and she was trying to create a new audience for interesting novels, and as i said at the time, repeatedly, i think that's great, and indeed, what she is doing is so close to what i'm doing is that is could have gone one of two ways, and unfortunately the first time around, it went the other way. [laughter] but, you know, i'm also somebody who doesn't want to leave possible audiences behind. you know, i'm writing for many different kinds, but certainly the kind that wants a fun, involving read about characters that they can identify with, which is fairly mainstream notion of the novel, that's an audience i really care about and one of the reasons it takes me so long to write these books is that i'm traying to fashion these -- trying to fashion these books to

appeal to the greater american audience, and i think oprah has worked kind of from the other side starting with people who have not read stienbuck or faulkner and move in that direction. i think she's doing great stuff, and it's a loss to imagine no one doing it on the scale on networked daytime tv anymore. that will be a sad thing at the end of the year. one more question, and then i'm told we must stop. >> i have a question about david foster wallace. i know you were friends with him in the past, and i wondered if you plan to write about him or have you somehow slipped his character into any of your books at all? >> it's a question about david

foster wallace, my late dear friend. maybe. [laughter] >> too much of a question, too much too soon? >> yeah. >> okay, i thought i'd ask. thanks. >> thank you all for coming today. [applause] i'll be around to sign books. [lgh=?

>> they were given the full treatment. all of the factories, you know, ride around in lincoln limousines, caviar, all the food, everything you could possibly imagine. dewey what they're realizing the possibility there going to try to manipulate him. in fact, he says the warning that appears humorous in retrospect, so often given by kindly friends. the warning i would be fooled. that's not going to possibly happen. so dewey came back. he wrote a six part series for "the new republic," the bible, political bible of the american left for a long time. published from november 14,

1928, through december 1928. i have a long chapter on this in the book so i won't read all the quote but it is astonishing. to read these articles. it is really astonishing. dewey, my mind was in the world. readjustment was difficult. i lived somewhat dazed. the liberation of the people that i saw. the outstanding fact is that russia is in the revolution involving a release of human powers in such an unprecedented scale that it is up in taggable significance not only for this country, but for the whole world. in one really painful article can one write about how impressed was with the restoration of russian churches. that was taking place under lenin and stalin. in a later biography dewey mentions the biographer was complacent pathetic and was

dewey, and inserts this footnote. apparently professor dewey didn't know about the demolishing of russian churches that was going on in russia at the time. how? he didn't know that? that's what they were doing. they were blowing them up 657 churches operating in moscow on the eve of the revolution, 46 left by 1970 with official russian statistics. how could he not know this? dewey, this one, i'm not making it up. the bolsheviks, right, how they are doing things. inspite and secret police, inquisitions, arrest and deportation, aside from exile in a party opponent, this is dewey tonight of including life goes on with regulatory, safety. aside from all the other kind of things.

the extra routine of life is more settled and secure in russia than probably any other country in all of europe. this is what i'm being told he says. it's what i'm seeing. the bolshevik revolution he pronounced, was a great success, a great success. i think the schools are a dialectic a factor in evolution of russian communism. is very last article for "the new republic," dewey wrote this, political recognition of russia on the part of the united states is at least a necessary in the season step bringing about the kind of relations in interests of both countries and the world. i went to russia with no conviction on that subject, but now here i am telling you, i think i've government should recognize bolshevik russia which was precisely, precisely, the number one priority of what stalin and the bolsheviks wanted to bring to these progressives. that they would go back home and call for recognition.

so that dewey. i will give you a couple of other examples here. frank marshall davis, the example of frank marshall davis. i spent about four years on this one, and it won't take you to the entire four years sojourner i promise you. but, frank marshall davis is relevant right now because he was, choosing my words carefully, a mentor, a mentor to the current president of the united states, barack obama. that was in obama's years in the latter 1970s in hawaii. and i first started reading about frank marshall davis and obama 2007-2008. i heard conservatives on talk will come on blogs and elsewhere saying frank marshall davis is economies, a communist party member, take it to the bank, this guy is economies. while i'm hearing all of the stuff i had spread all over my desk, all this committee

reports, right, senate judiciary committee run by democrats by the way. house committee and internal security is run by democrats. house committee on un-american activities almost always on but democrats. chris dodd father, thomas dodd, right? frances walter, representative i court, jack candy was an anti-communist -- jack kennedy was an anti-communist. i hear this and i'm thinking okay, what did he really believe, what does david really believe, and how close was he to obama? august 2, 2008, ap east, davis was a constant figure in obama's early life. he was an important influence who obama looked to like a father, a mentor, for advice on living and other things. obama, in "dreams from my father," i was intrigued by old frank with his books and whiskey

breath and a hint of hard earned knowledge behind the hooded eyes. the hind the hooded eyes. frank gave me advice on college, women, on life, all these different examples. so i started looking into different documents and among the things that i found, frank marshall davis was called to testify before the senate in 1956 economists association. he pleaded the fifth amendment. these are in the book. i give the actual copies of actual pages, i think that you page 256, pleaded the fifth minute. 1957, senate reports actually listed frank marshall davis as an unidentified member of communist party u.s.a. so that's pretty -- congress didn't just go and say someone was a member of the communist party. they would say things like this person has associations of communist front groups. they said he was a member of communist party u.s.a.

so i started looking at some different biographers. john edward tidwell. james spencer. most of these guys on the left. university of massachusetts professor, harvard ph.d, said davis was almost certainly a party member. i read john edward kidwell's book, in that book he said davis joined the communist party and produces a letter that he dates around 1943 where davis says in his own right they join the communist party. finally after looking at all of those different things, not long before the book went to press i found, i got davis' actual fbi file, which was declassified through a foia request by a fellow researcher. about six pages long, and it's as you start reading frank marshall davis' fbi file you can

see their very clear takes me half an hour of reading to see that the guy was economies. very, very, very clear. in the appendix of the book i get 10 to 12 pages of the fbi file, including on page 507, this page, which him and other information actually less frank marshall davis' communist party card number, 47544. which is, i mean, that's hard evidence. i recently read some of the stuff is out there accusing howard's in a been a party member. howard zinn's i was recently released and i read the fbi for. there are things like communist party members in since file. when you find a file that has cp numbers, you've really got something. by the way, those numbers are fully consistent with other people who join the party at the time, including hollywood

numbers you're probably being told after universities were all innocent lambs, just if you know liberals and progressives practicing their civil liberties. drag before joe mccarthy. joe mccarthy was assumed. he wasn't on a house committee. october 1947, called to washington, d.c., to testify. john howard lawson was one of the hollywood 10. card number 47275. albert maltz, 47196. 46836. i got some of frank marshall -- i got all of frank marshall davis' columns, weekly columns that he wrote for the honolulu record from 1949-1950, which was the communist party u.s.a. organization in hawaii. and i got into the help of true -- through the help of college student at one time online and

one action is in hawaii. i'm amazed is here today. i won't -- i will keep it secret, i promise, but she wouldn't elaborate in the universe fy, gothic columns on microfiche. actual hardcopy. but what you see here reading davises columns was just how anti-american communist party was in need of states in the latter 1940s. who was present after world war ii? harry truman. what party? democrat. so he was the enemy. so they mercilessly savaged harry truman. davis just took them apart. david stern harry truman into a demon. in these articles. alone will us, imperialist, fascist, racist, monsters were truman, george marshall, you name it. examples, victory ninth, 1950,

here dave is really does the soviet and the congress party line in portraying harry truman as the butcher of hiroshima. by the way, every truman dropped the bomb on japan august 6, 1945, 2 spare a land invasion of japan. the land invasion would've been joined by who? notches by american troops, not just as truth, but russian troops. install and support that. but once the war is over, truth doesn't matter, right? the only truth that matters, there is no truth. you and morality matters is that which you for this class interested to after the war truman who had done what we wanted august 1945, is now the butcher of hiroshima. that becomes a cpu is a line. that becomes the moscow line everywhere. here's davis' columns, actual pictures on page 257. this once and for every, 1950. when we dropped the atom bomb on

hiroshima, said davis, we believed the world was ours. having defeated the axis powers on the battlefront, we were now ready to show the russians who was the boss of the world. unquote. said harry truman's goal is to rule russia. was to rule russia. in addition to that, he accused truman and the democrats, in particular, of wanting to turn west germany back to the nazis. wanting to turn west germany back to the nazis. the marshall plan was a shame, a policy to try, as davis put it, we enslave, all right, the colonial peoples around the world. the black and yellow peoples around the world as he wrote in this piece. that was the goal of the marshall plan. to we enslave the world. and if you've ever studied this

region are the only people making that argument, anywhere in the world, stalin and molotov. quote, davis, the big industrial us who financed hitler have been handed back to factories in the old school ties with wall street are almost as strong as they ever were. america's policy of denazification is a shame. one of the big jokes of the 20th century, what kind of west germany is america try to help back to its feet? wrote frank marshall davis. it is the germany of the master race theory. the fascists that we thought -- sought to exterior are now our partners. what you say we kiss and makeup? as i was reading that column, at the time, senator obama had gone to berlin was still senator, and made his eloquent speech about how americans and germans stood

together in those days of the berlin blockade and after world war ii and the marshall plan to keep, to resist soviet union. well, not all american state. frank marshall davis was on the other side. another piece that continue to hunt become a genuine 26, 1950, column called free enterprise or socialism. in this piece davis' daemon is not harry truman. not the democrats, but general motors, gm. and davis industries that this gigantic corporation called gm made a profit last year of $600 million. and he is trying to frame gm as an aggressive an ugly. davis concludes the face of still riding unemployment and a mounting depression, the time draws near when will have to decided to oust the monopolies and restore a system of

completely free enterprise, or let the government own and operate our major industries. if davis could have come if he could have, he would have nationalized gm. in 1950, no question. how relevant is all of us today? with president obama. we could talk about that, talk about that any today. i started looking at davis in reading these columns. i went a little bit not exactly the order of my discovery of these things. i read the columns first, and then i started firing the fbi files and the other things, but at first i thought with davis that i was dealing with possibly a progressive liberal he was duped by communists. and then i realized that this was economists who do give progressives and liberals. and so i realized i had to have the character in the book. now, how exactly relevant is this today and was going on in

washington, how does it apply to today? we could talk about that, we could debate that. i don't go into all of that. but i cover davis obviously at length. one last example here, and then i will wrap up and take your questions. senator ted kennedy, the late senator ted kennedy, whose hard to get a handle on, and i've been asked if i consider kennedy a dupe or something else altogether. i found things from kennedy on the vietnam war in the 1960s that he said about our troops. they were almost at an angle to things you saying about the troops in 2003, 2004, 2005 in the middle east. it was really startling. i did realize all the things kennedy had said about our troops in vietnam. for example, in the 1960s. but the major revelation that i have on kennedy which i know a lot of you are familiar with is a may 1983 document that's in

the central committee archives, in the soviet union. my understanding is that the archives have since been resealed, and so you can go in now and get that document. but that's okay, i've got it in the book so you can read it. so i am one of the russians. i am all excited. but here is the actual document which is in the appendix in the book, it's five pages in russian, so if you read russian -- by the way, the translation that's in the book by is pretty kind to the kennedys, kind of charitable. if you actually read into russian it's worse. both in russian, and then here it is in english also. and on the very back of the book bears, the very top of the book, the very top of page one translated into english and listed there. and here's what this document

says. does this not grab you right away? special importance, committee on state security of the ussr, kgb, may 14, 1983, and then this subject had down to peter curiosity, regarding senator kennedy's request to the general secretary of the commons party -- communist party. opening line, on president reagan, reagan as president, speech, 1983 empire speech, 1983, reelection campaign coming up in 1984. senator edward kennedy's close friend and trusted confidant, they know this was, was in moscow, the senator charged him to convey the following message through confidential contacts to the general secretary of the

sentiment of the commons party party of the soviet union. senator kennedy like other rational people is very troubled by the current state of the american soviet relations or events or to such as this relationship coupled with the general state of global affairs to make the situation even more dangerous. year ago. the main reason for this is reagan's belligerence. and his firm commitment to deploy new american metal range nuclear weapons within western europe, he goes through your in the document and list different reasons as to why exactly reagan is gaining in populated by the way, this is passing to have an admission from the soviet of the kgb, vector conference with interpreting that reaganomics is working. is in a private letter to reaganomics is working.

the economy is driven. writing is really popular. what am going to do? what i'm going to do about this? they go through there, and then it says given this, given the current state of affairs, basically reagan's reelection coming up, what can we do? what can we do to stop this, to reverse reagan's illiterate and dangerous defense policies? then they get to the core of the offer. kennedy proposes the following. and they give three different steps here, but basically what can be believed, according to this document, what kennedy believed is that the soviets wanted peace, and is increasing in cold war tensions was the fault of reagan. and the soviets needed help in better team in getting their peaceful intentions to the american media and to americans, generally. because as this letter says,

lesley, reagan was good at propaganda. so you need to figure way to get around reagan's smokescreen propaganda. so how do you better communicate directly to the american people? kennedy is very impressed, his exact words, very impressed with and drop off. not impress with reagan, very impressed with others. so they argued from kennedy would go to moscow, they were the soviet leadership, even talks upbringing senator mark hatfield, a liberal republican, within. they would talk to them, they would help arrange for soviet needed to it in united states, basically a kind of a public relations door in the united states can a kindly pr campaign. those are my words, pr campaign. he would come to united states and so what high level officials also come to united states. they can talk directly to the

american media, have said that interv an mentioned in your by name, walter cronkite and arbor walters st people that could do interviews. with andropov. and some of these folks. and make a trek to communicate to the american people. what happened with all this? by the way, then it winds up in 1984 where it talks about the election campaign is coming up and then there's a discussion senator kennedy's presidential prospects in 1984 presidential race pits finishes up with that. whatever became of this? remember, this is may 1983. andropov and eventually got sick at the end of that year, died i believe in february 1984. they talked about is happening in september of 1983. anybody remember your chronology of cold war history? what happened over the alaska

territory? the soviets shot down a korean airliner killing 269 people including 61 americans. 007, initially denied doing it. so that's kind of put an end to this, apparently. not very impressive was all of that. for people who are listening, who were watching on c-span and who are democrats, are angry about this and don't want to believe it because they like kennedy and they don't like reagan, well, good news for you. kennedy did a very, very, very similar thing to jimmy carter in march of 1980. and we know this from the archives that came into the united states was a defector in 1992. isn't it interesting that recently president carter when he was promoting his diaries, talked about how he believes senator kennedy had tried to undermine him on health care, right?

because kennedy was challenging carter for the democratic primary in 1980, but he did mention anything about this, but on march 5, 1980, kennedy again through the same contacts, the same liaison, in moscow had a message delivered to the soviet leadership. to brezhnev in this case. and as a matrox could archives characterize this compares what kennedy was arguing. the carter administration is trying to distort the peaceloving ideas behind brezhnev's proposals. the atmosphere of tension and hostility is being fueled by carter. the carter white house is feeding public opinion with nonsense about the soviet military threats and some ambitious for military expansion in the persian gulf, unquote. wasn't so jaw-dropping about

this, according to this kennedy as again concern about rising soviet tension, cold war tensions, and he's blaming that on the soviets but again on the president and the white house. who was jimmy carter? we have carter on the cover of the book kissing brezhnev. carter was anything but hard on the soviets. he was very uncommon in towards the soviets. june 1979 cartridges is linda brezhnev at the vienna summit. and then six much later talk about carter is in the white house celebrating christmas and its news in that the red army has just invaded afghanistan. and then here, just three months after the soviets invaded afghanistan, and kennedy is concerned about the rising cold war and tensions which going to the archives are the fault of carter. wow.

wow. put in context. what was going on a march 51980? democratic presidential primaries where jimmy carter didn't come a democratic president is being challenged by senator ted kennedy for that. so what happened in 1980 with carter seems have also happened to some extent in 1983 with ronald reagan as well, in both cases. well, i could give other examples of this, but i'm watching the clock and i should probably stop and i want to take your questions. but that was a look at dewey and frank marshall davis and ted kennedy. there's a lot of other people i could cover as well, but i will stop right there and take some of your questions. thank you. [applause] >> right here. >> what do you account for the growing support that the congress party has been giving the democrats and its peoples

weekly world and so forth? i mean, for crying out loud come in 2003, they had a moveon.org thing on their website, and more recently they are constantly like raving about president obama's policies. >> it's a remarkable thing, the one nationwide that was held out of not that long ago county on d.c., i was shocked to see that when you went to the website that listed all the different endorsing groups, tom his par u.s.a. was right there, right up in the open is one of the endorsers. that is so, i -- were so interesting to me written a book on duping another economist do liberals and progressives wondered here's basically going back to 1910, is that in the past in those rallies they would, the liberals were like the plague would want the congress, they would avoid them.

the only way that you would get communist party u.s.a. those groups was, was secretly, and here in this case it was kind of arms wide open, come on in. no problem. one of the most troubling examples i give in the book, this is one of those that had a look at it again and again and again and again, and i still look at the documents and just can't believe it. was in april 1941 group called the american peace mobilization, okay come and isgrigg group of economists front of it by the way, people who are listing, hate the house and american committee, this committee was exposed by them which was one of the most seditious subversive comments from growth ever in the united states, this group, did hitler, okay so the house committed far more good things than you guys are willing to acknowledge. but the american peace

mobilization, their job was to tell the soviet line, drivers at moscow's position to try to bring progressives to the rally. they were created, think about this, august 1939, hitler and stalin signed a pact, right? the hitler stalin nonaggression pact. cannot fight each other. so because of that, the american communist movement in 1940 and 1941 protested to britain, aiding britain, basically a convict hitler because hitler was in an alliance with stalin. in that group, the american peace mobilization, took that position, we have in the book the actual document for the creation of this group in chicago, in the fall of 1940. they went, they protested, they picketed outside the white house. fdr is a fascist.

fdr is trying to start another war. the soviets -- don't send aid to britain. meanwhile, britain is dying because of hitler's blitzkrieg. that's the position they took. they picketed outside of white house. all kinds of news. one of the leaders was afraid field of the vanderbilt fortune who was interviewed and one of the articles. communism was never mentioned once. he was a communist. they are picketing outside the white house, this is so incredible. on june 22, 1941, june 22, and had a new times article that describes this, they put down their pickets and they started chanting april war chant and went home to anybody know how much into a second, making 41? the soviet union was invaded by hitler's germany. hitler and the germans betrayed the hitler-stalin pact.

on a dime overnight, the people in the peace mobilization became pro-war. anand a change was a cynical big change the name from an american peace mobilization to the american people's mobilization. they didn't even change the acronym. they kept the acronym, 8 p.m. come and bass pushing vigorous vigorously, for eight to britain, but as days to enter the war, fdr was no longer a fascist, now they could be see the u.s.a., now they can be pro-america, right? because now america would be allied with stalin? was really a great day. the "new york times" article on the subject is titled clergyman group opposes war aid. that's the american peace mobilization. clergyman group. because of the presence of do capacitive economist which a

look at these rallies and blessed are the peacemakers, right? turn the other cheek. of course, not knowing that their economies, they're blowing up churches and throwing nuns in the gulags and jailing priests. and far too many people come as those on the religious left, the great ex-con is himself an investigator at this period, i asked him why so doing his book, i said was a particular group that was duped more than any other company suggest, progressive passion. they were the biggest suckers of them over an american peace mobilization is a good example of that. yeah, go ahead. use a microphone. >> al milliken, a.m. media. in your analysis, how this started historically and how effective as propaganda do you see the way hollywood through films have depicted the congress influence and i guess the u.s.

speak is a great question. it's scandalous. it's horrible. it's absolutely horrible. and i would say that hollywood, they are still duped by communist because the communists are in the grave now and hollywood is so protecting them. protecting them as if they were never communist to begin with. i mean, he that october 1947, and these hollywood figures who are almost all party members we now know, they are called to washington to testify become and they get a group of liberal hollywood actors and actresses who they lied to and told them to we are liberal and progressives just like you. we are not communists. humphrey bogart, lauren bacall. humphrey bogart said we check every member of our group before we left to make sure there were no banks or no rates anywhere. very, very careful about it. there seems to be no sympathy among the left for the fact that the communists lied to the

liberals on the left and tarnish their reputations. no problem with any of that. no problem. sacred this group called the committee for the first defendant. these hollywood liberals did. they flew to the -- flew to washington. humphrey bogart, lauren bacall, danny kaye, judy garland, gene kelly, katharine hepburn. people were duped really, really, really bad. really bad. "the daily worker," on the cover of "the daily worker" almost every issue are crusaders for the first amendment. here they are and they get to washington and john howard lawson and some of these other people are called upon the stand, boy, big surprise, congress has some evidence. not just a bunch of red. they bring it up there and john howard lawson here's all the different front groups you're a member of, here's an article you wrote, here's an article he

wrote for daily worker. here's this coming is that, here's your comments party card number, five digit, and they present all this evidence and lawson, d. know what they did? they stood up, fascist, nazi, american concentration camp. they were led out. they did with the left always does come when they are nailed, when they're caught, and when these guys are caught as income is, they called it that users nazis and fascists, and then they were taken out. bogarde and all these folks said, oh, boy, we were duped. wow, were we lied to. lauren bacall, by the way, the airplane they got on in los angeles is called the red star. [laughter] >> lauren bacall said right away i just thought oh, no. but no concern at all, and now this whole area is portrayed as joe mccarthy on a wild rampage, you know, which hunter,

persecuting only for people. joe mccarthy was needed on the house committee in october 1947. he was a senator. had nothing to do with this. but every new anti-communist was portrayed as a joe mccarthy. i quote one of the cofounders of the aclu, roger baldwin was one of the founders. by the way, read his book of liberty under the soviets. liberty under the soviets. one of the founders was a reward, was a methodist minister. and i quote a piece that hit a reward of four i think protestant digest in 1940 or 1941. he is warning here a full decade and half before joe mccarthy commie is warning about the next red scare. first it was alexander mitchell palmer and woodrow wilson. by the way, both democrats. then it was martin of texas,

democrat. then it was this guy, now this guy. joe mccarthy, they would've found their joe mccarthy in any event. and that's not you think any of mccarthy's, please. but we now have evidence of common of these people were guilty come and the way they lied was very disturbing. other questions? right there. >> i wonder if you have any comments on the role of american corporations as dupes for america's foes such as henry ford and ford corporation? and also, armand hammer, and also now the flow of corporate money into elections has become the floodgates have been opened. if you have any concern about american companies that want to do business with commerce countries like china, either selling the products or buying

barometers from them, using their influence on american politics which is only going to grow to enforce american policy in a direction that is more sympathetic to calm his china and less sympathetic to the american worker. >> i will cut you off because i haven't looked into it. i really haven't looked into it. i didn't, i didn't find much -- although armand hammer was a rigid on my list, and i eventually come unsafe when i say this, he would be a multivolume set. i'm telling you, it's an extraordinary thing. i mean, so many different people were manipulated. but no, i did look into any particular corporation. yes? >> yes, i was just wondering what, where the american

socialist party plays into the narrative with politicians smi smith, with a duped or with a sympathetic to the congress party? >> that's a complicated question. in fact, i have in the book was a really interesting documents i found in the archives from the 1932 presidential campaign, where commas party u.s.a. was just torching everybody. i mean, vacated the republicans. they hated fdr. ahead of the socialist. i mean, they were going after everybody. i mean, it's amazing, too, the anchor that was there a month american communists. i was really surprised by that. when you would see these documents, the fight that they had among each other, so when so, fraud, exposing daily worker as a stool pigeon. that would be the order from the

latest meeting minutes. and also i would update this, in fact, to john's article action about modern-day progressives. one of the groups that i look at become this game of 2007-2008, progressives for obama. actually now trying to cloud his whole progressive liberal thing that i've always understood progressives and liberals to be on the left but not on the communist left. there are these variations, is a full spectrum of beliefs to get very far left, marxist, leninist over there come any sort move over a little bit, maybe democratic socialism. but this group progresses for obama, one of the four initiators is tom hayden, the founder who wrote the statement being one of the 94 signers was jane fonda, of course, you know what happened in vietnam.

mark, who was with sts in columbia, one of the 94 signers. a lot of these people, they were just student radical, antiwar in the '60s, they were communists. they were followers of fidel or mark in his book, underground says mica was an actual stalinist. rudd was in a stalinist. but it's amazing how many of these people want, not in academia, for one thing. but they are now out called themselves progressives for obama your so what do they really believe? are they now just lifting the progressive label? have a change their views? it's hard to say. i quote in the book a fascinating assessment for mark rudd of the 2008 election where he says you know, obama, he did it come he did it. he didn't blow it. he said just the right thing and took the right policy positions

to be able to attract just enough moderate and independent and crossover voters. he didn't blow it. he did it. and he says i agree with a strategy to any other strategy in this political environment invites sure to be. obama did it. and it's fascinating that for a ride and some of these folks, obama is a first a democrat democratic party presidential nominee that ever supported. i mean, they hated jack kennedy. they hated lbj. they dismissed the car as a born-again buffoon. that's the language some of these people use. said they see in obama somebody who is far enough to the left for them. it's interesting. and very telling. and rudd support come after the november 4, 2008 elections i do it always do on a wednesday morning before i go to class. i get the benefit of the latest

exit poll data to see how americans, having voted and how they self identify. and every single one of these, this has been going on for 20 years now, the american public has described itself as conservative over liberal by 40-20%. gallup did a huge bowl the summer of 2009, 40-to a%. it's always 40-20. by the way, academia is 90-10 liberal. it's been 40-20 with the election obama, the "national journal" had called in 2007 the most liberal member of the senate to the left of barbara boxer, ted kennedy, hillary clinton, you name it. so i'm thinking when i woke up the morning wednesday, i going to see a change. it's going to be 40% liberal, 20%, got to be. 40-20, again. so you have this incredible

situation where a self identifying and self professing conservative electorate by a margin of two to one goes in and decisively vote for presidents, a man the "national journal" ranked the most liberal member of the senate in 2007. quite unprecedented. and how did that happen? you've got to go into reasons why bush lost, what people didn't like bush, why john mccain lost. a vote against mccain was a vote against bush. a lot of people were taken by this concept of change. what does change been? by the progressives for obama people, man, they were thrilled by this. the american public finally voted the way that tom hayden and jane fonda and mark rudd and these folks wanted to vote. the same people who, by the way, in 1968, targeted the democratic national convention.

the democratic convention in chicago. democrats, liberals and communists are not your friends. but as james burnham said, right, for the left, the preferred enemy is always to the right. so it's the anti-communist, that consumes more than the procommunist. anti-communists are neanderthals. i don't like them. one more. >> giunta is not that they think joe stalin is worse than joe mccarthy, but in the lectures they complain about joe mccarthy and not joe stalin. >> i will be very short. i am coming from a country that overcame soviets. nobody has anti-communist

sentiment except the communists themselves. so for me it's a stunning. -is an interesting ago. to me it's not just stunning but shocking to see a young person in the united states holding a flag and sang socialism is an alternative. and on the other hand i can see angela davis still teaching. so i'm just so stunned at how can this -- and also, russian propaganda channel in english. they have like 500 people right now working. they have 12 minutes interview with american congress party chairman who was promising revolution to come, 12 minutes from prime time. so they still do. so i just really, i grateful for your and i hope we brainwashed

those young people dashing diva rain washed the young people. thank you spent thank you. lee edwards is here. victims of congress and the moyer foundation, great website, and they are helping to educate people on this as well. but the problem is that we are not learning this past. i mean, that's what it comes down to. i did a review about 20 high school set of texts a few years back, and basically they are 20 that are used across the united states. this was for the state of wisconsin, but it's incredible. in fact, this was right about the time, this was three or four years after the seminal book by harvard university press, the black book of communism had come out, which documented 100 million dead under a communist government. i couldn't find that figured in a single textbook. not one. i couldn't find any figures at all.

none whatsoever. 100 million dead. the black book of communism only, only has about 25 million dead for the soviet union. when, in fact, it's probably 60-70 million. alexander is yo university press book. he was one of gorbachev's principle reformers and he was tasked with a duty to try to figure out how many victims, how many people were killed by the communists. he said 60 to 70 million killed under stalin alone. alexander doesn't use number like that. we know that probably killed about 70 million. so really, numbers by not 100 million. it's probably about 140 million when you go up there. but it's a conservative figure, at least 100 million. and these numbers start to run together. just think about it. think of all the did in world war i, which was the most instructive or in history up to that point, take all the dead in world war ii, combined them,

world war i and world war ii, combined them, double them come and i didn't are you approaching the number of dead victims of communism. everybody in here has an uncle who died in world war ii. about 300,000 americans died in world war ii. congress to over 100 million people, over 100 billion people. and it's something we don't even know about. if you read the communist manifesto, just go to marxist thought work -- i should have given an endorsement -- but it's free. it's free. buy it online. i hate this nonsense about a year all the time. i do call by students at other universities other than grove city college who say can you please come and give a talk of why communism is bad. because we don't know, we don't have any idea. and i get injured again and again, well, stalin and these guys were an aberration. topping is it is a good idea.

know, read the congress manifesto. it's like 50 pages long. you can read it in two hours. it's a horrible book. read marx's 10-point plan. read the one little paragraph that says, marks wrote the entire theory of economies may be summed up in a single sentence. abolition of private property. my three year old daughter can tell you that you're going to have to kill people to do that you're okay? abolition of private property? that's a good idea? that's craziness. i could look at that right there in 1850 and say, do you know how many people are going to have to die, you going to have to kill to pull that off? not a good idea in theory which is why almost everywhere it's been tried, anyone on the planet, whether in asia or africa or latin america or eastern europe, wherever, widespread bloodshed and tragedy

again and again. the professor a universe of california berkeley said that in each of these cases, each of these countries were communism has been tried, the massive annihilation of human beings and repression and basic crimes of carnage far outdid anything in the previous experience or nationality or history of any of these countries. this was an entirely new thing, whether it's in cambodia or the soviet union, or china or cuba, whatever, you name it again and again and again. we are not learning any of it. and the reason why is the wretched, wretched states -- state of our universities. that are not teaching this stuff, that are currently hot dashing bias. and by the way, way overpriced while we are at it. i will stop there, how is that? [applause]

>> this event was hosted by the heritage foundation here in washington, d.c.. to find out more visit heritage.org. >> we are here at the national press club with diane rheam, npr host an honorary chairwoman of the press clubs book and author nights. she is woman and her new book, "life with maxie." can you tell us what that book is about? >> maxey is a little long-haired of jalalabad who came into our home seven and a half years ago when we had a big home with a big garden, and then he had to move to a condo. and it's all about life with maxey. and that move and the impact he has had on our lives. he such a special dog.

>> what are some of the changes that maxey have to become accustomed to? >> well, for one thing he wouldn't want. he would walk on a leash. so i had to push him in a stroller before we left the house. he was the king. and i was the one getting all the exercise. but since we moved into the condo, he has finally learned to walk. he has become friendly. he used to knit that people and now he is the brightest dog in the world. i could have brought them here tonight and he would've caught after everybody had allowed them to pet him. >> what inspired you to write about maxey? >> you know, i was speaking out in salt lake city, utah, and a publisher heard me speak about maxie come in two weeks later he

sent me a letter asking me to write about maxie. what can i say? so i wrote the book and as i've been a photographer and we took photographs. and there we are. >> here's a look now at the new times top 10 non-cover bookstore this week.

>> every weekend booktv brings you 48 hours of history, of one of our now star programs. >> thomas, what do you think about hip-hop now?eople >> it's sunk to new lows.>> the inspiration for this book,n. started thinking about the idea -- >> sunk to new lows he says. book - >> i do. i started writing this book -- i wrote the op-ed in 2007 and i

believe the dominant artist at the time, not a soul artists with the artists that weree really driving the media coverage of the genre and that were really setting the culturea and i think if you compare that even to like the so-called gangsta rappers of the early if y '90s, jay-z rbd, that such ake e decline in artistic quality of the loan even as a message. jay-z or biggie that's such a decline in artistic quality. >> so you're cool with biggie. >> i have problems with biggie but i think he had a lot more complexity than what you see right now. i am kind of interested in watching -- in watching a guy like drake. but i don't think that, you know, one artist guides an entire culture. >> so you say it sunk to new lows. explain to me why you feel that way. i mean, these are our street

poets, okay? why do you feel that they've sunk to new lows if they are expressing their reality? >> well, it's debatable if they're expressing their reality. a lot of them are simply propagating some of the worst stereotypes about black people. that ever existed. [applause] >> but if that's their reality, should they be silent? >> it's not many of their realities. some of them do have pretty gritty realities. >> but there's been a movie about biggie and we can clearly see that he rapped in the streets. >> biggie was a guy who observed more other realities than he rapped about his own. i lived in the fort green area of brooklyn for a few years and the part of clinton hill that biggie comes from is quite nice compared to the parts of the rural south where a lot of -- it's much nicer than what james

baldwin grew up in and ralph ellison grew up and far more -- >> the guy was a drug dealer. >> i grew up in the suburbs around guys who chose to deal drugs because it was very cool. >> right, right. >> his mother was a school teacher and he didn't to have deal drugs to feed himself. >> right, but that was his choice -- >> it was, exactly. >> so let me ask you this. what is good hip hop to you? >> well, i want -- i want to be very clear about this. my book is not about music. it's not -- it's not a critique of the artistic merit of hip hop which i don't dispute. >> well, let me repeat your title. losing my cool: how a father's love and 15,000 books beat hip hop culture. >> it's about a system of values that the music doesn't create but it provides a soundtrack and an echo chamber -- it magnifies often and it glorifies and romanticizes these things i'm not -- a lot of older black

critics of hip hop have a problem with hip hop on a musical level and find it inferior of black music. that's not my feeling at haul i'm trying to attack ideas and cultural values and critique them and talk about what i really see as the secular religion of hip hop which is it's a way of living. it's even a way of reaching for a cup of water. it's a way of greeting someone in the street. it's a way of dismissing certain ideas that's not real. i'm not talking about whether an artist like andre 3000 has ability because clearly he does. and i think that the music -- i wouldn't even need to critique the culture if the music was trash because one of the reasons the culture is so powerful and seductive and the music -- the culture is aesthetically pleaseing in a lot of ways. >> but that's the history of african-american music in a sense -- >> well, not really. i mean, if you listen to a love supreme by john coulter there's

no similarity in something like gucci mane and the burr print, too. [applause] >> so -- am a john coltrane fan. >> me too. >> i am. so i want to go back my question which i want you to answer directly. what would be good hip hop? >> i could -- we could spend the rest of the panel listing good hip hop. >> what would be good hip hop since you're saying it's -- >> good hip hop music is like reasonable doubt by jay-z. it's ready to die by biggie schmaltz. now, is the content and the message that's involved in some of that great music poison, yeah, it is. if you try to live your life the way jay-z instructs >> ttc