me said im leaving. In the two months prior to that have become clear to me that the new National Security adviser was a fan of mine. I was always present for key meetings. And interesting i was being left off the invitations. I knew i was being maxed out my top cover resigns and i have a very tough decision. I thought do i stay in the white house some data has issues it has issues with me. As i wrote in my letter to the president which president which you can read before tax. The anti mega forces are in descendents in the white house. I would like to serve you on the outside. I think i can better do so. Now i have a National Radio show. A cure across the nation. More than a million followers on social media. My decision was shaped by the belief that where i sit is not important its the agenda its making America Great again. Back to the place where they called the shining city on the hill. I could best do that on the outside. His most recent book is that the war for americas soul why do you open that book with your daughter julia. Its one of the reasons i wrote this i experience in event that really went straight to my morrow. I have a right to ask my daughter for permission. My daughter graduated from Trinity College last may. It had been a tough four years for her. She was involved in the accident that made the national news. There were children in a College Building they were on the deck of the building on the third floor and my daughter stepped out and as soon as she stepped up all three decks disconnected from the building. Luckily no one was killed. My daughter sustained nerve damage she was the cocaptain of her crew team. And then she was invited to join a new institute. Created by a handful of conservative professors. They wanted to celebrate and to propagate the values of that judeochristian civilization. That was the last straw for the social justice warriors in two weeks before the graduation they took my daughters photograph and on social media and post is around the campus they put her name this is the face of white supremacy. Because she was part of the churchill institute. Despite the fact that they have helped ethnic women when she was doing a Research Project on those who have been abused by their partners or husbands. When it came to graduation i did not want to cause a scene. They were probably not i didnt sit with my family. I sat at her oak tree what shouldve been my daughters salivation. Celebration. My daughter received her diploma. And i i decided to make my way back to my family and in the throng i was separated from everyone this is the opening of the war for americas soul a little girl walks up to me. When she looked me in the eye and she said are you sebastian gorka. I said yes. Thats me. And here had to edit things. In that case f you you at the nazi i had been through the mill. I never have somebody who is living in their most successful powerful nation in the world do that in front of me and have her and so many witnesses. I followed this girl back to her family the mother and grandmother was probably sitting and i looked her in the face and i said who the hell do you think you are. My parents as children suffered under nazi occupation and central europe. After that my father was arrested and tortured and imprisoned you think you are to call me a nazi. The group girls mother was clearly shocked this is why i work the war for americas soul. The little girl born and bred living in the freest nation in the world with the grid from the joker in batman look at her mother and said yes i did. Its frightening that according to the victims of communism 72 percent of american millenials would like to live in a common eu nest or socialist country. After the fact that we know if you read the black book of communism at least a hundred hundred million human beings were exterminated in the name of karl marx and has published ideology. And now, the last three years had been a moment for me. The scales had fallen from my eyes. The greatest threats we face is the fortification of history and the indoctrination of a whole generations of americans. They appear in the work for americas soul. Lived by the rule of personal discussion. Deserving zero respect or compassion. And they had used it very effectively the four horse women of the apocalypse. The more influential individual as regards to american politics that nobody talks about i re produce elements of Hillary Clintons dissertation that she wrote. I had found the original dissertation. When you see a man like donald trump whos moved our embassy to jerusalem. After 23 years of broken promises has the closest relationship you can imagine to call that man and anti semi the same person that has affected Prison Reform with the recordkeeping. That is the tactics. It is the triangulation that we were taught. You separate, you isolate and then you destroy. Politics has always been like that. The never to disagree degree. We didnt target the president s of children. We didnt go off of the first ladies because they were wearing the wrong shoes as they got on the helicopter thats right when people talk about trump derangement syndrome. There is some substance to that because the level of demeaning the other person to a point of their humanity. That is very unhealthy. That is disturbing. You see that in totalitarian regimes. If you look at when you start to de humanize and not to discuss policy issues. That leaves the road and thats why i am convinced that how is it that you have a valid antisemite saying israel is evil. They were treated two days ago. They had been murdered. The fallen government official. He was a mass murderer. The Foreign Government official. We are living in dark times. We are happy worriers. Love of country love of liberty. What i see on the left and another reason i wrote this book is a movement that has become defined and fueled by hatred. I think there might be some psychological underpinnings. Hatred of what they think america is its not some colonial force. Others in their freedom. The left, and the fake news apologies. Whether it was regards to russian collusion or whether it is extortion and bribery in the ukraine every single time it has resounded back onto them as my good friend chris blonde said its reminiscent of that final scene in october when they launch those torpedoes when they think theyre going to sink their torpedoes. They sink their own vessel. The fact that Hillary Clinton and the dnc paid a former seeker agent for the wrapper russian propaganda to use in a secret court to spy on us in the Trump Campaign and then the Trump White House and then they come after us for connections to russia it is the most malicious of ironies. On the phone call we have all seen a transcript up. There was nothing on toward. When Hunter Bidens son was taking home between 50 and 80,000 per month from a corrupt company that was investigated by the ukraine in which his father demanded that they fire that prosecutor before he gave them a billion dollars. All of these things circle back like a boomerang. Crowd strike is perhaps the one thing the democrats in the dnc and hillary dont wish you to talk about. The idea that a company that google has great interest in was connected to the dnc we need to get to the bottom of that. But if you believe in justice i have good news for you william bar they are on the case and they are unflappable and unstoppable. Stay tuned. This tweet how much of an influence is the class book on war your own philosophy. Is one of my three favorite books i break it down a great deal in my second book why we fight if you really are interested in National Security and strategy there are two classic authors you must be familiar with on war and the chinese strategist the art of war. They complement each other. It was published after he died. It is the most influential text on how the west does National Security. How its thinks about National Security. Its always right. But the concepts in the center of a gradually are internally applicable. It breaks you out of your illustrates how other nations and cultures have very different ways about thinking with regards to National Security and strategy and its an essential reading if you wish to understand what china is doing against us today even what iran and russia is doing. It is the foundation of irregular warfare. How you take down a more powerful enemy than yourself. If you want to start your library build it from there. In michigan you are on. With the author. Its a real honor sir. Something that has been bothering me that i think has been missed or at least not brought up i think that it is that putin have plead the Democratic Party to do his bidding if the democrats would have coalesced around the president instead of attacking him all of the stuff that weve been going through a may have never occurred. But he knew how stupid these people are and he played anti played them like a fiddle. There was a phrase from the cold cold war called useful idiots. When you have the most egregious example when you have a former cia director and john brennan on National Television not long after he leaves office use is the word treasonous to describe the president of the United StatesVladimir Putin is laughing into his cheerios. Whether or not brennan is being paid by the kremlin he it is irrelevant. The idea that a president like donald trump who has a targeting of more than 200 russian leaders in syria a man who instead of sending blankets and mr e to ukraine sent antitank missiles. That person is treasonous to Vladimir Putin they had returned a massive return on their investment even when they didnt pay these individuals. It is sad that a party that was so in the tank to the left have negotiations with the kremlin trying to elicit their assistance. That Democratic Party that was always on the side of the left now they are accusing donald trump in conservatives its truly beyond the pale. And from the 2018 book why we fight russia does not share american interest. That does not mean that it is or can be our friend. That is a look at some of the authors that have been featured on book tv in depth. You are watching book tv on cspan two 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books every weekend here are some programs to watch out for. Chief White House Correspondent jonathan coro has a behindthescenes look. They recount how different president s have handled crisis. In its highlights from our monthly viewer callin program. Featuring recent interviews with five authors