e is accredited delivering the latino vote to obama white house but has been arrested twice for protesting outside the white house. >> host: that is a quick look at some of the books coming out this fall from norton publishing. >> want to see the loss of journalism. i don't want to see, it is frustrating to see state and local journalism not covered because the national journalism is not as good if you don't have the local journalism. of lot of what i do is watching, reading local and state stories what is happening at that level how that bubbles up to the national level. if they're not people on the ground doing that sort of work, i think national journalism supper's quite a bit.

i really hope that someone figures out a way to keep that sustainable so we will see more social media where but they see stories being shared by what their friends are talking about is. >> with a true politics & prose fashion the events are

timely. while today's we present a view of history conspiracy's just three days ago this yea expanded such a place known as area 51 does actually exist. even though they disavowal of any knowledge of any aliens conspiracy theorist to not agree. [laughter] the best way to sum up is from page eight where he says the pundits tried to write off political paranoia and they are wrong. the fear of conspiracy has been a potent force across the political spectrum it in the establishment as well of

3308 of those pages layoffs often funny and did detail one present-day but old conspiracy that we talked about that i personally relate -- remember it made its rounds the folded $20 bill trick that made its way after 9/11. it is on page 300 tear. -- 302 if you don't know if you fold the 20 just the right way it shows how the world trade towers are ablaze that allegedly for shattering the 9/11 attacks. i don't think that can easily be dispelled as quackery but other examples

of so-called conspiracies may take 50 years for the real information to come out in the truce to be exposed. they're coming for me right now. we have the senior book editor "reason" magazine come university of michigan who has also written rebels in the air and alternative history of radio in america and you can follow him on twitter or on his plod page at jesse walker died blocks bought -- bond spy now present you jesse walker and his second book united states of paranoia a conspiracy theory.

[applause] >> what i am going to do is read about the book then there will be a shooting then i will read a little bit more from the book then we will take your questions. on january 30th and 803580 jackson the assassin drew a weapon and pointed at the president the pistol misfired people the second weapon loaded it and it failed to fire several bystanders subdued the would-be killer and richards warns that later informed interrogators you become richer the third in that

with jackson dead money would be more plenty that he was committed to a asylum where he died three decades later. that was the official story. to witnesses filed affidavits that they saw him at the home of george poindexter before the attack. he was a noisy opponent to the jackson administration and accused the senator to plot the president's murder then he quickly could mean the investigation. jackson told bystanders that the shooter was hired by the dam rascal poindexter to assassinate me. the critics countered that the president staged the assault to get support want to explain why it failed and then the south carolina senator in former vice

president that said if he was not directly involved at the very least with the speech denouncing jackson. and is to describe the crime he saw another plot at work. with to murder the president or whether he was secretly hired to assassinate him and then would have benefited in this lays power was more than willing to kill a powerful man. william henry harrison also said he was willing to an ex texas of the southerners wanted to add to the union

as a slave state and then he promptly died. officially the cause of death was pneumonia but others thought arsenic was to blame but nine years later president taylor was killed by the same poison in when president-elect james buchanan merely survived one of the most elaborate assassination plots ever conceived. february 23rd, 1857, seven agents point all the bulls of the world sugar at the hotel he said seveners drink coffee so they would be scared in the northern diners would be wiped out including buchanan. he very -- pretty survived. intimidated buchanan wrote more than ever the tool of the slave power. there is little evidence the

you could make a case in more than what was killed him. when the body was exhumed in 1991 buchanan was not even present on february 23rd but dysentery did break out and buchanan stayed there one month early when he returned for his inauguration. today it is attributed to this to wage back up but at the time several stories circulated claiming poison with the suspects ranging from a chinese man to rule another with homicidal visions the dead also included a southern congressman from mississippi. but when it was published in 61864 the country was at war with the south and then two

years later appearing in to the title history of the plots and crime. >> to overthrow liberty people were still reeling from the assassination of abraham lincoln and that feels like a conspiracy movie in the '70s received respectful though this is a the your time san "chicago tribune" and the papers praised philadelphia philadelphia, harrisburg, and a pennsylvania even the democratic papered claimed it the most powerful book of the century. and then in them with the letters to warn him all and

then one issa this since this started 2.0 he said you be careful of this food you eat and drink can what you take and it was also said to lincoln i have heard it was the undoubted fact that the last two weeks general's harrison and taylor came to their end of what was administered in their plates at the white house. after lincoln died two prominent ministers of detroit in connecticut it were the supposes murders of harrison and taylor and other alleged their assassination for the new york ledger but added stephen douglass to zaleski had been killed because his position in the party made him one of the against the rebellion.

in representative james mitchell of ohio claimed harrison in buchanan were poison for the express purpose to put the vice president's and the presidential office. may, 19 -- mr. paige 60 an extraordinary article accused democratic conspiracy of engineering the malaria outbreak. after commenting zachary taylor fell under the vapors of washington and died because he would act honest and straightforward the tribune writers would claim that washington in subsequent years was free of malaria for democrats but when the new republican party began to gain strength it was possible they could become the ruling power were then the water was suddenly dangerous than the national hotel that dozens of heretics' almost died to death.

but under the care for all soldiers during the of break the right to impeach johnson that to with three senators, republicans are frustrated with the sudden illness. in never had any of the time that with the water fishing one dash washington. the assassination theorist were not the only ones worried about conspiracy. with a slave power it was common currency in the north where the term was used to describe the political influence of the planter eaton not a theory but had a tone and the slave power had

the agenda to extend slavery to the territories and free states and to destroy a civil liberties and control policies of the federal government of the complete formation of the nationwide ruling aristocracy based on the slave economy lincoln himself believed he could clearly see a powerful plot to make slavery universal and perpetual and in the house divided speech he did engaged in conspiratorial speculation and then end grant's vice president says slavery organize conspiracies of the cabinet and in congress and conspiracies in the states and are received conspiracies in the navy everywhere for the overthrow the every and a disruption of the public. meanwhile southernsouthern ers had elaborate theories of their own gleaming slave revolts real and imaginedand

other outside agitators'. it was a paranoid time in america. it is always a paranoid time. thank you. that is how the book began and i will tell you what is in it then i will read a little bit more. basically when i use the word paranoia it is colloquial not clinical. virtually everyone is being a conspiracy theorist with political paranoia and i include you and me and the founding fathers. in with the assumptions is that it is the attack on the conspiracy theorist if they think it is nonsense also

those that genuinely did have been. and after watergate exposed various california and fbi. but the stories that keep getting told again and again and for what those day so it is nothing true of the object of the theory it talks about the anxiety in the experience of those who believe them as a term of folklore. and as the archetypal conspiracies garett -- terry i will give you their names did you can inquire in the

question and answer if you like the enemy outside come to the enemy within, the enemy below in the end of the above in the benevolent conspiracy because sometimes they are supposed to be the good guys in the second half with american history to the lands that i set out in the first half of the book. and into the data self conscious conspiracy of the ironic style that people learn not so much interested in either espousing may be one of the rhone said something. and also a to make sure

jollity conspiracy theories of the establishment that are not always called a conspiracy theories but has all sorts of notions taken seriously the most extreme example is of the '80s and '90s of these abuse scandal and something that sounds like and then one in one decade but then in the next decade but i mention in the ironic style and then it creates said jay vivid conspiracy to believe them themselves one of them that

it did the realist in never came back of the co-founder of a mock religion that was supposed to worship the greek goddess of chaos was a big influence on the trilogy of the classic cult novel of treatment of conspiracy theories. and then with lee harvey oswald then to defect to the soviet union it didn't get published until many decades later but it happen before the kennedy assassination. but then for the rest of the

reid to be thrown into the jfk circuit garrison is better known as kevin costner these-- the new orleans district attorney investigating the kennedy assassination in the '60s. [laughter] tried to get him involved in the investigation and after harrison started to suggest he was a part of the plot. garrison put out a press release saying he was closely associated withheld lee oswald that a number of locations in new orleans is in 1963. he gave a deposition before a grand jury at the beginning of 68 and the experience convinced them that his team was not interested in justice they seem content to pigeonhole him as a conservative. i explained several times i am not a traditionalist and/or a nationalist erases but i opposed the john birch

society that what passes today for conservatism. i a right wing for individualism but it is not authoritarianism they looked at me blankly not seeming to hear. garrisons allegations spread to the underground press and he put out his story available in every venue available. ocean living although that means they were surprised when the material they refuse to that plankton could be gathered as food was now mixed with statements by assassination theorist. garrison was spreading the story that those that bore some physical resemblance posing as oz walden the time before the president's murder to create a false trail of activity.

and then reconsider the assumption that he acted alone. in 1973 in the times of a leg later be expanded he began to suspect he really was involved in the assassination without his knowledge. [laughter] and then what went wrong with the laws of plan and then what happened to him years before circulating the manuscript among his contacts and then with the secret government reaction. but then to steel along with everybody else's movie but also was a tin -- accused of working for the conspiracy. and then the other founder

of the religion i am surrounded by the intelligence community and he matthau literally. [laughter] and then staying seemed to have cooled down now things appear to be on my side. and then robert was living incognito for reasons it cannot fathom. he wondered if the press was caused by foreign intelligence agencies. with those causing heart disease with a controller of a device instantly halting the pacemaker but in 1990 they believe the product of the society breeding environment of molecule -- manipulation and experiment. really to cut off the correspondents hero years later that the communique

with the diabolical mind control agencies you parroted. [laughter] he continued to right sometimes with a self awareness are sometimes not. he spent the last few years of his life working at menial jobs in atlanta and selling essays on the street it was a chaotic conclusion to the chaotic life a deeply poetic fate. you know, he said if i had realized this would come true i would have chosen venous. [laughter] any questions or accusations [applause] applause? >> what caused you to right on this topic. >> it was a payoff. i started reading conspiracy

theories in my teens this serious ones from the cia and fbi what came out the church committee report and often there on the same shelf with books that were not quite as reliable but often fun to read and around the same time also i a discover the ironic style for those that could appreciate the conspiracy theory without necessarily believing all of them all the way into the freak out if people believes it is true. that is the origin of the interest but i wrote this book in the last few years but i draw and interviews but as a journalist in the middle of the '90s with the unexpected often around

conspiracy theories so i had a long time to build on this. >> by a read your mind correctly you leave the impression all of the public is subject to a degree of paranoia and canby encourages the developing conspiracy theories. is this we were saying? >> i try not to use words like all. [laughter] there is always someone that could stay and up or be in a coma but i do think there are three things i hate to make any explanation from where they come from it is not a particular type of person that is susceptible

but there are three things we naturally speak patterns in create narrative say and tell stories to make sense of the world. we organize things and never to me because we have things to be afraid of with gaps in their knowledge that we create stories to explain the world that makes you prone to conspiracy theories then throw in the fact people really do conspire it is not like being afraid of where will soar sea monsters that you could point to say that happened. the chapter part of that is what actually happens with the bonafide behavior but also how about lowers the bar for what people will believe once you have heard this california did this you

think maybe they did that. then when it goes to pop culture and that influence is the narrative. i hope that answers the question. >> of course, for to thread has to be picked up so what about the internet? could that also be corrected do you see that having an impact. >> not so much on the appointees and the velocity but rarely in the 1990's there is this golden age of the militiamen and the hippies there all reading

each other's stuff in you could have all sorts of all i'd combinations the verge that has only intensified. >> what is the difference between misinformation and a conspiracy theory? >> there is a lot of misinformation and they all don't become involved taking of the death panels of obamacare. >> i actually struggled to call the death panels as a conspiracy -- conspiracy theory but they do have that image of condemning people to death but so where do you draw the line? i guess at the point where

someone in folks the conspiracy. to things that bother me of the phase conspiracy theory is turnaround one is the brakes by a major social institutions they're not considered conspiracy theories at least in retrospect and also if anything challenges dominant social and situations is called a conspiracy theory even if there is none involved. i think there is recently a top nine conspiracy theory of obamacare and two of them were conspiracies one team to moscow these ideas but most of them were not. m.a. in answering your question?

>> i can agree that it seems that americans are especially subject susceptible to those theories but is there any hard evidence to other countries? >> i don't claim that but i say in the beginning i talk about americans because looking at american history through the prism of what people have been afraid of but obviously for all i know the french are scared to death of everything. [laughter] it is clearly russia and released you hear about the conspiracy theories although i assume this style will

differ from culture to culture but the only conspiracy stories from a broad that i cover are those from america. >> of the american tradition that is to minimize the relations of latin america and as you perhaps know is full of ideas of what the united states did does is to see a conspiracy but to me i was attending a meeting at said johnson library and

printed in to the secretary of the cabinet of johnson. any way he said you don't realize that castro was getting ready to kill kennedy. but as a matter of fact i have castro interviewed committee times if anything he was looking forward to kennedy coming into the of ministration as of matter of generational understanding saying it was impossible for eisenhower to understand where he came from because eisenhower was from another generation but at that time kennedy was about to take office and was already elected and said i am the of daschle interview was taking

notes, five hours and he he said i'm looking toward of the improved relationship i was leaving and he called me back and said. [speaking spanish] they would not let him of what that eisner called the military industrial complex. >> do you talk about economic conspiracies like people describing things to forces beyond their control? >> the chapter on the enemy above of the evolution

thule's see the enemy above trying to capture the state budget a secret society to expand to include corporations like the second day get the united states and railroads that were subsidized so there's all sorts of economic related conspiracy thinking in there. >> this is a fascinating topic. thank you. overall i want to stay with you but what can you do about conspiracy theories that divide our country when we have no institution with the credibility to address and resolve the competing

views of reality? but to take 9/11 there is the architect and engineer case that is not possible under the laws of physics. that is pretty compelling dispute. what do we do when faced with conspiracy theories like that? >> there are a few things in their. a conspiracy theories can be divisive but social divisions are inevitable all the you could have more than others and that is what produces a conspiracy theory or suspicion wondering what is going on and with the other faction.

then of course, they turnaround and reinforced it but i don't think there is a magic bullet in there always be the proper direction for the country anyone else? >> the enemy house side is self-explanatory but of the two classic models and of native americans in conspiracies of the autistic

-- the thread of the aristocratic old world that is the enemy within in the people below at the social hierarchy because people at the bottom have conspiracy's also i get into a discussion and historians have a hard time looking back which actually happened and what each wears the voters freaking out because this of people talking.

in to be easily identified auntie social status and the possible agent of conspiracy the enemy within is a neighbor or co-worker or someone in your family. the benevolent conspiracy is working behind the scenes to make life better. and the founding of their cuts in secret to create a higher destiny with the benevolent extra terrestrial , and the ufo people secularized of higher powers the with that body of its storytelling.

>> with the word report, the conspiracy theories, the warren report in the assassination in what is prevalent now. >> a few minutes, you say? [laughter] the kennedy assassination the you heard that keeps popping up. i don't have a chapter devoted to it but also with those anomalies at all by what the warren commission says but people can have questions based on the reading of the evidence. but even as other forms of paranoia of light catches

onto the kennedy associate -- assassination parallels other fears going on in society another time so that in the 63 the president shot in dallas so to be worried about the minutemen the instant assumption that oswald was an agent of the radical right then and the approach you been activism and they appear to be procured and activism and there is the natural anti-communist theory as the new left belts and then with post watergate that breaks

through to blame the cia and fbi. in making it into the cia before we knew he was. in he continued in the conspiracy investigation and he ran the piece by someone that fabricated himself with bush sr. and the kennedy assassination but then ran to say he lied to me in since you have a magazine so

what i said cannot cover everything the mafia serious and so on but that is one way to look at these eric kennedy assassination. >> but the intersection of conspiracy theories and investigative journalism we hear so much more within the last 10 years of freedom of information act and it seems there is a much greater awareness that after a certain certain documents will be released in some form or another we have seen some of know where the instances where some pretty serious information did come to pass in and have you seen

any trends and maybe not to be a full-blown conspiracy but but those who do the investigation? >> but those are seeking to expose the legitimate conspiracy that exist and and those that are on the neddies side they could dignify with what they're doing with investigative journalism but and then the investigative journalism bayou mentioned for area that actually hess said one that i put on someone in the book come through as i was checking and i had to add staff.

said has actually become more difficult in the last decade so i do think that movement it is a much easier to find things online. but for my purpose to go to fbi .gov or even archive .org with old entire books in i'm sorry i gave a commercial and i forgot to fight answered your question this dimension. >> you mentioned at the beginning of the talks out there was a territorial

great reason tv video. criticizing each other to do harshly? it was more vitriolic into the beginning of american history without wages soar less credible. i will not quantify but but to have complicated conspiracy theories in vitriolic ones about each other. so planning to unite his family with the king of america and there was no

shortage of that vitriolic talk. >>. >> there were real educated. >> in some conspiracy theories we may say that what people knew to be true over the years about the ncaa also saying area 51 does exist not that i try to start a new conspiracy theory by d.c. any reason why things are happening or

with the attempt to get attention away from prison? >> i know why they chose this moment to rubio. they may have said why but i don't know the source. but the british government at regular intervals has pretty amazing but there is a ufo cover-up to cover-up the existence of ufos but it was a great moment of a bureaucratic asked covering

of suspicions later. anyone? so the last question has been asked. [laughter] i should have insisted you call me the honorable speaker while i am here. [laughter] i guess that is it. thank you. [applause] >> host: joining us now is from harvard university press, what are some books coming out this paul? >> we have a full list of

the leaked titles political philosophy, political emotion with the political society how we had to strive for the common good and the role of the motions to create the society of the common good. >> host: and she is with the university of chicago judge coming your also publishing her? >> a reflection on judging a terrific book where the judge addresses the state of judging a and in particular and addresses the increasing complexity of judging and handling cases how technological advances

impact the role of judges and i think of a particular interest the district of columbia case it is a strong book. >> host: is it intellectual? >> guest: and the judge is right seeing very accessible and it does point in his career reflecting on his career of the position he has had it is meant for a general audience. >> what is one other book you want to share? >> it is called the collaboration and we're looking forward to this book because he has gone dry rock -- the archives and tells

the story of hillers influence on hollywood 33 through 40 and a couple of things that not just hiller's influence of hollywood editing films wednesday that sentiment edited out and to have the films they and but not just in the german market but it is interesting favorite have this influence on the film house but it would matter a great lead to them put it to impact the film that were

here in the united states and globally. >> host: that is a preview of some of the books coming out by a harvard university press this fall. >>. >> the building of human rights will be one of the foundation's on which we would build an atmosphere that peace could grow as. >> i don't think the white house can complete the belong to one person but i think they should leave it there.

>> are our ideas best understood as a means for the most important consideration? is the best way to understand our social behavior the altruism gene that compassion jean the romance and gina? these are real things by the way. real claims. most importantly whether the narrow scientist is correct or not part of the social and political consequences is the the being they are so i would like to ask it used interest do the right and to

what end? there would like us to think it is only the establishment of knowledge but i will suggest there based to of those that are dubious and the kind of political culture i say it is all lamentable because it is too late and already well established. with these ideas are not entirely new nevermind of the cutting edge of scientific knowledge but the truth is these assumptions of the scientific culture is part of the ideological baggage of the indictment. in his famous lectures of romanticism to let the ideology this way but the view is the nature that if you know, yourself in relationships and understand

it between everything that composes the universe than your goal must become clear that where disagreement may occur that there is such knowledge of the entire western tradition. one is of a jigsaw puzzle that what we must seek that there is a body of fact that science is submission indicted by the nature and scrupulous regard for the non deviation from the fact of the knowledge adaptation and those advocates is much the same and the two should be considered together just as the narrow scientists do

and to confess the security not only to evangelicals but also sent to a historical adversary and the humanities. with that it goes were like is the human mind and creation is not the creation or inspiration or communion least of all the results of genius. it is the weak minded religion the human mind is through chemicals. this is called the moist robot. [laughter] sometimes i don't think they see the humor but i don't think he is kidding so then

the jigsaw puzzle of the brain is completed we will know what we are and how we should act. the problem is to know just who continues to believe and repel the lay in a story is as well popular science things are simply the abuse of science with a political agenda? those degrees are all free and historically what most scientists have thought and still think usually the fundamental assumption of the science and journalism and abuse as one of the great ongoing human endeavors as with the ideology as it is often called. unfortunately science is not to comfortable with the

economic exploitation and industrial militarism. how the ideology is it the brodeur ideology of capitalism is with the interest here. the only remaining question is to what degree western culture can free itself from the divisions of which the ideology finds the resources to compose the alternative narrative what it means to be human. i hope to show many of those are to be found in the poorly understood notions the nebulous move it that first challenged the jigsaw of you of the world but yet in the name of what contrary idea that would all be lost

to us now that romantic tradition that is presently enjoyed it cannot organize the recent rally of all the atheist in front of the washington monument. but to begin a process of remembering that movement of the artist philosophers and social revolutionaries in order to see what they may have to say to us now. i hope you find they can still speak powerfully to us. . .

>> when he was 79 he had a devastating stroke that he didn't die until he was 85. at a time when actually his death would have would have been a mercy and blessing. because he was given a pacemaker at year after the devastating stroke and the result was frankly that his heart kept going while he descended into demint to and near blindness and missouri. and actually living too long so those last five years of his life for frank a. terrible. >> host: when the pacemaker was put in at age 80, what was the families thought about that? >> guest: i think it was a terrible -- combination of

ignorance and denial. there was no real conversation with the doctor about whether or not to do it or what the long-term implications of doing this would be your the moral implications or what might bother's choices were. essentially the doctor just said it's a slow heartbeat so we are putting in a pacemaker and the result was that my mother can't i talk to her about it quite a bit later and she said i was still in denial. i still had hopes that somehow he did recover from a stroke. and i was the daughter on the far coast and quite ignorant about it and i figured it was their decision and it was up to them. if i had it to do over again though i think i would have been a lot more proactive at that early stage. i would have done a lot more research. i would have understood better what we are up against. >> host: if you had chosen to take out the pacemaker after two years would you do that?

>> guest: it's an interesting question. first of all it wouldn't have been taken out because actually it would be disabled with just a little remote radio device that would deactivate it. the cardiologist association has now put out a statement saying that it is not euthanasia and it's not assisted suicide. it's perfectly moral and legal to have a pacemaker disabled. unfortunately that statement came very late in the process for us. i think it's an area where madison is still kind of groping for answers and doesn't really know how to even discuss these questions and maybe we as a culture, we don't really know how to deal with it yet. >> host: katy butler what did your parents vote your mom and your dad had died, what did there and of life care cost?

>> guest: it's a very interesting question. if you look at my father's last five or six years of life you have $80,000 worth of pacemakers and that kind of thing. my mother on the other hand very close to the end of her life refused open-heart surgery and then she had a heart attack and that doctors again said let's do open heart surgery. >> host: how old was she? >> guest: she was a before that point and if we had done the surgery they recommended it would have cost medicare 80 to $100,000 but she declined all of that. i would say probably 10 or $20,000 because she was in hospice and she declined the most extraordinary intervention so we had a lot of social work and a lot of healing and reassurance from the medical team that we didn't get high-stakes expensive painful interventions that so many people suffer. >> host: are there people who choose all methods possible?

to stay alive? >> guest: yes. >> host: white? >> guest: i think they're a couple of reasons. we have to allow everyone their choice and their range of autonomy as they approach their own death. i think the other reason is we have a terror and an ignorance of death now because up until 1900 people died randomly throughout the lifespan and they actually read looks with titles like the art of dying. they actually considered it part of the spiritual application to prepare themselves for their own deathbed so they were very good at the bravery and courage that it takes to die. we have really lost all that in the 1950s and 60's when we became so adept at lifesaving and life prolonging. >> host: has death become an industry? >> guest: wow, what a question. medicine has become an industry

and high-tech fixes however expensive they are can be very appropriate especially in the early stages of life. we really can save people who would have died 100 years ago but towards the end of life it's actually unfortunately we structured our medical system so it's actually profitable for a hospital or device manufacture to put a device in someone for whom it's totally inappropriate to prolong death in an icu in a way that's totally inappropriate for that particular person. >> host: as medical techniques advanced in advance and it and at what point does a hard, long, at what point does that constitute life? >> guest: i think that's a really good question and again before the 1960s you couldn't preserve one organ. you could make a hard keep going now we can keep and a single

organ functioning or several at once when the person has no brain create or haps no sense of self, perhaps the soul has 30 fled the body and yet we are still fixated on the idea that pink skin and a hard meeting is in fact life and i think unfortunately we don't have language to discuss this and we have simple maximum longevity on an altar instead of worshiping true love conquers true relationships. the importance of avery and spiritual acceptance towards the end of life so people can have meaningful deaths that don't leave their families traumatized. >> host: and "knocking on heaven's door" you write doctors are often consulted by the suggestion that such financial strictures help save their medical treatment just as surely as the home mortgage deduction propose economic incentives and disincentives with the fear being sued or conduct in a death

penalty was saved professional failure and courage a specialist to refer hospice care only days before death. >> guest: it's sad to true. half of the people who enter hospice are there for only the last 14 days of their life for less. for example an oncologist who suggests yet another round of futile chemotherapy will get 6% of the price tag of that came out even if it's a 10 or 20,000-dollar came out but if he has a two-hour conversation with the family that is meaningful and deep and says i think we are at the end of life for what came out and do for you and i want to refute you to hospice he will get virtually nothing for that two-hour conversation. so why are we creating pathways that actually reward doctors for doing the wrong thing in situation where they sometimes don't even know what the right thing is, which is not a knock

on doctors. it's why do we put them in such an uncomfortable position? >> host: katy butler when you talk to them about this book what is their reaction? >> guest: there are whole range of options from you did the right thing to saying i don't understand. either i don't understand how medicine works but the other one is you don't understand how afraid we are that a family is going to see less for wrongful death and we don't know our patients. people coming to the emergency room, we have never seen them before. we don't know fits the katy butler family with the dnr and a clear living will or someone who is going to say my father is 95 but i have never discussed the end of his life with him and i want you it to keep him alive no matter what. so i think i came to understand as i wrote the book what a difficult position that they are in.

there is actually a phrase in the hospital called the nephew from peoria and this is the relative who flies in who has been not involved at all with the family care and now says everything needs to be done to perv on -- prolong the life. even family members who are dying and have a living will be sick clearly they don't want extraordinary measures. i have more compassion now for what difficult position we have with them in. >> host: changes in medicare's rampersaud structure could help. perhaps one day medicare will offer a choice covering up to two years and palliative care and exchange for the willingness not to -- let's ditch $35,000 deferred to later etc.. >> guest: i really think frankly we need a grassroots movement of caregivers to transform how we approach the end of life and how we reimburse

doctors so they can do the right thing rather than the wrong thing. >> host: is there such a movement afoot? >> guest: there is actually. there's something called the family caregiver alliance. there are groups that are moving towards this territory but we are up against some of the most powerful lobbies in washington literally. the most powerful lobbies or medicine finance and -- and those are very sophisticated forces. frankly we are a long way from the average caregiver understanding the huge amounts. >> host: katy butler's books "knocking on heaven's door" coming up in the fall. what is the book spring from? >> guest: it sprung from a "new york times" magazine article he after that it sprang from a "new york times" magazine article called what was it? what broke my father's heart,

how a pacemaker wreck their families like. this article published on my father's day and i was afraid that the readers would think my mother and i had been heartless and cruel towards my father and we had just the opposite reaction. we had an explosion of e-mails and people telling us about their own family stories and the large number of doctors and nurses talking about have trouble they are by the profession into not being able to face the end of life. >> host: where did the name of the book come from? >> guest: well it's a bob dylan song that i played over and over while i was writing this book. "knocking on heaven's door" is a short extraordinary piece of music that can shoot a feeling you're in the presence of the dying person and it transcends them and it's beautiful and i don't know if somehow archetypal.

i wanted to have that sense that it's not really book about heaven and not a book to reassure you about the afterlife but it's a book about standing on the doorstep and that's subliminal space where death is about to open its doors to you and your choice is how do you want to meet the opening of the door. >> host: its spirituality come to isn't it? >> guest: yes. i'm a buddhist but i have a strong christian anglican background. i receded to having my father get last rites on his death head. i feel one of the major reasons why we are so terrified of death is that we no longer are in touch with the ritual of the end-of-life that are elders did so beautifully. one of the people interviewed for the book said the purpose of religion is to guide to living through the experience of death.

and i think we need to somehow re-create some of those rituals because giving my father's last rites was immediately relieving of my anxiety and suffering. it really helped me know that i have sort of less my father and wherever he was going and whatever form it would take i felt that i had done the right thing and i was being reassured by an ancient tradition that was there to do exact lease what that volunteer was doing for me. >> host: were you able to aggregate how much the u.s. spends in taxpayer dollars on end-of-life care? >> guest: yes. it was not easy to find the right statisticstatistic s. there are a lot of wrong statistics floating out there but the reality is a quarter of what medicare spends his spent on the last year of life.

so when you consider that people may be on medicare for 20 or 30 years that's an extraordinary and balance and it shows something something is naturally wrong with her decision-making with the end-of-life. >> host: this is a preview of katy butler's new books "knocking on heaven's door" the path to a better way of death. you are watching booktv on c-span2. former pentecostal preacher turned atheist jerry dewitt recalls his loss of faith in the subsequent termination of his