we are. your bookended at a certain point. there have been a couple of things that have happened, take me through where the law enforcement aspect of the worm is and do you guy feel you have conclusive sense of who the authors were or are? >> my suspicion, and i can't say with any certainty, that the authorities to know who was behind i. -- it. and i isn't suspect the difficulty in the ap rehelping them has more to do with dealing with diplomacy, a foreign government, laws and police agencies than it does with actually finding them. what we do know about the authors of the worm without having caught them yet is that they are tremendously sophisticated programmers, and the reason i use the word plural is that it's almost earnly not one person. -- certainly not one person. because the worm conficker demonstrated such a high level of proficiency in so many different areas that it's

literally impossible to imagine that one person would have that level of ability and that level of knowledge in so many different areas at the same time. .. check is really interesting because nobody wants to be arrested by local authorities for compromising machines in their country. we are looking towards eastern

europe to find out what that looks like it's one of those really interesting we have referred the case to the fbi early on. they've been working the case for quite some time. i know they are working hard on it but i don't fit picture of the guy. >> you can watch this and other prince online at booktv.org. next on book tv, jeff sharlet talks about the death and nature of religious belief in the united states. this is about an hour >> thank you and for coming out and joining me and it is a pleasure to be here at porter square books. i used to live up the street so this was my bookstore for a while. so why spend a lot of money here. i am getting a little back. and also just i like to get a plug for independent bookstores. i've just come to the end of the

book tour suite heaven when i die and i decided when i did this book which is published by norton one of the sort of last big independent publishers that i didn't want to go to any change and conveniently borders went out of business just in time they were so crushed by my refusal. only wanted to go to independence, and which can be sort of wonderful and it's great to be any sort of a thriving independent bookstore like this but there's also some feeling of going around the country to some great independence who sometimes feel like you're taking a tour of a hospice. independent bookstores are in terrible trouble. so, like lots of books from them, not just my books put all sorts of books keep your independence alive. don't do that thing that as i learned on this trip some people do independent bookstores go in and brill's books and looked up on their phone in the amazon price and then the order it for

a few dollars cheaper. you are paying for a wonderful service which is the function of the independent bookstore and that comes to mind especially tonight because i'm borrowing a copy of this book from porter square because i was just down. i'd been reporting on occupied wall street, and as you probably know me your bloomberg decided to sort of in the dead of night at 1 a.m. to send a thousand police officers and one of the things they did which is especially sort of important to me as a writer was that they trashed the library occupy wall street. it's a fascinating thing. one of the first things the is build a library, build a free library in lower manhattan where there aren't very many libraries anymore and in fact the only bookstore was the borders and that's gone now.

so you would see families who had nothing to do with the politics showing up to this library to get children's books for their kids. it was a beautiful wonderful library, professional and got trashed. right now we are literally today trying to figure out -- we know many books, hundreds of thousands were actually destroyed, but i think about that in terms of the sort of function of bookstores like this and libraries like this and also the sort of stories that i ended up telling in this book comes we have and when i die, they grew out of my last two books where the result of a long immersion come submersion and the sort of authoritarian subculture of american fundamentalism, and it was a fascinating world but it's not a world that gives one a lot

of hope or even a lot of laughs or it can be kind of crushing at times, and i remember the motto of one of the fundamentalist organizations i was writing about that they had was that they helped bring together political leaders to make decisions and it was a pretentious bit of latin beyond the popular come beyond the voice of the people. that was their idea. in the last book and this is what launched me into this book was this other line that i like and it comes from america's worst presidents in history. you were all sitting here thinking james buchanan 1857, 1861. but he had this one great line at a time when southern politicians were saying let's not argue. let's agree to disagree.

we will have our sleeves, you will have our factories and just be peaceful and he responded. he said i like the malaise of democracy. the malaise of democracy is key. the noise of democracy is what you saw down in that occupy wall street library. and it's not always proceed. the noise of democracy is and always reasonable and informed debate. it's filled with eccentricity and downright kooky missing an argument and disagreement and sharp tones and elbows. that is the malaise of democracy. out of that comes i think not well i should say when you write about religion for a long time as i have, you often get -- you may be doing media things and ask this question everyone wants to know what is the great common denominator of american belief? the one to sort of even a ball out, and you know, the real answer is that there isn't one.

that should be obvious in a democracy. we don't have a common denominator. we have a common denominator of the form of agreement to be in the space together in this public spaces to argue or just coexist. the sound of all of the sort of religious beliefs, political beliefs together come together all at once. that is and harmony. that's not harmony. it's cacophony. it is the sound i'm the most interested in as a writer. the coffin is a sound if you've ever been in a quieter where you've been in some kind of a religious house of worship and you are sitting there and you are singing and the person next to you doesn't sing quite as wonderfully as you do, that is cacophony and to keep singing with them. i am committed to sharing the space. so this book was me sitting out after a long immersion in the

sort of enforced coerced numbing harmony of american fundamentalism. there's a little fundamentalism within this book but it is so eccentric i decided to include it and i'm going to start off i'm going to read a few short passages. 13 stories of people who are all sort of caught on this tight rope between despair on one hand and desire on the other, the sort of fatalism and over here the imagination and they are people who walked the tightrope and they are not going to sort of settle for the metal. but take them to some strange places like this where first person i want to introduce you to in an incident called the rapture the name is sandra shay and she is a sort of real estate faith healer. she faced healed apartments. let me give you her full title. when i decided i wanted to write about the economy, the material, i want to follow the money of new age beliefs and i found her

and said can i spend some time with you and she gave me her business card b-a-m-a-j-d and the sisterhood of rights, ritual mastered in the high council of the universal mastered metaphysician to read that is her business card. then there is our first guided and you have to excuse me. i have a case of what is now called dukati lung. anybody here about this in the paper? it is the coffin you get when you spend a lot of time sleeping on the ground in the park which i've been doing reporting about this. so i got to go with sandra and one of the things i discovered is every big real-estate broker

in new york had in their rolodex somewhere someone like sandra who they can call when a high-end property isn't moving. and they can bring her in and as we will see she can perform some sort of magical ritual which you can decide for yourself may or may not help in the sale. a real-estate agent sat with perfect koln the holy water tap left by her dispense from the pink spritzer on the carpet, ceiling and walls of the apartment he had been trying to sell. the one-bedroom in the building with an open terrace overlooking the -- that's what i'm talking about, overlooking st. martin cathedral in the east river. it was priced reasonably at $680,000. i just realized when you are doing a book tour like you are in on your way and say $680,000

is gas and laughs, that is a steel can i get in on that? it wasn't moving. so, sober dignified man with gray hair, black jacket and a gray sweater and episcopalian a former retial executive with no supranational experience called sandra on the recommendation on a colleague. now she was standing in the living room her eyes fluttering and shoulders twitching as she called in the full congregation of the major gods. jim, is any of this kind of -- i don't know, hard to swallow. he shook his head and offered the new ageism life encountered. absolutely not. to some extent it is a language of its own. it may be to kill your but the idea at hand, this basis reflect their inhabitants at the energy sandra diagnosed as property that goes by many names all rituals true or false cohere around metaphors of our own creation these ideas are

perfectly ordinary she hung like a puppet on strings straightened and left the apartment. she needed distance so she could draw a circle around the new space. meter a sadr or by year would budge an inch on the basis of this invisible shield, and like most brokers, she wouldn't even mention the procedure. i looked at him to the hands folded and his lab waiting for her to return it was then that i a understood he had purchased this spill, the beatles by which did not concern him for his own peace of mind. as a, i tried to follow the lead. so she was willing to come to me again here i should say when i said to sandra shay khanna shadow you for a month and see how you do your work she said okay but we need to do some spiritual work and you first before you can hang around with me. and she gets well paid for her spiritual work and so she sort of thought i can't afford this, and i think she decided that, you know, she was going to take her chances on advertising.

so if at the end of this you don't want this book but you are thinking how can i get in touch with sandra i can put you in touch and if you have property that needs help. so i signed up for her special rising star workshop the healing modality she shares with derek o'neill who is a group in this british special forces commando who she says lives on the astral plane that i spoke to on the phone so you can reach. it was a collective effort involving half a dozen students gathered for 12 hours of instruction, meditation, visualization and advancing the highlight for me gently absurd and genuinely lovely was a spirit of ring around the rosie said to george harrison my sweet lord. we met in the midtown luxury apartment the reading of the shades of buttercup yellow the home of one of her regulars who sells apartments to the ball

players in bookstores. along with several rookies like me there was also anthony and actor that was modest would have a role in the recent movie and marry a breathtakingly beautiful psychotherapist for what she called the do route trey if you push down sandra, the real thing. anthony and mary were veterans of the workshop at deaths so when it came time for me to graduate the first level away from the living room and into a candle in a study she awaited with a sword. a real sort a much bigger and heavier than the accord cutting and here i have to back up again. the first ritual i had to go to before i was fit to accompany her on the truffle's was what she called the emotional chord cutting ceremony. $395 what it consists of is you fly on a massage table, but there's nothing sketchy about it there is no touching in fact she

may not have been in the room i just laid there in a cold room for an hour and the next day i got a terrible flu. i was down the kasich rhino and she said that's perfect, that is evidence it's working, getting all the bad stuff out. and the best of the was because she had done this cutting. you get up after an hour and she took a big knife, the court a cutting blade. she holds the ninth and explains we all have these she believes formed the sun healthy emotional connections to other people that think of it like tied down by the little people who have roads all over them. sandra to the rescue she's going to cut them with this knife and you stand there with the incense and she says some things and a tiny little person she does in fact believe that she is genetically part fairy.

she stands over this big knife and starts swooping it over your head and down your arms and then she explains to you look, most of us -- its tvs we have to be careful about this -- most of us for our own healthy emotional connections in one part of our body, there's one part of our body reform these connections we regret the next day and so we need you to stand barry still while like these chords and she takes the big life and you know, you can see where this is going. so, but she does it. it's fine. i know she has a steady hand. she has a much bigger sword but i trust her she's holding it like a better life but this is and sandra, its jesus. but sandra is jewish. she smiled. so, you are wondering if this is real. jesus spoken sandra's voice but an octave lower and instructed

me to neil and we stood up the sword and a prayer followed as she swung it down with one shoulder and then the other arresting the blade before contact so that the blows became taps. i was a brother of the brother and sister who of the division. jesus kept talking murmuring just for me. my knees hurt, my legs were asleep. i was afraid i wouldn't be able to get up. but jesus was saying was private, personal comedy secret of sorts. but sandra, said -- jesus, she said. you know i'm here to write about this. no details, jesus declared. she made me promise. but she added i could share, secure it is. jesus knew i didn't believe her and that was okay because she understood my skepticism, she said, and she knew where it came from and then she delivered an outline of my life story with nothing magical about it. she simply stored every fact i

had revealed about myself in passing and assemble them as an narrative colored by her analysis of my motives and fears and for the most part she got it right. she knew why was there. why i was kneeling before her. you are not a seeker you are a daughter. doubt, she said, but a calling. it is not on believe it is in between with the chain of supply and demand, doubt, she says is your revelation. the subtitle of this book is baseless and the country in between and you can guess where most of us live is in the country in between. you know, i spoke of that idea of the sort of tight rope despair in one in a and desire and imagination giving of fatalism. deacons which goes back and forth which one is faith most of

us are summer stock on the tight rope in between and i like the sort of approach writing about people who i guess were on the tight rope with me like sandra wood doud as i said, but i think she got it right. i think jesus got me right. but it is a gentle. it is not -- i don't like to sort of go charging in with a wise guy skepticism. that said, you sometimes run into stories where gentle build is maybe not sufficient but when that happens you don't need the skepticism because your subjects tend to do the work for you and this next peace i want to share with you is from an essay called she said yes and it's about she said yes comes from, the title comes from the story of columbine that the mortar is a

sort of a big figure in christian conservative america one of the victims of columbine who supposedly when dhaka words were going through found her hiding under the table and said do you believe in god and does the story goes she said yes. so they killed her. now you can do to sort of a christian rock concert where as in fact the concert i met in the story there is an anthem and thousands of kids she said yes. the complicated part as anyone can tell, that didn't happen. and moreover, when we think about what happened at columbine and that killing they were telling everybody. but were they going to do if she said no? okay then go along your way. nobody got away. the fact she said yes represents the desire for a certainty where you can mail things down, the desire to sort of like have an explanation that would explain

something like things are more difficult than that. the movement i'm describing here is called battle cry. it's -- i guess you might say for the most militant fundamentalist youth movement in america it's the only fundamentalism i've encountered in america and i've been reporting on fundamentalism for a long time for which i would even contemplate using the f word which is fascism. i don't like that kind of left tendency to say jerry falwell air passionists delete capricious they are not, they are marching into the public square making their case. i don't like that noise but they are bringing in the noise of democracy. this movement is a little more severe to give you a sense of the severity said i could come along with him and write about him just like sandra thought it might be good advertising but didn't want me to understand i was a terrorist and if i

misunderstand say that is not a metaphor. here i was renting for rolling stone at the time you are a cultural terrorist and all of you by the way by virtue of being in this book store are probably terrorists, too. he in fact believes america is only 4% christian and probably more than 4% christians in this room you don't count terrorists. ron droll's a hard line and i set out to write about him and i ended up finding myself most interested in the kids and the kids were sort of wonderful. i want to read to you from one of the defense called acquire the fire. a variety of sort of big rallies that can go on for three days that can have 5,000 kids the biggest one is the 70,000 kurds to the kids or the rock band, pyrotechnics, big screens of light shows, lots and lots of fun if you were 14 or 14 and

lots of kids go there just to have fun. but in the process they encounter this kind of thinking. so this one is called acquire the full year and here i am with two girls about 12, 14 named hannah and mallory. he tells the kids to make lists of secular pleasures they will sacrifice for his cause to the hannah starts with hip-hop heartthrobs, bow wow and usher, by turpin and decides to go big, music, she writes, and the fact, friends, and on fundamentalist one. and party. this, she explains is a polite way of saying sex, not that she has had any, thank god or knows anyone her age that has but she has learned the culture wants to force upon her at a young age. the world, he tells her is a 45-year-old pervert posing as a

mother tween online. and i will just sit gentled out at the time he said that he was 45-years-old and had a policy of letting his children choose all the clothes for him say that he could fit in and relate to the kids. all i'm saying is that he speaks with authority. sometimes brings a garbage truck onto the floor to cart away but this is a relatively small event so hannah and bow wow and usher trot over to one of the bins around the arena and drop there's an. i feel so much better, mallory is believed to mallory tawes hannah. i feel free, she says. later one of the raps takes me back stairs to shift through the affections. most mengin musical movies or girlfriends and boyfriends or sex or surprisingly often just condoms which is worrisome. you don't want to do that in stages or say i will start giving out condoms and work my

way out. you should probably do it all at once. a number of new warriors are precise of the proposed abandoning the cast into starbucks multiple votes. victoria's secret encouraging kids to come from the managers of local lingerie stores. breakfast cereals, special k and captain crunch, hip huggers one kid writes snelling amazing, 99.3 fm. eric, vengeance is probably a good idea. medication, which is probably not a and a&w root beer. i would say it's ridiculous what they are doing to root beer wrote a boy who would drink a and w no more. most of the message though or junior versions of adult fundamentalist anger such as the note from allyson, a child of god that reads if this keeps up there won't be kids to buy yourself it's the same so i say

now in the name of jesus, stop. are you really willing to risk the destruction of humanity or this? to the media stop spreading infectious phill for this. we will take action. this is a real war and when he talks like that he growls. this is not a metaphor he is fond of saying. yet he does work in the metaphoric and one of the things that always attracts me to the characters is kind of a certain fascination with the language or spells, just like sandra shay, for performing his own kind of magic and by the sometimes why do i end up writing about religion so much i'm not a religious person and, you know,

one is this is a very psychoanalysis go back into their early youth and the wound was at age seven elving bobbit and ward of the rings and discovering that middle earth isn't real and that of its art and real, magic isn't real, so it becomes fascinated with people who think that it is. people who still live and i don't mean that in a divisive way. people who take action and make things happen in the world and sometimes that magic is harmless light sandra and sometimes troubling. the culmination of some of his rallies he decides to illustrate a biblical story and you know, run like many believers of quite reasonable believers and more so fundamentalist believe that the bible is a book of everyday common sense wisdom applicable to your daily life of the answers to your questions are right there just open it up.

the open it up to judges, chapter 20 and a story that is so horrifying it should be evident to most readers you are going to need some thinking on what this one means. it's the story of a traveler and he is traveling with a bahrain and comes to this town and can't go any further said he speaks to a man that says i will put you up for the night. the townspeople are not good people, and they go to the house and say send out your guests and what they are going to do to him, i don't know. so instead he decides to send up the concubine. it's a horrible story. they kill her and the next day he doesn't anyone would do she cuts her body up into 12 pieces and send them out to the tribes of israel. at this point if you are sitting

there thinking every day you learn something from the bible, he is i guess thinking like that because he brings the rallies together with a little bit of what i think is a [dog barking] due to magic. he says the mannequin represents secularism and is labeled with the scenes of secularism, pornography across the chest the new nudity is not one of them, but music may be down on one arm and i remember this one arm that is also secularism but you don't get caught up on those details because you've got these kids, 5,000 kids are 10,000 kids or even the rallies of 70,000 kids you've got the kids chanting cut of the concubine, destroy secular resigned as he does this he takes this mannequin and he dismembers it, takes it apart, since the arms out into the crowd and the kids are screaming the one this is a souvenir.

it's like on the one hand being out and alice cooper concert or alcee osborn but it's taking it a little further, and cut up the concubine. when i was there i was with a 14-year-old boy and wherever i go, you know, any church no matter how extreme or a synagogue or mosque or compound or whatever it is, there's always the orthodoxy, the officials believe, and then there's these human beings who do have common sense. i was standing there with a 14-year-old boy and this was the sort of combination that was the label to pornography and everyone once the prize of the pornography naked torso and this 14 year old way says who wants to walk home putting a naked torso label pornography and i just wanted to hug that kid.

he saw through that dark magic. i want to close with one more short piece. it may be the flip side of the scene at a battle cry, and i think of it as a little bit of sort of kind of like the prehistory of occupy wall street. there's a number of stories in this book i wasn't planning this what as i was reporting on occupied will street for rolling stone i kept running into people that i had written about in the book some of them famous like cornell west who has already been arrested twice and i think will be arrested again and to put it in perspective, this is a man with very advanced cancer putting a body on the line and says -- he had this wonderful line he says his definition of dignity and human dignity, the most essential dignity he says is the ability to contradict

what is. that's dignity. it's not the sort of jordan to the congenital affirmation it is the negation. say no to things that more and imagine something different that is what gives them sympathy for people like ron. his imagination terrified them but he is saying no. he's starting down that tightrope towards imagination. so i run into cornell west but then the number of chapters in here about anarchist's that is another subculture that fascinates me, and i think writing about this i wanted to understand the anarchists, and in fact i would run into a story in here about a man named brad who was killed in 2006 and went on to cover an uprising and was filming a conflict that had begun as a teacher strike but they actually took over the

state and was filming the conflict with the police and he's on his own murder if you stood on the video you can see on youtube the technology if you slow down and slowed down there is a puff of smoke and then it falls down. when i was first down there at occupy wall street i kept running into his friends and despite that sort of grim and terrifying in the coming and i'd never known them in real life but i had reconstructed talking to his friends and family he lived an incredibly joyous life. and it was sad to me that he couldn't be there to see this thing in the park, which i should say if you haven't i don't know about boston but if you haven't seen your york it wasn't defined by rage. the dominant mode in the park was a kind of joy, happiness, imagination, and i would -- evin i would run into all these people and some of the

characters i'm going to share with you in this story who had been trying for something like this for a long time and media i had been getting it wrong as these folks had it's a group of anarchists some of them are friends and some of them weren't, many of them you can find no evin beckham of occupied park. they are anarchists and this is in 2000 for this is the republican national convention and new york city, and as i said they were trying for something big and sometimes they got it wrong. i will review this is one of the times they've really got it wrong. acre was anarchist's had set up a dragon flute like a chinatown, chinese new year dragon. and they were all marching in sight and carrying an had speakers and smoke or steam puffing out of its head and a dragon in front doing somersaults with a big wet. biggest skeptical with hundreds of thousands of people and it pulls up in front of the madison

square garden and it blows up. this is 2,000 for this is three years after line 11 and then move something up in a crowd outside of madison square garden. was terrifying. everybody was terrified. nobody was hurt. it wasn't that kind of explosion. but it was in a picture of something beautiful it was something more frightening, and i followed some of the folks and talked to them and i think even the new that that didn't have quite the effect. so they tried again and this is what happens. close to midnight on my way home i stopped at st. mark's 8200-year-old church made into a temporary haven bringing protestors who care to rest or sleep. it was packed for the duration of the demonstration giving way

to the radical rituals and good nature is hoedowns with the to but and trombone and they are natural in any march for freedom, peace, war, with every and when i passed by they were stumping up some dust in the graveyard. the two was in fact maybe one and the trumpets, clarinets and magi and drum, some pots and pans at the margin. the mechanical orchestra were planning gypsy music a saxophonist explained. there were also fond of accounting songs and some of originals. the latter tended to the football stadium and thumbs or something like it good enough any way for the men and women standing around us to break into a barefoot flamingo emulation. anarchist's gave way to bunny striped leggings and t-shirts and beer bellies, their backs,

shaved heads, dreads, close cropped buzz cuts and pagers shaking and the symmetry dust of gypsy attali and fight song flamenco. the music was a gumbo. the crowd ragtag in all of their senses but the specter late in the air like pollen the belief in its possibility and its desirability. by the door of the church someone painted a poster board with a fist bubbling the command don't vote. like the holy rollers of old and the radical fairy as of now the midnight brass band congregation was made up of the come elders as fundamentalists used to describe themselves. come out from the wicked old and from the big media. come out from the main street into a wild waters of the channels, put away your notebooks they told us and then don't report, joined to the we didn't do this for him, we are not doing it for you. there is no story but right now.

later there would be evaluations of the meetings and strategy sessions. the trombone would turn against the to but one anarchist would call another the mark were called were told. the burning dragon would be denounced from within and without and written as narcissistic documentaries would be made. history replete and reprinted. that would come later. now wasn't a time for the media. it was rather not time to the chronos of the political theater for as long as it lasted the dust in the three days living in the church, the big boom of the bass drum, the flamenco steps and the gift of the great google perched high on the tree all seem to be beavers like the signs and wonders. the entirety of the protests were the revolution or the radical said it was some or pagan or what anyone decided to call with woodring. don't call it anything.

this score and sound bites and for the moment they desperately did not want mediation of any kind. what they wanted was revelation. religion as broadly defined as the mouth of the house and not political aggression. they wanted and believed they needed and maybe even achieved before the music stopped and the kitchen closed and the anarchist boys and rosy cheek girls and a half wild men with the lighter skin all fell asleep and loan and on the gravestones. they wanted with some kind of liberation. it had been one or would be one to sweat in the smoke of the offerings. stolen in cents, free food, cooked too long a big fire in front of madison square garden. we did it for ourselves. one more thing. i said the beginning i borrowed this from porter square.

the liberty park or occupy wall street library, consider that another form. the mid night dance party, the dragani got it wrong and got it right and in the library they really got it right. this was the embodiment of the political imagination. and as i said, this library got -- we are still waiting. last i knew the city had given back a little less than half of the books most of them with some kind of damage, some of them destroyed, and books of all sorts, this wasn't just political books, the first book they got back was a bible. they welcomed books from everywhere. there was romance novels, things if you're hanging out in a park for two months you might get believe it or not you might get tired of noam chomsky. after two months.

and so people wanted to reach sci-fi or twilight novels or the poetry, writers were coming down to this library. first the riders from coming to the library. that is the problem and that is where i want to sort of close. i want to close with a piece not in my own riding, may be symbolic because i gave my reading of the swede had been when i dhaka to the newly occupied wall street brought up last night with about 50 books and had grown by 3 a.m. this morning when i left it had grown and grown and grown. the books just keep coming. but, you know, the books came to the writers didn't because they tend to be selfish people. i can say this with some of 40

and when i was sort of reporting on this and as you can tell i'm not a newspaper reporter i'm not concerned with abject devotee i am concerned with transparency and honesty i felt this was fantastic i felt this was imagination. i said where are the writers? over here? i see the construction workers march and the teachers marching and lots of librarians, chefs leadoff -- laid off cooks come here come the teamsters, artists, musicians. where are the writers? i'm waiting and waiting and thought someone has a letter of support i'm going to find that letter and i waited and no cluttered emerged. so i'm going to try an experiment here i don't normally read from my phone but i think it is appropriate for what i want to do here.

so, you know, we've all heard that the square in egypt which was one of the great inspiration's for the smaller movement was partially powered, twitter-howard and that can be exaggerated but what i discovered in trying to cover this as a journalist, this occupy will street movement did have a lot to do with twitter partly because the crackdown not just last night but for a month and a half there's over 200,000 occupations now and if you look at twitter around midnight you'll see them and not in the big cities in tucson and peoria, every night somebody gets beat up. every night the cops come down after the even o'clock news after the paper goes to bed and they come with bulldozers or horses and rubber bullets. every night this happens. this is something important regardless of what your politics are and whether you think they have the right approach. the malaise and democracy is as

a daily news put it about a year bloomberg today, cities don't do things they are proud of that one in the morning. so the only way to track this was on twitter. i would be up there laid out light on the twitter and that is when i discovered solomon rushdie some of you may know spends a lot of time on twitter, perhaps too much time to get have you seen his car - kardashian poems? system quite a bit for kim kardashian triet there's this writer and i can just tweet she answers back in the middle of the light come sure and he's got ideas and names. so we came up with a short letter. really we the undersigned riders' support occupy wall street and the movement. we didn't want to get into the

debate about what it should say but we invited people to find, and he was the first, that is a good first signatory joined by now there's 2,000 riders, five u.s. poet laureates and more national book award winners, pulitzer winners than i can count, macarthur, the gaggle of guggenheim, all of these prizes, but the key thing is it is alphabetical and anybody can science if you are a writer you should sign. how do we know if i count? you decide. we want to democratize the culture. the celebrity of margaret atwood and all these writers, but alternately disappear and so before them because it is a book about vegans and zombies. i could be good. i haven't read them.

but i want to close by sharing with you and i am using the phone because i thought this began on a twitter and partly because i gave away my copy with my book last night a piece that we started asking okay write-down something about what's happening. we don't care if it is pro or con whatever you want. if you think this is disorganized,, backend write that. one of the first pieces we got was from daniel handle were who is better known as some elimination of to limit each ticket. i missed him as a kid and maybe it would have restored my lost all but fief if i had read it earlier on. hear this wonderful piece i want to share a few pieces of it in closing i want to close with someone else's riding because that is kind of part of the millions of dhaka see that i'm interested in it's called 14 observations made while watching occupy will street from a discreet distance.

i will give you a few. number one, if you work hard and become successful, it doesn't necessarily mean you are successful because you worked hard. just as if you are tall with long hair and doesn't mean that he would be a midget if you were bald. [laughter] number three, money is like a child, rarely accompanied. when it disappears look to those who were supposed to be keeping an eye on it while you were at the grocery store to get you might also look for someone who has a lot of extra children sitting around with long explanations for how they got their. member for come people who say money doesn't matter are like people who say cake doesn't matter. it's probably because they've already had a few slices. number seven, someone -- the very authentic coughing.

someone feeling wrong is like someone feeling for thursday, don't tell them they aren't. sit with them and have a drink and finally my final come historic we the story about people in sight impressive buildings ignoring or even taunting people standing outside shouting at them turns out to be a story with an unhappy ending. thank you. [applause] >> i always like to begin the period with a quaker meeting where we sit here quietly. >> this is about one of your previous books, -- >> so the family. first question is from what i

can tell your book doesn't seem to have slowed them down one bit and i wonder if you agree on this to sort of speculate why, but the more substantive question is you trace the origin of the outset backed in some ways and the more you find out the more incredible it is. it's like the landscaping you have no idea alcoholics anonymous, public people. >> neither of which are a part of this fundamentalist organization. >> social activists are -- >> literally they were the same source. it takes us back to the moral we've equine which is kind of

scary because and of 30 and after the war they are pushing this idea of reconciliation and then you show that hillary clinton -- >> not quite. because not everyone has read the book or not everyone has read my book but you are doing a good summary, but -- >> i've read the book and the question is how scared should we be? with some of the aspects of this buchanan mengin -- >> the question, to restate the

question it was in regards to one of my earlier books on the fundamentalists of culture and this particular organization of the family that's been around for a long time i would argue is the most influential christian conservative organization in washington as international organization and goes back to the 1930's and the intent to be secret organizations. they are not bringing the noise of democracy. they are not marching. they are not even like rahm where you can disagree they can do things quietly. and so the question assess how scared should we be? you know, this is a glib answer i suppose to buy a copy for all your friends, but the real interest is not too scared, i

think i am not going to lecture on fewer, but partly because the organization has been around a long time and is interested in the status quo as their own fundamentalist allies described them they are in two things as they are so if you look around this world and say we've got it pretty much figure out our democracy is coming along and everything is perfect, we have equality and liberty, you have no problems with that. if, on the other hand, you see something problematic you should be concerned. i don't find fear a compelling reaction. right now we have the most extravagant and almost impossible to believe display of political imagination and the least 40 years. it goes back further than that. now there is a display of the

political imagination and that is a much more interesting response. and i say that as a person who has spent years writing about the right and being on the book tour this fall during the republican primary season and then a sign to go down to the park and such a liberation to suddenly i stopped watching the the date and spend some time with rick perry i didn't have that much love in me i couldn't do it and it is much more interesting to be imagining what you could do. now i said earlier quoting cornell west in the subject of the book the most essential to contradict what is is to say no. so when you're talking about fear i think saying no to the status quo, this religion it sees the rich as rewarded by god and the poor as appointed to their poverty by god.

say no to that is the beginning but it opens up the space i hope for imagination. >> i was wondering since you've been present at or near the birth of occupy, what have you learned about other movements you may have written about over the years from being present early on when usually do come later on? >> that is a really good question. it is interesting. you know, this other social movement for years i've been writing of the christian right's movement and this group from the gentleman over here asking in 1935 in response to the west coast largely in response to the west coast general strike of 1934 which the forgotten a bit of american history kind of astonishing this was a true general strike in america. it alarmed people enough that fdr, crazy right-wing fdr moved

the warships off the coast. the city of san francisco was shut down, seattle was shut down and was a jury similar strike in that they didn't have exactly clear demand. there was a real small anarchist element and the social movement that arose in response was the christian right social movement that arose in the response had some of the sort of same language that you hear from many liberal people. well the message as messy, yes these people have identified something wrong with society but we must have a clear program, we must of a clear program and have a right away there will be no time for the liberation we must start with a clear program and it's been interesting seeing this one start from the beginning. i almost mean like the midnight mass of anarchists dancing at the church because they are

having those same debates and most of the people involved in those debates are there in good faith. they do not have any demand like the folks in that story of the moment is now versus the people who most of the program and they have a persuasive case as well. so you see i think i don't think i understood before witnessing this one even having spent so much time writing about the family just how fragile the social movement is at the beginning. this one is is some debate interesting and rolling stone you go back to those early meetings in august is when we started having meetings. the great brick that this occupy wall street has with all the traditional leftist organizations either didn't show up or left because they thought it was too disorganized. like the will of labor wasn't even there, the community organizers weren't there, the academics led there. as a bunch of crusty socialist

parties ranging to the downright workers party which sort of things that north korea is the ideal state and the had their microphones, the and discipline, the organization, they have been ruining the left for years and they marched off and said this ascent have a chance and the only people left there were artists and some writers who were there in the beginning and media makers and filmmakers. they had no idea what to do so they made it up. make things that it's like starting a story this really may go nowhere and i think really the are still in the opening pages. you don't know is this going to become the manuscript or short story i don't think we have that answer so that to me is fascinating but also kind if accelerating. >> we have heard a lot about the

church and i don't know if you have written about the mormons or cyan, adjusts but if you have maybe a few can share your experience. it's interesting as american religions and where they are in terms of being accepted or not being accepted. >> years ago i was asked by a magazine to write about scientology and you asked me before are we afraid? no way writing about scientology the most litigious religious group and world history i just didn't want to deal with that so i didn't and the opportunity past and then a friend of mine from another magazine in the other writing about it and she has a book called in sight scientology but it is an important book. she took the risk and i think this was for rolling stone at one point i remember correct tom cruise actually showed up at their office to try to kill the story or maybe it was tom

cruise's sister or something like this. so i haven't written about scientology. i read about it and as a person interested in religion might sometimes gone to look at scientology castles. mormonism is much more interesting and right at the heart of the politics right now. the heart of the noise of democracy, you know, the american history we have a terrible history. deep persecution. the mormon church doesn't have such a great history itself. as most big organized religions don't, and i haven't written about them yet but i want to do a story this is the next story i want to do. i got invited to speak at the salt lake city annual conference and i said i'm not mormon nor have i ever written about mormon or have anything to offer but they said they are interested in the work that i'd done about

fundamentalism. these were all people who left their faith and sometimes some families that's fine but these are people who had been disowned, pushed out of the work in the communion and so on and they were all fabulous speakers because of course one of the great things is, you know, a real emphasis on everybody speaking in the meetings. so they get and it is a raucous drunken meeting. they are doing everything they were not supposed to do before. ..

>> i listen to the mormons, too, temple square is fascinating but, you know, these stories are hard to beat. should we -- thanks very much. um, thanks for coming out and joining me on a rainy night, appreciate it. [applause] >> every weekend booktv offers 48 hours of programming focused on nonfiction authors and books. watch it here on c-span2. william adler recounts the life of labor activist, joe hill, next on booktv. joe hill was known for his outspoken politics and the many songs he wrote and performed championing workers' rights. will adler examines joe hill's political life and his death by firing squad in utah for the murder of a salt lake city grocer, a crime the author contends joe hill did not commit. thisthis is a little under an h.

>> welcome, everyone, good afternoon. thank you for coming out on this beautiful saturday and joining us. um, thank you, c-span, who's recording us today, this wonderful event we have at book passage with william adler. my name is joe an that, your host, and i'd like to begin by thanking all of you for supporting your local independent bookstore. [applause] yea. today i'm very pleased to be introducing our very talented author, william adler. the author of "the land of opportunity" and "molly's job." his work has been published in a variety of periodicals including esquire, rolling stone and mother jones. in addition to our fabulous author, we are also very pleased to bring you local folk singer jon fromer, the recipient of the 2011 joe hill lifetime achievement award. [applause]

william adler is here today to discuss his book, the man who never died: the life, times and the legacy of joe hill, american labor icon." this is an in-depth and extremely well-researched account of the 1914 murder, conviction of joe hill who many concerned falsely accused because of his connection with the industrial workers of the world. in "the man who never died," william presents never-before-published evidence that strongly suggests that joe hill was, in fact, innocent. gabriel thompson of the broken rail writes: a fascinating and groundbreaking biography. adler has used the life of hill to provide a sweeping portrait of labor activism in the period leading up to world war i. so i think we're going to begin with jon fromer today who's going to be delighting us with some music. so welcome, jon. [applause]

♪ >> this is a song by joe hill that many people know, you're welcome to join me, written by alfred hayes. ♪ i dreamed i saw joe hill last night, live as you and me. ♪ -- your ten years dead, i never died, says he. ♪ i never died, says he. ♪ the copper bosses shot you, takes more than gunses to kill -- guns to kill a man. ♪ says joe, i didn't die. ♪ says joe, i didn't die. ♪ in salt lake city -- was

standing by my bed. ♪ they framed you on a murder charge, says joe, i ain't dead. ♪ says joe, but i ain't dead. ♪ standing there -- [inaudible] says, joe, but they forgot to kill -- [inaudible] ♪ when i'm too organized. ♪ from san diego up to maine, in every mine and mill we're working for -- joe hill.

♪ it's there you'll find joe hill. ♪ i dreamed i saw joe hill last night live as you and me. ♪ says i, but, joe, you're ten years dead; i never died, says he. ♪ i never died, says he [applause] >> thank you. >> jon fromer, everybody. thank you very much. [applause] i just want to start by reading a brief interpret from the introduction -- excerpt from the introduction, and then i want to talk some about the book, and

jon's going to play some more music as well. the introduction is called "coast wasn't any -- don't waste any time mourning." it was a funeral the likes of which chicago had never seen. as early as dawn, they began gathering, a great single swarm of humanity. tens of thousands of the city's dispossessed and disinherited. this is a quote. the ghetto, the slums, the logging house quarters and the manufacturing districts are buzzing with anticipation, the chicago daily tribune reported that morning adding that, quote, handbills in a dozen different languages had urged awe ten dance. by 10:00 when the service begun, 5,000 mourners including anarchists, unionists, socialists, knew hi lists and

ordinary nondenominational wage slaves, bums and hobos of who less than 10% for american -- "the new york times" sniffed -- were wedged into every cranny of the back and side walls of the west side auditorium. it was thursday, november 25, 1915, an unseasonably warm thanksgiving morning. already the temperature had climbed into the 50s, and the windows of the great second floor hall were opened wide, and verse after verse, song after song cascaded outside the block-long building. outside the west pseudoauditorium at the intersection of taylor and south racine, a milling is and singing throng. one writer reported the streets jammed from curb to curb for over a mile and all traffic at a halt. echoed the verses resounding from the upstairs hall. as the song built to its final verse, the mighty street corral

swirled to a crescendo. workers of the world awaken, take the wealth that you are making, it belongs to you by right. no one will for bread be crying, we'll have freedom, love and health. when the grand red flag is fly in the workers' commonwealth. the grand red flag longed to their union, the industrial workers of the world. a union, yes, but it might better be described in its own vernacular as a loose confederation of work stiffs and bend l bums, hard rock minders and muckers, timber beasts, lintheads, shovel stiffs and be straw cats, pond monkeys, sewer hogs and stump ranchers. these were people with nothing to lose. unskilled transients who slung their bend les on their backs and beat their way through hobo jungles and rail yards through cities for the promise of worth. who squandered their last dollars on employment agents who

lived in wretched tent camps or vermin-infested bunkhouses, sometimes as many as 500 men packed and stacked like cordwood. these were men who labored 12 hours or more daily, seven days a week in workplaces as unsafe and unhealthy as their sleeping quarters and who, when they dared propest those conditions, were -- the fortunate ones -- merely fired and blacklisted. the funeral service on that warm thanksgiving day in chicago was testimony to the power of song, a power the iww had recognized right from its start. we have been naught, the delegates found in convention saying, we shall be all. sang in jails, picket fines, fields, factories and mines, train yards, city streets and hobo jungles. a swedish emigre named joe hill wrote their songs. not all of them, of course, but it was he, said the historian

joyce cornbloom who more than any one writer had made the iww a singing movement. the songs were scathing critiques of capitalism; blunt, definal, satirical, wry, cocky and distinctly hill. but joe hill, the iww's beloved troubadour of dissent, had written his last. six days earlier at the age of 36, he'd been silenced, executed by a utah firing squad. i was attracted to this story initially as a murder mystery, a who dun it, because if joe hill didn't to -- do it as so many thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people maybe millions around the world believed at that time in 1915, then i wanted to find out, if possible, who did do it. and if he didn't do it, i was curious about why so many people believed he was innocent.

finish so that was my initial impetus. i heard about, i heard about joe hill many, many years ago. i'd worked on and off in unions and in other nonprofits that were associated with labor, and i'd heard the song that john just sang so wonderfully. but that's about all i knew about joe hill. and then about i'd say half a dozen years ago now i was reading bob dylan's memoir chronicles volume i, and in it he devotes three pages to joe hill. he talks about what an influence hill had been on woody guthrie and turned guthrie's influence on future generations of folk singers, you know, pete seeger, of course, was the same generation, but on down, phil oaks and dylan himself and jon fromer and so many others. and he struck me that this was a guy who was the cornerstone of american protest music, and i wanted to find out more about him and not just the legend or the myth of joe hill as express

inside that song -- expressed in that song, but really i wanted to try to separate the fact from the fiction because i didn't know what was true and what wasn't true in that song. so as i say, i started looking at it as a murder mystery, and the more i looked at it and the more i read the trial transcript of it, what existed of it, but also the newspaper covers. there were four daily newspapers in salt lake city, utah, at the time. they all covered this trial extensively. the coverage was wildly divergent. you wouldn't really know it was the same case from reading the four papers. nevertheless, that was valuable in itself. and -- oh, sorry, jon. all right. and so i wanted to, i wanted to put all that together and see what i could find out and look at it as a cold case. um, but as i began digging into this case, it seemed to me

although it was called state of utah v. joseph hill strom, it was his americanized name. it really wasn't about utah versus hill. it was about us versus them. us was civil society and them was this dangerous radical union industrial workers of the world which the prosecutor never made any bones about. he wasn't exactly trying joe hill in this case. he had the iww in his sights, and that's who he was after. and, in fact, in his closing arguments in joe hill's murder case, he talked about the importance of convicting hill to what did he say, to set the blaze of liberty against the dark sky of anarchy. that's the way he spoke in this case, and all along he talked about the parasites of the iww and the thugs and savages. so he was dehumanizing and demonizing hill as much more than even a murderer because he

represented this very dangerous strain this american society that needed to be snuffed out. so what that suggested to me, though, was that this was a case that was much more than a simple murder case. this was a case, to me, that opened up this panorama on american history, this era that i knew very little about but fascinated me between the turn of the 20th century and world war i, um, when labor and capital really were at the barricades like never before or since for that matter. so it seemed that the hill case was a great prism through which to see that, and i was really interested in trying to tell that story through the story of joe hill's life and times. the economy was changing greatly at the onset of the 20th century just like it is now. this was an era just past

jeffersonian agrarianism clearly, but it wasn't yet on this past to modern industrial capitalism. there was an alternative, and that was socialism. and it was viewed not as some un-american, subversive plot, but as a legitimate and humane detour around the inequities of modern industrial capitalism. and so i wanted to try to tell that story as well, just a snapshot of it through the case of joe hill. and the other thing i wanted to look at was the making of a myth. how did joe hill become a folk hero? jon, we mentioned earlier, was awarded the joe hill lifetime achievement award from the labor heritage foundation in washington this year, and that there even is such an award is interesting to me, and i wanted to find out what it was about hill that inspired this legend making. one of the interesting things i

found out was that he was come police is sit in his legend -- complicit in his legend making, and that was something i hadn't taught before. but i also began to think about how one does become a folk hero in this country, and the first names that popped into my head was john henry and paul bunyan and babe the blue ox, and it seemed to me that hill didn't really belong in that category. because as one of his friends said, he earned his mythology the hard way. and i wanted to study that question, how did he learn, excuse me, how did he earn his mythology? and it seemed to me that he earned it pause of his answer -- because of his answer to a profound question which was if a cause is important enough to live for, is it also worth dying for? and it was in the answer to that question, i think, that he began to become a folk hero. so how did he come to answer that question in the

affirmative? you have to study his character and his beliefs, and to do that you've got to study his beginnings. so i wanted to study his swedish boyhood and his family origins which i did and which, um, i think were important to understand the influences, how, how did he become an activist and how did he come to write the music that he did? where did he develop his sense of humor which was pretty biting and pretty wicked and what actually determined his decision or influenced his decision to emigrate in the first place, and then once here, why did he join the irk ww, that radical union? so those were all questions i had and wanted to try to get to the bottom of at least as closely as i could in this book. and to start to answer some of those questions, anyway, i did go to sweden, and i learned that he came from a family of musical dissidents. his parents really were brought

together by music in the first place, and they also were united in their, in both -- i think this their fear and dislike of the state church, the church of sweden which you're born into in joe hill's time, and they kept close tabs on everyone and everything. and in the case of joe hill's mother, that was a dangerous thing for her because she e had been born out of wedlock, i learned, and the official church records branded her as a whore's child, that's what it says in the church record. her mother, joe hill's grandmother, was a slut. and so right from the beginning you've got this scarlet letter on her, and she was, of course, predisposed not to really follow the church teachings. and there was a movement sweeping sweden and, indeed, europe at the time of hill's birth in 879, and that was a free church movement, a rerival

movement in the churches, an awakening. and they were among the first to join that movement in sweden, and it was actually centered in joe hill's hometown, a town which is 100 miles north of stockholm on the east coast of sweden, the baltic coast, and that church preached the gospel of social justice as opposed to the church of sweden. and it was something that hill's family embraced when he was young. um, he grew up in that church but began to leave when he got older, began to resent it and really to buck against it. and he grew up in a fairly middle class home. his father had been a railroad conductor, salaried employee, but his father died when hill was 8 years old. and that left his mother with six children under the age of 12

with no appreciable income at all. she drew a small widow's pension from the railroad, and that was about it. and there were many day when the family went hungry according to letters that his sister later wrote. sometimes they would find a sack of old potatoes on the road and drag it home, and that's all they would have to eat for days. and so hill went to work himself at the age of 12 in a rope factory. a few years later, though, he contracted a serious, nearly fatal case of tuberculosis. and it was his first brush with premature death, not his last. he went down to stockholm for some experimental treatments, he was given his last rites. somehow, came out of it, and he returned home only to see his mother die a short time afterwards. at that point he had just turned 23 years old -- 21 years old, and the six children decided to sell the family house, split up the proceeds, and hill and one

of his two older brothers decided to emigrate. and they arrived in the states in new york in 1902, the fall of 1902. he had just turned 23 at that point. when he got here, he apparently worked for a year doing odd jobs in new york, cleaning spitoons on the bower ri and other various unskilled work. and then he started to make his way out west, joined the migrant stream and did a variety of odd jobs most of which i don't know exactly what he was doing or where he was for about the next four, six years or so. he was a migrant worker. he didn't leave a lot of bread crumbs. we don't though at all times where he was. i do know, however, that he in 1906, in april, he was in san francisco. he was caught in the great quake here and wrote about it which is how i know he was here. he sent an article to his hometown newspaper, and it was a

harrowing first person account of surviving the quake. he talked about slipping through the floor boards in this lodging house he was staying in, crashing to the basement. it got dark, he closed his eyes, he sang some sunday school hymns and prepared to meet his fate, he said. but he lived. that was his second brush with premature death. when he got out of there, he left san francisco like so many people did, he went to the northwest to portland, oregon, with he first encountered the iww, the industrial workers of the world, and where he joined the union. that would have been in 1908 or so. the following year he went to spokane, washington, where, penal, there was work to be had. they all needed work, of course. and it was there that the iww first hit upon the idea of writing songs and using music both as a tool of cial social protest -- social protest, as a weapon of social protest and as a tool of organizing workers.

so it's an important chapter in both hill's life and in the history of the industrial workers of the world. what happened was the iww had been dealing with these private employment agencies, labor sharks they called them, and the way it worked was you would go in, you would buy a job for two or three dollars from a labor shark, and you would be dispatched to some place in the england empire, someplace often way outside of spokane. you could go to idaho, you could go to british columbia, you could go somewhere else in eastern washington or oregon. but invariably when you got there, what you'd find was that 10 or 20 or 25 men had been hired for the same job or there was no job. or the job only lasted a week or two weeks. um, or you owed so much to the company after a month or so that -- or you were, yeah, i mean, you had to work so many

hours, and you had -- and they deducted so much money that you ended up owing the company money at the end of a month or so. so you'd find your way back to into can and to the iww hall, and you'd file a complaint of fraud with them trying to get some of your money back from these labor sharks. well, it was fruitless and really counterproductive for the iww to try to deal with each individual claim. so they organized what they called the don't buy jobs campaign. and they started soap boxing on the street in spokane. and you'd literally have these orators, jawsmiths, they called them, hop on a soapbox and try to rally all these workers to the cause of boycotting these private employment agencies. and it started to pinch these labor sharks, as they put it. and the labor sharks responded pretty cleverly. they hired the salvation army band to start drowning out the iww orators.

and as strong as these guys were in terms of soapboxing, they couldn't compete with the bass drum and the horns of the salvation army band. it just wasn't going to work. so it was an irritation, but it also was a revelation to the iww because it gave them a bright idea of writing their ownlyrics to the melodies the salvation army band was playing. [laughter] it, it was a great, great idea. and this is where hill and his compatriots in the iww really came up with that idea of writing songs and using music. um, the first song that hill wrote for the iww was a song called "the preacher and the slave." and it was a direct evisceration of the salvation army and what he considered to be its blatant hypocrisy. so, jon fromer, please, come up

and play that for us if you would. >> need your help on the chorus here. ♪ the long-haired preachers come out every night, try to tell you what's wrong and what's right. ♪ but when you ask about something to eat, they will answer in voices so sweet: ♪ you and me, by and by n that glorious land up in the sky. ♪ work and pray, live on hay, you'll get pie in the sky when you die.

>> [inaudible] >> there you go. ♪ in the starvation army, they play, and they sing and they clap and they pray. ♪ until they get all your coin and i'm broke, then they tell you when -- [inaudible] ♪ well -- by and by in that glorious land of up in the sky. ♪ work and pray, live on hay, you'll get pie in the sky when you die. >> [inaudible] >> thank you. >> holy rollers and -- come out, and they holler, they jump and they shout. ♪ give your money to jesus, they say, he will cure all diseases

today. ♪ you will eat by and by in that glorious land up in the sky. ♪ work and play, live on hay, you'll get pie in the sky when you die. >> that's a lie. ♪ if you fight hard for children and wife, try to get something good in this life. ♪ you're a sinner and a bad man, they tell, when you die, you will sure go to hell. ♪ you will eat by and by in that glorious land up in the sky. ♪ work and pray, live on hay,

you'll get pie in the sky when you die. >> that's a lie. ♪ well, in a land where all countries unite side by side we wan freedom, we'll fight. ♪ -- [inaudible] we'll sing this refrain. ♪ well, you will eat by and by when you've learned how to cook and how to fry. ♪ chop some wood, it'll do you good, you'll get pie in the sky when you die. >> sorry. ♪ then you'll eat in the sweet by and by ♪ [applause]

>> well, it was probably hill's best known and most enduring song. i think one reason for it is it's a good song, but also because it's not so topical as most of his writing was. it's not about a particular strike or an event. and also his music, i should say, wasn't written to be performed. the written with to be sung en masse by workers, and it addressed workers' concerns. and so the power, i think, in his music was that workers really embraced it, they saw it as their own problems and hopes and dreams, and that's why i think joe hill was -- his music was so popular back then. also i think why his music hasn't really endured as well because you really have to look at it in the context of his times.

he left spokane and the northwest and headed down the california coast and settled more or less on the docks of southern california in the san pedro district which is where the l.a. harbor is. he liked it there for a number of reasons. one, he was comfortable on the water where he'd grown up in sweden, but also because he had access to a piano there, and that was pretty rare because, as i said, he was an itinerant worker, he was always on the go. but this was one place where he actually could work on his songs and try them out on a piano as he preferred to do. um, so he stayed there as long as he could which was until the summer of 1913. earlier that year he had helped organize a strike of dock workers which was an ill-fated strike. it lasted only for about three days or so at which point it was, it was broken up, and it was busted primarily by the

american federation of labor or as hill called them, the american separation of labor. the affl and the iww were archrivals. the former was a reform organization, and the latter was a revolutionary organization. um, the affl believed -- it styled itself, basically, as a full collaborator with industry and government. it saw themselves that way. its slogan was a fair day's work for a fair day's pay. the iww didn't believe in pay. they didn't believe in wage slavery as they put it. and they believed as the first line of their preamble had it that the employing class and the working class have nothing in common. so there was no room for them, no need to tinker with the machinery of capitalism as they put it. they wanted to overthrow capitalism. and so, um, so the affl

controlled the hiring hall on the docks in san pedro, and they quickly broke the strike and blacklisted all the wobblies who had been involved with joe hill among them. so without a means to support himself anymore, he had to give up that piano there, and he accepted an invitation from some friends, some fellow swedes who had come to the harbor from salt lake city, utah, to go back to salt lake city with them and to work in the mines or the smelters that were in and around salt lake city. so he got there in the her of 1913 -- in the summer of 1913, and it was a time of high tension between the wobblies and the state of utah. the iww had won a big strike that summer against the largest and most powerful corporation in the state, utah construction company. and so tensions were really high. there had been a celebratory

rally after this strike win, and the police had broken it up and, basically, caused a riot. um, and so this was the environment that hill found himself in when he got there. in fact, an official from utah construction vowed something like you iwws found us with her pants down this time. it was ten days into the new year that joe hill was arrested for murder. and here's what happened on the night of january 10, 1914. hill and a close friend of his named otto, another swede, had been tingerring with a motorcycle all day long, and they split up around 6:00, and otto and a young woman named hilda erickson and a friend of hilda's all decided they would go to the vaudeville theater that night. they left joe a note saying

thanks, see you at the 'em press if you can make it there, and that's where they went. and hill got there late, but he did get there. and then of after the show hilda and her friend went back to their boarding house in salt lake, and joe and otto went somewhere else. and they proceeded to argue, and they argued over hilda erickson. and that was because hilda had been engaged to marry otto, but she broke off the engagement sometime between christmas and that day, january 10th. and joe hill started teasing his friend about that saying that hilda broke it off because she liked joe better than she liked otto. and according to a letter that hilda later wrote, otto shot joe in a fit of anger. hilda added that he felt bad about it immediately afterwards and carried joe to a doctor. and it was at the doctor's office that joe hill said his one and only thing ever publicly

about his gunshot wound. he said that he had been shot by a friend in an argument over a woman, but he didn't name otto, and he didn't name hilda, and he never said anything else about it. but that's not how history records how joe hill received a gunshot wound on that night. what history says is on the night of january 10th joe hill and otto appleqis were put on bandannas across thatter faces and burst into a grocery store in salt lake salt lake city brandishing revolvers. and the minute after they burst in, they pointed the reinvolves at the proprietor, a former police officer named john morrison, pointed their revolvers and shouted in unison, we've got you now, and started firing. and morrison went down right away. at that point his son, he had two sons in the store with him, one of the sons turned around, got a revolver and fired it at joe hill and hit him in the

chest. that's how joe hill received his gunshot wound. that's the official version of history. there are a lot of problems with that version of history, and i just want to go boo a few of them -- go into a few of them here today. for one thing, there was no blood in the store other than that that belonged to the two morrisons. the younger morrison was shot and killed in the immediate -- right after he attempted to shoot joe hill or whoever that was in the store that day. so he went down right away. so the only blood belonged to the morrisons. there also was no bullet found in that store that came from that gun which is odd because the bullet that shot joe hill passed through his body because joe hill did not have a bullet lodged in his body when he went to the doctor's office that night. so what happened to that bullet? well, it was never recovered in the store. police never found it, they don't know what happened to it. there was no other direct

evidence against joe hill. there was no murder weapon found, no positive identification, and there was no motive. there was no suggestion at the trial that joe hill and john morrison had ever crossed paths. so why would joe hill have been interested in shooting and killing john morrison? was it robbery? well, there was no attempt at robbery made. and as i said, immediately after they burst into the store, they shouted we've got you now. it sure seemed like a revenge killing. in fact, that's what the police thought. and they had a suspect in mind right away. it turned out that john morrison had been four months earlier had been held up at gunpoint and had fought back that time and had fired shots at his assailant. he didn't get a good look at the assailant, it was outside. he had just left the store on his way home on another saturday night, and he had night blindness. so he wasn't sure who shot him. but he was sure that whoever it was was going to come back and get him because that's what he

told his wife, that's what he told a fellow former police officer, and he told a reporter that as well, he felt they wanted his life and not his money. the man the police were looking for right away was a man nay knew add frank g. wilson who was an excon, had done time for armed robbery, had been seen on the day of the murders near the store and then 75 minutes after the murders he was seen acting strangely as a passer by put it. he was lying on a snowy sidewalk howling, moaning at the moon. and then he gets up and jumps on a passing trolley car and takes it back to the vicinity of the store where police detain him and start questioning him and ask him where he lived and where he worked. he gave false answers to those questions, and they found a bloody handkerchief in his pocket. is and so they detained him. but then the following day the governor of utah posted a $500

reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators. um, it was at that point that joe hill's doctor called up the police and said i think i have your man. and he told them at that point that joe hill was a member of the industrial workers of the world. and, in fact, when hill was arrested, he had a red card, an iww membership card in his pocket, and it was at that point that frank wilson was released from custody and quickly fled the state. and that was it for joe hill. he never had another free day. he would be in prison for the next 22 months before he was executed. so the trial itself was really a kangaroo court. the prosecutor and the judge worked hand in glove together. if prosecutor was asking leading questions but the judge didn't think they were leading enough, he would take over the questioning.

and the judge gave some jury instructions at the end of the case that violated standard of proof in u.s., and there were just many, many problems with the trial. nevertheless, hill was convicted, he was sentenced to death, and it was at that point that the iww kicked into high gear a campaign to try to spare joe hill's life. and they organized rallies in every major american city and not just in the cities, but in mining camps and remote logging camps and forests and everywhere around the country. and not just in the u.s., but in the u.k., in australia. in fact, in australia dock workers organized a boycott of all american ships. they refused to unload them until joe hill was granted a new trial. so this was the kind of worldwide support that the irk ww -- iww generated for hill,

something on the order of 40,000 letters and gram telegrams were sent to the governor of utah in many cases threatening that hill be granted a new trial. he didn't want hill himself did not want a pardon, he didn't want a commutation of his sentence from death to life, he only wanted a new trial because otherwise it would have implied guilt, he thought. and yet he didn't help himself. he never testified about the circumstances of that gunshot wound x he did some other things in court that he probably shouldn't have done. nevertheless, this was the circumstance he found himself in. he had a lot of help from all around the world, and in particular he had help from some of the key member of the industrial workers of the world. one was elizabeth flynn who was the most prominent woman in the union. and she managed to get into the oval office to see president

woodrow wilson on the eve of joe hill's first execution date. she had pulled some strings in new york city where she lived, and she prevailed upon president wilson to send off a telegram to the governor of utah asking that hill be grant a 30-day reprieve which he was. he also had help from the king of sweden, from helen keller who was, as a matter of fact, a member of the industrial workers of the world. eugene debs and many other well known personages of the time. but it was flynn who especially did great work in organizing this support for hill. and be, jon, you want to come up and sing -- >> [inaudible] >> yeah. hill wrote a song for elizabeth flynn called "the rebel girl," and he was inspired by flynn, and he dedicated it to flynn, so let's hear that one.

>> i have to say, the last time i performed this, i was 9 years old. [laughter] and i was singing at a may day rally right before or elizabeth flynn spoke. and i had trouble with it then, i'll probably have trouble with it now. [laughter] and it's probably because he was quite a musician. this is a very, you know, most of the wobbly songs are to tunes you're familiar with, but this one is a really kind of complicated chord, progressives. ♪ there are women of many descriptions in this queer world as everyone knows. ♪ some are living in beautiful mansions, and they're wearing the finest of clothes. ♪ there are blue-blooded queens and princesses who have charms

made of diamonds and pearls. ♪ but the only thoroughbred lady is the rebel girl. ♪ she's a rebel girl, she's a rebel girl, worth working class -- to the working class she's a precious pearl. ♪ she brings courage, pride and joy to the fighting rebel boys. ♪ we've had girls before, but we need some more in the industrial workers of the world. ♪ for it's great to fight for

freedom with a rebel girl. ♪ her hands may be hardened from labor and her dress may not be very fine -- ♪ but a heart that's beating that is true the to her class and her kind. ♪ [inaudible] are trembling -- [inaudible] ♪ for the only thoroughbred lady is a rebel girl. ♪ she's a rebel girl, she's a rebel girl, to the working class

she's a precious pearl. ♪ she brings courage, pride and joy to the fighting rebel boy. ♪ we've had girls before, but we need some more in the industrial workers world. ♪ for it's great to fight for freedom with a rebel girl ♪ [applause] >> that is a tough act to follow. [laughter] on the night before joe hill's execution, he sent a lot of telegrams and farewell letters off to his friends and supporters. to bill haywood, who was the

general secretary of the iww, he wrote: bill, i die like a true, blue rebel. don't waste time in mourning, organize. of course, that's been truncated to don't mourn, organize, and still used as a slogan at many social protests, and i you hear it a lot, actually, during these occupy demonstrations. and he sent another telegram to hay that -- haywood that night which i think is not as well as known. it's 100 miles from here to wyoming, can you have my body dragged to the state line? don't want to be found dead in utah. [laughter] and they honored that wish more or less as i described in the reading in the beginning. they held his funeral in many chicago. he had one other request, and he expressed that in his last will which i'd like to read as well. unless somebody can recite it. anybody?

my will is easy to decide if there is nothing -- for there is nothing to divide. my kin don't need to fuss and moan, moss does not cling to a rolling stone. my body, oh, if i could choose, i would to ashes it reduce and let the merry breezes blow my dust to where some flowers grow. perhaps some fading flowers then would come to life and bloom again. this is my last and final will, good luck to all of you, joe hill. his body was cremated in chicago, and a year to the day after his execution the iww met again in convention for it annual convention in chicago, and it was there that bill haywood distributed 600 packets of joe hill's ashes and asked

the delegates there to scatter them on the following may day in 1917. which they did. and he asked, haywood asked that the delegates tell him where they were scattered, and what he learned was that they'd been scatteredded on most of the continents and 47 of the 48 states, all except utah. [laughter] so i'll leaf it there, and if anybody has any comments or questions, be happy to hear them or address them. yes. >> one second here. >> oh, sorry. >> because we're filming we have to use -- you won't be able to hear it throughout the store, but we are going to be speaking into this throughout q&a. >> i just wondered how the cio figured into the iww. >> well, it wasn't formed until years later, until the '30s, and so the wobblies suffered a serious body blow in 1917.

what happened was they were vigorously anti-war and started strikes and slowdowns in war production facilities, especially in the west in copper mines, for instance. and the u.s. government clamped down on them. they raided every iww office and homes of the key members on the same day in september of 1917, threw hundreds of them into jail, and then many received long sentences. and that really was a delaware stating blow to the iww -- devastating blow to the iww. it continued to exist, but it really was never the same. and, indeed, it still exists today, the iww, but its heydey really was until world war i, until 1917. yeah. >> i have two questions, one about then and one about now. um, i'm from chicago, and i'm wondering why the funeral was held in chicago, vis-a-vis other things that might have been going on in the city's history, and my second question is who

will be the joe hill of occupy wall street? [laughter] >> the chicago was chosen because it was the headquarters then of the industrial workers of the world. and they just felt that that was, that would be a city where many people would appreciate hill and his life. and so -- and, apparently, they did. 30,000 people turned out for the funeral. as to who will be the joe hill of occupy wall street, i don't know. i mean, there are many people who are doing a great job singing all over the country, um, but one thing i think is that, you know, as i said, hill's songs weren't written to be performed, they were written to be sung en masse, and i think if anything he would probably appreciate it if occupiers were singing all the. and so i think jon afro-americaner and a bunch of other people are writing some new songs for the occupy

movement -- >> a lot of the songs being written for the occupy -- >> anyone else? one second. >> i'm intrigued about your experience as a writer throughout the years it took to write the book and where was the place where you got most possibly depressed about it and where you felt most inspired? >> the therapist question. >> yes. [laughter] >> where did i get most personally depressed and where most inspired? hmm. i don't think i got personally depressed. maybe because i knew the ending before i started on the book. but also i took some hope, i think, from hill's story. you know, he preached this gospel of solidarity and the importance of people sticking

together, and i think when you look back on hill, i mean, it didn't end well for him. but i think the importance of music as a way of organizing people and that message of solidarity, i think, are hopeful in a way. so it didn't really get personally depressed. and be inspired? um, i think the iww, you know, they preached also this message of passive resistance and nonviolence, and to trace that history from the turn of the century through the sit-in strikes in the '30s and the civil rights movement in the '60s, anti-war movement and what's going on today with the occupy movements, and to follow that strain and just see the historical threads there, i think, is kind of inspiring. >> [inaudible]

>> we'll have two last questions. [laughter] >> i was wondering whether you had difficulty getting some of the information in your research, was there anything still classified or difficult to get or that you really had to make an effort to dig out? >> um, yeah. i mean, i did have to make an effort. i would say the surprising piece and probably useful bit of research was this letter that i referred to that hilda erickson had written about the circumstances of joe hill's gunshot wound in 1914. but she wrote the letter many years later, 35 years after the fact in 1949. it had never been published, it was written to a researcher who had intended to write a book about hilda but never got it written. and i found the letter in the

attic of the researcher's daughter. and only because i had seen correspondence between the researcher and various archivists around the country. i knew he'd done his homework, and i wanted to find his research materials, and so that led me to that. that was probably the best piece of single information that i dug up. >> whatever happened to frank wilson? >> oh, frank wilson. frank wilson was the, was the ex-con whom the police initially suspected was the perpetrator in the murders of the morrisons. and wilson, as i said, left the state. he went on to a 50-year career as a violent criminal. [laughter] his heydey was probably 1929 when he was a henchman as one of his family members put it in the al capone gang. and wilson owned a getaway car

used in the st. valentine's massacre that year. he didn't own it under that name. in fact, as i discovered, he used at least 16 different aliases and was imprisoned all over the country. but he did have quite a colorful criminal career. well, thank you all for coming. thank you, book passage. thank you, jon fromer. [applause] >> for more information visit the week's web site, the man who never died.com. >> some will say we are reactionary, others will say that we stand for socialism. there will be inevitable, the inevitable cries of throw the rascals out. it's time for a change and so on and so on.