you saw bosnia created and within bosnia the boss any yang serbs were saying they wanted a separate company, and there was a little group who said, well, no, but we -- so this could go on ad infinitum. i think that borders are sult of that a created as .. .. that we can then control and we're going to do it specifically in ways that divide linguistic groups, et

cetera, so that we can divide and conquer within each of these colonies. in the middle east, something very similar in 1922, when the vast territories of the ottoman empire, there was no longer an ottoman empire, the victors went in and said, go write a map and they went in and drew lines in the sand and created countries where there had been no countries. they didn't have the same issue of linguistic divergences and they created kuwait to make sure britain would have an independent access to oil in the region. when france was given other oil concessions. so it was -- it was things that were done that had nothing to do with people's lives. and where people lived. so i think that the rights of countries have to be understood in the context of the rights to their citizens. i think countries have more

obligations than they do rights. >> you told us when we asked you what you were currently reading, you told us one of the books you're reading is steven kinser's latest reset, and you told us why because turkey is transforming the regional and global power dynamics in the part of the world i work on most and i don't know nearly enough about it. >> absolutely. i was in turkey in may and june of last year. i was there for a united nations conference on palestine. it happened just at the moment that the flotilla attack occurred, the israeli commandos who assaulted a turkish humanitarian aid ship that was part of a flotilla an international ship flotilla that was trying to break the flow of gaza of course leading to the death of nine turkish citizens one was a dual turkish and american citizen. and being in turkey at the

moment that that occurred was an extraordinary experience just in terms of seeing how turks were responding to this. the let me of support of the new turkish government in the last few years is really quite extraordinary. democracy in turkey despite continuing contradictions that exist is flourishing in a whole new way. and one of the things that i've realized in recent years when i've been writing a lot about u.s. wars in the area looking at iraq and iran, for years i could only say there were two countries in the middle east that had the indigenous capacity to become regional powers. meaning they had money from oil. they had size of territory and population, and they had water. only two countries had both of those. those were iran and iraq. all the other countries had one or two but didn't have all three. israel has all three except size but it was not indigenous. it was -- the power was accessed

from elsewhere. and i think from what we've seen is that with the attack on iraq, the destruction of the government of iraq, the occupation of iraq, iraq is no longer a country to become a regional power. the only one left is iran. iran remains in the crosshairs. it's very much a threat to u.s. hegemony in the region because it has the potential to be an independent power. suddenly without oil for money, turkey has risen with an extraordinary policy of wanting to have no enemies among its neighbors, which is an amazing thing to think about as the basis for a foreign policy. and it suddenly has the 17th largest economy in the world. without oil, based on tourism and, unfortunately, a lot of sweatshop labor but it's an economy that's growing enormously. it has a government that has much wider popular support than the earlier militarily based

governments ever did. and it is engaged in a creative set of new foreign policies led by an extraordinarily quite brilliant foreign minister who is working to make relations with both europe -- it still wants to join the european union an important priority but not the only priority. it also wants to remain an important part of the middle east. so it's strengthening its ties with all the middle eastern countries and unlike the years of the iraq/iran conflict, which included, of course, the iran/iran war of the 1980s which was so devastating to -- over a million people were killed in that war, overwhelmingly young men in both countries, unlike that period, the relationship between turkey and iran is quite collaborative. they're not best buddies, of course. there's lots of contradictions. they have good working relationships. they have lots of trade and they do not see competition with each other as the only part of their

relationship. so all of this is reformulating the whole middle east region and i find it fascinating and i don't know nearly enough. so i'm starting to try and study up. >> kurt in alford, new york, you're on with phyliss bennis. >> caller: yes, i was curious with the nuclear situation between pakistan and indiana and the internal conflict that they are experiencing where there is fear of a takeover from al-qaeda and taliban to acquire nuclear weapons or if, in fact, they could acquire them elsewhere? >> guest: i think the question of the relationship between india and pakistan, the nuclear relationship as well as the political and economic tensions, is a huge component of what get talked about not enough in u.s. discussion business what our policy should be in that region. and i think it's a very serious issue. what we're seeing in pakistan

today -- i don't see the danger that pakistan's government is in danger of being taken over by al-qaeda. i don't think that's in any way a possibility. i think there is enormous -- an enormous set of problems that the government in pakistan faces. it's a very weak government. it's a very corrupt government. it's completely dependent on funding from the u.s. and it has very little support at home. that's a big problem because historically in pakistan, the military has been willing to take over. the military in pakistan is very strong. it's probably the strongest component of power. and so in that context, the notion of the military losing support of its nuclear arsenal i don't think is a problem. what is a problem is that the pakistani military continues to see that the best way to defend their potential interest in a post-u.s./afghanistan, is to support the afghan taliban, with whom they had a long-standing,

two-decade relationship where we once supported. that's where the hypocrisy of u.s. policy he gets really frustrating at times. if we look back at the 1980s, it wasn't that long ago when russia was occupying, afghanistan and the u.s. was spending in weapons to the afghan mujahedeen through the pakistani military which were the sort of go betweens led by the isi, the pakistani intelligence agency which is the main supporters of the afghan taliban. and the u.s. continues to say as we hear from president obama and secretary of state clinton and admiral mullen of the joint chiefs and certainly general petraeus and his predecessors were very frustrated with the pakistani government not doing more to go after the afghan taliban based in their country. well, hello, they are not going to go after them, they are going to support them because they see them as their only possibility

for having a surrogate in afghanistan later. now, why is that? it's because the u.s., iran, russia and india, crucially india, have all backed the same side in afghan's long running civil war. meaning, the so-called northern alliance. the non-punjab parts of the afghan government, which now they used to be called warlords. now they're called vice premiers and things like that. and now they are called the government but that's where you have this huge contradiction of u.s. policy. it's asking pakistan to give up the one part -- the one component of afghan power where pakistan traditionally has a base. and what pakistan is looking to for the future, to say just give up that. just stop supporting them for no particular reason when india, pakistan's long-standing opponent, long-standing competitor, is in the midst of the u.s./russian/iran center in

afghanistan doing very well in afghanistan through its ties to the government. it's not realistic that the u.s. can ask pakistan to give that up without a much broader change in the military situation caused by its own occupation. >> host: this is booktv's "in depth," our guest this month author and activist, phyliss bennis. here's a list of her books beginning in 1990 she wrote from stones to statehood. she edit two books, beyond the storm, and altered states. in 2000, he published calling the shots and before and after was written in 2003. challenging empire in 2006, understanding the palestinian/israeli conflict in 2009. it was the first in her four-part so far primer series. included in that is ending the iraq war, also in '09. understanding the u.s.-iran crisis, '09. and then last year, end the u.s. war in afghanistan.

richard, hauber hill, massachusetts, good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. phyllis, it's an honor to talk to you after that body of work he just showed. in 1961, you know, president eisenhower wanted the military industrial complex and now we've become a military power empire actually. and we have, what, 800 to 1,000 bases all over the world. and once the wall starts, it's just so hard to get out -- because the war profit ears because there's too much money being made by beginning war. we have more private contractors and private security all over afghanistan and in iraq. in the meantime, we're collapsing within our own country. everything is falling apart. our educational system -- we don't have the jobs. we're bankrupt. and even i read a piece the other day, even our state parks and national parks are

crumbling. even the laboratories in some of these parks are crumbling, so my point is, priorities are way out of whack and isn't this how all empires collapse by expanding and not taking care of our own problems within? >> guest: well, that's a very important challenge for all of us. a good friend of mine and a colleague bobbenson wrote a book a few years ago called citizens of empire. it's been one of the books i go back frequently because i think it raises exactly the challenges that we've just heard, identified. that every time there's an empire, empires fall. empires collapse. and in the past, empires have most often collapsed with great fire and violence including to the people of that empire. that was certainly true of the romans and it's been true more recently than that. and what bob jensen challenged us with in his book of citizens of empire. because of the instruments of

democracy which in our country which is as flawed as could be and being shredded as we speak, we're losing much of our democracy but we still have major parts of it. we still have democratic capacity in this country and we still have the possibilities for a global movement. we still have the chance for a global -- a global organization to come together and people around the world fighting against wars and empire. that we can do that using the tools of nonviolence. the tools of democracy without the kind of destruction that we've seen. the basis that -- was it richard just now who called? >> host: yes. >> guest: we have almost 1,000 foreign military bases. they cost hundreds of billions of dollars of our tax money. do we really think that keeps us safe when we see the opposition -- the fact that in ecuador, the base, after a huge public debate in the country --

because the u.s. said we'll give you more money if you keep the base open. the government not only agreed to cancel the base's lease and throw the u.s. out but said they rewrote the constitution to prohibit any foreign military base from being built in their country. in italy, we're seeing a very wealthy industrial town where there's already been a u.s. base next to a nato base for a long time but they wanted to build another base, another airstrip that goes within 100 meters of the great mansions of the -- oh, god i'm going to forget his name. the great renaissance architect whose name will come to me two hours after the show tonight, i'm sure. but it's doing tremendous damage and the very wealthiest citizens of the town have come out to protest, not because they are against war or against nato necessarily but because it's ruining their town. this is happening all around the

world. in guam, everywhere in the world, we're seeing opposition to u.s. bases and all that goes with it. if we just shut down half of them, we would be saving hundreds of billions of dollars. we would be making ourselves far more popular in the world and it would be the beginning of dismantling this empire of that when he sees unfortunately, one of the things that makes it difficult is the military industrial complex that richard spoke of, that president eisenhower first identified, has been very, very strategic in how they've gone about their business. one of the things they do is how to make sure they continue to get more support in congress. so what do they do? when they build anything, a plane, a bomber, a new bomb technology, they don't build it in one place. they make sure that there are components being built in every

congressional district all around the country. so when the decision to give money to that project comes up, everybody in concentration, 435 members of the house and 100 members of the senators are not going to dare vote for it because there's 10 jobs or 1,000 jobs in their district that depend on that new bomber and they've been brilliant at making sure that almost every one of those congressional districts has some job that somebody depends on. that means our work is much harder. >> host: when people ask you how you identify yourself politically, how do you? >> guest: oh, dear. >> host: are you a socialist? are you a progressive? are you a liberal? are you a capital? >> guest: you know, i cut my political teeth in an era where there was a great song by the great folk singer phil oaks who wrote some of the great protest songs that was called love me i'm a liberal. and it was this very cynical song about people who call

themselves liberal except when it came to them. so there was one line that said, i'll spend all the money you ask for but don't ask me to come on along. it was the liberal that those of us who called ourselves radicals, you know, were thought and selling out. language changes and liberal seems to be the word that's most common. other things i think progressive. progressive is probably the one that's the most useful these days in terms of describing what i actually do. so maybe i would say progressive. i certainly would say left. socialist, it seems like the era of socialism as we once knew it is kind of over. we need a new kind of egalitarianism that takes into account the environment, for instance. one of the biggest things that my part of the movement, the antiwar movement, the student movement of the '60s, never really took into account was the environment. and that's huge. that's a huge part -- i remember one guy in my old sds group back

when i was probably 17 or 18 saying, if we don't take the environment seriously, class struggle will be the equivalent to changing deck chairs on the titanic and that slogan stayed with me. but i never to my distress now -- i never really took seriously the need to really intergrate environmental understanding and climate understanding, climate justice into every bit of the work we do. we're just starting now to do that. and whether we're too late remains unclear. >> host: freeland, michigan, glenn. you're on booktv. hi. >> caller: hi, yes, thank you, everyone. i have a couple of things to ask mrs. bennis, about nato and russia. a few years ago, i think it was ron paul or barney frank or someone like that said that we have -- i think it was 100,000

u.s. troops none of western europe. and you can't find anyone to tell them what they're defending against. i was wondering, does she think -- i know nato is in afghanistan. technically i guess it's in our nato mission here in afghanistan. they don't seem very eager about that. and i understand what the history and everything by some of the eastern european state would like to nato around. but does she think nato is relevant and we promised russia we wouldn't expand nato after that. i think it was the first president bush that we would expand nato. >> guest: we have indeed broken that promise and i think you raised a very key question.

i don't think nato has any relevance. i think it's a military -- a u.s.-controlled military alliance in search of a mission. we're going to be hearing more and more about that. the nato summit that just occurred a couple months ago in lisbon was taking up that. we saw it back in 1999 when there was the first effort to craft a new -- a new definition for the nato alliance when its whole reason to be was to defeat the soviet union had now happened. whether nato was going to take credit of it or not is not really important. what was important instead of acknowledging, we were created to do something. that thing that we wanted to be done has happened. so what do we do now? do we declare victory and go home? apparently not. we decide we'll stay together as a u.s.-controlled military alliance that's expanding and expanding including this notion of how we're threatening russia by expanding through ukraine,

right up to the borders of russia in a very hostile manner. when there is no clarity of what's the threat. nato is now the main instrument against al-qaeda. so this is -- we're turning the cold war into the war against terrorism. so everybody gets to be in it who's not al-qaeda? it's all very unclear. i mean, there's talk about whether australia should join nato. should israel join nato. and i'm thinking, what? whatever happened to north atlantic, you know? so i think -- i spent some days last year in april of 2009 at the no to war, no to nato protest in stausberg. i haven't been teargassed that badly in a pretty long time. >> host: how many times have you been teargassed? >> guest: i don't know exactly. but in my youth, as a student activist, teargas was fierce and flying a lot. >> host: but back to stausberg. >> guest: but back to stausberg,

we were managed to get away from the most of it but it was a pretty bad back. we had to hike back to 8 miles to the hotel because the whole city was under armed control of the military. it was a joint french and german military. they had 30,000 troops there. not police but troops to, quote, secure the city. and we had a legal place for the mobilization but when the teargas started we were blocked off and we couldn't get back to where we needed to go so we had to hike essentially around the entire city. it was a pretty interesting day. but it was -- it was fascinating because there were people from all over europe that were there saying not only to the war in afghanistan, which was, of course, nato's major focus at that time and still but no nato as a military alliance saying we don't -- we don't want the u.s. telling our militaries what to do and we don't want our militaries using the existence of nato as an excuse to expand.

it's a huge problem in europe as well as it is here. that the military budgets, although they are smaller than here, its much bigger than to protect people. you need some kind of military presence in an era of nation states and the possibilities of war. but you don't need what we've got. these militaries that can go all around the world and wage war in other people's countries. this is not what we should be signing up for. >> host: dan, denver, colorado, good afternoon. you're on booktv's "in depth" with phyllis bennis. >> caller: hi, two questions if i may. first of all, in 1964, with a bunch of students started free speech in berkley and they didn't start com list red world and they wanted meaningful dog and while you were young and demonstrating, a lot of people were debating the vietnam war.

and the debate was very rational, and very important. so that then by the time the pentagon papers came out, everybody had a sort of common point so they wouldn't be all sorts of hysterics what we do with vietnam. unfortunately, it is internet did not promote. it promotes more monolog and as a result we're having stupid wars that are repeating with the stupid mistakes that occurred with vietnam and nobody can debate them because nobody is interested on debate, they are either on one side or the other. the other point i i'm bringing up. i'm reading jewish state or israeli nation and it brings up a very interesting question. you know, there's myth of a pure line jewish population that's coming back to the homeland based on a lot of myths and then there's the zionists that's based a lot on what they do on total lies. and tremendous opposition within the jewish community. 70% of world community thinks israel is a nice place to visit but not to live.

my question could it be that the behavior of the -- the leaders now is more based on fear of losing the jewish support outside of israel and scaring the israelis through the lennenist concept or polarized or mother-in-lawized or they were polarized jews and have them -- >> >> host: we got the point. phyllis. >> guest: the first question, i think there are still lots of educational outlets including a teach-in. we did a big one on the iraq war a few years ago. we brought in people like naomi klein and others to talk about the contractors in iraq. what that was all about. the economics behind it. and we took questions and it was

great interactive thing. and the tape of that, the cd of it and the online version of it went viral as people like to say now. was used all over the country by other antiwar organizations. and i think was very helpful in helping to shape some of that dialog. i'll stick to one aspect of dan's second question which is on the divides within the jewish community. i think that there is enormous shifting going on right now in the political discourse the political discussions in this country across-the-board but in the jewish community more than anywhere else. i think that the rise of organizations like jewish voice for peace which now has chapters in, i don't know, 10 or 15 different cities around the u.s. have 100,000 members. there's a host of organizations like that. the big coalition that i work with, the u.s. campaign to end the israeli occupation has about 325 organizations. of those there's probably 25 or

30 that are jewish-specific organizations. jews against the occupation, jewish voice for peace, many more. we're seeing extraordinary emotion among young jews. there was a moment just a few weeks ago in new orleans when israeli prime minister netanyahu was speaking -- not to the council of presidents the jewish federation council, one of the biggest of the national pro-israel jewish organizations in the u.s. and when -- in his speech, he began to attack those who would to try to undermine the legitimacy of israel's policies of occupation and apartheid. and as he began, a young jewish man in the audience stood up, pulled out from under his shirt a cloth banner that said, it's the occupation that delegitimatizes israel and he began to shout it at netanyahu and people were stunned. this was one of their own, you know, this young jewish man. and as he was hustled out a young woman stood up somewhere else in the room and pulled out

another banner that said, it's the -- i forget -- but basically they were saying the same thing. it's the occupation, it's the policies that delegitimatize israel and she was hustled out and there were five of them. one after another. and you saw in the faces of some of the people in the audience, the incredible anger. how dare you. because it was not just opposition. it was opposition from within. and this is why it was so important, i think, that we're seeing this rise in jewish opposition where if they ever could, if they ever could claim that organizations like aipac, that say israel right or wrong, ever spoke for the majority of jews, certainly that's not the case now. that discourse has changed democratically and those who are committed to changing the policies is to get that link between the policy shift and how that can come after this shift in discourse.

the discourse is already shifting. now what do we do to get the policy to recognize it. >> host: i want to read you a quote from the bestselling nonfiction book of 2010. >> guest: that's not mine, i assume. [laughter] >> host: as i thought more about the turmoil in the middle east, i concluded that the fundamental problem was the lack of freedom in the palestinian territories. with no state, palestinians lack their rightful place in the world. with no voice in their future, palestinians were ripe for recruiting by extremists and with no legitimately elected palestinian leader committed to fighting terror, the israelis had no reliable partner for peace. i believe the solution was a democratic palestinian state led by elected officials who would answer to their people, reject terror and pursue peace with israel. and that is from george w. bush's decision points. >> guest: that sounds like like every former official who writes

their memoir when they are out of office. the discourse of officialdom in this city where you and i live, peter, is very different than the discourse as people. the discourse of people in power seems to be one that -- number one ignores international law. you know, we hear over and over again, the issue of settlements -- we heard it for a while from president obama, settlements are wrong and there should be a settlement freeze. well, first of all, that was insufficient because they're not just wrong. they are illegal. the israeli answer which gets then accepted and has now been accepted by the u.s. is settlements are one of of a number of issues that should be decided by negotiations. well, i wouldn't think you need to negotiate violations of the law. when a robber steals a car, you don't have to negotiate with the robber over what are the terms on which you might return that car? you take the car back and give it to the rightful owners. now, as it turns out, several

people in obama's own party believes that. i was stunned by that. one of the most recent polls -- it was during last year's sort of -- the u.s. and israel fighting over settlements which i should say not a real fight over settlements. a real fight to israel, you need to stop fighting over israel and israel say no. you can do what you want but, you know, the $30 billion we've promised you over these 10 years in military aid, you can kiss that goodbye and do you know how we protect you in the security council so that you're never held accountable for violations of international law, we're not going to do that anymore. and you know how this year we made sure that in the international atomic energy agency, nobody would even request that you actually sign the nonproliferation treaty and bring your unacknowledged nuclear arsenal under international supervision, we're going to stop that. that's step one towards real pressure. so first of all, there was no real pressure.

but there was a bit of back and forth about it. during that time there was a poll taken by one of the big democratic pollsters, the zogby groups and one of the questions they asked was on the issue of settlements. what do you think about settlements? and the question was asked like this, it said the israelis are building settlements in the palestinian territories, which of the following two sentences best describes what you think about that. so sentence number one was, israelis build settlements for security purposes. and they have the right to build wherever they want. sentence number two was, something like israeli settlements are built on palestinian land. they should be torn down and the land returned to its original owners. that's a very provocative approach. but those were the two choices. 63% of democrats chose sentence number two. i was stunned to see that it was that high given how provocative the language was. but the key is that it's linked

to international law, which it turns out like the united nations, despite what our government would like to believe, our people in this country actually care about international law. actually care about the united nations. u.n. resolutions. we actually don't want our government to act like a rogue state. so on this question of, whether international law should come up when we're talking about israeli-palestinian arrangements this is a fight we shouldn't be having but we do. international law is never in the language. when hillary clinton talks about what our position should be, she never talks about we should be standing in favor of international law and whoever violates it should be held accountable. the gold stone report which was decried as being unsided, et cetera, despite the fact that it held both sides for vialses, but clearly there were more violations on the israeli side because that's been the history of that completely unequal conflict.

there may well be violations on one side. they should be held accountable but on the israeli is where the massive amount of violations are. they should be held accountable. the u.s. position was, we stand against goldstone. it's biased. it's unacceptable and we're going to do everything we can to get rid of it. i think that's a big problem. because what it says to the world is, we don't care about international law except to protect our own interests. and it goes back to this issue of empires. if we look at the -- at the greeks, the ancient greeks. in the ancient greek writing, when you had the athenians and the armenians, you had the artonight. ians who are supposed to be the democrats. they are the more advanced civilizations. they start feeling nervous that their fragile democracy is in trouble so they figure they are going to start to expand and they go to milos and they say we're taking your island and the others say we don't think so. we're taking your island and

we're bigger and stronger than you and we're taking it. what can democracy they say. and the athenians come back and say for us there is democracy. for you, there is the law of the powerful. this is what the u.s. is doing. we're saying, international law is what we use to explain why we're going to overthrow saddam hussein but if it's us or our friends, in the case of israel, international law simply does not apply. that's not good. >> host: this is booktv's "in depth" program. our guest this month, phyllis benn bennis. we recently visited her at home to see her writing style. >> guest: i live in an amazing part of town, a part of washington that is perhaps the most mixed both economically and racially. it's a lot of latinos, although increasingly some of them are being squeezed out now. it's a lot of kind of everybody. it's jentrifying way faster than

we want we're holding back the gentrification part. there's a weekly latino market. all weekend. every weekend. just around the corner from here. and there's a great farmers market on saturday mornings. and it's walking distance to pretty much everything i need to get to. from the zoo to my office to protest at the white house. so it's a pretty great location. i have my books sort of in different places. my own books in one place, books by friends in one place so i can see them. and then books more or less by subject. these are more or less israel-palestine, zionism, the whole history of the region. this is sort of my afghanistan books. these are the newer ones because my newest book is about afghanistan. these are about iraq in here. and then they get all mixed up because i'm constantly taking it out and putting it back swlels these are books about vietnam. a lot of them from vietnam.

others about vietnam. i spent years of my life working against the war in vietnam in the last few years of the war and then after the war, working on the relationship between the u.s. and vietnam. trying to build some kind of solidarity with people in vietnam. trying to force the u.s. to make good on its commitments, its reparations promises that it never made good on, same as it's doing on iraq and other places. and this photograph actually was from hanoi in 1978, just a few years after the end of the war. i was on a delegation of the national lawyers guild. we were being welcomed by the vietnamese lawyers association. and the prime minister, the leader of vietnam at the time -- i mean, it was one of those extraordinary moments of having the opportunity to be there right afterwards seeing how people were still coping, how the bomb-craters were beginning to be made as fish ponds and it was one of the most powerful experiences of my life

in terms of seeing a war from the other side. this is from the first anniversary of the war in iraq in 2004. i had been speaking in rome at the big protest center. there was a million people in the streets in rome protesting the war. for me it was a very powerful moment of seeing that mobilization. this was following -- it was a year after the rally when the world said no to war in february of 2003. when there were demonstrations in 665 cities all around the world. and the "new york times" the next day came out and admitted that we had all known at that point. it said on the front page, once again there are two superpowers in the world. the u.s. and global public opinion. i tend to write here in this study in the morning. and i tend, as you can kind of sort of see i tend to go the old fashion ways. i clip newspapers. i read the newspapers in the

morning. i clip them, i know it's not as easy as using online versions but somehow for me having a stack of clippings that i can leaf through and remember there was something i know that was there and i can go through and find it and i'll go through what i think based on what i've been reading, what i've been thinking about, what i've been talking about with other people for the last six months or the last three years or whatever it is. and i'll just start writing. and i tend to be one of those people who writes in fairly simple language. i write the way i speak. and for me it makes the writing part in some ways the easiest. the harder part is figuring out what my framework is, getting all the facts that i need to get in there. once i have all that -- that's the hard part. sitting down and actually writing, a lot of times i'm almost board with it and i want to get it done fast. i do a quick rewrite and i send it off to the editors. you do what you want. you guys take care with it.

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>> host: 30 years of reading pablo memoirs. what is that? >> guest: it's by far the most extraordinary book i've ever read. i think that i got the book shortly after he died, in the middle of coup in chile in 1973. i had known his name only in the vaguest sense. and heard about it, bought the book and thought, oh, my god, what a life this man has led. as a poet, as a communist, as a senator, as a diplomat, as a savior too a bunch of refugees in the spanish civil war and in the midst of it such incredible life. his friends, his lovers and his poetry. it's a book that says i can do it and why can't you; i didn't do it all, nobody can. but the discussion -- one part in particular i'll never forget

where he envisions the names of cities, beautiful names. he talks about these areas and he talks about the opportunity to go to these places that once were just spots on a map and how excited he is to go there. and he talked about going to mongolia and drinking fermented horse milk which is the national alcoholic drink. well, you can make a face like that. but when i had the opportunity back in 2005 -- '4, to go to mongolia for a u.n. conference which frankly was not one of the more important conferences and if it was held in new york i probably wouldn't have bothered but the opportunity to go to mongolia was completely driven by my recollection of pablo's memoirs and after the conference when i had a day and a half to go out and explore the country and see the horses -- of course, the horse ran away with me and i road a camel and the one light,

their latern on the top of the stop and the driver had driven off the -- off the road, up the step to meet this incredible family who talked about the challenge of modernity versus their traditional nomadic way of life. their oldest son would inherit the herd. the second son was going to go to school. he had been in school already. and he wanted to go and study in germany 'cause he had learned german, it was just an amazing opportunity to see close up what it means for people to face this kind of transition in their country. and then they gave me a whole bowl of fermented horse milk and said, see how you do with that. and i'm glad to see that i did not -- i would not have made pablo embarrassed, i think. i managed to get through about a third of it. >> host: would you drink it again? >> guest: it depends on the circumstances. if i was a family with their hospitality in a minute, in a heartbeat. would i choose it it's not that bad but it sounds rather

dramatic. >> host: how did you end up in the sds in santa barbara? >> guest: oh, dear. that's a good question. well, before that, in high school, i had been clean for jean. i had been one of the mccarthy kids as we called ourselves. who was already feeling very engaged politically. i was working -- i did work on the mccarthy campaign in high school, which as we know didn't get very far but it did organize this children's crusade of flower power and all so that i was already thinking in the context of the civil rights movement. i was a bit too young to have seen the high points of that firsthand in a conscious way. but i vaguely knew about it. one of my first rabbis was somebody who had supported king and had attacked to us about social justice. so i had grown up with that. very much as part of my life.

my parents supported civil rights. so that part was part of it and then when it came to vietnam, as soon as i got to santa barbara, i was originally going to go to berkeley i ended up at santa barbara because of a bureaucratic snafu. and once i was given the chance to go back to berkeley, i thought you know what? i'm already thinking about this i'm just a going to stay here and do it. i think it might have been very different if i went to berkeley i think i might have been much more an academic as i was and not much involved politically because everybody there was and i was trying to be a rebel in a different way perhaps. so in santa barbara, i got involved with sds early, the black student union. we worked closely with them and the latino student moment, the coalition of the three groups, the sds, the shicano students and the black students. we ran and won control of student government. so i suddenly was made the chair of the lectures committee, which meant -- i mean, in 1969, 1970, what i knew was who do people

want to hear? so we want to hear the chicago conspiracy defendants. and i brought all of them to the campus. i brought angela davis. i brought somebody -- i don't remember his name. somebody from the french student revolt of '68. and that was sort of how i spent my student years. >> host: when we were in the little break that we just took -- and by the way, we're going to get back to phone calls in just a minute. our guest is phyllis bennis. 737-0001 for the east and central time zone. 737-0002 for the pacific and mountain time zones. when we were in a a little break you told me you spent 20 years as a private eye. >> guest: i did. that was big part of how i made a living while i was doing all this other stuff. what i considered my real work which was my political work. but i had worked -- i had gone to work for the national lawyers guild as an organizer. the guild is an organization of

progressives if we look at which words we use. progressives legal workers and law students. i had been in a legal collective in santa barbara learning some basic paralegal skills and then i went to work as an organizer for the guild and when i came back i went to south dakota. i went out to sioux falls and spent six months worked out of the trials that came out of the wounded knee occupation and i learned a great deal in that -- in that trial, both about native culture and what aim was about, the american indian movement and i also learned about jury investigation which i became very involved in. and i did the jury investigation for the first case where we actually got the case dismissed for the inability to impanel a fair nonracist jury in that district. and the judge kept saying, but i'll give you a change of venue, and we said, sorry. we have a right to be tried in our home county with a fair jury. and after six weeks of putting jurors on trial, we were able to prove that you could not get a fair jury for native people in

sioux falls, south dakota. and then when i went back to los angeles, i was working with some of the lawyer guilds, lawyers, leonard wineglass in particular who had done the chicago conspiracy trial and the pentagon papers trial and others and i started working with him and doing jury selection in some of those political cases. we did a lot of iranian student cases during the antishah protests. i worked with him on a bunch of political cases. and i remember to him he said one day, why don't you get a license so we can get you court appointment and get you paid directly and i thought licensed as a what? as a private investigator and i said you can do that. he said of course you can. just go get your license and i said, okay. and i tried and sure enough it turned out -- it was a sort of silly set of requirements and i started working. and for a while i did work for three years as a public defender investigator which was more of a full-time thing where i did criminal defense in the bay

area. but the rest of the time, that is what i did, process serving and jury investigation to make a living while i was doing my political work. >> host: phyllis bennis is our guest. this is "in depth" on booktv. bill, matthews, virginia, you're on the air. >> caller: yes, i have two questions for ms. bennis. the first question is what do you think of the supreme court decision, the money given to organizations designated by the government as terrorists even though it's nonterrorist purposes can be prosecuted and a related question is, the supreme court has decided that money is speech. why isn't this speech? and i'll take my answer off the air. thank you. >> guest: you raised some very important points. the supreme court decision in citizens united last year was, i think, by far the most significant, wide ranging and damaging, horrifying decisions that we've had in a very long time. that gives corporations unlimited right to influence our

elections. which means given their economic control, the right to control our elections. it's a very incredibly dangerous development. the earlier question about the ruling in the case of the humanitarian law project case, it was called humanitarian law project versus holder, that case was a very dangerous case because what it says is not only that it's illegal to give money to an organization that's been defined as a terrorist organization. that's bad enough if the money is to be used for a school or health care or something else. but it also says that it will be illegal to provide services up to and including legal representation. so a lawyer fighting to get them off the terrorism list, for example, could be charged with terrorism. something like the teaching a class in how to do nonviolent activities, to be an alternative

for an organization that perhaps has used violence in its past. that will be illegal. training people in how to access the united nations human rights system would be illegal under this ruling. so it's a devastating ruling that expands way beyond any -- what i would consider any kind of legitimate concern about the real threat of terrorism. >> host: linda, pennsylvania, good afternoon. caller: you bring up so many possible things to say. but the main reason that i called was to recommend a book to add to your list of books to read. and for everyone to read was an interview -- it was held yesterday on c-span by a former pentagon advisor about the military industrial complex's

power in this country. and the book was written by a man named buck mccann. it's called prophets of war of war. and he talks about from the beginning of this -- this was back in the 30s when this -- a man named gross, bob gross, i believe, began a little plane company that became a huge business all the way up until today. and i'm going to get the book and read it because the detail it goes into and the ridiculous amounts of money are just so easily talked about and gotten by these companies, lockheed

martin among them, is just -- it just makes your blood boil. >> guest: yes, you raise a very important point, linda. i would have thought the title was profits of war, spelled the other way, which i think is one of the biggest problems we face right now which is the wars are profitable. the wars in iraq and including the expansions that we're seeing in yemen and somalia and pakistan, et cetera -- these are the first wars in u.s. history since the civil war that were not accompanied by a law to prevent war profiteering. colleagues of mine at ips, particularly my colleague sarah anderson every year does a report on ceo pay levels in the

u.s. and each year the report indicates things like the number of times greater than the average worker salary, ceos are making -- it's been a high at more than 500 times worker salaries. now it's slightly lower than that. it's about 250 or so. 250 times the average salary of a worker. but besides that, it always targets a certain set of poster children if you will and a couple of years ago, the poster boys for this set of ceos that were ripping off people so badly were the ceos of the war industries that were reaping a killing from what they were producing for the war efforts in iraq and afghanistan. and it's -- it's a horrifying thing to read. it's frightening to see the power that these corporations have, that the most -- the best paid, the most lavish -- not just lifestyles but the amount

of economic power goes to the people whose companies are producing weapons of death and destruction. >> host: phyllis bennis is our guest on "in depth." here's a list of her books. 1990, from stones to statehood. she then edit two books, beyond the storm and altered states. in 2000, calling the shots was published. before and after was written in 2003. challenging empire in 2006. then she began a primer series. and the first one in that series was understanding the palestinian-israeli conflict 2009. following by ending the iraq war. in 2009. understanding the u.s.-iran crisis. are there parallels to be drawn between the vietnam protests and the buildup to the iraq war in 2003? ..