Transcripts For CSPAN2 Q A 20130807

Jodi williams. Discussing her rented recent auto biography. My name is jodi williams. Jodi williams, what role did a pamphlet play if your life . I was living here in washington, d. C. It was february of 1981, i was rushing to the metro trying to get on the train early and get home to virginia. Some scruffy looking individual shoved a policeman threat pamphlet at me. You and i are old enough to remember the ink came off my hands. I was getting a tad irritated. I looked and it said el salve so when i saw juxtaposition, i was curious and instead of throwing it away, i read it. The next thing i knew a week later i went a meeting. I was stunned to hear about u. S. Intervention there. I ended up volunteering shoving those same brochures in to peoples hand in d. C. Gloition who handed it to you . Guest it was an organization. I volunteered for eight months, then decided that our philosophies to dealing with the region were slightly different. I thought since the Reagan Administration was taking a regional approach to Central America, the response should be regional. They didnt share that point view, so i moved on. Host who was paying for that at the time . Guest i department get paid i was a volunteer. Host i dont mean you. All the organizations. I want to know if you can tell us where the money comes from . Guest i think it was all donation. I really dont know since i was a volunteer. I wasnt involved in the administration. Host who cared about them back then . Guest on the reagan side, as youll remember, he was drawing the line against communism, pretty much anywhere he could. In the view of his administration,ing in nicaragua was the of course cuba is a neverending thorn in the side of american politics, and el salve door, the revolutionary they were overthrown and on the reagan side they wanted to drop a line against communist and it was in Central America. I dont understand i was a i was a hippy out of the 60s and 70s. My first protest was vafm. When i learned that the u. S. Was intervening in the internal politics of countries that should not matter in the United States in those terms, it brought up my frustration about the vietnam war, and the civil rights movement, the reemergence of the womens movement. Made me realize that i really believed i had to do something to try to shift u. S. Policy. Host i want to ask you a question. Probably stuff you never been asked before. What impact did the Nobel Peace Prize have on you . Guest it was a fabulous tool. Host you have never been asked that . Guest never i received it individually, but also the International Campaign which was i was the founding coordinator also received it. I believe that the work of that campaign, as the engine they deserved the recognition. Host what year . Guest 1997. Host go back to 1997. Whichwhen was the first time you received the award you said oh my goodness it matters to people. Guest the nobel prize . Host yes. How did you see it . Guest i never really thought about it much except a woman i knew from Central America received it. She received in the early 90s. Mayan indians were involved in the struggle. Many of her Family Members were killed, as a matter of fact. The government, as a matter of fact, he now is facing trial for genocide and crimes against humanity. Which is outstanding. Inside guatemala theyre going try to the man. I didnt think about much though. I mean, i think actually the innovation of internet and all that has made an understanding of the peace prize more acceptable than it was. I never really thought about it. All of a sudden, this thing happens. All of a sudden, people who would talk to anyone in the campaign before only wanted to talk to me. I found it intrusive. I found it very disturbing. I thought it was demeaning to my colleagues in the campaign. We were all working together. And why all of a sudden was my voice the only one they wanted to hear . So i had a very hard time actually adjusting to the prize. It took five or six years. Host what did you do to adjust . Guest i spent quite a few years very confused, to be quite honest. When i would go home after speaking i would cry in frustration and confusion. I knew about land mines, i knew about building a campaign, i knew about building a Global Coalition to bring about change. It doesnt mean that youre suddenly Mother Teresa. You are saintly. You can answer anything in the world by virtue of the wisdom that calls upon you with the peace prize. Host who picks it . Guest theres a committee of five in norway. They i think their term in office or whatever is about five years. They can serve on the committee two terms in a row. Its those five people plus the secretary of the Nobel Committee there. And there are, you know, nominations made every year beginning of the year. They have to be in by february 1st. Then the committee meets, i think, five times in the year. I learned these things after i met the committee, of course. And i liked the ones that, you know, i met. Then they meet about five times a year. The first meeting is just to discard all the ridiculous nominations. Because some truly are absurd. Then they start to narrow it down to nominations they think have some merit and they hand them out to researchers. Host who nominated you . Guest lots of people. We found out after the fact one person i do know who nominated me and the campaign was congressman jim mcgovern from mississippi who had been he and joe mokely, the late joe had been strong supporters of our work. I knew him personalfully a sense. Personally as a congressperson. Whenever we were having trouble, they were always there. I have a great affection for him. Host back to 97 when the announcement came out. Were you anticipating it . Guest we knew we were frontrunners. Thats the truth. Host how did you know . Guest we knew we had been nominated. Mcgovern wasnt the only one. There was a woman from sweden, i think at the time was the head of their Foreign Relations committee. She nominated us. I heard later that others had as well. When we were in norway negotiating the treaty which was in september of 97 was the last phase of the negotiation. Journalists started coming up to us and saying how do you feel about being a frontrunner. Our response is were not here to discuss the peace prize. Host here is a picture there. Where is that picture . Guest my house in vermont. We received the call. My now husband and i were in bed. We had just celebrated the night before my 47th birthday with my family. And all of a sudden the phone rings and this guy says, you know, in a liting nor nor wee again accent. He wanted to know where i would be in forty minutes. I wanted to swear at him, actually. What the hell . And i said, well, im in bed. Ill be here. He called back then he said, ive been authorized to tell you that Jody Williams and the International Campaign is receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for 1997. It was stunning. I jumped up and pulled on the same clothes i had on the day before. I had a hideous vision of some photojournalist in the tree in my yard with the tell photolens, you know, i wanted clothes on. I didnt want photographs of people screaming put your clothes on. I pulled on what i had by the bed, and went downstairs and there were already about five journalists sitting on the stoop. It was 5 00 a. M. I invited them and gave them coffee. We started talking. They were the last ones i let in the house that day. Host i want to show video of you from a documentary. You and me. You were interviewed by. This is about a minute and fifteen seconds. It shows a different side of joe i did williams. And the report cannot be considered comprehensive, objective, authentic, and accurate. And suffers from the lack of my last point is on credibility. Its not about ours. Its about yours. The world hung heads head in shame and said never again. Too many of us have lost hope that never again seems to have no applicability whatsoever in darfur. When will the world hang its head in shame again . Our job is to attempt to try to aleveuate the suffering of the people of darfur who are being raped, pillaged and burned. While political wrangles goes on here. Thank you. [applause] host there are 23 recommendations one was in on a great batting average. Correct. The reason they accepted one is not particularly care about the report or darfur. They did it because they have to show the council does something or wont dont exist. Host the take on the end was not very positive. What about yours . Guest no. As you can see from the tape. It was the first time i have seen it. I dont generally watch myself. Its too easy to second guess what might have said, should have said, could have said. I have great dismay about the if it didnt exist. Some bobby should exist. Like it, i think it is in desperate need of reform. I think that the Security Council as it stands now is a ridiculous throwback to the cold war. I dont think it reflects, you know, the power and powerful emerging economy and militaries, if you will, in to todays world. Particularly the human rights commission. I have no respect whatsoever. Host put this in context from your perspective. Recently when the state of the Union Message was delivered by the president of the United States and the answer on the other side and another point of view from marco rubio was ended. Guest i believe they have fantastic qualities. I believe many people have the possibility of pulling themselves up by the boot straps. I think every year that is less and less and less probable. But the United States especially in the foreign policy, which is what i worked on for years and years. Its an interventionist state. Its extremely aggressive militarily. We mess with other peoples politics i cant imagine americans tolerate. Imagine if some country invaded us to bring our system of government in the way in iraq. Can you imagine americans sitting there thinking its okay. Yet somehow we still in the country have a myth that people are thrilled when we invade them. Thats insane. I believe 99 of the time we create enemies. Especially now with the drone warfare going on under mr. President obama which is much worse than under bush. Which i never expected. I think we are creating new enemy for the future. Host what can you think of president obama getting Nobel Peace Prize . Guest i said it before in public. Im not going to have a problem saying it again. I dont think it was his problem, so to speak. I think the committee made a gross error of judgment. He had not done anything to, you know, to deserve it at that point in time. And the terms of nobel are quite clear that it should go to a person in any given here has done, you know, Great Service to disengage armies or as held global peace conference to bring about change. President obama had done nothing at that time. In fact, he was engaged in two wars, which i thought no matter what he had done. If you are sitting head of state engaged in war how can you get the Nobel Peace Prize . When he came out of the white house and said that he didnt think he deserved it, i was ready to clap. I thought that was really outstanding. I would have clapped if he had then said; therefore, i cannot accept it at this time. I think thats what he should have done. Host what do you think of al gore getting the nobel peace price . Guest i think that the environment is a critical part of security and peace we see Global Warming and climate change. Its displacing population. Its causing new migration and conflict. I think its worthy recognition. There are many who are agitated that the committee keeps sort of expanding the vision of what peace is. There are some who are very adamant that it should be strikefully limited to those who really deal with armies. Guest i have a problem with the ideaizing of human beings. The glorification. The in some ways of making the individual bigger than life. I normally use the example of Martin Luther king. We all know him in the United States and admire his work. Martin luther king was a human being. Like in other human being. He had strength, weaknesses, flaws. Martin luther king certainly an amazing leader, he was there were thousand and millions of people also in that struggle. This was kind of goes back to what i was saying in the beginning of our discussion that in the land mine campaign we had thousand and millions. And it everybody saw it as a same. Suddenly i get the peace prize and they only want to talk to me. When Martin Luther king became Martin Luther king, and now a monument on the mall, which i think he deserves. But thats not the pressure. Suddenly that individual or mandela or dally llama in the category of his own son of god. What normal human being, what ordinary person can ever believe they could accomplish leadership like that. And i think that does a huge disservice to both the possibility of change and to ordinary people recognizing that we each have power and we can with all of our flaws, we can contribute to change. Im flawed. Host early in the book you tell us about brother steve. Guest yeah. Host where is steve today . Guest my brother has always lived with my parents except for two times. He was institutionalized when write in the book. He was violent we were concerned he would kill Family Member and or himself. Hes with my mom in vermont, still. Host did you ask him before you wrote him about it. Guest no. Host why not . Guest i didnt ask anybodys permission. This is my perception of my life. I didnt ask my mom. She was very nervous. [laughter] mothers would be. I promised her i wouldnt say anything that, you know, would make her friends make fun of her or whatever. I didnt ask permission. Nobody in the book. Not bobby molar who hired me to do the landline campaign. Nobody from el salvador. I didnt ask permission. Its my view of the things in my life that affected me that made me very human but also made me determined to try to help everybody in the world. Including myself. Im not a saint. Host what did you tell us in the book about your brother steve . Guest he was born deaf in 1947 at the time when a philosophy of teaching the deaf was force them to the hearing world. Which meant we were not taught sign. Which meant that at the dinner table, for example, pretty much all we could say to him was, you know, pass the salt, you know, things you could point at. It meant that he was really not involved in daily conversations. Because, you know, we had very rudimentary homemade it also meant as he became more and more ill with what we finally understood to be skit friday ya schizophrenia there was no real way to talk about to him what he was feeling. He would get brutally angry. If i think about it too much, and i think i write that in the book, i have a really hard time. Host have a hard time guest thinking about my brothers life. Its a life not lived. Hes extremely smart, as many sets friday schizophrenics are. It was by a lack of communication, then schizophrenia. I just, you know. Host you paint picture of him with a knife in his hand. Did you think he was going kill somebody . Guest i was scared as hell when my mom and i ran out of the house. I dont know. It was worse later, actually. The part they didnt write about, because by then i was in Central America, and land mines. My parents tried one point to get him in assisted living. It was, at the assistance of my sister, my brother, myself that, you know, when you die, if he isnt capable of managing life, what are we going do . They tried. It was a total fiasco. He started threatening neighbors, you know. So that did not work. He had to be Constitutional Institution alized for another year. He was correctly diagnosed and got medication. So, you know, hes a paranoid sets fridayic. Host you grew up where . Guest i was born in the big metropolis of vermont. Mid way up the state on the border with new york. 1200 people. Then we moved to the to vermont in the southeast corner. It was ten or 12,000. We went there so my brother could go to the school for the deaf. Host mom and dad did what . Guest my mom, well, was a mother of at that point, right after we moved. Five children. My father did a variety of jobs. He had owned his own Grocery Store and told me we had to sell to move. And at that point we had four kids, no car, no friends. And she had a nervous breakdown, which resulted in dad ultimately quitting that job, and starting to work for a vending company. You know, the typical music box. Ultimately he bought that. Mom laid in bed for a year. Host what politics do they follow . Guest democrat. My father was extremely antirepublican. Viewing it as at party of the rich. The party that didnt care about the needs of how i describe my family is living on the rough edges of the middle class. Very rough edges. My father was treated by dirt by people during the depression who were handing out the government money. I dont know. I cant remember what it was called then. My father despised republicans, at least the party. He despised the party, and had no room for anyone who didnt understand that there was structure, you know, inequality and structure reason for poverty. Host you walked away from the catholic church. Guest yes. Host should guest 17. I have a hard time with being told that i have to accept something on faith even though my reason doesnt. I had to take catechism. When i got many my teens, i started asking the priest about intentions, you know, you have to intend to sin in order to sin. In theory. And so i said why is Birth Control a mortal sin . Which means if you die do you go to hell . And the rhythm method okay. When both instances you are intending to avoid pregnancy. To me thats totally logical. Why is a pill bad, other ways okay . And the answer was that typical of the church that you, you know, so you to accept what god gives you. If god wants to give you a baby a pill isnt going get in the way. We fought about it a lot. The other was the pope. I thought it was absurd. How can the pope be infallible when some had babies, you know, when up until i think the twelve or 13th century. Im not sure of the date, priests could marry. All of a sudden they had to be sell bait and couldnt marry. The pope hearing from god they couldnt marry. It had to do with property. Host where are you in your religious life today . Guest oh. [laughter] it makes me laugh. Ash jodi, scientists believe that buddhism is atheism. I said, oh my god i must be a buddhist. He said the reason its because buddhist dont believe in god. They believe that every human being has the possibility to, you know,. Host 1998, here you are with the dalai lama. One of my closest friends had an extremely unpleasant encounter with two men who i wish could gentleman who left her beaten and naked in the street. For many years, i had the greatest hope i would run in to them sometime and dot same to them or worse. Then i got involved in trying to stop the violence in Central America, and watched what happened to people over time who only sought violent revenge against people who have done things to them or people they love. Host where were you . Guest i think the university of virginia. I think there were 11 of us at the time who were invited to the peace conference at university of virginia. That was my first encounter. Host how do they talk to one another that might be different than just the ordinary person . Guest thats one reason why in 2006, six women nobel peace came together with the women. Host didnt you lead that . Guest i played a large role in fundraising and hiring. Host why do you want to separate men from women . Guest its not. The problem in todays world, as we are all too aware is that women are still unequal. Globally women are less than unequal. We believed thcomingth as wod ue highlight the work of women around the world, working for women eryone make change,d help whh is good for us all. You know, it ends up that we want to benae awful. They are awful. There are awful men and awful women. Women suffer more. Violence against women is a global pandemic. Which is why we spearheaded a national campaign. Just like in the landline campaign, bringing organizations together because together we have a better chance of changing the world. It wasnt to exclude men. I point this out all the time, in the history of the peace prize at the time we established it, there was only 12 women in 110 years. Something like 90 men. Theres never been a nobel mens initiative. Men have never come together. I think its indicative of how women tend not always, but how we tend to think about how we together, you know, can make a difference. And i have to be, you know, totally honest that after the nobel womens initiative. I really became happy i have the peace prize. I feel now no only is a tool for my work. Im sharing it with women all over the world. It makes sense to me now. Host you have lived for, you know, more than a couple of days in what places . In other words vermont how many years . Guest twenty five. I didnt leave when i was twenty five. I thought i would never leave vermont. Host went to the university of vermont . Guest yes. Host studied what . Guest psychology after switching my major five times. Host how many times have you been married . Guest this is my second husband. I was married for a minute to my High School Sweet heart. We shouldnt have married. I was a confused graduate in 1972. Thfts how cool didnt realize could get an apartment and a job. I was afraid. I got married. Claude his parents are frenchcanadian. Its prettier than clod. Host does he know you have written about you . What do you think hell think . Guest i tried to be honest. I mean, this was nothing wrong with him. He was a nice young man. Host where is she today . Guest vermont. Married. Last i knew, he he is married. Im trying to the last i knew i was trying to figure out how would his son was. I think hes 25. It host exactly how long were you married to him . Guest three years. I didnt have an idea what it meant to do international work. I lived for i refused to move to nicaragua when i was working there. I removed to move to calf door. I spent months in each country over a period of years. I felt likes i knew them well. Host where else . Guest thats all. Host you live now where . Diswhrg i live in virginia and west steer west vice president. A policy review, and we decided our landline policy remains in effect. Why . Why. I think we are one of only two nations, and somalia is about to sign it; right . Yeah. Were going to be the only nation in the whole world. Why is that . Im not sure about that. We made a policy review, and we determined that we would not be able to meet our national deference needs nor our security equipment to our friends and allies. Host in 2009 what was he saying there . How did that impact you . Guest i wish i could say i was shocked, shocked, shocked. Im not. Host this is the obama administration. Guest i know. I know. Host what is he saying . Guest theyre not going the sign the treaty. U. S. National security depends on the antipersonal land mine. The hypocrisy thats astounding because the United States has not exported land mines since 1992, i we havent used theme e. 1990. We havent produced them since the mid 90s. We destroyed million of our stockpile. In other words we are obeying the treaty, why the hell do they, you know, continue to refuse to join the treaty . Host let me guest i know why. Host well get back to that. We didnt sign the kyoto treaty. The International Court of law, all that have. What is it about this country that when these kinds of things come up, they say no . I think we are the only no not the only. George w. Bush unsigned a treaty. The nuclear treaty. The United States believes its exceptional, meaning everybody except us. Meaning that if other nations can be bound by treaties thats great. It restricts what they can do. Since the United States considers itself to be the gawrn or gawrnter of freedom, security, et. Cetera, they want to be believe they need to be able to do anything they want in order to, you know, keep us all the safe. Host what are the numbers now about land mines and since you have been involved how many have gone away. How much money is spent . Who is selling them around the world . Guest goodness. I should looked it up. I havent worked on the campaign on the daily basis since early 2000. I can tell you there are 161 nations that are part of the treaty. All of the western hemisphere, except the United States and cuba. All of nato, except the United States. Which is totally mind boggling. Especially when the u. S. Said it needs land mines to protect the allies. There have been no no recorded fail of land mines. Even country like china and russia which havent signed have stop produced land mines for export. Host how many are still out there . Guest nobody knows. In the early days the u. N. Kind of pulled the figure out of the air, and said there were 100 million in the ground. Nobody knows how many there are. Nobody is sure how many there are at this point; however, stockpiles have been destroyed that will never be in the ground. I think were up to 60 million land landlines have been destroyed from stockpiles. Theyll never be in the ground. Twenty countries have now declared themselves mine free. It really has been a seismic shift. Host how many people died . Guest there used to be 20 towrks people effected every year. We now down to 4,000. Thats still too many. Host are they dying of land mines . Guest afghanistan, croatia, colombia, burma, host the forking where . Guest the revolutionary forces in colombia that have been beatings the government for fifty years. Host in the beginning who paid the bills . Guest i was asked by the db they paid my salary. I helped raise money for my salary. Host who funded that . Guest the u. S. Government funded some of their work in cambodia. Foundations, individual donors like most nongovernmental organizations. Host toughest part of your effort to ban land mines . Guest ive also say its so was easy compared to Central America i cant difficult. But thats too glossy of a picture, i guess. I think when the ccw. Came about after the vietnam war and try to control things like land mine, but it not ban them. We used that treaty as a tool in the first couple of years of the land mine campaign organizing stools. Getting ngos and Different Countries involved. Pressing their government to amend that treaty to ban land mines. They wouldnt. For two and a half years we were there pushing and shoving and screaming at the immediatings. They didnt change the treaty. And if the canada government hadnt come out of the experience, dedicated to the belief in one year we could negotiate a mine ban treaty which they challenged the world to do in ottawa in 1996. We wouldnt have a treaty. That was one of those moments that if they hasnt, im not sure what would have happened. At the same time, we didnt know they were going do it until they did it. The day they did it. So i dont know. If somebody wanted to get an example of a genuine card carrying liberal. Are you it . Guest i think im to the left of liberal. Host can you give us markers there . What makes somebody a liberal . With had the debate a lot sure on the networking. Guest sure. Im not sure i can say lib are a , you know, what makes a liberal. I can say what motivates me. Host fine. Guest i am burning with righteous indignation at injustice. I was at the womans peace conference in santa they years ago. I tend to get highly impassioned when i speak. During the q a period, the woman in the back, you know, raising their hand said how can you be working for peace when you are so angry . Can you be an angry peace and really be working for peace . My response was, you know, im not angry. Angry is like if somebody bug me and i scream at them. Or i stub my toe because im the clumsiest human on the planet. I get mad at the table. Im full of rich use indig nation. Host let me interrupt. What is the difference between yourses and george w. Bush who were both involved in the iraq situation. Were they rich [inaudible] guest that might be a justifiable intervention. Mr. Bush ii interventions, i believe, one of many people in the world, including many nations, that was an illegal innovation. I believe that whole heartedly. We disrupted the live of how many people . How many did we kill there . Both on purpose and Collateral Damage . And look at the state of that country now. Host wouldnt you violate the law if you what the country was doing . Guest i havent. Host lay down and the middle of the street to stop traffic . Guest i would be involved in nonviolent protest, yes. My first arrest actually was outside the south African Embassy during the apartheid period. The organizations were coordinating mass arrests on a daily basis. I got arrested then. My sister, from northern ireland, myself, and sixty other people including bishop and wellknown protesters were arrested in front of the white house on Lafayette Park when mr. Bush decided to invade iraq. I believe in nonviolent protest. I believe thats my right under the constitution. I would not pick up a gun and use that to indicate my righteous indignation. Host anybody your family own guns . Guest my brother has been a hunter since twelve. Host steve . Guest good god no. Sorry. Sorry. Host talk to your brother about guns . Guest what happens between the two of you . What is his politics. Guest in the early days i used do go rabbit about it. When i was younger, i was very i was a little more lacking in sympathy. For lack of a better way of putting it. We used to fight about it, but he helped me understand that, you know, for hunters like himself, he hunt whenever he can. But he cleans his own animal, he eats all the meat he, you know, hunts. Hes not a how does he call them . Hes not a trophy hunter. Hes not a dirty hunter is what he calls them. The ones that will go out in the night and shine light in the eye of an animal so they can stun and kill it. We i think hes mellowed, you know. I said i dont have a problem necessarily with guns, but i have a problem with unregulated use of, you know, the ability of anyone their brother to acquire as many gun z as they want. My brother would never hunt an animal with an antiautomatic weapon that would blast it to pieces, you know. I think we have more sane conversations these day. Host in your book, you tell us the exact moment when you i dont know how to when you decided that you were attracted physically to your now husband. [laughter] guest his name is steve. Host hes affectionally called goose. Guest goose is the director of the arm right division which is arms and weapons. We met banning landlines. Host he was married . Guest he was married three. Three. This is one of the things i talk about not being a saint. Im a normal human being. We were friends and colleagues, and we fell in love. It was very painful. The separation from his family was very painful. With the kids it was very painful. He tried to go home every time. Every time i said go. Host tell us about the moment the exact moment. Guest when i was mentioning the convention on conventional weapons within the treaty we were unsuccessful in getting amended to band landlines. For two and a half years the campaign was there pushing, as i said, yelling, screaming, building fake land mine fields for the diplomats to walk on. They would step on a sensor and it would blow up. We didnt succeed, and in fact the treaty was made weaker. We were two and a half years in geneva. In and out, not all the time. Were packing up the office and all the campaigners are going down to the pub. Which they had gone to all the time. I hated that stuff. I didnt like the smoke and the people that much. Not the people themselves. Im a loaner. I tend to go to my room and just lay down and read. That night i decided to go, and we were at the pub, and i usually sneak out because i hate goodbye. I was sneaking out to go back to the hotel, and i had a very early plane the next day back to vermont. All of a sudden steve goose was beside me. We were walking back to the hotel. Campaigners tended to stay in the same hotel. We get to the front door, we hear a voice above us and its our friend susan walker, who had been working on the campaign for years with handicap international out of france. Shes holding a bottle of wine and, you know, being ridiculous. We went upstairs and had some more wine. Susan, sorry, susan. Fell over not fell over. Laid down gently on the bed. The next thing we know she was snoring. All the sudden we kissed. It wasnt premeditated. We kissed and it was like oh my god. Oh my god and it was too late. I rushed to get on my airplane, and it was one of the things you think, you know, you know, we had too much to drink. It was a stupid thing. You know, lets forget about that. Two days later he calls me on a sunday. From his house. We never talked outside of work time. It was the most awkward conversation. I cant remember what we said. It lasted 45 seconds. Thats when i knew that something something was happening that i wasnt sure what to do with. Host how did his wife find out . Guest he told her. Host what was her reaction . Guest you can imagine. Furry. She locked him out of the house. Host he went back . Guest he tried. Many times. I moved back to vermont. Host did you two have an agreement you wouldnt talk . Guest who . Host you and goose . Guest oh. Several times he tried to go home while we were living together. We talked about it. S it was very upsetting for all of us. Then it got really to be too much. It was like two years later. 99. And i said, go. Go back home. Ly move we were renting a house in alexandria that the point. Host in virginia . Guest yeah. I said ill go back to vermont. So i packed up my uhaul, rented it, left the house intact for him though. I thought, well, hes in a bad shape. Im not going to take the house and leave him sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And my dog, my sister, and i drove to vermont. I spent the first ten days on the floor weeping in my pjs. Being melodramatic. It was pretty sad. We were not communicating. I said you cant really be trying with your wife if were communicating. Its obviously doesnt work. And i decided a couple of weeks later to go to california to see friends, and i got an email. I was angry. You know, why are you emailing me . What are you trying to do . Make sure im in pain . Yeah, im in pain. Then he called me. I told him i was thinking about moving to l. A. I was going stay with my friends. She had lost her husband to lung cancer, she was a mess, i was a mess. We figured we could be great roommates. That kind of freaked goose out, we worked it out, and i came back. Host married . Guest we got married. Host how is it working out . Guest hes awesome. Hes totally awesome. We moved, you know, even all the difficulty, we moved to fredericksburg on february 1st, 2001. We still live there. Five minutes from his kids so he could be with his kids and they could be with him. It wasnt about the kids. It was, you know, it sounds dumb, but people grow apart in relationships. If they dont really work at them, all of a sudden you wake up and how did you get here . Host let me go back to a question i asked you early. Why do you think anybody wants to know this about a Nobel Peace Prize winner . Guest for everything i put in the book. Host everything you put in the book. Theres a lot of personal stuff. Guest sure. I could have written some glossy ridiculousness. I want people to understand theres nothing magic about helping that make the world a better place. You get up off your butt and participate. Host did goose read it . Guest of course. Before i even wrote the painful part about our relationship, we talked about it. Host was he concerned about the kids reading it . Guest yeah. They are now in their mid 20s. Host what do they think of you . Guest they hated my guts, of course . Host still . Guest no. No. When they started coming around the house, i said i never wanted kids. Ended up with a guy, by the way hard of hearing and had three kids. And when they first came to the house, i said you dont have to like me. I do not have to like you. However, we will be polite to each other in this house. When you are obnoxious and i cant take it. I will leave you with your dad. Ly go to my bedroom and read which ill probably be rather i didnt do it for shock value. I meant it. Whenever they would drive me nuts. I would go to my room and shut the door and read. I think i didnt do it to confuse them or anything. I didnt want to be near them. And i think over time they couldnt believe that i didnt want to somehow pretended i was their mother. We are very close. Host here is some video. Unless you have a global entity of similar scope. You have to have Something Big enough, scary enough, evil enough to justify continuing the game. Im sorry part is a game. Part of it is real. I. Just because you win the Nobel Peace Prize didnt mean you suddenly become Mother Teresa and dont believe that sometime the use of force is necessary. Host when is the use of force necessary . Guest for selfdefense only. I do not drone by International Law is murder. Is deserves. Host can i the liberal why are they guest many of us are. Host not very many. Guest i think theres not much coverage of it in the same way there was against mr. Bush, host why is that . Guest media. Im choking. I dont know. If i knew maybe i could change the world more quickly. I dont know. I dont think the coverage is there. I think for many people because obama was so different from bush in many ways, i believe i dont care who the president is, what his party is, i care what his policies are. If they are worse than those of mr. Bush, they are certainly worthy of criticism. Obama in the first two months of office used drones more than bush had in the, you know, eight years of his administration. Nobody said a word. We created a border with battle field. We are killing anemia countries with which we are not at war. How can we justify this . I was with a International Lawyer in geneva recently, he said sometime somebody is going to kill a u. S. Soldier in nevada. One of the soldiers who goes in every day and, you know, does the drone strike. He said im going have to call that an act of war. Under the law of war. Hes attacking military target. Im not advocating. Im saying how can we kill people whenever we want and believe its not going come back . It scares me that we are so complacent. Were not willing to ask those questions. It scares me that some people in this country actually think we have the right to murder. Host the name of the book my name is jodi william. We thank you. Guest thank you. For a dvd copy of the program call 18776627726. For free transcripts, or give us your comment about the program. Visit us at q a. Org. They are also available at cspan pod casts. Next a discussion with Michelle Alexander author of the book the new jim crow mass incarceration in the age of colorblindness this event from the university of tennessee is 90 minutes. [applause] well thank you, thank you so much t