c-span.org/localcontent. >> over the past four years pulitzer prize-winning author david mariner has been researching and writing his tenth book barack obama the story. this included traveling globe and speaking to the president's relatives in kenya and discovering his african ancestry. he also toured the family homes in kansas to finding the origins of his mother's family. it comes out in bookstores on june 19th but booktv will give you an early look with exclusive pictures and video including our trip to kenya as we traveled with the offer in january of 2010. join us on june 17th at 6:00 p.m. eastern time and later at 7:30 the same night your phone calls, e-mails and tweets on booktv. >> next on booktv tavis smiler

and cornel west present their thoughts on poverty in america reporting that 1 fifty million americans are for our near poor and are you ending poverty should be addressed with the same concern as prior social and political movements. this is about an hour and 20 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. to dr. greene, thank you for the invitation to be here tonight. dr. west and i are in the midst of a three week tour across the country for this party manifesto. when we were asked to consider making one of our stops here to support this great work we immediately accepted in part because we believe in the work brenda greene is doing and dr.

west has appeared at the conference before and i was that the writers' conference. just a couple weeks ago. i am back in new york city. a couple weeks later. we have been delighted on this tour to have about half -- half of art for stops have been to support through fund-raising efforts those kinds of causes and entities that we believe in supporting. whether it is feeding america with all the security that exists in the country now or the writer's conference we have found ourselves traveling on this tour to libraries to non-profits to corporations to colleges and universities and churches. we have been talking about this issue of poverty. we are delighted to be here to support this work.

we happen to be african-american writers or if you prefer writers who are african-american. and to offer arch support in our prisons for the great work so thank you for being here. doc with that his own thank you in a second. thank you for showing up for this conversation. i want to talk for a few minutes about the book and set the stage for a greater talk from america's leading public intellectual. the person i regard as the do what -- do boys --dubois of our time. he is the big brother ryan had. i am the eldest of ten and i have never had an older brother or didn't have one until 25 years ago when we connected and he is the younger brother of clifton west so he never had a

younger brother. i became the younger brother he never had and he became the older brother i never had and we have been running 25 years together. delighted to be sharing this stage and look forward to your question and answers. in just a little bit. i have been fortunate for 25 years as his younger brother, friend and radio host on public radio international. almost 2 years old. we tried to do significant work being true to our vocation and calling and purchase and do significant work across the country for the last 25 years individually and collectively and for that matter around world. all the work we have done together we have never written a

book. of was stunned, somebody counted the books i had written, the total is almost 40. we have never done a book together. this represents the first book i have collaborated on and it makes sense to anyone who knows the work we do, and the issue of poverty in this country the book is called "the rich and the rest of us" leaders in late party manifesto. they want a filibuster in washington. i have been fascinated a week ago under our belts beleaguered middle across the country, and i

have shared about the book and what people are saying about it. what i didn't expect and maybe i was naive for not expecting it. i have been struck by the conversation about the very title of the book. we had no issues whatsoever and didn't spend any time whatsoever thinking the title "the rich and the rest of us" would be controversial. if he didn't he didn't tell me that. i think it was a great title because it was an accurate depiction of what is happening in america. there is the rich and there are the rest of us. i thought the title was apropos and the subtitle a poverty manifestoes lets the reader clearly know what the issue is we want to tackle in these 250 some odd pages. i did not know until we got on the road that there would be

such consternation shall we say and such controversy about the title of the text. i don't know any other way to describe what is happening in america than to say there are the rich and there are the rest of us. what we argue in this book is that poverty threatens our very democracy. i did believe and did think that some would find that a bit hyperbolic, we might be accused of being a little over the top in a book that suggests poverty threatens our very democracy. we believe that to the bone and that the core of who we are. that our very democracy is threatened by the issue of poverty. not only is our democracy for and that it is important because poverty is not a matter of

national security. that is how serious this issue is as we severe in new york city tonight. when one of every two americans asked us use a -- we don't say the census bureau says. not like we made these numbers up. we had a wonderful researcher named sylvester brown jr. who helped us navigate the issues about the case we wanted to make in the text. but when our government tells us that one out of two of us is living in or near poverty that is a crisis. i am no math major but i think that means 1 fifty million people in this country are in or near poverty. when you take the perennially poor or persistent for, the new 4 we argue in this tax that the new for are the former middle

class. you have a perennial before, the new 4 and then year for. folks who are paycheck or so away from falling into poverty. you put those two groups together and take 1 fifty million people who are wrestling with the issue of poverty. trying to get out or trying to make sure they fall in. there are number of people we talked to who are quoted in this tax. she has a great line. the line is simply this. there is a highway into poverty for too many americans. a highway in but not even the sidewalk out. that is the problem with poverty in this country. it is so easy for folks to fall into poverty but once you are stuck in the poverty abyss it becomes very difficult, almost impossible for so many americans to pull themselves out of it.

what is interesting and fascinating is the fact that so many people in these conversations want to talk about the plight of the poor, the middle class. they want to talk about the middle class and what happened to them and whether or not the middle class is disappearing, how did this happen to the middle class. all kinds of interviews and conversation when we get into discussing the book about the middle class. we happen to do that. we believe an argument is the middle-class, former middle-class are the 4. what that means is we want again find ourselves in a place in america where those who have been persistent reports, those who have been perennially poor are still stuck where they are and nobody is really committed to having a conversation about those persons who have been systemically and over a

sustained period stock in this poverty of this. we may out a portrait of poverty. we thought was important to remind people how we arrived at this place. what has the journey been in this country that has allowed us to arrive at a place where we have never seen it quite as bad as it is right now? what you discover when you read the text as we discovered in researching it is we have ebbs and flows in this country when it comes to our courage and conviction and commitment to address the issue of poverty. nowadays the last time we had a sustained conversation, and -- you know this well. that means there are a lot of democratic presidents -- maybe not a whole lot.

some democrats and republicans in the white house. they have not taken it as seriously as we are. it seems to us there has been and still is a bipartisan consensus in washington that the board just don't matter. the bipartisan consensus that poverty is not an important issue. out and do we get traction on the issue. how do we make poverty of priority of the two -- and they don't make getting america out of poverty a priority. we remind the reader that when we exercise our right to vote in a presidential election were barack hussain obama was elected president, dr. west did 65

gates, 65 different events to help barack obama get elected president and for those persons who never seemed to quite understand why he wants to hold that president whom he fought for to get elected accountable, to progressive policies he crisscrossed this country from california to the carolinas to get elected to hold somebody accountable and put them there in the first place. in that last election of 2008, three presidential debate between mr. obama and mr. mccain, 4 or poverty does not come up onepoor or poverty doest come up one time in those debates. three presidential debates and no conversation about the poor

or poverty in this country. fast-forward four years later and half of your citizenry is in or near poverty, we unapologetically assert that we cannot abide another campaign for the white house where the issue of the poor is not addressed. we can't go from here to november letting mr. obama and the presumptive republican nominee mr. romney get away with having another contest where the contestation of poor people's humanity is the order of the day. so we put this book out now. deliberately and unapologetically. we do our small part to remind the nation that we cannot render poor people invisible. we cannot treat them as an afterthought. in a presidential election season we cannot treat them as a political calculation. we argue in this book it is the

telling of truth that allows suffering to speak. if nobody tells the truth about the suffering of everyday people and nobody highlights the poverty that is so rampant in this country that it is invisible, never gets addressed -- how do you do that? you hop on a bus in the summer of 2011 and go to 11 states and 18 cities, as we did last summer, try to get an understanding, and empirical understanding of what the so-called great recession has done or did to the american public. the condition of poverty is so dire that a simple or slight uptick in our economy is not going to address the crisis. some believe when the jobs

numbers come out so unemployment goes down 1/2% and they start break dancing in washington because it dropped 1/2%. we learned on this tour that poverty is so extreme, food insecurity is so real newt gingrich can make jokes all you wants about obama and the food stamp president but with congress just this week in new york as we take this broadcast, two days ago on wednesday the agriculture committee and the united states house of representative further restricted who can apply for food stamps. just another example of the wrongheaded notion that austerity is the answer at a moment like this. training the belts on poor people for demonizing and criminalizing them and treating them as invisible isn't going to solve our problem. we learned that things are so

extreme and poverty is so deep and so dire that a slight uptick in the economy won't address what we saw. not that we ever believed otherwise but we now know for sure that poverty is not color coded in this country. we seem to color code poverty in our conversation so when we think poverty we're thinking black, we think brown. that is what we mean by color coded. the truth is americans of all races, all colors are faster into poverty now than ever before. specifically women and children. we talk in this book about bill clinton who are like to respect. i think he is still a friend. i said a few times over the last couple weeks, maybe not but the reality is women and children are going faster into poverty than anyone else in our society

in part because of that welfare deform bill that bill clinton signed 15 years ago. the great freedom fighter -- bose great freedom fighters -- peter l. berman has a book called so rich, so poor. we don't have a monopoly in this country -- we are not doing what it is talking about. we are long distance runners before i ever got in a race talking about this particular issue. this was going to -- we were going to be reaping some dire consequences. signed into law 15 years ago. he famously denied -- in protest over this issue. peter was right. that is why we see women and children falling into poverty faster than anyone else. what about a nation that allows

its women and children to fall into the poverty of this faster than any other group of americans? so we saw poverty is so dire a slight uptick in the economy won't sold the crisis. so many people in the country are trying to hold on to their dignity. we believe there is dignity in labor. dignity in work. when you have half of your population to find a job, a big deficiency and where there is a deficiency, we have problems. i was watching an episode of 60 minutes, a panel of a dozen people, solid lead in the middle

class. and all the trappings that come along with access, and middle class and more american dream. mostly white americans. i was fascinated to watch these. watching this on 60 minutes and a great piece, i remember vividly, a particular woman having the last word in that conversation. i am beyond the embarrassment of having lost my job a few years ago. i am beyond the embarrassment of having lost my 401(k) and my savings account. i am beyond the embarrassment of having lost my house. i am beyond the embarrassment in front of family and friends who know how long i have been

unemployed. all i am trying to do right now is hold on to my dignity. that hit me. it took me back to last summer, to akron, ohio where doc and i sat in a room full of military veterans who put their lives on the line, some of them injured to protect and serve our freedoms. they are back home now. they have been unemployed for year. one lady four years unemployed. one guy in the room who told a story that had been in tears. doc was slumped over in his share. he and his wife were having such a difficult time trying to make it after both had been laid off and after 25 or 27 years of

marriage they had to split. not because there is any trouble in paradise or their love relationship but they didn't think -- taking to conclusion they couldn't make it together. they had to split to try to make it. he is living in an all male shelter and she couldn't get in and she crosstown in an all female shelter. they had to split because they couldn't make it together in the extreme poverty. we saw these stories across the country. we saw this on a native american reservation. dr. west and i ask the american, had done. they replied what recession? we have so forgotten about them,

we so maltreated them they don't even feel the impact of a recession. these are depression like conditions we live with day in and day out. year in and year out. decade in and decade out. so americans of all races have suffered in a way that many of us have never suffered and the time to do something about that is right now. the book lays out in a simple format, first chapter is a portrait of poverty. how did we arrive at this place? the second is the party of opportunity. we talk about why there is such a deficit, such a party of opportunity in this country including corporations making more money at home and sending more jobs abroad is one of the reasons. there are many others. there is such a party of opportunity in this nation right now. but beyond the poverty of

opportunity is how we challenge americans to examine their assumptions about poverty. to expand the inventory of ideas about poverty. to look through poverty -- look at poverty through a different prism. what it is. what it isn't. how to produce it and how to eradicate it once we get a more authentic cancer and understanding about what poverty is. it is not just a party of opportunity. the next chapter is a poverty of approbation. talk about poverty of vision in this country. a poverty of imagination in this country. we we've throughout these chapters the narratives of the person that we saw and respect with more people not just talking to them but on the tour we stayed with poor people. we stayed with the family with ten kids, a dog and two dogs and three cats. in columbus, mississippi.

we step on the sidewalk one night and stayed out all night sleeping with our new friends and talked to one a couple days ago the best we can and spend the night on a sidewalk sleeping with homeless folk in the nation's capital not far from the capital. we spend it on the streets to get a sense what they were in to. we spent time with kids in d for who had nothing to eat and thought of a food program sponsored by feeding america. we didn't want to take our cameras. this became a one week documentary on pbs. we wanted to really understands what these forces were enduring. we know there's a poverty of imagination.

there are some bolt out right demonic lies told every day about poverty. we want to debunked those lines. finally we lay out 12 things leaders norplant. our conservative friend . our conservative friends, what is the plan? what is your solution? we got them. 12 of them. sins they will problem. do we have the will to make poverty of priority in this country? other countries?

have reduced poverty significantly. we believe poverty threaten their democracy and is a matter of national security. to tell you more about why we believe that, tavis smiler, public radio co-hosted and co-author of this book, leading public intellectual, my abiding friend with a heart full of grace and basal generated by of, cornel west. [applause] >> i am blessed to be here and any time i have a chance to spend time with my dear brother tavis i have a smile on my face. 25 years ago i met this brother and we decided we were going to

give our lives and be willing to die for the legacy of martin luther king jr. and diane nash and abraham joshua and dorothy day and others who headed deep and profound love for people and especially for brothers apoor b sisters of all colors. we made a covenant that we ever going to put whatever skills god has blessed us with to keep alive this tradition. we believe in the same cultural bird and we refuse to move without first looking backward and staying in contact with the best of those who shake their nose at us with tavis smiler

deep in american culture and thomas bradley, the mayor of los angeles with that dynamite job, they lost that dynamite job. bob johnson who we had a mass demonstration, me and two other friends. brian and others. we had a meeting of black leaders the night before. the black elite function in such a way that after some phone calls were made and money withdrawn it was just myself and brother jamal brian. we are going to march anyway. i love brother robert johnson. i am a christian. got to love everybody. i was disappointed. brother had lost that job and my

brother clifton, going to bounce back and remain true to your calling, not your career. don't become free occupied. with your job, have a sense of what your life path is. don't be obsessed with your profession. be tied to your location and the truth to people who have been enslaved, jim crow, hated and despised to have an anthem called lift every voice. did not ever become an echo. be true to yourself. he was down and out and broke the 10 commandments financially at that time and bounced back national public radio, national public tv. tavis smiler foundation. 13 years now he and i meet for a

week every summer with young black youth, young black leaders, thousands of them. got a number of them at princeton. we have to hunt them down. and the grant exhibition. books and so forth and so on and i get upset when i hear people say about tavis smiler that somehow he doesn't have his focus on serving others because he is so successful and because he owns everything that he does. he believes in controlling his master's. i say to the world i know this brother. he finds joey in serving others and he is highly successful but he comes from a tradition that

echoes mark 10:45. he or she is greatest among you will be your servant. he doesn't excuse except with greatness. greatness has to do with service to others. what is this quality of your love for others? what sacrifice will you really make? what price will you pay? you are not in this trying to be popular. martin luther king jr. died with 72% of americans disapproving and 55 of them were black people. because he loved poor people and was critical of the american occupation of vietnam. that was the tradition we are talking about. we say it with a smile on our face. when i think of my dear sister brenda greene and her magnificent work i want the world to know i support your work and your struggle.

give her a hand. not only professor but the mother of two magnificent sons, distinguished prof. columbia law school and one of the great prophetic hip-hop artists of our time, give the whole family a hand. professor smith wants the world to know and the center for black literature. the only institution fundamentally committed to preserving talent and genius of towering figures like brooks and tony morrison and richard wright and rob allison and younger brothers like kevin young. you know we just had a black sister who won the pulitzer prize the other day. tracy smith. give her a hand. we love you, sister tracy. you are also my colleague at princeton. i don't say this just because -- she is an artist. the last line of percy shelley's

revolutionary pamphlets 1821 defensive portrait, poets, legislators of the world. not just talking about diversify years but all human beings with the courage to muster their empathy and imagination to conceived of a world different from the one we live in with more love, more justice, more equality, more democracy and do what you can. use some bit of reality. it might just the language. it might be your body. maybe raw material as an architect. whatever it is, use your empathy and imagination to make this world better by conceiving of some alternative can transform this present world in light of a better world. that is the best. the literary tradition in general and the black literary tradition puts it at the center, the dignity of those everyday

people. james cleveland called ordinary people. a deeply democratic way of being in the world, to ralph emerson. ralph waldo emerson. the great -- are jewish sister who bent on that tradition in new york city, concerned about the dignity of everyday people. last but not least, my introduction here is moving on. last but not least the want to congratulate my dear brother smiley brooks who has a publishing company and the legendary shareholder -- here she is. please stand. the legendary who plays an important role in this.

we want to acknowledge her. she is somewhere here. i don't know where she is and brother raymond ross. there has been so much time because i believe always beginning on a note of gratitude. to be a black man in america 58 years old i am happy, partly still in my right mind. a brilliant young black brothers and sisters much more talented, look at my first for each picture and i am the only black male living in that picture and i am 58 years old. that is the damage done. that is the wasted potential. that is the humanity overlooked.

downplayed. people often look at me lieberman you are so talented, you didn't know the brothers and sisters i grew up with. you think -- you never met my father. i am one half of the person he was. you never met my brother. i am just one third of the person. i am just a survivor. somehow i just made it through. might snap tonight. a lot of righteous indignation in me if not for the christian conversion connecting love and justice and deeper trouble than i am in now. one of the great legendary freedom fighters of new york city. we went to jail a few years ago.

april 30th and -- we may end up in jail again. i have my cemetery close on. i dress in black and everything. very much like this poverty for it is a love tour. i call it caravan of love. brothers and sisters of all colors you can't stand that they are treated unjustly. you loathe the fact that they're being treated unfairly and if you don't do something they are going to crack. half of the tradition we're trying to keep alive very difficult these days when poor people are criminalizes and demonized especially on the chocolate side of town but also including our white brothers and sisters and other pockets of poverty. you would never know poor people exists if you look at the corporate media.

you would never know poor people existed you kept track of the dialogue by our politicians. middle-class, who is middle class? and didn't get paid to the 2 months before. that is who we are talking about. it means you have to cut against the grain. to even talk about the rich and the rest of us we were there with one month before us, our occupy brothers and sisters and i want to affirm the occupy movement talking about corporate greed and wealth inequality. we should have been talking about that 30 years ago in the long time ago 1% of the population own 32% of the wealth. in 20101% of the population got 93% of the income growth.

that means 99% of the rest of the population dealing with 7% of the income growth. what does that do? pitt as against each other. 22% of children living in the richest nation in history of the world. that is a disgrace. let us never forget our indigenous brothers and sisters. they're just like us no matter what culture or civilization or sexual orientation. 40% of their children living in poverty and 38% of latino brothers and sisters living in poverty and 39% -- young people 100% of the future and obsession with middle-class. they are the voters. poor people don't vote. poor children don't vote. we refuse to put up with that

kind of truncated sensibility and we are told it is a question of not having enough money. we gave $500 billion to the marshall plan in the last 25 years to the presidential complex. we find the money when we build jails and prisons and the criminal justice system but when it comes the education we can't find any. we have to cut. we can't find a penny so we have to outsource. when it comes to decent housing, dilapidated school systems, can't find a penny. when it comes to drones, those real special, powerful, unmanned aerial instrumentalities that can kill folks thousands of miles away, supposedly killing

terrorists but we killed how many civilians in the last few years? nobody is keeping track but it is 850 minimum. we brag about killing osama bin laden. gangster and terrorist, yes he is. we killed him indeed the debate whether we should have brought him to trial, go back and forth but when you kill his daughter that is wrong. no justification for collective punishment. no debate about it. whatsoever. now we have national defense opposition deal very you can be detained without judicial process indefinitely if you are defined as being hostile to the interests or tied to terrorist groups or associated forces of

terrorist groups. i went to south africa. they booted me out. that was a compliment. i knew the underground police were tight. nelson mandela was on the terrorist list 25 years. nobody is going to stand in the way of me being in solidarity with nelson mandela and the struggle against apartheid in south africa. the same act dragging me off the stage right now. i am a terrorist. i say yes. i am a militants. a militant for kindness. like brother martin used to say, i want to be an extremist for love. that is how we roll. it is true. that is what we decided to do. [applause]

i was blessed to write a song with a genius named bootsy collins in his last album. he wrote it in his basement in cincinnati, ohio called when love is addressed. anybody who loves poor people in america is a threat to the status quo. whether you are christian, jewish, buddhist, hindu like gandhi, secular, atheist, agnostic, you really love poor people and poor children you cut against the grain and for your whole life you are not going to be well adjusted to in just this. you are going to be maladjusted to in justice and you're going to be what the great arthur miller might -- playwright that he was in his play the mystics

the bristol tavis smiler and are the leaders believe see it in our text that we are misfits. we refuse to fit in to the widespread indifference to the suffering of poor people. we refuse to view them in any way as invisible. we want to put them right at the center of the discord but why is it so difficult? black face on poverty or welfare. anytime you put a black face on any issue you can be assured that less value is placed on that issue because the history of america, the legacy of white supremacy, black life -- wes value of that white life.

you sound like you are anti-american. i have been here 13 generations. i am anti injustice in america, not anti-american. that is why it is so rooted in the best of america's prophetic and progressive tradition, prophetic and progressive traditions up until the occupy movement has been so weak and feeble in the last 30 years where is taking place, an attack on poor and working people, on trade unions, on 4 children, in the face of power from above, the political system, dominated by big money before the super pacs. the republican party deeply conservative version of

oligarchy ruled the personal the rule of wall street big banks and big corporations. the democratic party, so much better than republicans when it comes to treatment of poor working people. better than the republicans. like better than rod stewart. give me a lot fitzgerald. give me frank sinatra. somebody who can really sing. why we set the bar so low? the democratic party moved a year in and year out because we're better than the republicans, you are not saying too much. we are not just talking about political expediency and relative judgment. we understand we are very critical of any of the

republican candidates including our mormon brothers, brother mitt romney. right wing as he can be, mean-spirited toward the poor. different for the suffering of the weak and vulnerable. barack obama so much better. certainly better, no doubt but that is all we need to know. that is the beginning of the conversation, not the conclusion. that is expediency. let's talk about the truth. why is it that both parties are extensions of oligarchs and food and crafts and the top big money and big corporation and why is it that working people and poor people are so important and powerless and feel as if even when we organize and mobilize we are dismissed or crushed or infiltrated by the fbi?

let's just be honest. in love -- love not the center of it. that is what this is about. the tale of the story of truth that tavis was talking about is to allow suffering to speak and unapologetic love, justice is what love looks like it in public. why is it that we have been so mutated in raising our voices individually and collectively up until the occupy movement in terms of treatment of for and workingpoor and working people and speak their truth and conclude poverty is the moral and spiritual issue of our time, not simply a matter of politics and economics and there's no way american democracy will be able to survive malone 5 if we don't not

just wrestle with poverty but call for the air revocation of poverty. we are abolitionists. poverty abolitionists. look at the history of the united states after week chronically mistreated our indigenous brothers, sold their land. in slave the africans. that became the labor base of the democratic experience. go overthrow the monarchy because we began as a colony and am anti imperialists across the board which means i am in solidarity with the anti imperialism even slaveholders like george washington. critical of slaveholder status but the imperialism against the

british empire yes. overthrow monarchies and they did but the challenge became slavery. we need a second american revolution. civil war, 620,000 dead to do what? fighting over four million enslaved african plight, slavery. in the midst of the american democratic experiment. if it wasn't for 250,000 black soldiers who joined the union army maybe we would not have won. i mean on the union side. sometimes i see white southern brothers thinking maybe we should have really won. don't worry about smiley and west out there. we broke the back of slavery. here comes jim crow, american terrorism. slavery by another name.

on the back of slavery by another name tells the 1960s, kind of second moment in this second american revolution after breaking the backs of white supremacists legalized slavery and here we are 50 years after breaking the back of that american apartheid. what we need is a third revolution in america. i am revolutionary christian. a peaceful revolution. we need a fundamental transformation of the economy. transfer of power, oligarchy and control of resources to democratic accountability. of ordinary citizens. oligarchy.

nodded demonizing of oligarchs oligarchy is now the fundamental issue and tied to poverty and tied to the social conformity in america in which everything is up for sale and everybody is up for sale and as long as you can be bought you will never be willing to stray new backup and told the truth about the circumstances under which we live and poor people will find themselves continually -- trying to deal with the survival of deceptive organizing and mobilizing necessary for the third peaceful american revolution that allows democracy to flour and flourish. poverty is a new slavery. oligarchs are the new king is.

if we have democratic energy from the low. maybe we have a chance working within those who work within the system. the bernie sanders. he tells us -- stevecohen. we need folks will into their hearts and minds cohen. we need folks will into their hearts and minds and bodies on the line, in st. in the jail, organizing, mobilizing by keeping law and justice and not hatred and revenge at the center. martin luther king jr. died calling himself a revolutionary christian. we shouldn't even think of celebrating his legacy. we don't come to terms with that

love supreme. that john cold frame weight and acting in the movement -- tavis and i simply write this book to keep the tradition alive to extend it to each and every american of every color recognizes we are not just in a crisis but in catastrophic conditions. we don't fight for love and justice we will slide down a slippery slope to patriot revenge and chaos. [applause] >> thank you so much for raising our consciousness and putting this on the agenda. time to hear from you. i have questions from the audience. we have a number of questions so it might be best if i ask the questions and whoever wants to respond can respond.

the first question is what are your thoughts on student debt and poverty? >> student debt has exceeded credit card debt. as the value we put on the lives of young people forced to go to school and college. tuition is increasing making it difficult for very talented poor and working-class students to gain access to education and at the same time when they apply for a loan they have to pay high interest rates. investment bankers give nearly 2% -- zero% interest rates. what if students were treated like investment bankers getting access to loans with hardly any interest rates at all? you can see the hypocrisy in terms of how the well to do is treated as opposed to working people and more and more students coming to this

conclusion in terms of the organizing that is taking place and not only relief for student debt but the same thing, relative relief when it comes to the mortgage given a predatory lending of the powerful ordinary people toward catastrophe. that kind of perspective should be part of the discussion. nothing i say is definitive. it is a voice in the democratic conversation connected to public interest and common good and goes through argument, contestation and so forth and so on. that is the voice i would raise. >> just to follow up, we talked about the middle class, the raising of the middle-class. what needs to happen to end poverty and recreate the middle class again?

>> the last chapter in the book starts with a telling story about a conversation president obama had with steve jobs and he was talking to steve jobs about a program he wanted to roll out and he did in fact rolled this program out. his it of for in sourcing american jobs. the president did that in the state of the union address but at some point prior to that speech and prior to mr. jobs passing away, we recount in the book, he was asking steve jobs about all these american jobs shipped abroad and trying to get steve jobs's thoughts on how those could be in stores and wanted to pick his brain about this. steve jobs said without blinking those jobs are never coming

back. >> this is one of america's most celebrated ceos saying to the president those jobs are not coming back. dr. west and i in the writing of this book wrestled for days at one point trying to come up with a single reason for why any american corporate ceo would be incentivized to actually higher back the thousands and thousands of workers who have been laid off and i am sad to report -- you will find in the book when you open it up that we could not come up with a single reason. the only reason why any major american corporate multinational ceo is interested in hiring back all the thousands they laid off is if the the man for your product is so high that you have to put more people on the line.

you have more people in the pipeline to get the product made. but your shareholders, all they want is profit and that is why you fired, downsized, laid off all those persons in the first place. there is no reason to bring those persons back on. .. to shrink your outlave cash. what's the point of bringing them back on? that's the reason why. it sick ins me. that's why president obama is. begging the same corporations, the same banks who we gave all of our money to, we bailed them out, and you know this. they're not sitting on a trillion dollars they will not reinvest back in the economy. so we gave them the money without any strings attached and now we're begging them and asking folks in washington to come up with ideas and ways to

inventize them to pump the money back into the economy. we gave you the money and now you're sitting on them. . . white house conference.ov craft a plan.ese progra these ideas exist.ties hasne,

new york city has one, catholic. charities has one. this is not a skilldeas an problem, it is a will problem. we have the skills, we have then ways and means to put altogetheo national plan and reduceknow how poverty. other countries have done it,ng and we can do it.ack if we i don't know how you blame the , middle class if you can't find way to make jobs with a living wage a priority. i don't know how you sympathizen a greedy american corporations shipping jobs abroad. that, ii don't know.o with t >> i think one of the reasons has to do with the fact that 40o years ago, 9% of 9 corporate profitsme in america were made y banks.banks. today, 42% of corporate profits are made by banks. a hat isn the difference?as the d look at this.ors this is between mitt romney and his father.

om mitt romney made his money with bain capital. they produced deals, not products. they produced deals by cuttingds workers.ught you don't produce things to be bought at all. big, it is can see no light.f you are generating big, big money. billions of dollars.for at the time with no productive ialue for the society as a l whole.the you end up with the lives of the rich and famous and luxuriousbrh and people want status and wealth and power. we see it, of course, throughout our culture. we see it in the hood. we see it in the ghettos. we see it in the middle class. we see it in our corporate television. we see it critiques andsee alternatives. we see it in our news shows. the aim is to stimulate.

thank goodness we have amy and tavis. what we don't want isprograms. simulation. what we want is illumination.ng rebuilding infrastructure and the bridges in the sewers. bride rebuilding houses. eveniding jobs. ot just in the public sector, it can be a combination in thati regard. that is one of the reasons why do so difficult to talk about jobs with a living wage. that is one of the reasons why it is so difficult for our leaders to really tell us the th truth. th the truth of steve jobs, before he died, god bless his soul.is midd >> soul dleestroying of the mide the class is not an accident, that is what some people think. using property to tread

understand this.a that they are using this to perpetuate the idea that there should be no middle class. is not really an accident, it is a very conscioum decision. do you comment on that? >> i just think it is greed run stimulatio amok. we live in a society withn, instant stimulation, instant success. that is why that joke about thee singers -- you know what i mean you can be a highly successful singer and can't sing. >> that is true. >> becauseue. yes, that i is true. >> it is not about quality. >> okay. >> it is about appearance and spectacle.pearance a appearance and spectacle titillates. is like angie stone,

anthony hamilton, the great job alert, great singers. they met less success than folks who were superficial. folks who made big money. i won't comment on who made the to want y,. >> i would like to add very quickly, in the book we talk n' about this a little bit. i don't subscribe to the notion that the rich want to do awayiso with the poor. i don't buy that. there's a whole lot of money being made on poverty.ple are ch rich people are rich in part because of poor people. a lot of money made on poor people. the least in thpoeor back of the book, we debunk these tenants about the poor. one of them is that the rich pae more. last night we appeared on ourwod itiend stephen koger's program.

it is true when you say that the rich pay more well. the more money you make, thelthd more you pay in tax aes. they always find a way to notnot taxes.ing is wrong loopholes and loopholes. something is wrong when a coupli d years ago, general electricai paid fewer taxes than you did. , ge, headquartered right here in the city, paid zero taxes two years ago. of not 1 penny of taxes for an entire fiscal year because they know how to manipulate and find the loopholes in worker process. the co >> and the ceo happens to be head of the commission on jobs.o

>> the rich make a lot of money off of the poor.al it is not taltogether true that the rich pay more.of the one of the reasons we talk about this in the text as well, we have a number of conversations that we have moderated for c-span. c-span is here today as a matter of fact. [applause] [applause] i have been fortunate to have af number of my conversations broadcast live and repeated andr rebroadcast on pbs these last couple of years. in new york just a few years ago here about children and poverty. earlier this year, george washington university. a conversation that was featuring michael moore and others spread quickly, michael

moore, who we share some particular space, he shares some very straightforward detail how and why the housing crisis came ob to be. he is a documentarian, he one obviously. he has studied this and more. the simple answer is, what isg the one thing doctor green, that the middle class has?r their homes.one thinthey the one thing they all have. one thing they all have equity in as their home. he goes into a deep treatment. i will let you read it in thet, book. about how in partly in part -- how we got into this housingd tt crisis by going after people wht were in the middle class, tryino to get into the middle class, wp know that home ownership is thew safest way to start to createhig wealth, and that was the onedidt thing that they knew that they had not figured out a way to rape and pillage. they figured that out, and the y rest, as they say, is history. t

>> you can follow the steps.t yo first you have to have twou ha spouses working just to survive. then both spouses working, but you need a credit card becausesp you don't have the money for al this up that you are in debt for, then you run out of debt.hr the only thing left is your house. then your house is gone. what is left?at is greerunnin that is what i mean by greedmok. running amok. greed is real. i have green inside of me, i am just working on it.reed when that greed runs amok, the system itself begins to feed ony itself in an ugly way. the most important thing for me is what happens to the children. >> just to follow up on that,th, you talk about how this povertyu cuts across racial division, ann the question is, what is thesion role of continuing racial divisions in maintaining silence about political discourse?

cial s poor blacks and whites and hispanics, they have a lot in common with each other, but racialg separation keeps theme d from acting on shared interests. how do we cross this divide and generate the power of the poor? sumac divide? i thought we were in ast post- racial america, doctor? >> this is a doctoral student asking this question. it is a reality.e >> i will let the doctor with a. degree respond to it. >> well, sometimes a doctor degree can mislead you. the truth teller comes in all forms. h james bowman went to collegehim. here in new york, but college still hrough him. a lot of people go to college and so did their minds twisted. they don't understand theetween difference between deepust education and cheap schooling. they just want to get schooled.r they don't really want to beendn educated andge challenged. how is and i think that question about how is it that we can come together as human beings,

acknowledging these issues, anti-semitism, white supremacy,i hatred, homophobic hatred, aan divide and conquer strategy. those powerful persons -- they often reinforce so that the public possibilities of coalescing and uniting become very, very difficult. he saw it here in new york. mov. oh, those are just young sistert and brothers on the vanilla side of town. ued to i'm not used to spending time with them, oh, okay. keep in contact with the truth that they are talking about. t if weo don't come to terms withn that, then we have another wecti divide. let's connect through its brutality, parliament and other

places, you see. let's tell the truth about that, but let's do it in a way that it is broad and has moral vision to allow us to come together. par that is in part what martin was trying to do with the poor people's campaign. is that is why he was viewed as tha most dangerous person in america. we have to build on that. >> one of the questions. this is a live question. the whole concept of poverty is a matter of national security. can you elaborate on that? >> how is poverty a matter of national security? >> i save that one for last. >> usually we're talking about wars and external threats, but we know that when people write the history of civilization in restory ofci social regimes in i

ofstory of empires, it is usually a result of internal rot that empires collapse.it's not it is not external threats.and w if we look at the internal rot in america, all you have to do o is look at the prison industrial complex. all you have to do is look in the schools for poor children.m. look at the teachers unions and no serious commitment to it. all you have to do is look inlad the workers and workplaces. how many people are not dissatisfied with their jobs,soe but deal if they have some sort o the film and on their jobs? s >> why is it that so many of oue fellow citizens find some instant gratification innd self-medication? addiction, pervasive across rac, and class. those are all signs of decay and

decline. when you talk about national security, it is internal.priselt if that is precisely what were trying to deal with -- th >> to adda to that briefly, i mean national security in addition to what dr. west's isno offered. there is no empire, as i intimated earlier, that at some point did not falter or fail.emh every empire has its day. every empire has its moments.as i don't know what it is about us as americans, and i will be accused of being anti-american, as i have been many times for suggesting this, i don't know ir it is narcissism, our hubris, our patriotism, or nationalism unchecked patriotism -- we, as d

americans, don't want to consider that we could be on the edge. that we could be on the precipice. that we could be on the verge, as dr. west said, of imploding from that internal rot. we take this head-on in the book. this whole notion of american exceptionalism.ere are so there are so many of us who aree stillbi believe that we are the biggest, we're the baddest, we are the boldest -- we are all that and then some, because we e are the united states of u and th america. the data just doesn't bear that out.don't one out of two americans are in or near poverty. they don't talk to me about american exceptionalism.agivin i was reading the other day about president obama being urged to be more competent on the campaign trail. to be more and -- to express mye enthusiasm about our future. you have to be more reagan likec

they were pushing him to changea the narrative a bit. doctor west said earlier, when you let people come you tell people the truth. what the american people are not being told now is the truth. too i can't deal with another campaign where we get lied to and can't deal what is really happening in this country. the doc is right.abouterr for all the talk about terrorism, this country is not going to go under due to an outside force. our military budget is still. we can protect ourselves. not that doesn't mean we won't getgt hit again, but weh haveat the military might to protect ourselves. that is not what is going to take us down. we'll take us down is right here on inside. the fact that we don't see it as a national security issue, the

fact that we don't see it as thp moral and spiritual issue of our time. it is not just a political issue ort a social issue. moral and p this is the moral andir spiritul issue of our time.and to the extent that we make like them ostrich, we put our head in the sand, and ignore all the signs, and what it is tellingera us. every empire eventually goes down. we can put on a happy face and act like we are all that andreal then some. this is the reality that we're dealingit with.wrinthe we are not the first ones were the only ones trying to ring the alarm and find a bell.election there are a lot of folks being long-distance runners on this ah issue. wecannot we cannot go through, we cannot endure, another campaign for the white house with this issue jus. g ignored. all the data just -- you know, we act like it doesn't exist. ,a

that is why, for me, it is a national security issue.t is that is why, for me, it is the moral and spiritual issue of our time. doctor west and i are beyond thy poverty tour. we took the poverty tour last summer, and we knew that itcouln couldn't stop at the to -- tour. an we knew that it couldn't stops e there. we are committed, as we haveng r been, and to raising our voicesl on this issue. the but there is no time like the present to get serious about this. i see people all the time, ti poverty robs the spirit. poverty robs the spirit of its mission.e is when there is no hope for the future, there is no power in the when present.ou when you have half of your citizenry running around, trying desperately to hold on tothe

dignity, when half of your populace is trying desperately to hold on to their humanity.ou thersee where this ends up. there is a reason why each exploded. there is a reason why tunisia and yemen exploded, and we don't want to come to terms or wrestle with it. e we are now is the time for that. we have to make poverty ais priority in this country. thank you for having us here tonight, doctor green. we celebrate your legacy. >> thank you very much. >> for more information, visit the author's website, tavis talks.com and cornell west,.com. >> writing assumes process. writing assumes reading. it goes back to the question of

a tree falling in the forest. if you have written a wonderful novel, then one of the parts of the process is that you want readers to be enlarged and enriched by it. and you have to pull in everything at your disposal to do that. >> author anna quinlan will talk about her perspectives on writing and life, plus your guide to social policy and the politics that make it happen. life today on in-depth. her latest rumination is lots of candles, plenty of cake. starting at noon eastern on c-span 2. >> it cannot be more remote. it is in northeastern part of afghanistan. this valley is a cul-de-sac that goes nowhere.

it is up near the the himalayas. getting up there is hard, flying helicopters is hard. the only way in is by foot or helicopter. trying to get their, initially to plan the mission was tough. what they are doing is going after a high-value target. this guy had some association with al qaeda, some sort of truce with the taliban. these guys are nasty characters. foreign fighters in chechnya and guys that are not there to fight against. these guys are mercenaries. what he was doing was repressing people into fighting. and he was rumored to have been stockpiling guns. he is also credited with a series of ambushes in the valley

that had caught the attentions of some of the commanders. they decided they had to go up to the shop belly and take care of its network the idea was to go get them and take care of the safe haven. the reality wasn't such a hard place to get to. we have all seen the news. my rates are highly regulated. who controlled the battle space is highly regulated. it takes a long time to get a mission planned. they had to decide how to get there, what that helicopters could do. and what, when, and where they would be allowed to go and do. what they came back what is the idea they were going to fly in

the valley, on land in the valley, and then fly off. they initially wanted to fly to the top of the valley and the top of the village, and that broke down. but because of restrictions and what the pilots were comfortable doing, they ended up having to settle for this mission, which was to land in the valley and unload. anyone who knows any kind of basic terminology, the fight until it's something you never want to do. if you can take the high ground, you want to do so. what the commanders had to reconcile with, was at risk due to fly the helicopters to the top of the village, or riskier to have the guys giving up the hill before the bad guys were there. that is where the team was left on the morning of the mission, which is where the book starts. they get up in the morning and they know they have to do this mission. it is spring in the mountains of

afghanistan. the weather is already delayed the mission once or twice. and they all have this sinking feeling, they don't know if this is a good idea. a masking is one of the things that propelled this book. and it propelled us. it is very rare that you get soldiers that have universal bad feelings and the candidates say not only do we have this bad feeling, but we said look, we really don't want to do this mission. that sort of starts the book instructs them on this path that ultimately gets them into the ambush. >> that is pretty critical what he just mentioned in the book. you don't usually get soldiers to speak out about a plan. it was captain kyle walton basically knew, and it was walton's plan.

tactically, he knew that it was concerning. he took his concerns to his commander. his commanders, it was really important to do this mission. he helped finance his men by this operation. in fact, they later found out who the fbi and cia. they finance his whole campaign. going back, captain kyle knew that the plan was flawed technically. even though they knew that that was flawed, there was incredible danger, they would have to climb to get to this compound,

surrounded by -- this broken terrain -- they still weren't and they still went to carry out this mission and i think kevin, you described what happened once they landed. >> they take off from a base on the border and they find to this valley. there is some concern about the plan. there is a certain window that they have that they could get in and out before the cloud cover treatment they had to work quickly as well. if you can imagine landing in a helicopter and the plan was to land, but there was so much ice in the crime was so uneven that

they couldn't even land. there were guys jumping 10 feet out of the back of these helicopters and landing on these rubble fields. they are chomping at into gravel and big boulders. they look out, and the mountains surrounding the valley are a lot higher than they ever imagined. previously, they were only looking at satellite images. i can only equate it to standing in midtown manhattan. being surrounded on all sides by sheer cliffs. they consolidate their guys and they start walking. when we say a village, i don't know what you see in your head, depending on where you are in the country, sometimes they are little diskette colored mud

huts, but this was literally cut into the wall of stone. stone houses. these were like castles stacked on top of each other all the way up and around them. they were surrounded 360 degrees. they get to the base of the hill and the path cuts back and forth and zigzags up the hill. you know that that is bad. there is only one way out. you know that you are in a cul-de-sac of a valley now, and they know that you are there. they heard the helicopters. a bigger helicopters in this valley, if they hear the helicopters, it is they're bad guys, right? it is really quite as they