Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20130709

Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose. Bill moyers is here, we had a knighthood for journalism he will be sir bill, for more than 40 years he has been one of the most respected voices on television and television every where. He has over 30 emmies and 9 peabody awards. He once described himself as a beach on the shore of other peoples experience. In books, documentary films and news shows he has explored everything from democracy and poetry to the power of myth. He returns to one of his most important subjects, the middle class and the American Dream. Here is the trailer for frontlines two American Families. Next time on frontline, the unforgetable story of two American Families. The newmans this is a very stable job. And the stanleys. When i got laid off, i thought i will find me a job. Filmed over 20 years. A lot of people lost their houses. My mom being one of them. Bill moyers follows these two families chasing the American Dream. Im pleased to have my friend bill moyers back at this table. If it was not for him i wouldnt be here. And for that he profoundly apologizes to all of you. Welcome. Charlie, its good to see you again. Thanks for those generous words. Rose sir bill. Where do you put all the things that you have done, where do you put this . I think its the defining story of my career, because its the defining story of whats happened in this country in the last 30 years. We went to milwaukee to find these two families in 1990. Encouraged by my wife judist judith whom you know very well. She had seen a story and had stayed in touch touch with people like this. And said theres something really going on out in milwaukee. And it was the fact that the manufacturing jobs were beginning to disappear at a faster and faster rate. So two talented team of producers, cathry hughes and tom kashoto, husband and wife, went out for us. We found these two families who seemed to be representative of what was happening to thousands of working families in milwaukee. They were losing their manufacturing jobs, the chief breadwinner was losing their manufacturing jobsment and they were struggling to find their way in the economy that was then beginning to radically change. And we came back to them three times in the 1990s. Did a fourth broadcast in 2001. And then this is the final broadcast we have done in following these two families for all these years. 21 years. And the theme is . The theme is that once upon a time there was nothing more american than the belief that if you work hard and try, and play by the rules, you will get aheadment you can make a decent living and make a Better Future for your children and yourself. Thats not true any more. These stories that you will see in the frontline documentary are being told across the country by millions of people in their daley experiences. They are struggling to keep out of poverty. Theyre struggling to keep out 6 poverty. Rose to keep out of poverty. And the aspiration was to be in the middle class so that they could have a better life for themselves and for their children. And for their children and they worked hard. Rose trying to escape poverty. After they lost their manufacturing jobs which paid 19, 20, it will 21 an hour, the best jobs, the breadwinners in both family kos get was 7 and 8 an hour. They kept trying to find better jobs, they did what they were told. They went back to retraining, they worked overtime, they worked any time. Each family took two jobsment and while they took those two jobs an were away from the homes, their family lives were being impacted by absentee parentism, by individual to be at school when they were needed. And what happened in milwaukee, of course, it is now symptomatic, inner milwaukee is symptomatic of what has happened to urban america. So the collapse of their own economic, Financial Base and the collapse of the economy around them produced a perfect storm for falling further and further away from the American Dream of stability, security, a pension in your old age. And today, 21 years later, they are still struggling. Theyre heroic, theyre courageous, theyve worked very hard, trying to prevent from falling into that poverty from which there is no escape. You know, there are 22 million americans in this country today who have no perm innocent jobs, who are looking for just perm innocent work. They cant fine them. It is, it is the saga of whats happened to the American Dream. It begs three questions. Number one, what do the consequences for america, if it loses its middle class. Well, we become what mat son warned against, an oligarchy of people at the very top and people at the very bottom and no stabilize never the center. If you lose the ability to hope, if you lose the belief that you can work hard and get ahead, then something goes out of the character. And sinews of your society. So wass ahead if we dont reverse this course is a totally two tier society with an enormous base at the bottom of poor people, barely making it on minimum wage and the 1 , the cliche of the 1 living very well. And in fact as you know over these last 30 years, the majority gains in the economy, productivity, has increased, have gone to the top. While wages, working wages for the kind of people youll see in our documentary have been stagnant. That used to be a temporary phenomenon. I grew up in the depression right ahead of you. And while we were hit hard by it, we were not knocked down by it forever. We felt that we would do better over time. We had a government that was speaking for us. I mean roosevelt had his faults and he had his flaws. But we felt he was on our side. These people dont fuel that any more. Part of the consequences of losing a middle class in response to your question is that people lose faith in their political process. They believe they have no representatives. They have no they have no politicians looking out for their interest. And thats the way these two families have. One of the most memorable scenes in it is at bill clintons inauguration in 2 in 1992, theyre watching it. And but they have been hit so hard and they have had so little response from their official sources, that theyre very, very skeptical. Ten years later theyre cynical. They do in the believe that government is responsivement and theyre right. Rose at a time in which economic gdp growth for the American Economy had gone very well under its eight years of the clinton administration. The fourth the economy grew. Rose and the disparity was widening. The paradox is that as you said, the 90s was a pros press time. We were am coulding out of the recession that helped bring george w. Bush down. The gross the gdp was growing but the percentage of the income of the National Income going to working people was then on the downward slide. And its been that way for the last ten years. Rose i want to look at the big pick pure picture. What you have done in this documentary, one africanamerican couple, one white couple, is put a face on what it means for American Families. Thats what you know. You know their stories and you know who they are and what they are and their faith. And you know their willingness to work hard. And you appreciate their questionsing about how come im here. This is not the america i believed in. I believed in an america that if you worked hard, everything would turn out okay. Whos at fault here . Ness is it the government . Is it globalization . Is it the system . Is it what . Well, of course the conventional experts will tell you it is globalizatio globalizationization, the mobility of financial, others will Say Technology brought about the real changes. Charlie, i thought this was the result in large part of engineered inequality. I think there were a series of political decisions made over the last 30 years, the chief one being the part of the owners of capital corporations and businesses deciding they were going to drive wages down. They were going to cut the percentage of they were going to cut the labor cost. And that theres been this almost crusade for the last 30 to 35 years to do that. It came about through factions in congress through the nlrb. In the efforts of the right wing, and the krptions to eliminate collective bargaining. Now theyre going after public employees. There has been a 30 Year Campaign to diminish the cost of labor. And thats hurt the people who are labourerers, who work for hourly and wages. There have been other things too. The legalized draft in congress in which, you know, campaign contributions. Rose money in politics. Money in politics means that those who can a afford it buy the rule these wabts. Their ability to rig the rules. There have been a number of decisions on taxes and you make more money with your money here. There have been a lot of political decisions. Youve read the book by two terrific political scientists. Rose barbara and barbara. No, jay could be hacker at yale that will come back to the two barbaras. Jake could be hacker at yale and paul perkins in berkeley, the title was winner take all politics. How the how washington helped the rip get richer at the expense of everybody else. And it walks you through, very documented, a series of decisions made in washington under both parties, by the way, that benefitted those at the top at the expense of those. Rose what is your confidence that you can turn this around . Its going to take a long time. But thats it must be done, charlie, because the existence of a permanent underclass of formerly middle class people with no future, the fact that so many young people today out of college, with College Degrees are having trouble finding a toehold f they dont i just read an urban Institute Study over the weekend about how 30 of how young people under the ages of 30 and down today are not doing better than their own then the generation just above them. You cant have this set in, you cant have it be a perm innocent reality without great cost to the belief in democracy. Rose numbers tell you there are more of them then there are rich people. Is it a failure of politics that politicians are saying im going to go for the 9, not for the 1 , and ill win elections, or is it simply money and politics eliminates that for a possibility for electoral success . Its the logic of current reality, which is that you have to have a lot of money to get reelected. And as will you see good people go to congress and wind up spending four hours a day in the calling rooms off the capital grounds and theyre talking to the people who have money to give, you know, Something Like a third of the money given to the campaigns in 2012 came from 138,000 people. Thats a recent study by the sunshine by the Sun Foundation in washington. And so the politicians in turn are going to listen to the people who put up the the money, and that sets the agenda. But every politician, the president talks about macking the middle class a priority. Thats his rallying cry. Thats the mant ra. If you want to appeal to the massesment and we dont use that term any more, masses, working class any more. You use that language but rhetoric aside the reality of the policies, the reality of the programs is contrary to those aspirations. Lets take a look at some of the film i want to see clips and introduce the stanleys as well as the newmans. Here is Claude Stanley talking about retirement. Again, this film puts the face on one of the huge and biggest problems america faces, whats happening to its middle class. Once upon a time when people got your age and youre much younger than i am, youre almost 60. They started thinking seriously about retiring. But youre not. I cant do that. Because the reason is that you cant stay on a job long enough to retire. You know, every job i have i work seven years, okay, the place close undo. You work somewhere else for another five years, they lay youoff, they shut down. All the years i have been work, i could have retired right now. Rose if you had stayed at one job. Will not be able to see the retirement, you know, that he would hope for when he was working at al smith. Thats just not a reality. My heart goes out to that generation that was promised something from america, by america, that they would have a better life. An thats not the case any more. Rose stanley is his son. Hes the son without organized the three Sons Lawn Service back when they first had this fell on these hard times. Rose beyond the fact that the jobs that theyre used to, what does it do to the family . It calls on the greatest resources they can muster to meet adversity, you will hear children in both families talk about watching their parents try to keep their houses from being foreclosed. And one of the most moving scenes in both families is when their houses are almost theyre almost losing their houses. One family does finally lose its house. The newmans, the white family in the documentary. It creates deep, a troubled mind on the young people watching. You wills see these Young Children hear their parents talk about money. The stanley boys and daughters talk about when they come home from school and they find a notice on the door of the house that if you dont pay your bill were going to turn out the lights. And you can see in each family the stresses and strains that befall the children when uncertainty is the other member of the family. When you dont have enough to actually eat well, another, of many moving scenes captured by kathy hughes and tom, the producers is when mrs. Newman, terry newman, marvelous mother and devoted wife has to go to the food pantry to find food. You know, there are 49 Million People in this country on food stamps. And many of them as we showed in our broadcast broadcast last week include a cop working in a small town in colorado, the town cut the budget and hes lost three of his troops, of his fellow policeman. Hes the seoul remaining policeman. His salary has been cut. He runs out of money for food by halfway through the month. A cowboy does two jobs, a cowboy at day and cleaning up the school at night. Hes on food stamps to feed his children. Rose another impact is the husband and wife are work at different times so they never see each other. And you can tell this in the consequences on the family. And as their need for security and for and for the presence of their parents increases, so does the deterioration of the neighborhood. In in and in both neighborhoods you see violence coming, bullying happening. And so this stability that you would associate normally with a middleclass family begins to deteriorate rapidly. And they have to work extra hard to try to hold the family together as you will see in the documentariment one family succeeds am the other doesnt. Rose one gets the divorce. Yes. Rose how do they see their predictments, their dilemma . In the beginning i think they bought that mantra of well, i must have done something wrong. Why did i go to work at this Manufacturing Company instead of the other. But as time has gone on, they begin to see that its part of the failure of collective responsibility. You know, as i said earlier, when i was growing up a child of the depression, i believed that the community was on my side. By the way, there were so many of us who were poor that we didnt notice the os ten daycious consumption and contrast of today. You believed as i said that for all the flaws, the roosevelt and truman administrations were doing what they could to help us. There was a sense of neighborliness and community that has also been affected adversely by the fleeing of jobs and by the deterioration of economic opportunities. And in the beginning they questioned what have i done wrong. Today they dont say it that way. They think that there is no social can be. Rose they think somethings wrong with the system. They dont knows whats wrong but they think something beyond their control has happened and that no matter how hard they try, how many jobs they get, how many hours a week they work, that theyre on their own. And that changes. Both of the fathers in these two families get sick during the course of our filming over the last 20 years. And just as they are about to save up a little money and maybe pay off the mortgage. Rose medical. Medical costs. The stanley family, he got very, tony newman became ill with pneumonia. It cost them their mortgage for several mondays. Mr. Stanley got sick as well, cost 30,000 that insurance didnt cover. And that is that put them in a deep, deep hole from which they still havent recovered. Rose misnewman is now looking for a place to stay that she can rent in a trailer park. The film starts out with tony and terry being engaged, getting married, buying a small house, really talking like any young couple. Rose the future belongs to us. The future belongs to us. Were going to spend our lives together. It ends up with her after a series of jobs. Shes a hardworking woman and very ingenuous and very open and dedicated to her whatever work shes doing. She has had a series of jobs, they just keep luring her further down into that hole. And so finally at the end shes looking for a trailer, as you say. Rose lots of books have been written about the middle class. So what do you think is different about this hour and a half film that we have seen on front line. You will stay with the family. Its like the film done in britain over 28 plus, you know, following the same people over 28 years. You get to see the process, not just the pain. You get to see what they go through. You get to see their courage. You get to see their depression. You get to see you get to live with them. Rose but its what i said, its the face, you get to see the face of what it means to be in this i is. Because you can read volumes. Until you see people that you can imagine you would know and like struggling with it. You can imagine yourself living that life. And experiencing what they are experiencing, yes. Thats what great novels do. And its what great movies do. And its what strong documentaries do. What do you hope this documentary does . Well, i hope it not only puts a face on whats happening to the middle class and people struggling to survive, i hope it puts a face on whats happened to america. We have lost our experience of collective responsibility. We have lost that sense of connection. We have lost, you know, our government is dysfunctional. Both parties are owned and operated by powerful financial interests. Both parties essentially serve those financial interests. And the face of America Today is not the face on the posters that we saw in world war ii. Its not norman rockwell. Its not the sony optimism and belief in the cherished principleses that were taught as children. Its the staggering fear at the uncertainty. And the loss of hope that has fallen across the face of america, which is the face of ode working men and women. They are the strength of any economy. They dont buy what people produce, what good does it do to produce it. And if they continue to be separated from the top as is happening now, this is not going to be the country you and i believed in when you were growing up in North Carolina and i was growing up in texas it is not that country any more. You think the president will see this film . I have no idea. I have no but you would like for that. I would like for every member of congress to see this film. To be reminded of who their real constituents are. They are not those who can afford to contribute to their campaigns. Theyre not the lauers and lobbyists for the huge corporations that are doing better and better. Charlie, profits are at a record, while the share of the National Wealth going to workers is at a record low. Rose joe stiglitz has said the American Dream has become a myth. Yes, i think thats true. It is a truth thats out there thats possible. But its not a truth thats being experienced in reality. And that did my father, you know, never made over 100 a week in his life. I still have his last paycheck. He made it when he finally joined the union, the last nine years, seven years of his working life and i have the sticker, the stub of his last paycheck after taxes, 95 dollars and 75 cents, Something Like that. But my father always felt he could do better. If he just, you know, worked hard. And he couldnt. He reached that level but it kept him a believer in the process of america, in life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was not something written in vain by a bunch of wigged men wearing funny outfits in philadelphia. It meant henry moyers and hugo, oklahoma and marshal, texas. And these people in the filling, two American Families remind me of my parents and my cousins and others who grew up believing in that myth, as you say, that if you did work hard and if you did do the right things and played by the rules, you you wouldnt be wealthy. But you would have dignity. You would have stability. You would have a way to educate your children, school your children. And when you got old as keiths family said of his father, you would have a decent retirement. You would not have to depend on your children. That is gone today for millions of americans. This country has been good to you. Very good to me. And if you look at it, and to me as well. And if you look at it and make the following argument, we need to redistribute the wealth of this country. Too few as joe stiglitz said, we have become a divided society. America has created a marvelous economic machine but most of the benefits have gone to the top. We need to change that there your judgement. We have to create more opportunities. We have to make sure that people without do sign on for its American Dream are reward for their hard work. Rose how do we do it what dow change . You could do something simple. First of all you could raise the minimum wage from 7. 25 an hour to 15 an hour and ned henhauer a capital nist seattle, very successful man has argued for that. The first thing, raise the minimum wage. It is doable, its he niceable. It would make a huge difference to these people. Rose and the companies who raise the minimum wage to 150 could compete with increased competition from around the world. No, this is always going to be a problem in the sense that you can you can produce more but if the people who are making the money from producing more, their jobs are undercut by cheaper job as broad, youre going to have this difficulty, youre going to have this problem. Its never going to be a per effect equilibrium. But you can give American Workers a better base on which to compete. And you can rebuild our society. Is it fair to say that of the poor people at the centre of this film and their families, two families, and their children, that if you said to them ill give you a good job, they believe that that would make things right for them and for america, a good job. Yes. That paid fair wages. Yes. Thats a fact. So the issue here is jobs. It is jobsment but it has to be jobs that provide sufficient wages to support a family. I mean im not talk being any job. Im talking about a job with reasonable fair wages. Thats what we lost. And not just true of these families but for 22 million others and young people with College Degrees trying to find their place. Is part of this because of technology . Part of of course part of it is technology. Part of it globalization. But a substantial part of it is as i say the engineered inequality by which the rules have been arranged to benefit the wealthy. Theres just no question about that. One thing you do is whats happening elsewhere is a financial transaction tax that would take very little from the financial class but it would help it would help cretin from structure, jobs. It would help hire more teachers. One of the reasons were in trouble is because the Public Sector around the country since the crisis of o 8ee has been laying off teachers and firemen and others. Those are jobs that support families. Those are jobs that are steady. Those are jobs that fulfill. Rose you know what the argueuathe argument is you have to lay them off because the contracts that those unions negotiate product too rich for the municipalities and the states that have to pay it. And the only way they request do it is to raise property taxes and income taxes, and in the police call atmosphere of america, you cant do that. The Political Class bears its responsibility for the dilemma and distress of these people. The Political Class refuse to be honest and transparent about the cost of the pensions. So they kept pushing it into the future so you didnt know what has happening. The finger can be pointed at many culprits in this. Which is what which is why it means a collective response on the part of people who want to again fight for a fair and just america. And i mean a nonviolent fight. You know, i dont believe in violence. But i do believe there has to be a sustained, uprising on the part of thats about Political Leadership and having the courage to face the risk that comes in you take strong positions. Thats right. And weve had very little of that in recent years. Rose when you look back, would you have made different decisions in terms of how you might have exercised your own sense of what was best about america and for america . Oh, yes, i think would you make different decisions if you knew more than you knew at the time. You know, you asked me on this program once a question that i struggled with since you ask it, why have you become radical. And my answer is because i have seen war of the world. Journalism has made me radical in the sense of wanting to go to the root of things. And the root of this problem that we filmed. The root of the challenge facing these two families is systemic. Its not a matter of just personal virtue. Its not a matter just of moral accountability. It goes to the way our system works and for whom it works, who wins and who loses. That makes you radical. Wanting to return to the roots, gordon wood, im not sure if you ever had him on the show, a great historian, wrote a marvelous book, retired to you but wrote a marvelous book about the american revolution. And he said the radical revolution because it invested in ode working people, the hopes and aspirations of a pecuniary, meaning monetary happenings, that is security, stability, productivity, the result of their efforts being rewarded with comfort and security. And weapons lost that. Thats really, it was of course about political independence from the crown but it was also about working men and women as gordon woods books will clearly demonstrate, working men and women who felt this was about their lives, their hopes and their dreams. Thats what america should be about. Denied at the time by slavery at the time. Rose but i dont understand why that i mean notwithstanding the power of money and politics, why thats not possible again, in a sense, to make the case of wass happened to the middle class am make the case of income inequality in america. Make the case of how many people have slipped into poverty in america, in unacceptable number, and unacceptable human condition. Why that is not a political argument that would not have more peel than it has. Is it because we dont have the right politicians . Or is it we have a system thats become inadequate . I bish i were wise enough, and experienced enough to answer that question. I know that good men and women go to congress. I know that the polls, charlie, every survey you look about it, with any route in reality root in reality says that the majority of American People support what we are talking about, about what these families are talking about. Good health care, good schools, good public schools. I cant believe that anybody that i know or most of the people that i know, who they would look at that, the four couples, the two couplings and the four people and their children, that you show them, wouldnt if you had asked them, is this the america you want to live . Well, they would not say no, its not. I may differ from you or you or you. How we can change america. But we have to say that this kind of thing is unacceptable. People who believed, who were good people falling from a place of security, and falling from a place in which dreams and aspirations are not real. Never underestimate the power of learned helplessness, learned helplessness. That if you hear propaganda over and again, if you hear ideology over and again, you learn to be helpless because you think theres nothing you can do about it. And the argument thats being made from so many people is ive seen it, theres have been previews of this film played out. And youll see the comments on the web site, well, these people are irresponsible. I mean why cant they hold a job or why cant they why did they have children why did they buy this house. The mortgage for the newmans was 850 a month, not a lot when you were, you know, compared to what most of us, the percentage most of us put of our income into our shelter. But people will write on the web angry letters and say theyre responsible for this. Its not the system. I means thats learned helplessness. When you have bought into its argue that you are responsible, you and you alone are responsible for your success. You know, the revolution that you are talking about, they were wealthy men. They put their lives on the line f it had gone the other way, washington and jefferson would have been hanging from some tree. We need that kind of of course i know they were blind about slavery. But we need that kind of response from our financial elites. Some of them are hopeless. They live for more and more and more and enough is never enough for somebody who thinks enough is too little. But instead of responding with charity, our financial class needs to respond with justice. And to support the politicians. And there are good politicians. Who work for those for the goals set forth in those surveys that we told you about that sporbted the very social contract that has been shredded in the last 30 years. And one of the arguments that they buy is that, you know, that they sell is that it is a Supreme Court decision recently on Voting Rights is to say, this is, you know, this is too much government. So lets dont have the federal government maintain voter parody and equality out there. Government is capable as long as we know. But it is also part of the process by which we correct the economic. Democracy is a matter of balance. It is a matter of public power, balancing private power and private greed. And vice versa. And when you have a monopoly, a Financial Capital which is what we have today, that monopoly is a monopoly that not only of capital but of politics. It seems to me that the point of rise is that weve also lost a business of a tolerance for other peoples opinions. So that you can say this is unacceptable in the america that i want to live in. I mean there are too many People Living below the levels of port ert poverty, it is unacceptable. Too many people dont have health care, its unacceptable. There ought to be an identification of those things unacceptable. And then the question can be debated how best to change. How best to make, how best to put the country on another course. Thats the debate thats not happening. It begins with empathy which is the ability to see myself in the circumstances of other people and then to separate myself and see them in those circumstances. And i think thats the power of film. I still Love Television because there is no greater production value than the human face. And you looking at me and revealing your reaction to that. And as you watch these two families, their story becomes a story that penetrates ideology. That moves beyond propaganda and lets you see the experience of people struggling with life as it is. And makes you think how would i do that. And what can i do to make that life more more just just for them. It is empathy which begins with the sense of myself and the otherss situation. Have you changed your view build religion at all over the years. Of course, i changed my view about almost everything, charlie, over the years. Yes, i grew up as you did, in a fairly narrow, conservative cultural religious environment. A community. And i was handed a set of propositions about what that were important to believe, to accept, and they were well met and they were well intended. But life has gone on and ive tested those propositions against both experience and learning and reading and listening. Those propositions dont make the sense to me that they did when i was a 14yearold in the Baptist Training Union in Central Baptist Church in marshal texas. I still value my experience in that culture. And im grateful that, you know, i have been as you said earlier, life has been good to me. As it has been to you. And journalism for me has been a continuing course in adult education. And has taken me to different places where i can look back and see where ive been. I changed my mind because i realized when i was down at the bottom of the hill, i only saw a little bit of what was around me. The higher you go in age, the older you get, you can see a larger ferr rain behind you from which you can draw your experience of how the world looks and what the world is. Rose if you cant look at the world today and not understand the power of religion even on political action. Juddist shallit and pri talking just this weekend about a powerful show weve got coming up. I sppbt a lot of time with john lewis who is the sole survivor of the speakers at the march. And i keep pressing him on how, why didnt you respond over the course of these last 50 years with violence. You were beaten to death did, almost twice in the civil rights movement, 61 and again in 6 a 5ee. And he talks about the influence of gandhi on him, and Martin Luther king. And you can see that this man who might not be able to explain the systemic theological intra structure of nonviolence or passivism, nonetheless its deep into his dna. Deep into his motor. And it moves him. And it can also move someone to kill other people so religion as a force is something as i said earlier, no journalist can ignore. It has nothing to do with my personal beliefs. Because i have no i have no gospel to proclaim to the world or converts to make of the world. But it certainly as you look at what is mots vating people, why do people believe that the stanleys, why do the stanleys and newmans view their religion. Rose an believe that there is a good god. And why do the people watching the stanleys and the newmans think that god would not condone their lives because theyre taking welfare or because theyre living off of somebody elses charity. I mean religion is neither good nor bad. We are either good or bad. Rose there is also this about you, and you and i have talked about this before. You are an individual because of your early beginnings in politics too. That people have wanted to come to washington and accept high positions, chief of staff to the president. Director of the cia. And other important jobs, both public and in a sense advisory. Youve always resisted that. Is it because you thought journalism was a better forum for you than the exercise of power . I like what i do. I really do. I enjoy my work so much that i that i just couldnt imagine giving it up for anything else. Rose even if someone had said to you i hear you. I hear you, but i just want you to think for a moment that you could have more impact in the white house than you can have on a television program, as hard as it is. I worked there for four years and i would challenge that assumption that you can have more impact. Many of the things i abdicated turned out absolutely to be the opposite of what i intended. No, you know, if you want to go deeper with it. Rose many of the thinks you advocated turned out to be the opposite of what . Well, i mean they turned out to produce unintended consequences. War on pav ert, all of that. Of which i was a part of at that period of time. And but the fundamental issue for me, aniffs said this maybe to you before, is that the closer i was White House Press secretary for two years. I didnt want the job but i got the job against my will, turned him down twirx the third time i couldnt take i was still suffering from the sore arm from it. But one thing i really he was a hard man to say no to. And one day i realized that it wasnt how close are you to power that matters. Its how close you are to the truth. Because much of what i was engaged in as press secretary was questioning, challenging, the documented evidence that others are bringing. Whether reporters is like and peter arnef from the ap and vietnam against the official government line. And i now agree that all governments lie, including our own. And under both democrats and republicans. And that was, i began as i cass conducting my daily briefings twice a day, i began to long to get back to the other side of that table. And to be able to ask the questions, not to have to answer them. When i didnt know the answer. And you had i discovered that journalism in the long run, ultimately contributed to the collective wisdom and experience of the republican, that that is the best place for somebody who has that kind of information to you can. And i was not tempted when jimmy carter and bill clinton asked me to come back to washington. I was grateful. And i admired them for willing to take an old castoff like me and rehabilitate him. But i was so i was just having a great time being a journalist, being able to do documentaries like to. Rose do you believe what lord acton said about po wir. Power corrupts and an absolute power corrupts absolutely. It doesnt corrupt everybody. There are corrupting circumstances in which it tempts everybody in the interest of the common good to sacrifice their personal virtue and their personal values in particular. I mean you do make collective decisions for the welfare of you identified as the welfare of the country. That you would not make individually. I mean i am sure that barack obama as we speak wrestles with this question of the drones. He wrestled with it for more, i think, than we wrestle with the issue of napalm and the issue of agent orange. In vietnam. In vietnam. Dreadful mistakes on the part of the johnson and nixon administrations. But but an Lyndon Johnson said probably its an end to a means, i mean a means to be end. I want to end this and i dont know how and they tell me napalm will help me, is that the rational. The tragedy is that he saw the vietnam war as an end unto itself. And at the same time a means to containing the soviets em mire and communist china. And those were assumptions that werent grounded in reality. Rose does that also Say Something b you have always been in pursuit of understanding the individual and the impact, whether it is in culture or politics or whether its a lone voice, which you find has dignity and power and speaks to you, and speaks to the condition of humanity. Does it also say to you Lyndon Johnson, that there were demons in terms of not wanting to be seen as weak. And all of that, that influenced powerfully decisions that affect millions . Yeah, every life is a particular life, were this the life of Whitey Bulger on trial ins about boston or the life of barack obama or charlie rose or every life is a particular life. And generalization as i said earlier are generally wrong but im curious about every life. And how from all the collective lies we create a society that is viable and not homogenous and not conformist. I means thats a real challenge. The question i wrestle with all the time as im sure others do, here is Martin Luther king, a great moral prophet who is a flawed man in terms of his personal behavior. Lyndon johnson, i mean we may, you know, Anthony Weiner may become mayor of new york and spitzer may become the new controller. This question of personal integrity and character versus Public Policy is one we wrestle with all the time. And some of the most flawed of our leaders have also been some great leaders. Franklin roosevelt. Its the test that you meet. I dont think power core ruptss. I think that power power shifts your perspective. Power cause you to think beyond what is right wroonged, to what is necessary. And when you begin to think about whats necessary, you begin to change your system of reasoning. And your and to sacrifice some of your personal values to what you think is a collective good. And thats, of course, the danger of government. And its also the danger of corporate, and wall street leadership. You forget that the good of your tribe is not necessarily the right choice to make when there are other rational and needful situations competing for that decision. Is is there one great goal you have in mind that you have not accomplished . No, no, ive unintentionally lived a long life. And ive had many experiences in that life. Rose you have drank of all the things that the experiences of life that, to be able to meet, to share the poetry of a crosssection of people like the people you saw today in this film. There is a poetry in their life and story. There are moments where i think i would like to have lived an epicurean life. Rose well, i try to, the dince of you and i. Daniel klein, i philosopher has written a marvelous little book called the philosophy of ep curists and he himself has decided in his 60s, in his 70s that he will take ep curist seriously and really live a life of not hedonism but pleasure becomes the measure of his day. I highly recommend it. Pleasure in many ways to achieve and touch pleasure. It could be the fight of the rising son or the beach or so many things that nature gives us. And many other manifestations but i think as a philosophy of life you should, in fact, find a way that you can make a difference and so that at the end of the time, what you have done is better and left the place a bit better because you have offered enormous conversations that have benefitted an understanding of what it means to be human in our time, that you have done. You have introduced with a fierceness and a passion, ideas that need to be confronted. And that you have found a way to do it, you know w a great sense of humor and a sense of never losing what makes you so unique, a sense of humor as well as a sense of outrage. So we have hear at Public Television in this country, we owe you a lot including this documentary which i think is a very, very important. Because Everybody Knows theres something wrong. And not enough people are committed to change. Well, i appreciate that. I am trying tos we are well whether that is a precocious and premature eulogy or what. Rose i dont do dow eulogies, i dont. As we were talking i was thinking, as we were talking about having that wuflt conversation. I actually, was thinking back to those two families and wondering what they would think struggling out in milwaukee about what you and i just talked about. And i think its that tether to reality that keeps journalists from letting power and celebrity and notoriety corrupt them. Rose it has been my experience in life that all sophistication in the world and all of the pleasures in the world and all of the acquisitions in the world do not give you any more ability to understand humanity than those two people or whatever their flaws might be, you know, or a single mother which you and i talked about some 20 years ago or more. The fundamental conclusion ive reached after 79 years and a lot of work is that life is a lottery. I dont buy this argument that people are selfmade. Our opportunities are presented to us. How we resolve them, how we exploit them, respond to them are the result of education and circumstances and reading and dna. Dna. But i do think life is a lottery. And it seems to me a just society takes that into consideration and says that for people without didnt win the lottery, they should not be cast off on a Desert Island and resigned to hell. I believe that because life say lottery and we dont choose our success or our failure, we have an obligation to each other as members of the same species to try to create a life, create a society where lottery is determinate but it is not decisive in the quality of that life. And that every, you know, what i discovered, charlie, is i havent met a parent i havent met a wealthy parent, i havent met a poor parent without doesnt want for their children, his or her child, the very same things that the wealthiest parents wants. And its been lottery more important than anything else thats determined who gets what in this society. And that a society that wants justice and fairness has to work to balance the unintended consequences of the lottery. Rose i totally agree with that. I would add this caveat. That is absolutely true. Ed lottery is crucial. But human will is a factor in a range of things that we do. Watch the documentary and will you see people without will themselves to work hard for a good life. Rose its not my argument would be not about them at all. My argue would be that in fact my argument be that in fact human will is not enough and often not enough. And there is a perfect example of that. You know, and for everybody to insument people who work hard by saying they would be in a different place if they worked harder is an insult to them, an insult to common sense, an insult to you and i. On the other hand i do believe that there is something about the human spirit that enables within this large Playing Field some people to be here. I think it has to do withate leting performance and lots of other things too. I do believe that. And the newmans and the stanleys were amply endowed with that will and with that spirit. Rose exactly. And they invested it in hart work. Rose and the system wore them down. But did not in the end which is remarkable and says something about the quality of humanity and human beings, notwithstanding everything that they have had to go through, notwithstanding insult to their own humanity, theyre people who have a belief, their values were right. And they had not said hi the wrong values. They still believe that but they question today. And they havent given up but they have paid a price that you and i havent paid. Rose sluicely. For the adversity of lottery. Coy not any more. Let me just recommend two too American Families, it airs on tuesday, july 9th that is tomorrow night. At 10 p. M. On front line. Bill moyers in a remarkable documentary that comes from a man who has given us much in understanding our country and understanding the power of individuals. And in this case, the story of two remarkable families, two American Families is 9 title. Frontline is the program. Bill moyers is the correspondent, july 9th, tuesday at 10 p. M. Is the time. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you, charlie, always good to see you. Rose good night. Funding for charlie rose has been provided by its cocacola company, supporting this Program Since 2002. An american express. A decisional funding provided by these funders. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Earnings kick off alcoa starts the season with a beat. The ceo is with us too discuss his outlook, the slumping stock price, and what the feds next move could mean for his company. Back to business, Congress Rolls up its sleeves and gets to work. But will it be able to get anything done on student loans, immigration, the farm bill . And less is more. Why street funds might be all it takes to keep your portfolio well diversified. We have all that and more tonight on nightlybu