Transcripts For CSPAN2 Samantha Power The Education Of An Id

Good afternoon. Welcome to sunday if the 31st annual southern festival of books. The National Endowment of the humanities. It helps make this amazing book festival free event please let me provide a brief amount of related logistical information. You should and can visit attend and shop titles by this author lineup. That will include Samantha Powerse new book the education of an idealistal and memoir into the benefits f of physical. Connie is a boston native raised in virginia and graduated from dartmouth college. In the Top Television programs including friday night lights. Visibility and advocacy to the United Nations efforts to address poverty, an and how are women and achieve sustainable development. She served in the cabinet of president barack obama and is the youngest of her u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations. Ambassador for beginner or career as a journalist and reporter from places such as bosnia, rwanda and sudan. She has been named one of the times 100 most influential people on multiple locations. America and the age of genocide was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. If things were here today. Please welcome connie and Samantha Powers. [applause] did anybody come here for me to break out into a song . Its thrilling to be here in nashville today with my friend, Samantha Power and celebrating ebyour incredible new book. She got to actually pet kangaroos. Where else does that happen. [laughter] thank you, nashville. I am going to read a short passage. My book as we will talk about it as the first person in it and people say that irish people have trouble using first person even in therapy becoming later a war correspondent, writing a book that would mention of genocide that the newly elected senator barack obama read and finding my way into his Senate Office and campaign. We willan talk then about the subsequent things that happened at the white house and the passage i thought ihe would read is from a chapter called yes we can. It is now hard to remember, but wee were not he started running in january, 2007. The passage im going to read this from the spring of 2007. We was in january of 2008 when the iowa caucus. It was seen then as an amazing upset that this is about seven or eight months before then and our campaign was not that of a well oiled machine so this is a short passage and it gives you some flavor of how ive triedito approach the larger enterprise in a way that is relatable inaccessible particularly with my eye on young people and young at heart that i hope will embrace the challenge in the current moment. As i worked at my computer in the spring of 2007, i received an email that quickly was not intended for me. The university of chicago law professor in the Obama Campaign advisor had written, quote, martha, isnt this worth a disaster as an worse than anything . Once before at an academic conference we struck up a lively conversation and ive learned that like me, he was an avid player and fan but we havent kept in touch. He seemed almost incurably cheerful during the brief interaction comes with a sour tone of his email about the Campaign Group surprised me. But since it was addressed to the Harvard Law School professor, i deleted the message and went about my day. I soon realized i wasnt the only accidental recipient. Neither were time or campaign advisers, we were academics that contributed ideas by telephoneco and email to the candidate obamas campaign and who spoke publicly on his behalf. The paid staff has assembled an Informal Working Group comprised of legalle scholars to inform hs views about an assortment of issues including how to go about closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and how to reverse president bushs licensing of torture. Obama and cats have been colleagues at the university of chicago where they both taught classes on constitutional law. With a speech approaching, the group had produced nothing. In expressing his frustration he had although filled with the entire staff of the Obama Campaign. His criticism of the group caused wide offense. Daniel gray vehemently capable lawyer in charge of domestic policy to get as an insult to her leadership and forwarded the email to me saying you believe this. A friend of hers convert to the part of the email into the large poster and hung it on the wall at the headquarters. Worse than anything. I felt for tax like most i suffered my own mishaps not long before i had been set up on a blind date with a friend and fellow professor whom i had come to know through his research. Research. But it hasnt goneh well. I wrote with an email of all i didnt like about his friend asking how he could have conceivably thought we might get along. I stress to the incompatibilities were deep and i signed off i think as the old saying goes you can only make aythem dress better. To divert from the text is that an old saying because other than email and for the rest of time have you ever said this . I dont know where this is coming from. [laughter] as soon as i hit send i heard a pain in my inbox and it was the message i just sent freshly delivered as an incoming email. Within i heard a second and i have received a note from tom the simply red you didnt. I put my head in my hands and slowly typed i did. Tom and i were part of a listservet. It gets much worse. We were part of a listserv of thousands of genocide survivors activists and scholars and i had to send the note to that whole list. Years later when i was serving as the ambassador to the United Nations, people who had received my email woodstove exuberantly quote my words back to. You can only make them dress better. [laughter] i reached out because i felt so badly because i had done something terrible and i told himm not to. Everybody had done something similar osimilar were soon wantt long after, i married him and our son is sitting right over there reading a book. [applause] so good things come from mistakes occasionally. I would love to just quickly let everybody know how we met. We met at the white house Correspondents Dinner in a dont remember what year it was. I was introduced to you by friends of mine that were fanatical fans of yours. They had worked with your organization and they said you have to meet her because you are bexactly alike. I was blown away by your grace and intelligence and the amount you have beenn able to accomplih in your life. So, right off the bat, i would like to address something thats very important to me about this book. First of all kinds of property for having written the book. Its honorable and honest and so your insight that is accessible and approachable is such a generous gift, so thank you for that. I want to make a movie out of it. A my question to you is when we make the movie when i play you [laughter] what part of the book, what story would you most like to tell . Not to pu not to put you on the spot or anything. I wanted it to be a surprise. We can do this at the end of. I guess i would say one thing does come to mind i suppose for me and a lot of people when you read about 70 million displaced in the world were you especially i think Climate Change generates a feeling in mos of most of us e feel very small. For people getting involved in their communities and School Boards and you know, you name it, Political Action of some kind, the hardest threshold to get over isnt a m. I. Santa, is it in just come i feel like a lot of people when they are taking in what is going on around w us and especially when there is cruelty involved a lot of people have l the reaction. I think the hardest moment is what can i do about it. All of those moments of gradually overcoming the secondd impulse is kind oin pools of kie feeling of caring if those kind of conversion moment int and the that springs to mind, my way of fitting in when they moved to pittsburgh in 1979 was to do with all the boys in my neighborhood were doing is to learn about baseball but i quickly learned as much as i could. I dropped practice learning in american accent and i learned quickly. The forward end other than wanting to be a professional baseball player myself. It would allow me to be around sports the whole time and the proximate and enjoy myself. I loved pretty much everything about the statistics and strategy and everything. The summer after my freshman year in college i go back to Atlanta Georgia which is where id gone to Public High School and i am working in the Sports Department pursuing an amazing job taking notes on the atlantaa braves for a San Francisco giants game into my mind its the most important thing i could be doing and i wanted to do it very well because i was going to help cut the highlights sports package for the s evening news d next to where im taking notes on the game comes the footage from Tiananmen Square and im 18yearsold and the students that were in the square are my age and have been protesting for weeks without getting arrested or without a major crackdown that hasnt happened their im and the crackdown just commenced so things are kind of streaming up the boulevards making their way to Tiananmen Square and the students are fleeing and you can imagine thean desperation and mpanic and fear and im there with my pencil faithful to my task and it just so hardest rock and horrified by what im sseeing. But again but i want to stress, the moment wasnt okay im going to go back to college and learn mandarin and be a diplomat. Asking what is america going to do in response and then when i get back to campus i change my subscription today i was kind of shape suggested to the recycling bin. I subscribe to the new york t k times and they would underline in the article names of leaders. I knew geography pretty well because coming f from ireland ia small country you learn geography because you learn many people want to leave p including me but i became serious about learning and it was the gradual. It wa wasnt i can do something that was i should know more. I dont know whats motivating them or what their government is doing what we are doing so i think that seen in this sense of empathy or whatever it was that was triggered by an empowered sense of empathy i think theree is something that is sort of universal. I totally agree. I think a lot of people that have been called to action have those similar transformative moments. As i read your book and i had my own version of the moment as i read the book i feel courageous when a redirect because i am so inspired by your coverage and by your bravery. Theree are sections of the booki had to skip over because i cant sleep at night with some of the images you described. Im curious how you are able to endure some of the things youve seen with the empathy you have and continue to go on so courageously. There is a scene in the book where i had gone to bosnia in my early 20s not long after graduating college and no idea what im going to change the worlworld, butworld come up jusf i want to do something. I have no background or skills and because i have any Sports Reporter i thought i could be a reporter and glossed over the fact that meant being a war correspondent but when i got there an Amazing Group of women were there doing what i get them into the kind of pleased trail and were welcoming. It wasnt the competitive world of journalism i had expected. I was sort of shelter to the boil in bosnipoint when bosnia a sense of my fortune. It was never a sense of worries me because i could always leave. 1995 under siege in sarajevoo bt if you could inslee, your passport meant nothing. You were trapped. Are trapped. If you were me you had a press pass and you could get the roads and flights were open, you could get out so i felt lucky and to be the ambassador on behalf of people that didnt have a voice, a couple years and i was a freelancer for thepl Washington Post and writing for major publications having learned on the fly out to d how to do it at know, i could leave. In terms of the physical fear for my safety which i have very much at the beginning and gradually lost probably more thathan whats healthy over the course of a couple of years, but as ive been initially i was in croatia very happily based their wishes more peaceful and then i went to my very first article in bosnia on the one un safe area that was actually safe, like literally why is it safe, i wanted to go to the safe place in bosnia and gradually get pulled along again by the community of people who know more than you do what they are doing also they lost their fear so its not the healthiestt kind of club to be a part of necessarily so with the boiling frog dimension added to the physical fear part of it and actually i left him and left in the end because i left my fear altogether. I felt it creep in and my younger brother who was four years younger than me commodity nature of the time, michael comm to talk to my mother, again amazing woman who brough brougho america and my stepfather who came withh her from ireland, lie what are you doing, what are you doing over there and i said what do you mean im righteously writing about the plight of these people. I dont know what i said in fact, but hes y like you are so selfish. Can you ever think about mom and what shes going through . What shes going through . But i start feeling sorry for myself a little bit of the victim complex or survivor complex which is crazy because i couldve always left but i do this scene where i sit down with a mentor of mine who unfortunately passed away a couple years ago who was a lifelong Us Government official who helped refugees to set up the first humanitarian coordinator position and i was there and complaining and nobody cares. He said im sorry were you ethnically cleansed . [laughter] and i said no. So ive always had people in my life who gave me that perspective if i ever went adrift and i felt that privilege because when you are with people who dont have a voice and these decisions are made above our paygrade and because i have gone over there with an explicit desire and had that feeling not being able to do anything at the end of the day i could feel i was doing something small. Thats a great sense selfishly its a very fulfilling way to live ones days so by a large with a couple of connections but the hardest time at the highest levels of Us Government the human rights advisor as un ambassador like the skunk at the loft party with internal discussions on human rights and humanitarian is issues. What was much harder about that i knew the hopes people had in him but also inside the government some people are arguing different sides likesi syria i would be in these meetings and i know where we ended up what we would do and we would have a discussion if we shouldve done more acted differently but bottom line i knew that we had reached what we were going to do. We would continue to try to dope diplomacy but fundamentally the underlying dynamics would not be affected by the United States. Then to leave those meetings in the old days i was a journalist i was writing and then you write your story you hope to influence someone. But i knew there was no one else. Ity was america or best in a new what was decided but yet even though i couldnt go to syria the same way i used to as a war correspondent if anybody was passing through i would meet with those trying to rescue people under the rubble are those who took the photographs of those tortured in the syrian t prisons and with these meetings it was less physical courage but how to get through those meetings when you hear what they have to tell you what is being done to their people and you knowha b and there is a scene later in the book meeting with the White Helmets im about to do my thing in 2016 i know russia is already involved bombing aleppo just if we could find a pathway and then i just stop myself i say nothing and he says nothing i know that he knows and at this point we were where we were going to get. That was much harder so when you have a degree of power compared to those who are targeted in this way and you cannot exercise this power its much harder than to exercise on their behalf. You describe that so well. For me its so helpful when i read the book to better understand the bureaucracy of government and how that works. And then to understand why we say why isnt this happening and when i was reading, you describe that so beautifully it was very helpful to me to have a better understanding of that bureaucracy and at the same time that moment you are speaking to said there is no other meeting. Talk about that because that was about using your voice. Completely. This is a meeting when us forces had gone to haiti in the wake of the earthquake to dodo rubble removal to patrol the streets until the government was back on its feet after thousands were killed in the earthquake. That was early 2010 i had only been working in the executive branch for a a year. Im hearing a discussion around the table and it feels as if there is confusion about the mandate of rules of engagement for us forces in this meeting. But i am a backbench and im a novice and human rights and im a woman and im just back from maternity leave. So mainly i think this is so big the mandate of the us military on the ground and rules of engagement at the fact they sound confused it must be me, not them so that i go up to the Deputy National security adviser i basically have is everybody goes back to their buildings. He looks at me and says what . Why didnt you say that in the meeting . I said i just thought. He said no no no dont ever presume. No no no with a dangerous day there is not another room where really smart people are having this conversation. You are just with bob gates and Hillary Clinton there is no other meeting. You are theis meeting. And you are so right to pull that up from the bureaucratic because talking to my former government officials with business and National Endowment<\/a> of the humanities. It helps make this amazing book festival free event please let me provide a brief amount of related logistical information. You should and can visit attend and shop titles by this author lineup. That will include Samantha Power<\/a>se new book the education of an idealistal and memoir into the benefits f of physical. Connie is a boston native raised in virginia and graduated from dartmouth college. In the Top Television<\/a> programs including friday night lights. Visibility and advocacy to the United Nations<\/a> efforts to address poverty, an and how are women and achieve sustainable development. She served in the cabinet of president barack obama and is the youngest of her u. S. Ambassador to the United Nations<\/a>. Ambassador for beginner or career as a journalist and reporter from places such as bosnia, rwanda and sudan. She has been named one of the times 100 most influential people on multiple locations. America and the age of genocide was awarded the Pulitzer Prize<\/a> in 2003. If things were here today. Please welcome connie and Samantha Power<\/a>s. [applause] did anybody come here for me to break out into a song . Its thrilling to be here in nashville today with my friend, Samantha Power<\/a> and celebrating ebyour incredible new book. She got to actually pet kangaroos. Where else does that happen. [laughter] thank you, nashville. I am going to read a short passage. My book as we will talk about it as the first person in it and people say that irish people have trouble using first person even in therapy becoming later a war correspondent, writing a book that would mention of genocide that the newly elected senator barack obama read and finding my way into his Senate Office<\/a> and campaign. We willan talk then about the subsequent things that happened at the white house and the passage i thought ihe would read is from a chapter called yes we can. It is now hard to remember, but wee were not he started running in january, 2007. The passage im going to read this from the spring of 2007. We was in january of 2008 when the iowa caucus. It was seen then as an amazing upset that this is about seven or eight months before then and our campaign was not that of a well oiled machine so this is a short passage and it gives you some flavor of how ive triedito approach the larger enterprise in a way that is relatable inaccessible particularly with my eye on young people and young at heart that i hope will embrace the challenge in the current moment. As i worked at my computer in the spring of 2007, i received an email that quickly was not intended for me. The university of chicago law professor in the Obama Campaign<\/a> advisor had written, quote, martha, isnt this worth a disaster as an worse than anything . Once before at an academic conference we struck up a lively conversation and ive learned that like me, he was an avid player and fan but we havent kept in touch. He seemed almost incurably cheerful during the brief interaction comes with a sour tone of his email about the Campaign Group<\/a> surprised me. But since it was addressed to the Harvard Law School<\/a> professor, i deleted the message and went about my day. I soon realized i wasnt the only accidental recipient. Neither were time or campaign advisers, we were academics that contributed ideas by telephoneco and email to the candidate obamas campaign and who spoke publicly on his behalf. The paid staff has assembled an Informal Working Group<\/a> comprised of legalle scholars to inform hs views about an assortment of issues including how to go about closing the Guantanamo Bay<\/a> detention facility and how to reverse president bushs licensing of torture. Obama and cats have been colleagues at the university of chicago where they both taught classes on constitutional law. With a speech approaching, the group had produced nothing. In expressing his frustration he had although filled with the entire staff of the Obama Campaign<\/a>. His criticism of the group caused wide offense. Daniel gray vehemently capable lawyer in charge of domestic policy to get as an insult to her leadership and forwarded the email to me saying you believe this. A friend of hers convert to the part of the email into the large poster and hung it on the wall at the headquarters. Worse than anything. I felt for tax like most i suffered my own mishaps not long before i had been set up on a blind date with a friend and fellow professor whom i had come to know through his research. Research. But it hasnt goneh well. I wrote with an email of all i didnt like about his friend asking how he could have conceivably thought we might get along. I stress to the incompatibilities were deep and i signed off i think as the old saying goes you can only make aythem dress better. To divert from the text is that an old saying because other than email and for the rest of time have you ever said this . I dont know where this is coming from. [laughter] as soon as i hit send i heard a pain in my inbox and it was the message i just sent freshly delivered as an incoming email. Within i heard a second and i have received a note from tom the simply red you didnt. I put my head in my hands and slowly typed i did. Tom and i were part of a listservet. It gets much worse. We were part of a listserv of thousands of genocide survivors activists and scholars and i had to send the note to that whole list. Years later when i was serving as the ambassador to the United Nations<\/a>, people who had received my email woodstove exuberantly quote my words back to. You can only make them dress better. [laughter] i reached out because i felt so badly because i had done something terrible and i told himm not to. Everybody had done something similar osimilar were soon wantt long after, i married him and our son is sitting right over there reading a book. [applause] so good things come from mistakes occasionally. I would love to just quickly let everybody know how we met. We met at the white house Correspondents Dinner<\/a> in a dont remember what year it was. I was introduced to you by friends of mine that were fanatical fans of yours. They had worked with your organization and they said you have to meet her because you are bexactly alike. I was blown away by your grace and intelligence and the amount you have beenn able to accomplih in your life. So, right off the bat, i would like to address something thats very important to me about this book. First of all kinds of property for having written the book. Its honorable and honest and so your insight that is accessible and approachable is such a generous gift, so thank you for that. I want to make a movie out of it. A my question to you is when we make the movie when i play you [laughter] what part of the book, what story would you most like to tell . Not to pu not to put you on the spot or anything. I wanted it to be a surprise. We can do this at the end of. I guess i would say one thing does come to mind i suppose for me and a lot of people when you read about 70 million displaced in the world were you especially i think Climate Change<\/a> generates a feeling in mos of most of us e feel very small. For people getting involved in their communities and School Boards<\/a> and you know, you name it, Political Action<\/a> of some kind, the hardest threshold to get over isnt a m. I. Santa, is it in just come i feel like a lot of people when they are taking in what is going on around w us and especially when there is cruelty involved a lot of people have l the reaction. I think the hardest moment is what can i do about it. All of those moments of gradually overcoming the secondd impulse is kind oin pools of kie feeling of caring if those kind of conversion moment int and the that springs to mind, my way of fitting in when they moved to pittsburgh in 1979 was to do with all the boys in my neighborhood were doing is to learn about baseball but i quickly learned as much as i could. I dropped practice learning in american accent and i learned quickly. The forward end other than wanting to be a professional baseball player myself. It would allow me to be around sports the whole time and the proximate and enjoy myself. I loved pretty much everything about the statistics and strategy and everything. The summer after my freshman year in college i go back to Atlanta Georgia<\/a> which is where id gone to Public High School<\/a> and i am working in the Sports Department<\/a> pursuing an amazing job taking notes on the atlantaa braves for a San Francisco<\/a> giants game into my mind its the most important thing i could be doing and i wanted to do it very well because i was going to help cut the highlights sports package for the s evening news d next to where im taking notes on the game comes the footage from Tiananmen Square<\/a> and im 18yearsold and the students that were in the square are my age and have been protesting for weeks without getting arrested or without a major crackdown that hasnt happened their im and the crackdown just commenced so things are kind of streaming up the boulevards making their way to Tiananmen Square<\/a> and the students are fleeing and you can imagine thean desperation and mpanic and fear and im there with my pencil faithful to my task and it just so hardest rock and horrified by what im sseeing. But again but i want to stress, the moment wasnt okay im going to go back to college and learn mandarin and be a diplomat. Asking what is america going to do in response and then when i get back to campus i change my subscription today i was kind of shape suggested to the recycling bin. I subscribe to the new york t k times and they would underline in the article names of leaders. I knew geography pretty well because coming f from ireland ia small country you learn geography because you learn many people want to leave p including me but i became serious about learning and it was the gradual. It wa wasnt i can do something that was i should know more. I dont know whats motivating them or what their government is doing what we are doing so i think that seen in this sense of empathy or whatever it was that was triggered by an empowered sense of empathy i think theree is something that is sort of universal. I totally agree. I think a lot of people that have been called to action have those similar transformative moments. As i read your book and i had my own version of the moment as i read the book i feel courageous when a redirect because i am so inspired by your coverage and by your bravery. Theree are sections of the booki had to skip over because i cant sleep at night with some of the images you described. Im curious how you are able to endure some of the things youve seen with the empathy you have and continue to go on so courageously. There is a scene in the book where i had gone to bosnia in my early 20s not long after graduating college and no idea what im going to change the worlworld, butworld come up jusf i want to do something. I have no background or skills and because i have any Sports Reporter<\/a> i thought i could be a reporter and glossed over the fact that meant being a war correspondent but when i got there an Amazing Group<\/a> of women were there doing what i get them into the kind of pleased trail and were welcoming. It wasnt the competitive world of journalism i had expected. I was sort of shelter to the boil in bosnipoint when bosnia a sense of my fortune. It was never a sense of worries me because i could always leave. 1995 under siege in sarajevoo bt if you could inslee, your passport meant nothing. You were trapped. Are trapped. If you were me you had a press pass and you could get the roads and flights were open, you could get out so i felt lucky and to be the ambassador on behalf of people that didnt have a voice, a couple years and i was a freelancer for thepl Washington Post<\/a> and writing for major publications having learned on the fly out to d how to do it at know, i could leave. In terms of the physical fear for my safety which i have very much at the beginning and gradually lost probably more thathan whats healthy over the course of a couple of years, but as ive been initially i was in croatia very happily based their wishes more peaceful and then i went to my very first article in bosnia on the one un safe area that was actually safe, like literally why is it safe, i wanted to go to the safe place in bosnia and gradually get pulled along again by the community of people who know more than you do what they are doing also they lost their fear so its not the healthiestt kind of club to be a part of necessarily so with the boiling frog dimension added to the physical fear part of it and actually i left him and left in the end because i left my fear altogether. I felt it creep in and my younger brother who was four years younger than me commodity nature of the time, michael comm to talk to my mother, again amazing woman who brough brougho america and my stepfather who came withh her from ireland, lie what are you doing, what are you doing over there and i said what do you mean im righteously writing about the plight of these people. I dont know what i said in fact, but hes y like you are so selfish. Can you ever think about mom and what shes going through . What shes going through . But i start feeling sorry for myself a little bit of the victim complex or survivor complex which is crazy because i couldve always left but i do this scene where i sit down with a mentor of mine who unfortunately passed away a couple years ago who was a lifelong Us Government<\/a> official who helped refugees to set up the first humanitarian coordinator position and i was there and complaining and nobody cares. He said im sorry were you ethnically cleansed . [laughter] and i said no. So ive always had people in my life who gave me that perspective if i ever went adrift and i felt that privilege because when you are with people who dont have a voice and these decisions are made above our paygrade and because i have gone over there with an explicit desire and had that feeling not being able to do anything at the end of the day i could feel i was doing something small. Thats a great sense selfishly its a very fulfilling way to live ones days so by a large with a couple of connections but the hardest time at the highest levels of Us Government<\/a> the human rights advisor as un ambassador like the skunk at the loft party with internal discussions on human rights and humanitarian is issues. What was much harder about that i knew the hopes people had in him but also inside the government some people are arguing different sides likesi syria i would be in these meetings and i know where we ended up what we would do and we would have a discussion if we shouldve done more acted differently but bottom line i knew that we had reached what we were going to do. We would continue to try to dope diplomacy but fundamentally the underlying dynamics would not be affected by the United States<\/a>. Then to leave those meetings in the old days i was a journalist i was writing and then you write your story you hope to influence someone. But i knew there was no one else. Ity was america or best in a new what was decided but yet even though i couldnt go to syria the same way i used to as a war correspondent if anybody was passing through i would meet with those trying to rescue people under the rubble are those who took the photographs of those tortured in the syrian t prisons and with these meetings it was less physical courage but how to get through those meetings when you hear what they have to tell you what is being done to their people and you knowha b and there is a scene later in the book meeting with the White Helmets<\/a> im about to do my thing in 2016 i know russia is already involved bombing aleppo just if we could find a pathway and then i just stop myself i say nothing and he says nothing i know that he knows and at this point we were where we were going to get. That was much harder so when you have a degree of power compared to those who are targeted in this way and you cannot exercise this power its much harder than to exercise on their behalf. You describe that so well. For me its so helpful when i read the book to better understand the bureaucracy of government and how that works. And then to understand why we say why isnt this happening and when i was reading, you describe that so beautifully it was very helpful to me to have a better understanding of that bureaucracy and at the same time that moment you are speaking to said there is no other meeting. Talk about that because that was about using your voice. Completely. This is a meeting when us forces had gone to haiti in the wake of the earthquake to dodo rubble removal to patrol the streets until the government was back on its feet after thousands were killed in the earthquake. That was early 2010 i had only been working in the executive branch for a a year. Im hearing a discussion around the table and it feels as if there is confusion about the mandate of rules of engagement for us forces in this meeting. But i am a backbench and im a novice and human rights and im a woman and im just back from maternity leave. So mainly i think this is so big the mandate of the us military on the ground and rules of engagement at the fact they sound confused it must be me, not them so that i go up to the Deputy National<\/a> security adviser i basically have is everybody goes back to their buildings. He looks at me and says what . Why didnt you say that in the meeting . I said i just thought. He said no no no dont ever presume. No no no with a dangerous day there is not another room where really smart people are having this conversation. You are just with bob gates and Hillary Clinton<\/a> there is no other meeting. You are theis meeting. And you are so right to pull that up from the bureaucratic because talking to my former government officials with business and University Even<\/a> the classroom with my students , no one i talked to from the Obama Administration<\/a> the only form of regret i hear about isri when the thought is to raise something and then you self censor yourself for some reason. You never hear i should have a lot of regrets like i went on to log in that meeting or i was repetitive and i made that point. That was a dumb question. Sure all of what i have said has been true but im much more prone to hone in on what say. Nt now rules of engagement were clarified and it was fine i was the only one asking the question. But being prepared to be impertinent in certain settings is myth in you with that chemical confused reaction or a visceral concerned reaction. Its fair to say no matter where you are. At the most highlevel meetings in the white house thats probably a little more challenging. Or less. There were scenes in there he said youre getting on my nerves. Not pleasant. Because hes a nice guy. [laughter] or he said in one of the syrian meetings because i was coming back to the plight of the people at one point he said we all read your book samantha. [laughter] but instead a nurse my wound but too his credit he snapped his irritation not because it wasnt specific to me but it was such exasperation with the inability to find a pathway to syria that was all Things Considered<\/a> likely to make a difference so for him the obvious next step would to be use limited military force and he was very concerned that would lead to a very bad place. But that that meant we were where we were so anything that happened and we all felt powerless that we try to get a bunch of things that just was not going to change the underlying equation. He snaps at me when the president does that in front of a lot of people it is not ideal. But so characteristically a few moments later said i want to get back to the point sam wase making. I think he had the insight to know if he pulled the rug out from under me in thisop meeting tthat would affect how he ends the meeting wheres we go that hes only in a tiny level of the discussions and that would be undermining of me. So his idea was to get the ideasho out there but hes also human so its not always his favorite thing to hear them but structurally would make an effort to make sure that the perspective was heard and it wasnt silent even if i was quiet which was rare he would say do you have the flu . [laughter] why do you have that look on your face . You look skeptical. [laughter] which is different from now where john bolton lost his job as did everybody before him to contest with the president and that path he wished to pursue. Along those lines because i find the book so motivational as a woman, i think its that way for women and men but i love your family and your kids so much some of the favorite stories are you juggling this intensely insane job giving children. Breast pumping in burma on the toilet seat and i would love for you to talk about that because i watchedou you be such an incredible mother and so incredible at your work and your life. For all of us, women and men just to deal with that balance and that struggle. Yes. The scene that you are nereferencing in burma was one of those moments that no matter where you are to take time to notice and pause given the tempo that so many of us are pursuing charging ahead that president obama just won reelection by such a substantial margin 2012. He is just the first us president to visit burma in the wake of the Political Party<\/a> being able to participate in the recent election i issued a communique releasing hundreds of Political Prisoners<\/a> making the agreement from where they had been barred from it was surreal. And i should say the context the aspects of my personal life had come before in the book are not of a functional romantic life. So the person i meet i end up having a romantic one wonderful romantic life and was an amazing presence in my life. So up until meeting him through the Obama Campaign<\/a> i am very single and very much not a parent now suddenly here i find myself four years later with two children Barack Hussein<\/a> obama has been reelected im in cheese house and with secretary clinton president obama and now active in political life because of what has happened which i have written about sense but at the time its one of those moments. My main thought at the time is i am bursting because i have it pumped i am in this damn meeting and when will the meeting and. [laughter] so it breaks so it is just Obama Clinton<\/a> and the rest of the staff and we are free to go racing to the armored car i go get my pump and said where is the nearest bathroom and they point back to her house so i go where they are still meeting and in sit down but there is the noise from the pump. Anybody. [laughter]er i know from circulating drafts of this book to friends that with letters and words try to describe the sound the pump makes all these people made comments but on that one they have such strong views on what it actually sounds like people here this imaginary conversation but for me it was like he ha making that noise. [laughter] than at the moment now theres erso much press outside waiting for it to end and then to say its all good and then i say a prayer of gratitude like this is so incredible. How does this happen and then i get lost in my own reverie then i realize i better get moving i just look outside because thats where i saw the gpress gathered i pulled the curtain back and without realizing it had ended and im looking at a the back of barack obama facing the world media i pulled it this much and i would be very famous globally for a wardrobe malfunction. [laughter] Sheryl Sandbergs<\/a> book came out lean in and of course we want to stand up for ourselves and silence those doubts in our minds that we have but when youug juggle whether an aging parent for the best parent you can be its not always pretty. I ran into secretary clinton before she was running for president and she said hows it going . I said they said its lean in but i said feel low fall down she said no its lean on. So if there is any foundation to my ability to barely keep the juggle going because the nanny for our children, my mother and stepfather an emergency Meeting Security Council<\/a> was called. Can you get down here . My stepfather is retired maybe my friend is in new york just any number of people who were on call and allowed themselves and i wasnt the kind of friend that i wish to be and i hope i can be now that they just show up. I know we will open questions but because this book is so personal you are so vulnerable sharing so much not only your Family History<\/a> but also how it has impacted you , how you had to go through your emotional and psychological journey and influence the choices you made of your work. Can you talk about how it has felt for you to write such a vulnerable book which is so different from your previous book quick. Initially i wasnt planning. I knew it would reflect on my time in w government that threshold first person i got over not long after serving but with the current moment of President Trump<\/a> and also the reaction in the country the climate protest and gun violence taken into their hands in different ways, the idea of writing a policy book started to feel removed from larger issues in our society. If i look back and think about what is the best predictor of whether we get the change we seek if we can reform institutions or care for those that are vulnerable around us or preserve our planet in some fashion, its about drawing people into that effort. The reason i went deeper is i realized initially i was writing about these things come with me on my journey trying to promote its like somebody writing fiction although mine isnt fiction. For the reader to be moved to identify with the character they have to know the character and as my fortune or misfortune it is me that even i would get some distance from my own writing i didnt care whether she succeeded because i was invested i in who she was. So i had to go back and dig deeper than i was use to through my old journals to put myself into my life of my other mindset i dont recommend anybody going back to their journals. But then i position myself. So now what i was finding beforere in retrospect going back to the classroom my students would say its easy for you to say. Youre a published author or un ambassador. They had their own ideals but or even my recommendations or anything it wasnt that relatable where as now what i find or more often than not to make a difference but they felt small next to the magnitude of the problems they were encountering. So traveling around to adifferent places that there is some person that hasgh their act together for me. Maybe i can give it a chance because any walk of life as a novelist or a poet or an engineer or Public Servant<\/a> is about making yourself vulnerable to put yourself out there. And where the statue of liberty actually stands for. When one immigrant was given the privilege and that i write about other people at the us mission to the un that are practically immigrants or one or two generations removed. Instead being so divided Global Cooperation<\/a> isnt a controversiala fact that they tend to be transnational in nature but to say that is democratic speak. Dy let that go its natural course. And with that polarization. [applause] and now with one question who is present today . Be brave. Use your voice. This is the meeting. [laughter] do you follow politics in ireland you see any lessons for the United States<\/a> quick. I follow very carefully not the least because prosperity is rooted in what is now under considerable pressure one of the amazing features of the European Union<\/a> which is of course like all other institutions and i was living in dublin and then when my younger brother was born that there were attacks all the time and with sectarian violence add that phenomenon that could impede the aspirations with the good friday agreement. Land now for People Living<\/a> on both sides of the border there is a fear to take Northern Ireland<\/a> over one out of union thatn existed and will go with it. What has been inspiring and a reminder of why foreignpolicy is so important these days to basically say we are prepared to negotiate. We will not do so at the expense of one of our members. That is a reminder for us and the importance of having allies. [laughter] im sorry its an idea. Shioned it is not an applause line. [applause] if we get credit for today we should have values and allies. Its better to cooperate than not. Granted it is a small country but one of the features of the leadership that is so troubling there is a pattern showing great affection for brutal regimes. And to. The values of our counterparts in that being a pretty good predictor of the kind of partner and reliability off a country when we are in a pinch. Again, given the kind of challenges that we face in so many face around the world, it is going to take networks and coalitions of countries to make things better. I think i ireland has benefited from a coalition of countries that have puttr principled over the kind of expedient exit and now there is a chance that it will end up being the case the unitedho kingdom feels he has no choice but to go along with something that expresses expediency. So, thank you. [applause] looking forward to meeting everybody at the signing","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia803100.us.archive.org\/25\/items\/CSPAN2_20191224_043700_Samantha_Power_The_Education_of_an_Idealist\/CSPAN2_20191224_043700_Samantha_Power_The_Education_of_an_Idealist.thumbs\/CSPAN2_20191224_043700_Samantha_Power_The_Education_of_an_Idealist_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240716T12:35:10+00:00"}