have it occasionally people stop an american start somewhere in the middle of the conversation by getting to the point. how much we take for the tree and he says -- for you and that sort of thing. so of course i am interested in buying the tree. he looked at me and he said the tree is not for sale. and i said well, but it's not doing anything there. he said no, it's not for sale. so i said suppose i offered $500. it was a modest sized tree. it was not a. you could still dig it out and replant it. most things are fairly easily replanted in the caribbean. it rained so much and is so warm. this is not for sale. i said suppose i offered you $1000. he said no, at no. i said suppose i offered you

$5000. the tree is not for sale. now, this whole business of what we call success, we only have one definition for success in america and that has to do with how much money you make and i don't think that is a fair definition. so here a neurosurgeon who is not terribly nice to his wife and children, he makes a lot of money and he's a success but the taxi driver even though he is an enormously wonderful father, and husband he is not a success. so what do you mean by success? i think that definition may be a little different than ours.

it certainly doesn't have everything to do with money. you see, and so i think it sounds to some people when you start the discussion somewhat crass. >> host: how did you conclude your flamboyant tree negotiation? >> guest: i didn't get it. [laughter] i didn't get it. i did learn though that they grow very fast and you can get them small and you don't even have to have -- my mother gardened decorative flowers until she was at least 93 and one i was a child -- to this is spending time in the yard because i loved it. i loved my hands in the soil just as she and we like to talk about plans in that sort of thing so that is one of the

things i love about the caribbean because everything blooms all the time. and it's so wonderful. so you can get flamboyant trees rather easily and plant them. >> host: randall robinson you spent several years living in the d.c. area. is it easy to get intoxicated by the power that is available here? >> guest: here? >> host: yes. >> guest: it depends on who you are. it didn't take with me. i was never adjusted in that and it's not anything necessarily great to say about me. i'm just built that way and i'm essentially quite private, so i

never liked the public side of what i used to do at all. and so i am very much a home person. there is no place in the world i want to be more than home. and so, whatever was happening here i think i held it built-in immunity to it. >> host: canton ohio you have been very patient you are on with author and activist randall robinson. >> caller: hello mr. robinson. is great to hear and i'm originally from mississippi and grew up in this south where my parents graduated from school. i dropped out of school but eventually i went back and went to college and moved to ohio and got a job. even the church and some time that people buy your history in

america and how we treat one another and even the slavery. i'm a big fan of frederick douglass also. in a piece that he wrote, he writes the real question that all commanding question here is whether american justice and american liberty and american civilization, the american christianity can be made to include and protect all the rights of all american children. as black people we feel not educated by history and other countries and you know as i talk to people from where i came from my struggles with my parents if you live in the south, even sometimes the black people seem like they have not comprehended

what i'm talking about. the struggle and where we came from and where we are now. >> host: let's get a response from randall robinson. >> guest: well, i understand very much how you feel. i think that you can't have offhand much reason for expectation of anything different. i have taken the position that i have taken particularly on reparations, because in my view it is our due. that doesn't mean that i expect that they will materialize even in my lifetime and not in the near-term future.

but it is renovated when you know that it is our due. the question is, what do we have to do within ourselves to repair ourselves psychically and emotionally? i think that we have to learn as much as we can about our story. we have to read vigorously everything that we can put our hands-on. we have to make sure that our children get the best education we can win for them and that they have the right values. we have to do the best we can with what we have and we have to continue to say that doesn't come close to what we are owed for what we have been made to

endure for a long, long, long period of time. we all inherit our starting place in life. for those of us who come from the families of wealth and those of us who come from families that are impoverished, and i'm not just talking about material wealth. i'm talking about social wealth and poverty. so the race is much more difficult for some of us then for others of us and it was made difficult because of what we had to face for 246 years. catching up without any recognition of that difficulty on the part of a government that

benefits from slavery, on a part of the private sector in sections of our population that continued to benefit from that slavery. nonetheless, we have to understand ourselves of what we are owed and what our due is and continue to say that notwithstanding of whether or not that is except did on the other side. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2. every month the first sunday of the month is our "in depth" program, and a three hour discussion with one author and his or her body of work. this month it is author randall robinson. and if you can get through on the phone ended like to make make a comment on our facebook page you can go to facebook.com/booktv. like us on facebook and make a comment. furness smith asks this question

on facebook or go hugh have seen the diaspora from different parts of the world. in 2013 when africa and those of african descent still trail and economic viability, what are your suggestions to gain empowerment without economics to politics won't ever work. >> i agree with that. we need to -- it seems to be to retool our values to some extent, to balance them, overbalance them towards entrepreneurship. we need to invest in our energy. we need to know that there is very little that can be done without money. we have to be in a position to and l. our own efforts.

we don't have that kind of money now. we don't own any news broadcast or major organs so we are still depending on other people in their newsrooms where decisions are made often by groups of people that don't include any of us to make decisions to tell stories that would favor us about our situation, about our history, about our journey and that won't happen until we are in a position to make that happen. and so, i often thought when i was a young basketball player and have thought more about it since, that it's much better to own the team than to play on the team.

and we have got to get that lesson through our heads. we have got to understand, for instance that in the caribbean there are caribbean mothers who tell their children when they come to the united states to a college, don't associate with african-americans. they do this because of what they see on american television. they watch american reality shows and those shows picture us in a very unfavorable light. they don't show us in the college's, they don't show us in graduate programs, they don't show us excelling in science and they don't show any of that. they show the worst possible things about us and it is very

offputting to people who watch these shows around the world. well, somebody is making a lot of money from the shows. i'm not sure that this is the same thing, old wine in new bottles, making use of us in that way. sort of self disparaging stuff that makes a lot of money for producers and writers and other people behind the cameras. camera's. but we don't make the decisions to put the shows on. but they are there. we have to be in a position to control these sorts of operations and these sorts of operations so we have to repair our young people to aspire to that, to not only make the movies and to not only be in them but to direct, to greenlight them.

we are not in a position now in hollywood or anyplace else. "the new york times" didn't even cover aristide's being taken off in the middle of the night to the central african republic. >> host: what about lydia fullgrain. did she try to get on the plane with you? >> guest: well, libya had gone to the bicentennial and described the hundreds of thousands of people, something close to 1 million people at the small but enthusiastic crowd. i do think it is often the case that black writers in publications do things that disparage the black community,

facilitate upward mobility in their jobs. and i decided that she wasn't the right person to have on the plane. amy goodman was there from democracy now and the reporter from "the washington post." but by and large this story was an extraordinary story. it was not covered by "the new york times" at all. zip, nothing. how. how could they not cover it? what kind of journalism is that? >> host: gary post-on our facebook page, in lieu of supporting questionable regimes in africa, chinas and its trade deals with african nations built schools and hospitals and other in the structure needs of the masses instead of massive cash payments to warlords and the like. any chance the u.s. could follow suit? >> guest: well, i am fearful of chinese motives as well.

and because i am critical of apologists from our country i have a responsibility to practice that criticism and that is what constructs democracy is all about but i am not happy about china either. china has a horrible human rights policy. china is a one-party dictatorship and its treatment of its own citizens and particularly what it has done in tibet and western china to the weaker people. so i -- i am very wary about chinese motives in africa. >> host: the next call for randall robinson comes from mark in minneapolis. mark, you are on booktv on c-span2. >> caller: thank you. hi mr. robinson. >> guest: hi, how are you? >> caller: i'm fine.

mr. robinson i'm a new york city kid born in 1959 so i've seen a lot of america and history but i want to talk securely about the mining industry worldwide and particularly what's going on in africa and is there a connection to possible mining in minnesota with certain companies? i have looked at some of the ceos and it's pretty much american educated and just wondering how this wall street and washington fit in -- [inaudible] >> guest: i am not sure i understand your question. i am not an expert in mining but i don't know how to approach it because i'm not sure i understand what you you are saying. >> host: on our twitter page @looks deep tv ron fraser tweets in did you ask randall robinson who he thinks would make a

better u.s. envoy to haiti than bill clinton and why? >> guest: any number of people are envoys are message carriers. right now our policy towards haiti is so bad that we would do haiti a service if the united states after 200 years of meddling would leave haiti alone. virtually all of our policies have been anti-democratic for haiti. i have felt strongly when i was characterized as a friend of president aristide's, i would always say that is not the issue. i have never been for aristide politically because that is not for me. i wasn't for nelson mandela in south africa. i was for affording the south

african people and the haitian people the right to choose for themselves who their political leaders would be. the administration now has of course embraced elections in haiti that banned the largest political party from participating. that is not democracy. we ought to be ashamed of ourselves. president obama took some pains to try to block president aristide's returned to his country from south africa. that is a violation of the international covenant on civil and political rights which the united states is a part of. we cannot block people from leaving the country nor can you block them from returning to their own country. and so if not the letter

certainly the president violated the spirit of our legal binding obligation under that international human rights treaty. >> host: where is former president aristide right now? >> guest: he is in haiti. >> host: where is a living? the living? >> guest: he is back in his home and he is operating the school that he operated before so he is doing service work. >> host: dessi of security? >> guest: i don't know. i don't know if he has what would be warranted. i just don't know. while we talk to them -- we can't talk to them about things like that on the phone. and so we don't touch on that. but we are in touch. >> host: from "quitting

america" the departure of a black man from his native land you write that america is a democracy because america says it is a democracy. america is godly and good and perfect because america says it is godly and good and perfect. these truths must be truths because america's voice is the only voice america hears. >> guest: that is very true. particularly true in human rights. we have these wonderful human rights instruments that came on stream with the founding of the united nations after 1945 spearheaded in many ways by franklin roosevelt and eleanor roosevelt and the universal declaration of human rights and the great conventions that followed that and much with the agitation of the developing

world for the end of colonialism, the end of discrimination and all of this. so because the united states won the war it largely had a bigger stamp than anyone else on the language of the human rights covenants. and so much of what you see in the covenant on civil and political rights you will see in american -- in the american constitution. a big similarity. but it's important to realize at the same time all of these countries across the world have ratified these important conventions. the united states has not ratified -- would not ratify the convention to protect the interest of children. we have not ratified the convention to protect women and

just recently the senate failed to ratify the convention to care for those in the world with disabilities and voted not to ratify the convention after listening to a plea from bob dole, making that plea from a wheelchair before the senate. so many of the important human rights treaties we have not ratified and were ratified by virtually every country in the world but the united states. our feeling is that is for you. it is not for us. we are exceptional. there is nothing above our supreme court. there is no law, there is no idea and there's no theory and we seldom listen to other

voices. we only listen to our own. that is the truth internationally and particularly in international human rights law. >> host: symbian symbian can't think hello for new good afternoon. >> caller: good afternoon. it's a pleasure to hear you mr. robinson. i am greatly impressed by you. my question for you is to ask you, what is your opinion relative to the movement for national reparations for the descendents of lack african slaves in america? that is my first question and my second question is, how do we address this issue of african-american politicians who are political prisoners in america particularly in california and to qualify that question, we have --

>> guest: me maya answer your first question first and then you come back to me with your second question again? >> caller: sure. >> guest: let's talk about reparations first of all. we have supportive -- supported reparations for for the jewish who were used as forced labor by volkswagen turing world war ii and the clinton administration supported that. we have supported reparations for japanese and these are proper and the right things to have been done. reparations for japanese who returned during world war ii was a terrible thing to intern people who were american citizens in that fashion. we have supported something that one could call reparations for

native americans. but when the question comes up for reparations for the descendents of slaves, america's huge enterprise of wronging as i have said, the longest running human rights crime in the world over the last thousand years. not only is it not discussed and analyzed and spoken about and responded to, it's just out of hand and that is not proper and it is not acceptable. but it is most important that the descendents of those people

who were ground into the dust under the profit making wheels of slavery ,-com,-com ma it is most important that those people recognize that we recognize that no matter what america, official america does, we know what we are owed. we know what happens and we know that there is a story of us ,-com,-com ma the longer part of our history occurred before slavery. thousands of years when the great pyramid was built. 5000 years ago, by pharaoh. this is now authenticated that he was very black, as were many of the other pharaohs and it turns out the only ones we know

much about is cleopatra because she was descended from greek ancestry. so we know about her but virtually everything in egypt have been built by then and built by black egyptians long before the arrival of arabs in north africa. we should know this history. we. we should know all of this history. but we have been cut off from it. when i was a child, as i may have said before, woodson grew up not far from where i grew up but his book the education of the was not allowed in richmond public schools. he was a harvard ph.d. but his work was not acceptable because it was telling something we

needed to know about ourselves and we could not be allowed to know. but we have to break through this because in the last analysis i think even more damaging than the theft of our higher that has bacterial sort of quantification to it is even more important to that is the effect of our story. that we don't know who we are. as ralph ellison said when i discover who i am, i will be free. >> host: cynthia go ahead with your second question. >> caller: my second question is, relative to the african-american leaders who are currently who are political

prisoners in america today, i am speaking specifically to people that i know who are attorneys, graduates of usc and ph.d. holders who are leaders in the black community who have been sentenced. .. five years in prison for going to educational workshops as an elected official.

and i have serious problems with these kind of issues, and i'd like to know what your position is on those issues, and i'd like to thank you for, um, your elaborate answer to my first question, because for me and my family, we cannot trace our history beyond our grandparents. so it is critically important that we educate our children and teach them who they are so they have more pride. >> host: let's leave it there. randall robinson. >> guest: i wish i could be more helpful to you on your second question, but i don't have enough understanding of the particular facts of the several cases to make a judgment. i would have to know more to form an opinion about whether there was or appears to be

mistreatment or not. i just don't know enough, and i don't have any facts on these cases at all. >> host: in "quitting america," mr. robinson, you write: in any case america has all but ceased any pretends of effort on racial, domestic and social justice issue. even the empty words of the old promises have disappeared from its public voice. >> guest: i'll give you an example. the evening that --

[inaudible] was abducted from his home before three a.m. the next morning when the american marines special forces, rather, arrived to take him away into the plane and to be flown into the night, i called the president. an american voice answered the phone. that was very strange. and i said i'd like to spook to president air steed. he's not here. is madam? she's not here. and so then the line was cut. tavis smiley was to go to haiti the next day to interview the president on sunday, february 29th. my wife, who was working for haiti at the time along with a former congressman, was making the arrangements for tavis'

trip. tavis called to say the trip is off, that ron just called me to say that he had just spoken to secretary of state powell and that colin powell had said that, that the thugs, the rebels were coming to port-au-prince the next day on sunday to kill the president. and the rebel head, a fellow named guy philippe, had already said that he was going to do that. sunday, the 29th of february, was his birthday, and he planned to kill the president on his birthday. that's what powell told ron dellums, and he also told that we'll do nothing to protect the president or defend him. the president's security agents steele foundation from the west coast had already checked to see

if the u.s. would do anything to defend the embassy to help them control the rebels. the u.s. said they would not. the president was all alone. the president's helicopter pilot had flown up to the north and spotted the rebels who had been trained by americans in the dominican republic and armed by the bush administration in the dominican republic. they were 100 kilometers from port-au-prince and helding away from port-au-prince, and the president knew this, and colin powell had to have known this when he was saying that they were coming to kill him the next day. colin powell had been saying publicly that we would not allow the overthrow of the democratic administration. privately, he was trying to frighten iowa steed into

fleeing. when he did not do that, or at least later that night when i had thought that his life was under threat, i called peterrer jennings -- peter jennings at abc, george -- [inaudible] at ap, randall pink son at cbs and said that my understanding is that colin powell has told ron dellums they're coming to kill the president on sunday, and we've got to get news on this. they said, well, we have to talk to ron dellums. i gave them the number. they called mr. dellums, and then peter jennings called me back and said ron dellums will not confirm that he had any conversation with peter jennings -- i mean, with secretary of state powell. no story. but the president knew that the rebels were a long way from port-au-prince, and so he didn't frighten, he didn't go anywhere. they stayed in the city the

entire week and into the night. then the special forces arrived, abducted him, took him and his wife against their will stopping in antigua not far from us. we were told at the airport even the immigration papers were inconsistent, first saying there were 50 people on the plane, then striking through it and saying there were 0 on the plane when in actual fact there were 50 people on the plane. the special forces people, the president and his wife and some other people. and so that's why we had to go to the central african republic to rescue, to bring them back to jamaica where p.j. patterson, the prime minister, gave them refuge for seven day cans before they could go to -- seven days before they could go to south africa. but the american role and the french role, colin powell's role was indefensible.

>> host: why do you-9 think the change? >> guest: you'd have to ask ron dellums. >> host: had you known ron dellums for a while? >> guest: for years and years. twenty years. >> host: we have another hour and a half today in our "in depth" program with randall robinson, the author of five nonfiction books including this one, "the debt: what america owes to blacks." and mr. robinson begins this book talking about the u.s. capitol rotunda. we're going to show you just a little bit of video from c-span

archives of mr. robinson talking about it. >> guest: when i was writing about the book that we will talk about many times ago. and denial, i think, operates for the victims as well. and i came down, and she said look up. and i looked up and saw a painting on the eye of the rotunda. it's called the apotheosis of george washington. it represents to us all the ideals and objectives of of american democracy. george is surrounded by 60 robed figures, all of whom are white. on the rum of the dome -- on the rim of the dome is a frieze that

depicts american history from the dawn of exploration to the age of aviation. no douglass, no truth, no tubman. no blacks period. the entire era of slavery is unreflected in the capitol. brought up the river put into place by slaves. the statue of freedom sits atop the dome of the capitol was cast, disassembled, reassembled and hoisted to the top of the

capitol by slaves. the forest between the capitol and the white house was cleared by slaves. but not a tablet, not a monument, not a museum exists to commemorate the victims of the american holocaust. ♪

♪ ♪

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>> host: randall robinson is our guest on "in depth." we have an hour and 15 minutes left in our program, and kwame in duluth, georgia, you have been very patient. please go ahead with your question or comment for randall robinson. >> caller: thank you so much, randall robinson and peter slen. bear with me, i have three questions for mr. robinson. i've been a follower of your work with transafrica, and i really want to thank you for your struggle and all the things that you have done for black people all over the world. >> guest: thank you, kwame. >> caller: all right. now, um, with my question, the first of my questions, my three questions is, question number one, what are your thoughts about imperialism as a philosophy? your work for human rights, for black people in america and all over the world highlights me

egregious -- many egregious violations of human rights by the american empire. is this any different from how the roman empire or any other empire in history has mistreated peoples? >> host: kwame, if you could, very quickly your second and third questions, we'll try to get to all three. >> caller: okay, the second question. what are your thoughts about the humans' role in the overthrow and murder of gadhafi in libya, and then the third question is, um, as a radical democrat, what are your thoughts about kwame kramer as a great philosopher king of africa? because he faced a situation in ghana th(u he declared himself president for life as a necessity against western imperial efforts to remove him through his adversaries in

ghana. >> host: kwame, are you originally from ghana? >> caller: yes, i am. >> host: all right. thank you for calling in and holding. randall robinson, imperialism, comparing it to the roman empire. >> guest: well, the united states has a military footprint in over 90 countries. one of the reasons we are so resistant to ratifying the international criminal court is that we don't want to see a circumstance under which any american might ever be hauled before the international criminal court and, for anything at any time. and so for countries that don't have that kind of of exposure, that are not involved in a number of wars at the same time and are not involved with so many countries in a military

fashion, they don't have the same risks that the united states has. and so i, i think it describes what we're doing. we're entered and were interested in after world war ii in opening the world for american trade and american products and o develop those markets -- and to develop those markets for americans and american businesses to do what we need doing. that takes on some of the earmarks of empire. and so i think it is a fair description and to call it an american empire. i don't think that the compare

softens to the roman empire -- the comparisons to the roman empire are perhaps so apt because the times are so different. but do we use the military to accomplish some of these objectives? probably. are we interested in profits? yes. we tolerate human rights crimes in china, and at the same time we try to crush cuba. cuba doing the best it can to develop its health care system under the american embargo had almost no catheters of any kind and other kinds of medical equipment, and there were certain surgeries in cuba that were made impossible because of the american embargo, and children were dying in cuba for that reason. nonetheless, we continued to

throttle cuba. but we would never consider doing such to china, because it would not be in our interests to do that in china. your second question was -- >> host: u.s. role in the killing of moammar gadhafi. >> guest: well, i think that was unfortunate. that -- i never believed or never wanted to send the u.s. military in to south africa to write wrongs. i thought that would have been a mistake there, and i thought it was a mistake in libya. i don't think that's a way to build democracy. and anytime you create the downfall of either a tyrant or a democrat through undemocratic military means, you find the restoration of order and tranquility a very difficult

thing to accomplish. and so the problems follow you in those cases. now, we may stop covering these things, but that doesn't mean that they're not very difficult and troubling consequences that follow on the heels of these kinds of enterprises. i think that was a mistake to do what we did in libya. and the way he was executed and the thought that we might bear some responsibility for that was more than unfortunate. >> host: and, finally, the political situation in ghana. >> guest: well, kwame wasn't perfect, although i thought he was a marvelous scholar, and i read a great deal of his work very closely and was impressed by it. he had a special connection to

the united states, as you know. he was a graduate of lincoln university in pennsylvania, and ghana was the first country in 1957 to accomplish independence which gave the black community and the united states a great deal of pride. and i felt that pride, and i remember watching and the cover of it on american television. but when too much power is concentrated anywhere, generally we see evidence of situations of those who came to do good but stay, stayed to do well. i don't know, i know about the charges, but i don't know the extent to -- whether they had been or were ever proven or not. and he was overthrown when he

was out of the country, of course, in china, and, of course, that was the end of a story of kwame, and i think he had so much to say about africa. but because he was saying things about a united states of africa and a sort of prioritizing the interests of africa above the interests of the, of those who want, who would want to make use of africa, he probably collected enemies. i have found in my experience that those people who vigorously try to do anything for their own populations to lift people in their own way, they collect enemies in the powerful west very quickly. and that, i think, was the case with -- of haiti. senator chris dodd said when all of this was going on that

president aristeed had gotten himself crossways of moneyed interests in haiti. that the people who wanted the money, who had enormous sums of money -- the canadian ambassador there said he'd never seen such wealth all concentrated in haiti in white hands, a haiti that looks very much like the old south africa looks. that's the part that we don't see from the outside, ha haiti is very much a -- that haiti is very much a race and class-based society. but here was a president who wanted to raise the black peasantry because that would, were the ranks from which he sprang, to lighten their load, to ease their misery by raising their pay from a dollar to two dollars a day. that alone had created an

unforgivable offense to the wealthy, and the u.s. was bound up indices solubly with that group. and so there was race and that t was attract today the u.s. and the sweat shops that didn't want any minimum wage raised above what it had been all the while. >> host: we are talking with author randall robinson, the author of five nonfiction books. 1998, "defending the spirit: a black life in america" calm out. "the debt: what america owes to blacks," 2000. and in 2002, "the reckoning: what blacks owe to each other." "quitting america: the departure of a black man from his native land" came out in 2004, and his most recent book in 2007, "an unbroken agony: haiti from the revolution to the kidnappings of

a president." and randall robinson is also the author of this new novel, "m "makeda," which is the story of -- >> guest: a grandmother who wants her grandson who wants to be a writer and she wants him to feel a great pride of possibility, and she wants him to know that the times in which he is living take up a very small space in our long existence and that we have known better times that we will see again. and she tells him of those times. when we were in command of an egypt, that was the greatest nation in the world. >> host: lots of, lots of facebook comments that we're

going to try to get to. do you, do you participate in social media, twitter, facebook, web site, etc. >> guest: i have no clue -- [laughter] none of it. none, none, none at all. i think these things are, they must be generational. i'm 71, so -- >> host: well, you do have a web site. randallrobinson.com. >> guest: yes, i do. >> host: and you can see all of mr. robinson's books on that web site. but with sonya comments on our facebook page, you just mentioned that we as a people do not have access to media outlets, however, we can have access to the largest media outlet, the internet. how can we encourage the harnessing of the potential power? >> guest: oh, i think, i think popular media is a major force. and i think young people understand the potential and the

might of that force, and we have to use it. when i was talking a while ago, i was talking about big corporate broadcast media that decides every night what to tell people about themselves. but more importantly, decides what not to tell people about what's going on in the world. that's a lot of power concentrated in a very few hands, and it is managed largely by small groups of whites in corporate rooms around the country. there are fewer and fewer blacks even in publishing. editors have disappeared from the ranks of editors in the great publishing houses. it is more difficult to get serious books published by black authors than it had been. and so these are very difficult

times for black people who want to say something, things that need to be said very much. and we as a nation ought to all have curiosity about. i think we need to tell not fewer stories, but more stories. i want to know the native americans' story. i don'ti want to know about ther wonderful music. i want to know about their culture, their traditions, their oneness with the earth and with the environment. i want to know about latino-americans' story. i want to know the story of the southwest of america, the story of texas when it was mexico. i want to know all of that. i want to know the asian-americans' story. now, that's what american history has to be. we have to know each other's stories. and we should know the stories

of people who live throughout the world. and then some of the fences between us would fall. we'd be hess inclined to -- less inclined to say that our concerns stop t -- stop at our borders, that we should all be concerned about humankind. no matter where one lives, we are concerned about their lot, and we cultivate that concern when we know their stories. but we don't do that. >> host: back to our facebook page we don't do that. >> host: jack comments so happy to see and hear randall robinson on in depth. now if we could just delete all the heritage foundation programs. i read that because unwanted to ask you, we hear it is often on c-span, people only watching what they agree with. what is your viewing habits,

what are you reading? >> let me say this about c-span first of all. i said to brian lamb many years ago, this story, this operation, c-span is one of the great contributions to democracy because you have with all -- without prejudice all voices expressing themselves. it is important that we all have an opportunity to hear all of those voices. i think the heritage foundation voice is a voice to be heard. i wouldn't even argue against a slice of life television offering that one sees as long as they are