.. so then he hired larry roberts which was a disaster and they lost ground and lost ground and when fedex came in with their own airplanes they gave their lunge and took dhl's business

for what would have happened in the u. s. then u.s. cities became gateways for the international business. internationally it is still larger than gps which a lot of people don't realize. thank you very much for coming. appreciate it. >> this event was hosted by the book people book store in austin, texas. visit bookpeople.com. here's a look at a number of books being released this week.

>> look for these titles in bookstore this weekend what the authors in the near future on booktv. up next on booktv, morris berman

11 talks about that -- mr. berman argues self-interest trumping the common good has led the uss trey. this is just over an hour. >> okay. guess we are ready to roll. thank you for coming. i never know how many are going to attend. i have gone to the point that i consider success -- that came out of a book tour i did in 2006 and is a favorite of mine. i was booked into a bookstore in philadelphia and three people showed up and one of them fell asleep during a talk and i was ready to start snoring more fall out of the chair and happily that was not recorded by c-span. worst part of that was when i saw the fire from the store, this did happen.

so the fire from the store -- at the bottom it said morris berman is dean of optometry at you see fullerton. i offered anyone who bought the book i would give them a free eye exam but not too many. i want to thank barnes and noble for hosting this so we can get together and talk about issues that i think are very important. there seems to be some confusion in the united states. a lot of people don't realize america failed. they think it is still going on. as i entered here's some guys said to me at no america failed. i said look around. i also wanted to locate this particular talk in terms of stuff i have been writing.

this is -- "why america failed" is the third in a trilogy on the american empire. the first was the twilight of american culture which was published in 2000. the second is dark ages published in 2006 and this came out a month ago, "why america failed". there was however collection of essays on a published year-ago that came between book 2 and book 3. half of the essays are about the united states and i want to encourage you to have a look at that book. it is called the question of values. is important because the material is not in any of the other books but if it deals with the kind of unconscious programming americans have that leads them to do the things they do. whether it is a person in the street or the president. that sort of complete the picture. sought want to encourage you to have a look at that book.

the title of this talk tonight is the way we do business today. despite great pressure to conform to celebrate the united states as the best system in the world the nation does not lack for critics. the last two decades have seen numerous works criticizing u.s. foreign policy, u.s. domestic policy, in particular economic policy. the court system and military and media, corporate influence over american life and so on. most of this is very astute and i have learned much from these studies but we do things in particular are lacking in my opinion and have a hard time making it into the public eye partly because americans are not trained to think in a holistic or synthetic fashion and partly because the sort of analysis i have in mind is too close to the bone. too difficult for americans to

hear it and somebody would say i don't know. the first thing they lack is an integration of various factors that have done the country in. these studies done to the institutions specific as though the institution under examination existed in a kind of vacuum and could be understood apart from other institutions. the second thing i find lacking is the relationship to the culture at large. as a result, these are finally superficial. this avoidance enables them to be optimistic which in fact places them in the american mainstream. the authors often conclude these studies with practical recommendations as to how particular institutional dysfunction they identified can be rectified. they are as a result not much

threat. usually mechanical analysis or mechanical solution. if the office were to realize these problems do not exist in a vacuum but are related to the other problems that are finally routed in the nature of american culture itself in its dna, the profit -- prognosis would not be so rosy for it would be clear there is no way out but turning things around is not an option at this point. to take two examples, michael more and known chomsky have done a lot to raise awareness in the united states, to show that foreign and domestic policy are dead ends are worse. yet both of these men assumes that the problem is coming from the pentagon and the corporation which is partly true. the problem is this rests on not. a false consciousness. there is the belief these institutions have pulled the wool over the eyes of the

average american citizen who is ultimately rational and well intentioned. i say get out and talk to some people. find out how accurate that is. for them the solution is one of education. pull away from the eyes and a citizenry will spontaneously awaken and commit itself to some sort of populist or democratic social vision. is that happening now with occupy wall street? an important question that we should talk about after words in the q&a. my point is what if it turns out the wool is the eyes. the so-called average citizen really does want a mercedes benz. probably not much else. that he or she is grateful to the corporations for supplying us with oceans of consumer goods and to the pentagon for protecting as from those awful arabs in the middle east. the possible -- the possibility

for fundamental change appear to be quite small. for what would be called for is a set of different institutions in a different type of culture. personally i doubt there's much chance of that. america is what it is. serving the critical scene i find very few writers who see things synthetically as an integrated whole and further relate this to the nature of american culture itself. but there are a few. the titles of their books give them away. the puritan origins of the american self, work is a force that gives us meaning by chris hedges, the myth of american diplomacy by walter nixon just to name a few. a few eminent historians like c. vann woodward, william williams, david potter and jackson use. their radical and a sense of going down to the root of

things. burke of fitch duke taught american studies argues from rather early as 1630 the colonists were imbued with the idea they were establishing a new nation under the specific direction of providence and reenacting the drama of the exodus in the old testament. in crossing the atlantic which is equivalent to the river jordan they were entering the new world which is kanin filled with milk and honey in legal and rejecting decadence of europe in general which is equivalent to ancient egypt and establishing a new jerusalem. all of this was in accordance with god's will. walter hicks and claims american identity originally, lest around the idea of the other, whoever it was, and our identity is based on war. we never negotiated anything with anyone as other nations found out usually too late.

chris hedges amplifies this notion by arguing war give americans a reason for being, meaning to their lives. this is much more sophisticated than false consciousness. that americans are well intentioned and rational. instead argues that we are and have been since the earliest days hopelessly neurotic, the belief that we can pursue a different path at this stage in the game is diluted requiring as it would be yanking out of the american psyche by its very roots. i think i fall into this -- this version of american history, a number of things we could discuss at this point. once i have examined in my trilogy on the american empire and why -- "why america failed" disappeared. since i presume you don't want

me to be speaking for 12 or 14 hours let me restrict myself to a single idea and it is what i introduced in the collection of essays i mentioned before. a question of values. in an essay titled locating the enemy i borrow a concept from the german philosopher hegel of negative identity. by negative, he did not mean bad. a negative identity is one form in opposition to something or someone else. it enables you to develop strong boundaries, always pushing against your enemy. since it is formed by opposition it is a real contest. as a result it looks strong but is actually weaken because self definition is entirely relational. what would a master be in passage without a slave? take away the slave, team after would have nothing to define himself by. what i argue is this concept of negative identity applies

particularly well to america, the history of the american continent. opposition in whatever form provided the colonists with guiding areas that enabled them to make sense of their lives. and since this is a religious narrative it did not take much to turn it into a manichean one in which the enemy, who everett was was the darkest of the dark. the target of this self righteous hatred metamorphosed over time. but the form has remained the same. native americans were quickly seen as little more than severals, and here every thanksgiving, celebrate the genocide of an entire indigenous people. for a for us. the next target was the british which serviced the american revolution though this was

present when the pilgrims left for america in the 1620s. britain was decadent and corrupt, and we citizens of the united states were essentially non british, non european but anti monarchical. the terror and brutality visited upon the loyalists, half-million americans, thirty% of the population who did not go along with his black-and-white agenda never get discussed in american history books. it does get discussed in canadian and british history books. it has been recorded nonetheless, tarring and feathering, confiscation or burning of property, frequently murdered as traders. the most recent book is liberty's exiles. really excellent.

very few american books because they violate -- moving right along with come to the opposition of mexico which involve provoking a phony war and stealing from an entire country. in the case of the american indians it was convenient to cast the mexican people as ignorant and and develop the, savages lacking the energy of u.s. capitalism and unfortunate stereotype that persists to some extent to the present day. like the native americans the mexicans are seen as being in the way of progress. i used the quote of american manifest destiny were things i got. the mexican government was quite aware who was dealing with and the lady -- late 1820s the mexican commission wrote americans were an ambitious people. without a spark of good faith.

as robert kagan writes in dangerous nation everybody viewed the united states this way including the spanish, french and british. french diplomats called the american populace warlike. the information got out somehow without fancy technology. shortly after the same framework, native americans and mexicans supplied by the north and the american south. lazy do nothing society in a way of progress. it was not no. opposition to slavery that triggered the civil war although it came to play an important role as the unifying theme. i'm not excusing slavery and it might well be argued that without the war slavery would have continued for several decades more also some historians disagree with that assessment. the more fundamental conflict was a clash of cultures.

the slow easy way of the south as opposed to the rest of the economic expansion of the north. both sides regarded the other as the devil incarnate. the result was loss of 625,000 live. and massive disruption of the south economize by sherman's march to the sea. those scars still exist. the war is not really over as you know. the germans were next. that is an opposition that seems justified and the, quote, godless communists. conversion of russians from allies to enemy occurred almost overnight. it isn't difficult to see why. with the axis powers out of the picture there had to be an enemy in place to fill the resulting vacuum. although the ussr was repressive in the extreme it did not, as the american diplomat george can later argued, cast as the ultimate enemy because it's real goal late in securing its own

borders. kgb files became open after the fall of the soviet union revealed russia's real fear was not of the united states but of the rearmed germany. there was no attempt to negotiate anything with russia. as stalin pointed out in 1946 the americans, negotiation meant capitulation. the cold war that the u.s. busy for decades and the so-called perimeter defense withheld any disturbance in the world was cause for u.s. military action led to the disastrous of iran, vietnam and so on. it is a long list, well-documented by the new york times reporter and overthrow, and killing hope. the psychological structure of-identity lead to a crisis when the soviet union collapsed. we had no one to define ourselves against. the gulf war of 1991 helped fill

the gap for a time but the clinton years were largely meaningless without an enemy. we had no idea who we were so we filled the space with o.j. simpson and monica lewinsky. the islamic world did as the greatest favor of vegetable. attacked us. overnight terrorism replaced communism and george bush jr. like reagan in characterizing the soviet union did not hesitate to frame this as a cosmic war between good and evil. crusade. wrong word to use with arabs by the way. there was no possible discussion of american foreign policy. it was tantamount to treason as susan saw tech lost her job with the new yorker and others suggested. our enemies were evil or in st. anne that is the end of the story. to this day under the obama

administration, american tax dollars pay for workshops that teach the police and military that islam is an evil religion out to destroy america and we must therefore be destroyed first. these workshops go on all the time well funded by the government. once again it is civilization versus the savages. george cannon tried to warn the american government that making a monolith out of communism was a gross misunderstanding and there were huge concepts between russia and china. but it requires cardboard figures begin to american presidents from truman on paid no attention to his advice. a similar thing with respect to islam. turns out only 10% of american muslims -- for most of them islam is more of a social thing than anything else. they are a lot like the jews. go to synagogue and talk to

people and each and even then very few religious muslims are jihadists but when your identity is a negative one this type of nuance has to be stepped out of consciousness. americans regard pakistan has a dark and awful place. they did osama bin laden from american troops or harbor al qaeda operatives or drones strikes in their country which mostly kill civilians or in league with the taliban. what would americans say if they read in newspapers as i did last june when i was in london and picked up our copy of the guardian that a popular tv show in pakistan has a john stuart type comedian who pokes fun at the government and hosts songs like rock groups like bear, woman that ridicules muslim fundamentalists. this is the same music as pretty

woman. burqa woman walking down the street with her sexy feet because that is all you say. none of this is picked up by the american press. it would weaken our ability to paint is the enemy as totally dark which could lead to a softening of our ego boundaries and subsequent question about who we are beyond the nation in opposition to something and mass suicide. mass suicide is what we're doing anyway. marshall mcluhan stated all forms of violence requests for identity. all forms of violence are quest for identity. more recently the professor of humanity david schulman in jerusalem wrote there's nothing more precious than an enemy, especially one who you largely

created by your own hand and plays a necessary role in the inner drama of your soul. what is the american soul? what in opposition the finds it? emptiness at the center makes our quest for identity acute and politics are especially violent in case you hadn't noticed. policies always want a scorched earth and in the fullness of time let's face it. it is we who prove to be the savages and all of this without much awareness for conscious reflection. it is interesting that the the theme of paul ostrich's novels that you can pick and the fiction section, that american society is incoherent and lacks true identity and is nothing but a hall of mirrors. by and large americans don't know who he is and don't read him. on the other hand he is tremendously popular in europe

and then translated in 20 languages and foreign editions -- criticism is not possible in a manichean world in the u.s. is good at marginalizing those who depict the country in a fundamental way. americans are not interested in such things anyway which is why over censorship is a necessary in the united states. the results -- saturn devouring his son. the u.s. is eating itself alive. i argue this most recently in dark age american 2006 that data substantiates accumulated since then are enormous. i am running out of space on the floor of my house for file folders. there's not a single american institution, that is not seriously corrupt. i could sit here for several hours documenting this. i know you want to get home.

instead of that let me cite a few examples. one of america's leading intellectuals did an essay in the new york review showing the supreme court is a court of men and not of law. five of nine justices points out decisions are typically made in advance in a right political direction and the justification for this is trotted out after the fact even though often violates the constitution. second, in their book academically adrift sociologist richard aaron reports after two years of college, 45% of american students haven't learned anything and after four years 36%. critical thinking -- they don't know the difference between an opinion and an argument. they don't know it.

most students -- by these researchers -- college was social and not academic experience. it required 20 pages of writing. a marist poll released on july 4th of this year showed 42% of american adults are unaware that the u.s. declared its independence in 1776. forty-two%. the figure rises to 69% for the under 30 age group. thirty-five% of americans don't know from which country the united states seceded. bulgaria? gonna? a recent newsweek poll revealed 73% of americans can't give the official version of why we

fought the cold war. nobody can give the real version but 73% can't give the official version. 44% are unable to decline -- the fine the bill of rights. a poll taken in the oklahoma public school system this year turned up the fact that 77% of students go no who george washington was. 77%. in a number of cities, libraries that closed for lack of funding and lack of interest. nobody is reading. last january a serious presidential candidate praise the founding fathers for, quote, working tirelessly to abolish slavery when in fact the founding fathers agreed that a black person legally constituted 60% of a human being and enshrines slavery in the constitution. this genius also claimed the u.s. government was colluding with the chinese to abolish will dollar. on august 18th after her victory in iowa she asserted the

american people are concerned about the rise of the soviet union which is a threat in the present tense. i was surprised she left out hitler. he is poised to invade poland. it is also the case -- michele bachman is essentially a gym with. what is inside their head. more stuff along those lines. the new high school curriculum in american history in texas now includes a unit on estee lauder. no units on george washington, john adams or thomas jefferson. when i read this i thought i was reading the onion. turns out it was the austin

statesman. i am tempted to write a letter to the texas board of education suggesting that the units on lincoln and fdr be eliminated and we have one on kim kardashian. you laugh but in two years when it happens, then what? who would have fought estee lauder? it is satire and then becomes real. so kim kardashian is funny now but in 2013 when they're studying her rear end and her marriage, so on and so on, stalin rushdie wrote a poem about her. there's a lot of material here. lincoln has very little. but kim. i have to say i am one of the few critics that keeps hammering at the question that the crucial reason things can't be turned around is americans literally

don't have the gray matter to do it. this is very impolite. there are one or two others saying it. one is phillip green. ville political scientist doing an article called farewell to democracy and he wrote what seized the critical mass of americans is historical amnesia and intellectual peculiarity. the result is politics of social self destruction. let's put it on the line. if you're stupid you can't do all that. in the aftermath of the crash of 2008 very few people promulgated the ideology that led to the crash got appointed as president's economic advisers. tim -- not as in the wall street financial leader has faced jail. indeed major corporate figures who brought the economy down work rewarded huge bonuses and some secured prestigious appointments at places like john

tompkins and the brookings institution. the very practice system led to the crash such as derivatives and default swaps and the like are being pursued with even more vigor than they were prior to the crash. paul krugman asked rhetorically how is it in the wake of the obvious failure of casino capital blame for the crash is not put on the banks which received bailout of $19 trillion and the corporation but in the public sector? rhetorical question. fourth. between 1987-2007 a number of americans still disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for supplementary security income or social security disability insurance increase 2.5 times so one of 76 americans now falls into this category. for children the increase during

the same period is 35 times. mental illness is now the leading cause of disability among american children. a survey of american adults conducted by the national institutes of mental health from 2001 to 2003 found 46% of them met the criteria of the american psychiatric association for being mentally ill at some point in their lives. 10% of americans over the age of 6 down to age 4 take anti-depressants. and i read elsewhere in terms of a global market, in terms of dollars american consumption of anti-depressants amount to two thirds of the entire world. this for a country with less than 5% of the world population. that should tell you something about what is going on in the united states.

i have a pakistani friend in london. she was an art museum consultant for a number of years in new york city and when she lived in new york she went to a novelty shop and bought a plaque. i was visiting her in london and june. it was on her bathroom wall. the heading is evenings at 7:00 in the parish hall. monday, alcoholics. tuesday abuse. wednesday eating disorders. friday teen suicide. saturday soup kitchen and finally the sunday sermon at 9:00, america's julius future. somebody has a good sense of humor. the infrastructure in the united states is crumbling and there's no money to fix it. there's also in some cases ideological opposition to fixing

it. the levees are in the same shape as they were prior to katrina. i read articles some time ago and i am frustrated that i didn't clip this because i can't remember whether this took place at the state level of louisiana or the municipal level but the councilman stated they did not want to move on the issue of repairing the levies because that would require cooperative effort and that meant socialism. so apparently in the united states working together is equivalent to socialism and it is better to risk another katrina. it doesn't get dumber than that. the national debt stands at $14 trillion and the official figure is forty-five million citizens. this based on criteria that are pretty much obsolete. family of four, $4,000. who are we kidding? nearly 20% of american adults don't believe the secured 9% doesn't include people who have

fallen off and also doesn't include people working two hours a week. basically nearly one of five americans are out of work or underemployed. according to what economists a little prospect of finding a job for the next ten years. the president now has the right although it violates the geneva accord to designate an american citizen or anyone on the planet's an enemy and has him or her assassinated. indeed it recently occurred on september 30th, obama had two american citizens murdered. it was not clear whether they were aiding al qaeda or not. it hadn't been proven but the point is the u.s. constitution guarantees any american citizen you get your day in court. you have a chance to defend yourself against the charges.

the constitution doesn't say if the president doesn't like you you get rubdown. it says you get your day in court. chris hedges wrote an article on july 18th called america has disappeared in which he writes torture for long detention without trial, sexual humiliation, random murder and abuse in argentina part of our own subterranean world. we have a hundred detainees who died during interrogation is. there are many more who were never made public. tens of thousands of muslim men pass through our clandestine detention centers without due process. retired general barry mccaffrey. we probably murdered dozens of them. both the armed forces and the

cia. tens of thousands of americans being held in supermaximum security prisons where they are deprived of content and psychologically destroyed. undocumented workers vanish from their families for weeks or months. militant police units breakdown the doors of 47 americans a year and hauled away in the dead of night as if they were enemy combatants. habeas corpus no longer exists. philip green in that article i quoted before, a people that accepts as the normal course of the events the bombing of civilian leaders will torture, kidnapping pleaded indefinite detention, assassination, covert wars abroad has lost touch with the moral basis of civil society. the u.s. military which soaks up 50% of the discretionary budget is apparently unable to win two wars in two small countries.

in fact it has not had a serious victory since world war ii after which it decided to stick to dictators and minor nations. u.s. intelligence report released in 2008, global trends 2025, i read about it in the washington post in 2008 predicts a steady decline in american dominance over the coming decade with u.s. leadership in roading, quote, at an accelerating pace and political leaders and economic and cultural areas. to my knowledge the president has never mentioned this report nor has anyone in public office. can. on july 19th of 2010 the washington post reported that 854,000 people work for the national security agency. 33 building complexes amounting to seventeen million square feet of space in the dc metro area.

everyday collection system that the n s a intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails and phone calls of american citizens in what amounts to a vast domestic spy system. writing in the new yorker on may 23rd of this year jane meyer reported the nsa has three times the budget of the cia and the capacity to download every six hours of electronic communication equivalent to the entire contents of the library of congress. they also developed a program called thin thread that it abels computers to scan the material for keywords and collect the billing records and dialed phone-number the everyone in the country. in violation of communications laws at&t and verizon and bellsouth open their elektra records to the government. at the height of this insanity, stocks in east germany for those of you who saw that film alive

of others, at the height of the insanity, spying out of one of every seven east german citizens. the united states is now spying on seven. you can now go to jail in the united states simply for speaking. in late july environmental activist jim christopher was sentenced to two years in prison for his repeated declaration that environmental protection required civil, nonviolent disobedience. one wonders if the same judge would have put rosa parks and on the in jail had he been around during their lifetime. this is my favorite that occurred in july. small incident but symbolic what has happened to america in the last 60 years. police in georgia shutdown eliminate stand run by three garrels ages 10 to 14 who were

trying to save money for a trip to a local water park. the police said they didn't know what was there and in addition the girls needed a business license and food permit to run the stand. they cost $50 a day. 13 and last. to deepest locus of corruption is the americans sold. the sheer cruelty of the american people. their articles appearing on this. there was a piece in the nation talking about at a gop gathering people still ron paul indicated if you didn't have health insurance and went into a coma too bad for you. wolf litter asked so we should just let them die? that is what he indicated and

the crowd cheered. they work in approval. they roared enthusiastically when rick perry boasted the state of texas murdered 255 people on death row. a kind of steepening gradient of cruelty in the united states is one that the new york times just a week or so ago reported there is a law firm in buffalo and in 2010, they threw a halloween party. this is the firm called the foreclosure mill. they act on behalf of the banks and mortgage servicers throwing people out on the street

foreclosing on their house and throwing them on the street. and represents citigroup and bank of america and so on. confirm through a halloween party in which the employees came dressed as people who had been foreclosed upon and effected. their faces were dirty and they had signs say will work for food. the firm immediately denied it ever took place. the problem is the photographs are on line. there they are. people pushing shopping carts. how sick can we finally get? as far as that's go, 38 states have capital punishment, something regarded as barbaric in europe. university of michigan study

that ran from 1979 to 2009 among college students measured there had been a 48% drop in empathy among that age group. the ability to feel what the other person is feeling or to know there point of view. a therapist in washington calls this empathy deficit disorder. americans are suffering empathy deficit disorder. it just means they're vicious. fancy word for nasty folks. we got a lot of them. kind of depressing. one of the major arguments i made in "why america failed" is all this stuff i am talking about is not abstract. it shows up in the behavior of daily life. this is on page 56 of the book,

quote, as george walton rights in god won't save america, psychosis of a nation quote that the peculiarities of nations good and bad tend to reflect the temperaments and qualities of their people. as plato once remarked where else would they have come from? my editor was going over the manuscript of year ago or nine months ago and came to that part he rode in the margin this is the turning point in the book. this is it. these are not abstractions. these are the way people behave on a daily basis. although he doesn't get into the issue of negative identity per se, a french writer who is director of the prestigious research institute in paris, peg the problem of the obsession with having an enemy and the violence that results from that

in his 1994 -- the werewolf complex. in his blood to the 2005 edition, america has depended on where will figure, a dark savage beast that is supposedly out to destroy its. it changes in context but the form is always the same. at the center is a terrible fear that americans have of emptiness which is an anxiety of not existing. and a hyperactive -- have a nice day. incurious society of people who don't know who they are. like the roman they see themselves under siege which could finally triggered a fascist populism. what do you think that is? the american fear of the monster always marked its history whether it exists on the inside or the outside. this leads to isolating the

country in a collective psychosis that can only contribute to international instability. which is how much -- most of the world sees as. which nation do you believe is the greatest threat to world peace? america and israel, said iran and everybody else said the united states. it was a no-brainer. last august the german journalist argues it was a failed state. needs to keep its distance from a different and apparently in st. political culture. evidence for this assertion and social disintegration is depressingly familiar. there is bleep original he conclude the, no deliverance in sight.

some time ago i got an e-mail from a fan who wrote that i just read the twilight of american culture and arcata's america. i want to thank you for your brilliant books. i found this comment quite hilarious. of course the guy was right. the books are pointless in the fact that they cannot change anything. what does mental health been in an individual case? at least this. the person knows his or her own personal narrative, as a result of transparency undertakes to do something different in their lives. the same is true of nations or civilization but i do know there is very little understanding in the united states as to what the underlying area is or even that there is an underlying narrative. there is little interest in thinking about the national identity or lack of anything but

in a superficial way such as provided by the new york times. such a situation change is not possible. this will continue on its unconscious pass are overwhelming. in that sense my work is indeed pointless. i can't stop the plane from crashing. no one can. i am like the engineer who locates the black box, takes apart and rights of the report and the post mortem and this is it. that has small value because we finally need to understand "why america failed". thank you. [applause] thank you very much. if you have questions about michele bachman or anything else, we can get into these things in some detail. use the microphone over here.

i get to home -- go home early? no i don't. >> thank you. many social critics including chris hedges talked about american's relationship with the book's 1984 and the visions in a brave new world. i wondered what your opinion was about our relationship to those two and where you see us right now. >> good question. classic utopian novel. the interesting thing is the vision of george orwell was ends the book with a vision of a. stamping on somebody's face forever. the vision of huxley was off dashes. everybody taking so much and drifting off.

you know what i mean. what the united states is doing not necessarily consciously is something happening between the two of them. the surveillance of everybody sitting here. they recorded phone conversations. the sort of soviet police style is growing in the united states. the kind of harshness that is characteristic of a nation or civilization that is very anxious about itself and it is overreacting all the time.

that is the orwell part. the huxley part is there are so many available ways -- it is not merely television which is with us from the late 40s. but the internet and ipods and all the sulfone this. ralph nader pegged it well when he said give them gadgets to hold in their hand and they think they have power but real power is not there. it is political power. the sort of soothing rise of drugs, enormous and giving them to toddlers which is quite a part of big pharma's agenda. so finally you get some cross

and that is what they have done. i don't think orwell is necessary. just part of the hysteria the united states has as it loses its moorings. what kind of clout it has but frankly i don't agree with chris hedges of the ruling class is running scared. they sleep very well and they know they are going to keep -- that 1% -- more than 90% of its wealth. that is where we are. to me it is a ghastly sort of vision. it is a grim thing. try talking to americans about anything serious. they change the subject.

they can't handle it. >> what do you think about the lack of empathy and message you get from the media is controlled or script or selected what you are going to see on tv and what you are not going to see? how do you think that all plays in? >> the or original title of this book was capitalism and its discontent. if i went with that title i would sell six books nationwide. maybe he was right. i liked it because of the freudian overtones. the reason i like to that title is i was interested in the discontent. there is a tradition of opposing all this stuff and it goes back to captain john smith in 1616

and runs through emerson -- and jimmy carter. there is a tradition of saying this is the wrong way to go. the only trouble is what i argue in the book is one exception. the american south. it is a complicated story. with one exception, that vision never had any political muscle. it never had any clout and it publications were in little pamphlets. i might be able to publish an article in a minor ecology journal if i am lucky whereas thomas friedman who pours out a kind of nonsense about globalization and how it is going to save us all based on his interviews with corporate

ceos, that is major coverage all the time. so the alternative voice historically can't get a voice and can't get one now. the classic case is noam chomsky who was publishing his books in boston which consisted of one room, two guys and a typewriter. no one is going to pick him up. he never got reviewed. with a total blackout. united states is not interested in criticism and frankly the total pact did this in 1831. americans live in an orgy of self congratulations and if you bring up any problem they get fierce. it has only gotten worse since

1831. even back then, the alternative force doesn't have a chance and the media don't even have to be told by the government watch your step. they are self censoring. they watch this stuff. they may even believe it. >> might be a little off the subject but i wonder if you thought tomorrow's emergency alert system response is going to have a big impact on media. what i see is the government will be taking control over media. >> i didn't know anything about this to tell you the truth. why don't you say something about it? >> tomorrow a 10:00 homeland security and fianna are doing a joint effort for the first-ever emergency alert system. they will be broadcasting like in nearly 70s when they would

stand by on the tv and broadcasting for television and also over radio. i also looked at it and apparently is a are using that binary language of computers that are all processing together so they can actually put something on line to apparently speak like we were talking earlier with the orwellian thing, over and over the same thing in grisly stories the this grocery stores. >> this is the first i heard of it. i have to say that first of all one obvious possibility is is a dry run for later usage and then as well, it works very well in a system such as ours. highly managed a democracy so to speak to keep populations in a state of fear. ..