michael kazin, if we could, let's start by defining some terms beginning with populism in your new book "american

dreamers: how the left changed a nation." what does populism mean? >> populism can mean lots of different things. originally it was a radical movement, mostly small farmers, also skilled workers. mostly in the south and west who had really demanded that the growing monopolization of the american economy be rolled back, either to restore the small business or sometimes also to empower the government to take overó the railroad, go over the telephone system which is just coming on line at the time. it's a leading radical movement of the century. also of course now we talk about populism with a small piece as the language politicians and other people use to try to set the great majority of the people against the small greek delete the original populism was the movement. islamic who are some well-known

populism in the past? >> tom watson was well known that time and ran for the president a couple of times on the people's party ticket. he was leader on the senator from georgia. james bryan wasn't a radical, she was a democrat, but he was -- he had a populist nomination and 1890's and gave some of the most powerful pieces of the 1890's calling for people to liberate themselves from the gold standard from producing the world for themselves from the bank of england and so forth. also there were some unusual people in the sense that we don't think of them as populists organized in america frances willard the head of wt sciu, also a big supporter of populism, she was a christian socialist in fact. so those are some of the leading figures of the time. >> what do you mean when you talk about radicalism? >> radical to me goes back to

the latin word that is go to the root of the problem of society. so, radicals' believe in transforming society. the structure of society, not just making the forums here and there to basically just system. radicals believe in tearing up the system, mom violently in some cases but sometimes balance as well. >> who are some of the famous radicals in our history and today? >> not many famous today. the radical movement has shrunk. wall street i think is the beginning sprout of a new kind of radical movement, but they purposely don't have any readers. they are against having big readers. but in our history, people like dennis who ran five times on the socialist party ticket was a very important reticle. there are many cultural figures, too, talk about that had a lot of impact i think on the

country, woody guthrie who in this land is your land is a member of the party when he wrote that song, not schoolchildren here when they sing the song. there were other figures like i think martin luther king jr. was a radical and called himself a space socialist read he definitely wanted a system that was much more friendly to the poor and workers than to people that owned factories and companies, and in fact his program would now be attacked by most democrats and republicans. he wanted guaranteed jobs, he wanted guaranteed income, he wanted government sponsored health insurance, and also he wanted american strength overseas to be rolled back almost as much as ron paul does.

so if you think about the socialist like debs, a private like kings and we honor the national holiday, you think of the cultural figures like woody guthrie, like dr. zeus who i write about in the notebook was a member of the popular front, 1930's and 40's, the cultural formation by the communist party but not controlled by, the things like this at up to think a pretty impressive list of people even though politics hasn't been as powerful as an influence on the culture. >> what is the term progressivism? >> it can mean lots of different things. the original meaning of the term was and ideologies if you will a field of reformers in the early part of the 20th century. people like roosevelt, wilson, like jay adams, the great social reformer. people who believe that american

society had become less space and less sufficient with the rise of big business, and they wanted to adjust the strictures of the society said they would serve the majority of the people better. the progressive era led by the progressives of course we have to thank for that, the progressives things like the federal reserve system. some government regulation of banking and finance is in the country, the 16th, 17th and 18th amendment for the popular senators and income-tax and it's a prohibition as well as we see at the time to the society to make americans come force americans to be more self disciplined in their china time. suppressors were performers, they were of a different kind than most liberals now. provision for example contract it's hard to think of any liberal who supports provision.

>> michael kazin, an "american dreamers" using this book was inspired by dr. seuss. what do you mean by that? >> yeah, there's a little bit of -- trying to draw people into the argument, but, you know, i loved dr. seuss books when i was a child. my mother read them to me and my children now who are grown up in their 20s i read books to them as well when they were growing up, and i began to think in 2000 when i first began to think about the book george bush was just elected in the supreme court, and of course he did become president, and i thought well, what has the left been in america in the spirit of the time as a person that didn't vote for george w. bush and i began to think who are the influences in american history, and we look at a lot of dr. seuss'' books, some of the better ones in fact, the

speeches, vlore -- the lorx these are some people might even call them propaganda. they are funny, they take off after people who are arrogant who don't like people who want to destroy the environment like the lorax. they are books that take a stand in the traditional way all have taken a stand for the underdog, for the minorities have been oppressed by the majority, so i began to think he's not recognized as a leftist and perhaps his influence in a sort of surreptitious three of american thinking might be the

key for a lot of american radicals like woody guthrie for a sample, who would think about as being a leftist but in fact i think he was clearly a very important part of the left in his time in the 40's and 40's and had an important impact sometimes indirectly on american thinking. so that is the theme of the book they change as the subtitle has not by instituting the nationalization of the industry, not by having workers in control of the factories, not by having a radical third-party chezem strengthening and lasting power, but how to change the attitudes of americans and think about rights, how to think about social tolerance, how we think about what is just in american life so that is the argument of

the book. >> when you think about the american left today when it did emerge and what kind of power does it have today? a thing that emerged about 200 years ago back to the in fact i spoke with three documents written in 1829. i won't go into details about them but one was argued by a feminist the time and another radical artists and craftsmen. the documents which at the beginning of the movement's for the quality, racial equality and social justice of the work place and. i think it's in the twenties he began to have the movement and in order to have the left or the grass-roots conservative movement, you have to have a lot of people that the ticket their lives to try to change society in the ways the words desired.

so that's to the left is, first of all the term itself i think is used in a way this sort of models and the meaning. conservatives say the left is a democratic party but if you say that, then what do you do -- can you really compare the senate majority leader harry reid with noam chomsky who is a radical author? some distinctions have to be drawn so i think there is a liberal left and there has been for a long time which i think president obama is part of and democratic leaders are part of but to me they have people who are radicals to the left of the existing structures whether government or cultural structures or economic structures and the your trying

to change those pretty transfer roughly. so today there isn't much left at that time and at 1.100 years ago, the party 100 years ago the socialist party drew 6% of the votes in the election of 1912 and elected thousands of officials including places like oklahoma a town of 700 people people think of oklahoma as strong for socialism but at the time a hundred years ago oklahoma shot was one of the least social states. but today,. sometimes they don't tyrannical party to vote for them and side is more importance. but on wall street a lot of

people in wall street have begun to talk in traditional ways that we talk about with economic inequality and trying to change the structure of american capitalism pretty cat to redeem about more of an egalitarian economy. so wall street haven't begun yet but in the book came out last fall, all of a sudden i got lots of calls from people meeting all over the country, all of the world, saying well, you know, you wrote this book on the american left, so how do you -- how do you understand occupy wall street in that context. >> what to consider someone, like ralph nader as a member of the american left? >> yes. i don't think he started that way. as a liberal. he started as a progressive

coming to might say. someone who is. a scientist trying to see some of the -- he pointed to some of the problems. more and more use my credit i think left to the whole economic system which he thinks is controlled by. he ran for president in 2000 and in 2004 as those that exist in america, the green party, which doesn't have jury much clout, hardly any elected officials most of them don't even know he exists probably, but he wanted to as socialists used to draw attention to the issues he was talking about. he had no illusion he was going

to. scores in 2000 to get many democrats might have made a difference in florida. >> michael kazin, new gingrich has been referring to salles wilensky. who is he and where does he fit in your spectrum? >> he was an interesting legacy always distanced san francisco that used to be the crowning place he wanted to urban cecile but just you go to the university of chicago that he became a union organizer, worked with john l. lewis, the great industry union organization of the 1930's. then he began to think the kind of organizing the the labor is doing at the workplace should be done with the communities to help those people get better

streets that are serviced from the city to demand their share of public works jobs, so he began to be a community organizer, one of the people first to call himself an organizer and he worked first in the back of the neighborhood and saw chicago back of the stockyards their predominantly catholic neighborhood where he unknown to new gingrich actually was able to be successful because he got support from the hierarchy in chicago bernard shield is a leading bishop in chicago all over the back of the neighborhood was a 98% catholic neighborhood. then he moved into the black neighborhoods in chicago and from a group that still exists, and the reason why new gingrich likes to bring that his name is because for three years in the mid-1980s, barack obama worked for an organization in chicago

which had been originally inspired by salles pinsky's work. so, in this roundabout way of course new gingrich is trying to say slutskiy is a dangerous american radical barack obama worked there for barack obama is the radical new. that's not very sound reasoning but nonetheless saw wilensky was in that radical, he believed in the grassroots organizing. he specifically denounced socialism and communism for example. >> michael kazin, the importance of the women's movement in the american left's progress, and who is robin morgan? >> she's still alive actually. a lot of people don't know the feminist movement that we see in the 60's and 70's was really created in many ways by the

leftists. in the friedan, the late betty friedan the author of the populist but the mystique had been close to the party in the 40's and 50's and wasn't anymore new in the 1960's, but the book is a very radical physique of the women's place in american society. anticapitalist but certainly in thai corporate. robert morgan was an antiwar organizer, a new leftist who actually had been a popular tv child actress, and then she stopped being an actress. coo actress and out of the entire war movement as a young radical of the time she and other women began to criticize the move movement for the quality and democracy and equal

rights for everybody how come the women are still running the machines in making the coffee expecting to sleep with the man who are powerful in the organizations and so forth, so most of the radical feminists they call themselves in that term began to organize demonstrations of various kinds to attention to critique not just for the new left but the american society generally and it shows whether they are very first big demonstrations at the miss america contest in atlantic city where they decided to thro all kinds of instruments at women's oppression as they call them into a freedom of trash can that included bras and girdles and cosmetics. some of them reported that they had burned these things including bras, so the term

blabber mur became popular. in fact they never learned anything. they would have liked to, but atlantic city for busy to have five years on the boardwalk, so they couldn't do anything. but the term nevertheless took off. and then she ended a popular, but the feminist -- helps create in the 60's perhaps had more impact on american society and american culture and the world for that matter. of course a lot of which were very unpopular a time, but as this was originally a small but if we think about the changes the feminist movement has made, they've got the functions we make about what the women can do and women can't do, completely changed, you know. today in 2012.

there's no job you can't apply for, that wasn't true in the 60's and there were robert morgan and betty friedan who kicked off the process and changed. >> what is robert morgan doing today? connect i think she is, you know, still writing. she has a web site i've noticed in order to use photographs of her i had to get permission. she has grandchildren. i think she's writing poetry and gives speeches. kazin when you think about the civil rights, labor movement, women's rights movement, are those all anti-war rock movement, are the causes of the left? i wouldn't argue that only radicals' involved in the

movement, i mean today for example ron paul is antiwar. rahm polis no leftist. estimate of course. but there are people who may argue it's against americans going to war in different times, arguments for women's rights who are not on the left but i think the left-wing movements and organizers, people that want to make america a more egalitarian society those are the ones that pushed the causes for word and cause prominent trouble if you will and that's why i think they should get most of the credit for whatever success this causes or is achieved via >> huebner secure bouck donley era's and in the most it is rebels without a movement. what do you mean by that? >> there's a lot of radicals around, people like michael

more, noam chomsky, the late howard is then sold to many copies of the book. but i think with all due credit to occupy wall street which is sustainable and people have leaders and figures who are important in the national dialogue. when is the last time we heard anything from ralf meter ducks pete detention? i know he's been with the president twice and got so many votes. so, i think. excuse me, the liberation movement at the same time hartley had a sustained movement on the left which is a coherent

critiqued of american society and more less an alternative to the american society. part of the reason for that is there hasn't been one big burning issue that people on the left can rally around. to the rights of labor to african-americans and women in the 1960's. since then we haven't just had one big issue. now it's the politics and certainly before people left, and perhaps the emphasis on the economic inequality will become that big issue but it's a little late to know. when did you get interested in

the american left? >> why was teenager and i got there was in the entire war movement. in college in the late 1960's. that is a personal book and some more than the other books i've written because. i did organize an entire war demonstration. my chapter with students for democrats at harvard didn't take over the. i had to decide if i wanted to write about it but whenever you are a part of a socialist meant, you have less ideas about how we doing, what are we doing right, what are you doing wrong i was

beginning to think well, are really getting to the american people or not. and so i began to think about. when i started to go to graduate school it became one of the things i was studying, and i think it's. in the serious and responsible way i think but also ones that have relevance to what people are thinking about now or even a fighting about now. i've always been a journalist as well as a historian. i have an online column for the magazine which is a left-wing magazine, and so to me this book

is about the president as we were just discussing but about how the past can reform the president which is what good history should always do. >> what do you teach at georgetown? >> the biggest course still students like the 60's even though by now it's their grandparents generation. i teach courses on ideologies, radicalism, conservatism, liberalism, courses on religion in american politics because i wrote a biography on william james bryant who was a devout liberal or progressive he called himself at the time. so, you know, has a lot of scholars to, i like to teach courses about things i've not written about or in the process of writing about and i teach a

graduate course as well. >> why are you no longer a revolutionary as you said? they would make me realize i was angry at the people because we were not in vietnam, we were not in a fight but we are a democracy and we are a place people believe in individual rights in part because the one wrapped. as i mentioned before human rights, so i began to think that maybe we can try to get change within the system without

believe in social movements don't matter. you have to bush and democrats, republicans, business, the media from outside to get them to pay attention to and not really doing about the decision be doing something about it. at the same time, i no longer believe it is necessary or justified to. >> michael kazin to read at a college at georgetown university. it's a conservative catholic student for to take your course on conservatism, what he or she thinking you're critical of conservatism? >> students who are protestants and jews and muslims, and in the back of the book kristen will