state of american politics written by a man who coined the phrase counterculture and i found out that he couldn't find a single publisher in the united states to pick out his book. there was not anyone who would touch it. i think people get the impression that as long as books like if i did it by o.j. simpson can get published, anything can get published and it is not the case so tonight we are here to celebrate something very very fortunate that books like this can be published. the power of governments cannot suppress can be published by amazing press is like city lights and me can hear the voice directly of some of the greatest statesmen living in the united states today, some of the greatest intellectuals and i am proud to introduce one of them now. please welcome howard zinn. [applause]

>> thank you. thank you. thank you alex. and thank you however you are who applauded. [laughter] if you did not applaud, thanks anyway. alex is from back pages books, right here on monday street, and they are responsible for this and i want to thank them. i hope it doesn't mind my saying this, but they are a struggling little bookstore and they need support like all struggling little bookstores, and i think that we need to direct people more to bookstores into libraries away from television, away from the newspapers. i say away from television even

though i know there is a television camera focused on us right now. the question is, will they turned us off as a result of this? this is different. this is special. [laughter] and so yeah, this book, "a power governments cannot suppress," a man named gregory decided on his book. i didn't really write the book. i wrote the stuff that is in it. and he put it together. that is, it is a bunch of essays that i've done over the last three or four years many of them for the progressive magazine, some of them here and there. i did an essay on the road for princeton university press. i did an essay on eugene debs. this to go together, don't they? yeah. and kind of socialist and

anarchist. i haven't done anything on any republican that i know of, but any way you will find all sorts of things in this book come things that even surprise me when i find it is there. so, the basic idea of the book, i don't read. they always talk about things like somebody's going to do a reading. i never read from my books. i don't think they are worth it. [laughter] i will read from tolstoy or theroux or mark twain. but you are stuck with that whereas if you pick up a buck did you read something of mind you are going to immediately put it down if you like and go on to something else. i won't read from my book but i will try to tell you something about what is annette rick least what is suggested by this book. it fundamentally the book tries

to make a connection between history and what is going on today. that is always might attitude as a historian. i have never been interested in just doing history to go into the archives and look up these old letters and documents. it is interesting of course. it is fun, but no, that is not the kind of history i want to do. i want to go into history and come out into the presence. i want to make a connection between something that happened in the past because i want history to help us in dealing with the situation we face today. we are always facing a situation today. ashley today, especially now, especially now with an administration that has taken us into two wars in a few years, within the administration the who has run amok with power that

has attacked the constitutional rights of people all over this country, and administration who has wasted enormous wealth this country has anwar and funneling this wealth into the upper richest 1% of the population. an administration that is taken power into itself without listening to anything that anybody says except maybe for five people of round the president. so, we are in a situation now where we are i think desperately needing to learn something from history because they feel that, if people of the united states at that moment when george bush got up before the microphone and said we must go to war, 9/11 took place, the terrorist acts took place and therefore we must go to war against afghanistan. well, if people listening new history, they would not immediately rush as most

americans did at that point, 80% of americans rushed to say yes, yes. congress of course rushed to say yes because that is the job of congress, to say yes whenever the president wants to go to war. people new history there would not be the right to support a war. there would not be that his acceptance of the idea, we are going to war to fight terrorism. there would not be an acceptance of the idea, we are going to war to bring democracy to iran, bring democracy to the whole middle east. because the people in this industry they would know what all those instances in the american past when presidents have come before the public and said, president polk did in 1846, we have got to go to mexico to spread civilization to the mexicans or as mckinley did in 1898, we have got to go to cuba to liberate the cubans. we are always lipreading

somebody. we went to cuba and the braded the cubans. in fact we did, we liberated the cubans from spain but not from us. our record is sometimes lipreading people from other tyrants and imposing our will on them so that the spanish brought out of cuba in 1898 and american corporations and the american military were in cuba and stayed there for a very long time for could dictatorship after dictatorship after dictatorship supported by the united states. if people knew some of that history, if they knew the history of the american occupation in the philippines, they would be very wary of american occupation of iraq. they would be very wary of the idea, we are occupying the racks of wickham bring democracy to iraq. we fought a bloody war in the philippines who committed massacres in the philippines and then we occupied the philippine islands for 50 years and did we bring democracy to the

philippines? we brought dictatorship after dictatorship that misery to the filipino people, the half of million of come had died in the board that we waged against the philippine house. and of course the history then into the 20th century, into the marines going again and to the caribbean. general smedley butler, i advise you to look him up, a marine general who won two congressional medals of honor leading the military into various countries in central america and at a certain point he stopped and turned around and said, you know, i was an errand boy for wall street. he realized that what he had done, what the american military had done in central america was to try to make central america countries in central america in the caribbean and haiti in the dominican republic and nicaragua and the honduras to make them

profitable places for american corporations, not places where democracy would flourish and in fact democracy did not flourish in all of those places where we sent the marines to takeover and to do the bidding of american economic interests. of course bringing the history up to more recent times, if people even studied closely the history of the vietnam war, that was not that long ago, was that? there are people here who remember the vietnam war. despite the attempt of the media to forget the vietnam war, despite the attempts of our political leaders, when we went into iraq the first time in 1998-- 1991 and won this quick smashing victory, a splendid work just like the spanish-american war. quick, victorious war, and

george bush said, sr., that is the smarter one-- [laughter] george bush said, george bush sr. said well, we have now buried the vietnam syndrome in this sands of the arabian peninsula. where poetic statement out of the white house. [laughter] but, the fact is we have not buried the vietnam war govea thumb is coming back to haunt us and people are thinking about that more and more everyday. if people remembered vietnam they would remember how the calls for withdrawal that came early on, i must say in 1967, two years after we were escalating the war. in 1967 i wrote a book, i love to advertise my books-- i will

try to resist it later on, but i can't resist this one. in 1967 i wrote a book called vietnam, the logic of withdrawal and i must say the first book, there have been a number of books on the war in vietnam and mine was the first book that called simply for the united states to get out, not equivocating, not setting timetables, not saying we will get out if and when, we are not going to go to paris to negotiate for five years and six years. leagis tett to get out. and the arguments against that at that time were the same as the arguments today when people say, as i say and as the number people and said, as congressman martella in vietnam veteran said, no, we must just leave. we don't belong there. it is not our country. get out of there. that the iraqis determine their own destiny.

as difficult as it will be but we are making it more difficult by our occupation, and the arguments than for the same. we can't do that, there will be chaos. there will be chaos? in vietnam? there was chaos in vietnam. we were bombing vietnam into eternity. we were destroying vietnamese villages. we were destroying their land. we were killing their people. ultimately 2 million people died in vietnam and we must not leave because there will be chaos in vietnam? zoe state. we didn't leave in 1967 when a few of us were calling for withdrawal. we stayed in what was the result? another 30,000 americans dead, another 1 million vietnamese dead. said the same arguments the resonate, we mustn't leave iraq as a fire presidents in iraq-- presence in iraq is preventing

civil war. the question is is our present preventing civil war is our presence provoking civil war? i think the answer is clear. just looking at the history of these four years of occupation in iraq, iraq is a mess after four years. and the numbers of iraqis dead and wounded are enormous, into the hundreds of thousands. so yes the history is useful. and, not the history he would get in the traditional textbooks, but the history that a citizen learns for himself or herself and when the system goes to library or the assistant listens to the independent media, when a citizen reads alternative journals instead of simply watching cnn and fox news so yes, history is very useful.

it still is today, and i think that one of the things we might learn from history, and this is very important, very important conclusion to get from the history of this country, is that the government's interest are not necessarily the same as ours. in fact they are barely the same as ours. because, if you think the government's interests are the same as yours, then you think well of something is going wrong it must be that they made a mistake because they really care about us because they don't care about us because the government does not care about its own soldiers. if it did it would not send soldiers into the quagmire is of vietnam and iraq. it would not send them into a situation where they would come back maimed or without arms are the legs, come back with their

psyche destroyed. if they cared about the soldiers and the families of the soldiers, they would not be taking the wealth of this country and squandering it on $500 billion each year on the military budget. that is a hard thing to grasp that the government does not have the same interest as ours. it is hard to grasp because we grew up in the culture with the language of the culture predispose is us to think yes we have a common interest, that the constitution starts off in the preamble, we the people of the united states establishes-- it wasn't really people who established the constitution. it was 55 rich, white men who established the constitution. i know you are not supposed to say anything about the founding fathers. [laughter] they are our fathers. we are all one family. [laughter] not so. the founding fathers were slaveholders and merchants in

bondholders. really. they said that the government that was more democratic than other governments. they said that the government that was independent of england but they did not said that the government that was a government of the people. they set up a haas slaveholding government that was going to do the interest of the bondholders and the merchants. the interest of the government in the interest of the people right from the beginning were not the same. and that same difference of interest has continued down to the present day, all through-- look at the history of legislation in this country. it is class legislation. this legislation has always been a bit of the upper class. there's always been subsidies for the corporations and subsidies for the real votes. they didn't call it welfare. when the government began helping poor people they call the welfare. and the government gave hundreds of millions of acres of land to the real votes, they didn't call the welfare. but the legislative history of

this country is a history of legislation favoring the rich to put it bluntly. and there were some breakthroughs. there were some oddities. there were some moments in history when this was not true. in the 1930's, something happened. in the 1960's something happened. what happened is that people rose up all over the country in demand to change and the demands grew so loud and so threatening that then in the 1930's we got social security and got the unemployment insurance tamika subsidize housing and in the '60s to got medicare and medicaid so there have been moments of the history when the people and their desires and their anguish over this situation has broken through and then we got legislation that moved away from the traditional class, upper class legislation of the government. but he is extremely important to

understand this conflict of interest between government and us. otherwise you will think, and the young guy going off to war will think bush's interest is the same as mine. it is not. nor is exxon's interest the same as mine. nor-cal burton's the interest the same as mine. no, it is a very important thing to learn i think from history. and when you learn, when you study the history of the united states, you did not see the kind of country that we all learn about when we go to school which is a kind of exultation of america. we are not different by the way from other countries. countries everywhere teach their history in nationalists ways. they are all prideful of their flag in their anthem and hewn know their history in the united

states is no different. except we are bigger, better and stronger. but, true-up in a country singing this "star spangled banner" and liberty and justice from pledging the allegiance and all of that. we corrupt with the idea that we are special, where the difference, we are the boyscouts of the world. we help countries across the street. [laughter] yeah, we are good. we have far little problems like slavery maybe. maybe we were not nice to the native americans. we have our little problems that basically we are okay. when you look at the history of this country, we were not, we were not. we destroyed indian civilizations and expanded into the caribbean, expanded into the pacific. we send the young people to war again and again. we did not take care for people.

when poor people organized and when workers organized into unions and went on strike the government called up the police and the national guard and army to suppress their strikes. that is the history of labor struggles in this country. so it is not the kind of clarifying history that too many of us grew up with. and, when i say that, and when anybody says something like that there is a kind of fear of saying it. you are putting down our country. you are unpatriotic. no. i am not putting down our country. when i am honest about what their government has done, i am putting down our government yes but there is a distinction between the government and the country. it is a fundamental-- that the

government in the country are not the same, the government and the people and not the same. that is the basic idea of the declaration of independence which says governments are set up by the people. they are artificial creation said that to achieve certain ends, the right to life and liberty in the pursuit of happiness, the quality. when governments become destructive of this ends according to the words of the declaration of independence it is the right of the people to alter or abolish the government. that is serious. those are revolutionary words but after all it was a revolution. there's something about a revolution that brings up modesty and also brings out the idealistic language and hopes and dreams which may not be realized because you know the dream of the declaration of independence was not realized but it is they are telling us that governments are not to be obeyed simply because their governments.

to be patriotic is not to simply do with the government says. to be patron tickets to subscribe to the principles of the declaration of independence, to check up on the government to see it really is fulfilling its obligation to take care of our right to equality, the life and liberty in the pursuit of happiness. and, patriotism and the best sense of the term means following those principles and when the government doesn't follow those principles the government is being unpatriotic. so we must be honest about ourselves. about our history, about the history of our government, and i think that's maybe we need some confession on the part of our government leaders, an acknowledgement like alcoholics anonymous or they get up before you and confess, yeah and maybe

cheney and bush and the others should get up, form a group called imperialists the anonymous. [laughter] [applause] and tell the truth and that is what they are aiming for in the middle east is not democracy and they don't really care about the overthrow of tyrants like saddam hussein. our government has supported tyrants all over the world. what they really care about is hard to say this, it is the oil. it seems so mean, so cheap although the oil won't be cheap. but it seems, really it is just oil? yes, it is the oil. history comes in handy there. the history of american policy towards the middle the tesman based on the desire to control the oil resources of the middle east. that has been trevor since the end of world war ii. president roosevelt got together with saudi arabia and made the deal, the united states would replace the old oil powers, the

dutch in the british and the french in the middle east and in turn the united states will support the evin soud governor. talk about democracy. the even soud government, the government of saudi arabia all these years has been as far from democracy as you can find that we have not invaded saudi arabia. psaty array pia gives as oil and is our ally and our quest for oil in the middle east. so yes, history is very useful in all of these ways, and i guess our problem is once we accept with the reality is, once we have look honestly at what we have done and what we are doing, the question is, you know what do we do about it and now we are helpless to do anything about it

because i think that is a great problem that people if and when they oppose the government feel helpless to do anything about it. and, so we don't see, we don't see today of the most americans today are opposed to the war and most americans today are opposed to the bush policies. we don't see a connection between that opposition in any kind of change in policy. we don't see the wishes of the people represented in what the government does. we are not seeing the kind of actions that took place during the vietnam war with the pass of opposition to the board became more than passive, when it became civil disobedience. we are seeing the beginnings of that with soldiers going back to iraq. we are seeing the beginnings with the families of soldiers saying we are opposed to war.

but, the fact is we did not have democracy in foreign policy. that is a very important thing to a knowledge because we are always talking about bringing democracy everywhere else. we did not have democracy in this country when it comes to foreign policy. we learn in school we have three branches of government and we have checks and balances and the legislature will check the executive then the supreme court will see if things are constitutional or not. that does not work in foreign policy. the president of the war and congress goes along like a bunch of sheep. really, that is what they did in the mexican war, that is what they did in the spanish-american war. in the gulf of tonkin resolution members of congress knew where the gulf of tonkin was when they voted for the gulf of tonkin resolution? did they know what happened in the gulf of tonkin? it turned out to be a mess of

lies but they immediately voted to give lyndon johnston the authority to launch but then became a very long war in vietnam. there is no democracy in matters of foreign policy. and, no checks and balances, no hope that congress will stop and say hey let's look into this, let's see if this is true. and no hope for the supreme court deciding that a war is unconstitutional. and we have not fought the constitutional wars since they aren't of world war ii. constitution declares congress declares war for the congress is not declare war in any war that we ephod and there were many since world war ii. you learn in school of something is unconstitutional it is the job of the supreme court to say so and do something about it. no. just because they were black robes does not give them any

special moral standing. they are political appointees and they do the bidding of the people who appointed them. so with a don't have democracy in the upper reaches of government than the can't depend on checks and balances on representative government, obviously i think it leads us to the thought that if we are going to have democracy it depends on us, it depends on the people and historically, that has been the situation. historically when working people found out that the government is not going to do anything about the 12-hour day they organized and went out on strike and they won the eight-hour day. wind black people on the south saw the government not just the state governments but the national government was not going to do anything about racial segregation our fertility in the south than black people organized, they demonstrated come that they went to prison,

they were beaten, some of them were killed but they created a national commotion which vine that brought democracy alive. that is the situation we are in today. we need to bring democracy alive today and it requires the actions of ordinary people. we mustn't despair about the fact that the government has the power. the fbi, they have all their secret apparatus. they are watching us. i don't think i am paranoid. they really are watching us. [laughter] and, they love that. so our job is to watch them. and, we have to understand that despite all the trappings of government, which indicate that they are all powerful.

they have the military, they have the money, they have the security apparatus and so on. the fact is historically, and here's where history comes in handy, the moose, powerful governments of had to change policy when the people demanded it. when an outcry grew so great that it became threatening to the government, then the government had to change policy. we have seen governments topple. we have seen tyrannies toppled all of the world that seemed to be impregnable. in the philippines suddenly it dictatorship, marcos is totally in charge in wickes up one morning and there are 1 million people in the streets. he leads. really picket this is happening in place after place, in hagee dubai yea jones on the plane because the people rising up. the fact is governments like all-powerful entities are vulnerable. the government needs people to

obey it and when people stop hoping the government loses its power. corporations need people to work for its. when people stop working for corporations and the corporation is helpless. we saw this in the 1930's with general motors and ford. hege corporatization, we are not unhappy union here but when the workers left the factories or even when they sat in the factories and would not let production go on general motors was hopeless. so it is important to keep in mind that the power of the establishment press on our obedience. when we start disobeying, that is where theroux comes in and that is where the great people in our history come in. that is where helen keller comes in and emma goldman comes in and mark twain comes in and eugene debs and fannie lou hamer and martin luther king. that is where they come in. and when that happens, then

something will change. our job is to participate in that process. at this point, to light a fire under these wishy-washy democrats to have just one an election and you were sort of falling back timidly. they want to passed non-binding resolutions. how about a binding resolution? [laughter] [applause] yes. how about holding the hearings on impeachments. [applause] i am talking about a double impeachment. i am talking about bush and cheney because they go together. no come impeachment is not a radical solution. people aft, impeachment in the trumble at the thought of impeachment. some people in the high reaches of the democratic party, we

mustn't talk about impeachment. and weichmann is a constitutional measure. the president may be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. what baluchistan, does that not match the requirement of high crimes and misdemeanors? sending us into war, lying to us, taking away our liberties, taking away the lives of thousands of americans and subjecting so many of them to mutilation and a terrible future? does that not make the requirements of high crimes? we have to talk to where congressman, are congresswomen. we have to talk to them but let them know how we feel a we have to beef them up then stiffened their spine and tell them to get going, because it is a situation that cannot be tolerated for too long.

and, i have to step soon because i have to give you a chance. and, although the orthodox definition of free speech is that the speaker speaks for 50 minutes and gives the audience five minutes. freedom of speech. [laughter] freedom of speech means you know, the president can speak to 14 million people and i can speak to a few hundred. it is a free country. and, keep this in mind about power. and keep this in mind about when the government says, we will not retreat. we will not give them. we will stay the course the matter bud. they ask, what about the people? what about the fact most people are opposed to this? that does not bother me.

well, we have seen that in history. we have seen people say i will never yield, i will never give them and they gave them. lenin of people got together and enough people organized, they gave in. we have seen that again and again. i remember george wallace mccuen before a crowd of his southern supporters, and saying segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. and wild applause. two years later, the segregation signs for down in the south and wallace was campaigning in the black neighborhoods for support in his presidential race. things change. things change. it is up to us to move that change along. it is up to bring democracy alive. thank you. [applause]

[applause] thank you. [applause] thank you. >> we are going to take questions for about half an hour. darity microphones up here. if you can line up in the side aisles of you have a question and we will just go back and forthwith the microphones and go for half an hour and then the will to book signings. if you have a question, feel free to come up.

>> as you note i came from-- to westy this question so i'm try to make it good. i took of the yankees that. [applause] being a community organizer and a student citizen, i just was asking for some advice as far as how do least stem the tide of cynicism and apathy come again the to keep that from breaching the levees of the optimism that you exit and other politicians and/or people like myself for the people who care about things that is going on? >> how did we stem the tide of citizens and the pessimism and hopelessness and all the things that all this feel on tuesday and thursday and saturday? [laughter] and, i think the key to that is, there are two keys to that.

i think one is history. one is going back in pointing to those times in the past where people live felt hopeless and people who felt that they could not do anything. but they acted anyway, and it acted and acted and active in then something happened. that is what happened. i lived in the south for seven years during the years of the civil-rights movement and i remember when i came into the south in the late 1950's. there was no sign really, no important sign of a great movement and it looked kind of hopeless. but people began to do things. people began sitting in and there were citizens that spread in people went on freedom rides. demonstrations took place in the city and that city and other cities since in the demonstrations for all over the south and thousands of people would be put in jail and the pictures were now going out all over the world and the administration was becoming embarrassed. this is very important, to

embarrass the people in power. even though we have leaders who are not easily embarrassed. [laughter] but, that i think is one answer to your question. that is, to show the history of those times when people have felt helpless. at the beginning of the vietnam war and i remember this very distinctly, the spring of 65, the beginning of the escalation of the four we had a demonstration on the-- 100 people showed up. a few years later, 69 actually, another antiwar meeting, 100,000 people were there. the movement grew and grew and grew. people did not give up. people persisted and people understood all movement starts small and all movements start with the kind of hopelessness and the feeling, what are we doing? but it people persistent

persisting persist there is a chance that something may happen. the other thing, i said there were two cops loy should not forget the second. very often this happens in class. they say, i will now tell you the five causes of the american revolution. after number three the teacher falters. [laughter] i can remember two. that is as high as i go. [laughter] my second point is, to overcome cynicism and the feeling of helplessness, surround yourself with active people, people who are doing things. when people don't do anything is very easy to get hopeless. when people are acting, even if their action doesn't seem to bring anything immediate but after all there's something about resisting the authority, something about speaking your mind about being honest about

what you are doing, even if you don't see immediate results. there's something about that which is very satisfying and degrading and it invigorates other people too. >> thank you. >> my question has to do with your coming tonight you brought up civil disobedience and the lack i guess of it now, and what makes me curious is why is that? i just want-- there are people like geron recess who is a filmmaker who is go to movie out, and they are calling big people like that the calling for civil disobedience but i think there's a lack of civil disobedience because of things like the patriot act. people are scared to do that stuff, as they were back in the '60s, but is there a connection

between you know, that and the lack of people doing that kind of stuff today? and, also, the truth movement for 9/11, is there the project for the new american century, i am sure you are familiar with that and i'm wondering if they had a plan and to you think there was this plan before 9/11 happened and in the connection. to you have any feelings on the 9/11 truth movement? >> you will know about the 9/11 truth movement? no. there are people, tell me if i'm misrepresenting, which i do. but, people very often repeat the questions that they want to hear and not the questions that

were actually asked. but, the truce, the 9/11 truth movement is a movement very suspicious of what happened on 9/11, suspicious of the official story and i think maybe there's another story or maybe this administration is hiding something serious. frankly i don't know. i don't know the secrets. i swear i don't. [laughter] and, i will just say this about 9/11. the administration has used 9/11, has used it to scare people and to do what it wanted, what it wanted was to move troops into the middle east for the oil is. they wanted to set up military bases in the middle east and the use 9/11 as a wonderful

opportunity. it wasn't going to do anything about terrorism. it is very obvious now to simply follow the events of 9/11 five bombing afghanistan did not reduce terrorism. in fact it increase the possibility of terrorism. we have bair actions in the middle east since 9/11 largely increase the number of terrorists in the middle east and in the world because we have antagonized so many people. when you bomb people you antagonize them. when you in dade people you antagonize them. you make enemies. you get people angry and out of the anger of millions of people in small number of them may become terrorists. so, they use 9/11. to me that is the important truth about 9/11. >> the a minton the patriot act. in the past couple of weeks the bush administration has fired ten or more top attorneys in the

justice department under a secret provision of the patriot act has been replacing them without congressional improvement and without oversight, so my question about that is you mentioned we should bring people to justice through impeachments and such things. what happens that when the legal system is no longer responsible or refuses to take action or is filled with figureheads that will not act? what can we do then if the actual institutionalist no longer delivering that justice that is necessary in needed? ..

>> and bringing troops back as fast as possible, i think that is the way to bypass the recalcitrant and reactionary justice system. >> the u.s. does seem to abuse the fear of terrorism really well that gets the hypocrisy of the current government around the defending fed terrorists to have been attacking cuba by putting the cuban five in jail for having exposed what they were doing it seems like a lesson that people really need to hear about in this country yet there is

such silence and wonder if you can say a little bit i know you wrote to a wonderful chapter on u.s. and cuba relations but i'm noticing a lot of people don't know about these five guys walked out. >> yes. that is one of those things that have happened that nobody knows about. these people have them locked away for years. they are five cubans. correct me if i am wrong because you obviously know. usually the questioner knows more than of the person who replies. but these are five of cubans to infiltrated the anti-castro network did miami because terrorist acts work being committed against cuba and they have been ever since castro took power. it is not a secret united states tried to invade cuba or tried to assassinate castro.

that the united states was engaged in secret terrorist activities against cubans so they tried to find out about that and were arrested and charged with terrorism and i think held for a long time without right to counsel or see their families and they are still in prison after years. there are these things that go on that so many of them that you never hear about in the press of course, you cannot depend on the major media to report on these things. we depend on people like you to get up before the microphone and tell people about it. >> i will leave postcards on the back table if people want to send notices to congress people there is information on them then they can send them to congress because it is so egregious. thank you.

[applause] >> greetings. it is more like looking for your input am looking at george bush the way he got into office a large part of that came from the backing of fundamentalist religious groups and their strong desire was to impose religious beliefs of the legislative process of they could change the laws of the country so that is the laws of the country and i'm curious as to your thoughts on toehold fundamentalist religion and what it had to do two put bush in power? >> well we never had a separation of church and state in this country. they talk about it as a principal of american democracy but it has never been a real. presidents have always taken the oath of the bible and god is always invoked any president wanted to invade

any country said that god told him to do that because god steadies the map and decides and bush has gone further than anybody else to tie this administration in this case to fundamentalist radical fanatics christianity. there is a difference of christianity. there is room is not fundamentalist or not to extremist there is christianity that is he missed look at the catholic antiwar people look at the churchmen who have supported social movements. christianity can be used for good or ill bad bush has used it in the fundamentalist churches have been so closely tied to him as to give him great support

and i think fortunately they do not command the support of the majority of christians in this country. maybe they have 20 or 25% but there has always been, i should not say always that is extreme. i am not an extremist. [laughter] for a long time a fundamental quarter of in movable right-wing the sentiment in this country which probably accounts 25 or 30% of the population. there is probably little you can do two move them berkeley have to move everybody else but if you move a enough of the other people who are not transfixed by this pseudo religious idea that's god is on this side of imperial power, then it is possible

for revision to play a positive role. >> i have one comment and one question. i am a combat veteran abuse by his own people while serving and those of us who face similar things try to go to congressmen and senators we have gone to the press and they refuse to air what we have to say. that brings me to the question to have a advice to how to get things public? but that has not worked spin a publicize? >> make the congressmen meet with us who have been abused. >> during the vietnam war when congressman refused to meet with people, the people who try to meet with the congressman's act in their offices they went to see them and did not leave. that is an act of civil disobedience that brought

attention as some hot day sometimes in paris the congressmen to meet with them but when the orthodox channels two nablus bond then you have to go outside the orthodox channels and they do not fill the requirements of democracy. there are things that can be done. they take risks you may be a arrested or so on but in times of crisis that is what people do. they do that in the south during the movement there and during the vietnam war or during the '80s when reagan was carrying on covert to warfare in nicaragua now under el salvador people committed civil disobedience. 1.5 hundred of us sat in the jfk building here in boston and would not move when the building closed down and a restive 500 of us.

this charge was based on an old statutes and was abbreviated as the statute like a failure to quit the premises and abbreviated as failure to quit. [laughter] that is what we have to do. we have to fail to quit. [applause] >> a quick question then a longer question. [laughter] this is driving me nuts i have been an admirer over 30 years is to make you want to drive me nuts? [laughter] >> i will try. i am older than many of the people here with 30 years ago we read a book buy you but i cannot remember the name of it about the a number crow i don't think it was vietnam's logic that i tried to look for it today i

cannot remember the name of it. >> neither can i. [laughter] and buy no it was written by you. >> are you sure? >> if i understood you correctly you mentioned that government is for the wealthy and the upper but on the other hand, not that i am disputing people like ted kennedy and maybe michael dukakis as once you are there to help the underdog, the immigrants, a free food stamps, but do you agree with that or disagree? >> the fact that kennedy and some of the other people are on the other end were the government serves their rich? >> and to do see is a good

president? >> i am i heard one. [laughter] you are skipping one. >> the book? i see. who would you like to see be our next president? >> i would just as soon have a lottery and chooses somebody from the audience. [laughter] [applause] i would gamble that anybody in this audience would do a better job than whoever will be selected by the democratic party. [laughter] i am have serious. but with your question of kennedy and dukakis doing good things for the poor, yes there are congressmen that are better than others and some are more liberal and some have a better idea of what the tax structure should be and it is nice to have those

congressmen and we should do encourage them and support them. but they always need to be encouraged and pushed and they are in a distinct minority of our system of representation. who would i like to see the president? unfortunately it is very hard to find somebody in the high reaches of the democratic party when i look at the possible candidates candidates, process of elimination. hillary clinton? and no. no. biden? and no. obama's? possibly. edwards? possibly. but you put me in that position that we are always in at election time that

nobody who really represents a reduced as somebody who a little bit represents hour views. ralph nader would represent my views. [applause] but the political system will not give him a chance. it is a sad thing we talk about bringing democracy to other countries that they're having an election it means democracy? we have elections all the time. it does not mean democracy. no. we have two parties and we choose. a o or a prime and that is it. [laughter] >> what do you think about government and mental health? >> i don't know. what can i say?

i think the government should do more in the area of mental health? yes. i think the government should do much more in the way of health and mental health leaving that to private enterprise is not conducive to giving people the best medical care whether physical or mental health. i think it would be important for a universal health care system for people who have problems of mental health can take care of those problems without spending a lot of money and where that kind of help is available and the government can be intermediary for the process. i don't know what else to say. i don't know that much. >> the government seems to overtake the funding of the grants from mental health

and it seems so every year. i have noticed zero candidates being elected governor or through the fights just like gay or lesbian rights, they seem to battle back and forth whether they give four take the rights it seems we're always economically fighting for them so it is give four take economics why is standing for numbers of candidates who are against the positive and it seems like it is a deciding vote that always comes up to the one standing in power. my own political view is that if they word to take away the rights for they were already in the should -- initiated they would already have benefited

mankind why take them back? >> what gives them the right to do so over short-term? >> all i can say is that you should find people who agree with you about the mental health situation and organize and campaign for what you believe them. are we near the end of our rope? or at the end of my rope? [laughter] >> one more question. >> who are my handlers here? what is our situation with time? >> one more question then a book signing. okay. >> evening. >> i am a second semester here at brandeis that i have been taking courses on justice and liberty and

doing case studies on developing nations taken advantage of by multinational corporations and right teeing papers about the dominating power of money interest but now it is time to graduate and get a job. [laughter] if those things are all well and good behind my desk in my room but when i look at my job options for next year realistically i am looking at consulting firm sorg jobs in the financial world and a lot of friends also who are more politically liberal taking jobs in investment banking not necessarily firms that have jury record spencer's in me a part of what you are talking about. someone like me who is on the fence i am stock on the ethical dilemma i am not sure one days where one goes so you have two minutes to talk me out of working for corporate america.

[laughter] [applause] >> two minutes to solve your problem? [laughter] >> we all face that problem we have to make a living and we wanted to do something good in the world and find ways of doing it. sometimes you can make a living and in the way you can make your living you can do something good but only a small number of people are lucky enough to be able to do that. work for a nonprofit support amnesty international or a progressive magazine, etc., etc. right to good stuff and get published and that sort of thing. some of us are lucky we can do that the most people cannot. you make a living whatever

way you can so long as you don't kill people and exploit people fiendishly but you make a living whatever way you can but car about parsed out your life and time to be a citizen of the nation and of the world. but it is harder. you have to do two things. like the woman who lost to take care of kids and end to a job at the same time all of us have to do that and that is the reality. thank you. [applause]

>> we're at west a virginia university about the book is the welfare state justified? let's start at the end. is it justified? >> probably not. but i should explain by what i mean by that. first, what i mean by the welfare state, programs like national health insurance, social security and government welfare. when i say probably not, what i do with the book which is interesting i look at the values and principles of people who defend the welfare state and i take their reasons that they give. i am in philosophy so there are various positions that

support it. to skip technical terms people appeal to fairness or providing a sense of community and i argue given their values if you compare those institutions with feasible more market-based alternative scum of those supporting the welfare state should support the alternatives. they come out looking better or a least as good given their own values. >> host: what are the essential values or principles that drive the welfare program? >> guest: the one that i talked about the most is the notion of fairness i think if you ask people why do we need these programs? because it is fair if we let people to try to have their health insurance on their own or pension plans are retirement are the own they cannot defend death -- fend for themselves so i think those are the central values

prepared to agree to talk about one of my arguments? since health care is in a news let's talk about this. i wrote this in 2007 by cambridge university press. it is not completely current but basically if you look at systems of national health insurance that is an almost every affluent democracy we have a cause i system with medicare and medicaid half of all expenditures of health care basically to put it simply they involve massive subsidization the government tries to subsidize everybody and keep a price below what they would pay in the market. if you subsidize something you get more of it. once you get more of that you have a big explosion of demand and eventually the government has to put a cap on it then you get a government rationing then

you get lines. who will go to the top-of-the-line? i will tell you. we know this. people like me who have connections, knowledgeable, who can gain the system who goes to the bottom? for west virginia. if you want to be fair this is not a fair system. to do this we need to talk about what is a feasible alternative or a real market based insurance. we have to compare it to an alternative it is not fair to work on one system so by real market health-insurance i do not mean the united states but not the government and control that you, the consumer so imagine a system we have made it sold bit of that with health savings accounts. you have an account tax-free to spend for predictable

insurance is and that is limited to catastrophe. i think of car insurance. doesn't pay for a tuneup for zero real? if it did it would be catastrophically expensive so if we have a system like best everybody can be in control of their own health care dollars in three minute insurance to catastrophe with no rationing problem because in my system you have tax incentives and everybody would have a health savings account maybe some subsidies for the really hard cases they don't have the rationing or the lines or the poor people being shunted to the bottom of the line. >> guest: to favor or be fair have a system in which people are controlled or -- of their own health dollars which is the rationing we have seen a lot of. >> host: and europay bank and welfare programs in

general achieve social justice? >> it sort of it depends what you mean by social justice? if you mean something like fairness or a sense of community, protecting the poor, if you compare them particularly in the social insurance programs they do a worse job with the alternatives. with government welfare is a tossup but if you just want to ask me my opinion and not the arguments but i do say they do a poor job given the values of the people. >> host: who will benefit the most from reading this book? >> it is dedicated to all supporters of the welfare state. i did not want to assert my own views i wanted to say i will take your views seriously and i wanted to convince you rather than the

institutions you are supporting the wind i can say what motivated the book. boy like me to talk about that? as a philosopher i have seen these debates bogged down like some people say liberty is the most important of their say fairness and others say community then they battle about principles it does not get anywhere i have seen as for 30 years nobody's minds are changed instead why not say we start from different starting points we can converge on the same institutions so i draw a distinction between the principals and the institutions and say despite the disagreements, or basic principles weekend converge on similar results about what institutions we should have. that is what this is about, what society do we want, a social institutions. that is what i would like.

it is not meant to be sarcastic. a lot of my friends will disagree. we disagree on principles but my own view at i am much more of their liberty guy but i keep libertarianism out of the book. even though you are the egalitarian, you should not be supporting the social insurance programs on your own principles they do the worst job. >> host: what would the central message the for the egalitarian six? >> guest: the central message is reconsider your position. maybe you are supporting institutions that actually do a worse job in promoting the values you want to promote when you compare it to a feasible alternative. >> host: we are speaking with professor shapiro from his book is the werewolf their state justified? thank you

[applause] i am the national security editor of "usa today" and also a longtime friend of len colodny and have worked with him since i met him almost 20 years ago when i worked in tampa florida which is where len lives now. have been involved talking with him for a long time i am proud to see this book come out and i think we will have a lively and interesting discussion because there is so much in this book i found new and i think you will as well.