did not attack the country that is the conclusion that very few theological lives have impacted but yet he may be the least certain and that is all that we go. it has been great to be with you. please go to springfield. it is wonderful. god bless. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> almost 80 years before they bought a house on the side in the all white neighborhood they didn't do that in defense of any grand principle but they simply wanted a home in a safe neighborhood, a home to be proud of that they could raise their baby daughter. but a simple decision did raise the grant principal because they would confront the power of segregation. by then to embrace jim-crow but at that moment the summer of 1925 segregation was spreading north as well as putting american cities along the color line keeping

these neighborhoods separate but not equal creating the nation get no. so much has happened in the intervening decades. the system of apartheid has been toppled of the greatest accomplishment of democracy in the 20th century no longer separate drinking fountains your waiting rooms were sitting at the back of the bus but 80 years the system of segregation as confronted is still largely in place. not just in detroit but almost all of urban america and including this extraordinary city that we're in at the moment.

>> i am here in chicago and married, in 1977 my bachelor's degree i.m. latino you think they're above the four young and bright and articulate people like me. no. one application after another so i thought i did this in college. i drove a cab but you work hard because you drive a cab i remember i went back to see my dad that christmas he said after all of the effort to for you to wind up doing exactly what i did i said it is the stage at the moment i have to have my self-respect and dignity. to pay the rent and gets the food.

>> this is the forward to america of the book by jefferson please excuse this is for. >> went to america of the book first approached me to do the for word i was surprised. first it is not valid with but a declaration. forgive my deceased but if somebody bonds to introduce

a grant composition the pronouncement is second to none "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" google if you do not claim. [laughter] also of some concern i have been dead, has a really bad 170 years? my goodness earth time flies when you're not consigned to the earthly vessel. i have to say the book is funny. [laughter] . .

[applause] thank you. thank you, justin. you've got a very anglo american crowd here. so you, you know, the whole phrase, you saito may tow. we say to mat tow. you say potato, you say potato. you say coburn. we actually say coburn. it's adjust course that was left out of a song. we're here to celebrate an extraordinary book, man, and keeping in with the spirit of alexander, i hope that the crowd who were at the memorial last year will forgive me if i begin the way i began then. which is recalling what you hear every morning if alexander stayed with you in your home. you would be barely awaking. at the crack of dawn thinking of

all the things that lay before you task, trial, and tribulations for the day. you would hear, not from the bed in the guest room, alexander didn't really like sleeping in guest room beds. he preferred laying on the couch in the living room. you would hear rising from the living room a voice. an unmistakable voice saying; "so, are you ready to greet the day with unbridled optism? "i think we should all just meet him in that chorus. are we ready to greet the day with unbridled optimism? [cheering and applause] ! fair enough. i want to think power house arena for putting out a gorgeous book. all of those who helped in pulling together of the book. we'll hear more about the process in a minute. also thank you to c-span with

who interviewed at ?arnd a wonderful feature i'm sure they will make available for people who want to see it. before i forget, i'm sure we'll be remembering throughout the evening the extraordinary news letter that alexander cofounded now edited by jeffrey st. clair. you can find it at counterpunch.org. i'm sure c-span will be kind to run that at least a few times in the next hour; right? it's a gathering of friend of alexander. any foes? damn it. he would have enjoyed that. on the platform here, you have a niece of alexander's, a brother of alexander's, and the daughter of alexander. we loved him a year ago, barely. it seems like too long ago and no time at all.

we -- all of us have different personal stories as well as professional stories to share. i think this evening you'll hear a little bit of both. the book we're talking about is a wreck, a road trip through political scandal dahl, corruption, and american culture. you'll hear about alexander's fondnd for road trips, his enduring quest not really to get through political scandal and corruption if you reveal it. and his love affair with american culture. which comes through strongly in the pages of this book. a little background you know. the book is coming out now. you heard he died a year ago. he was working on the book until the day he died. it was pieced together partly thanks to the process that he and jeffrey developed the counter punch at the end of the year they would publish a greatest hit column of therapieses over the proceeding 12 months. and this enabled alexander to

keep a good track on the favorite part of his own orb, as they say in england. and the book was then put together with extraordinary help from daisy, jeffrey, andrew in between feeding his animals, responding to the crisis of the day, talking to percy, his bird on the shoulder and talking to anybody else in the community where he lived. who might need his help, stance -- assistance or advice on preparing their vintage vehicle. alexander pulled together a huge wreck as well as a wonderful clek of articles about words that should be forever banished. you can find all the information at counter punch.org. i'll just say the book is pretty much as he wanted it. daisy can attest. i'm glad it's out here.

it reminds us that alexander -- while he hated cliches he did very much live up to the one about inflict the comfortable. you'll hear a lot about inflicting the comfortable. but i just want to share a little bit of his comfort for the afflicted. he had a incredibly reliable ability to stand up for the underdog. and defend those who were powerless in our media culture and in our society -- workers, for example, on february 28, 1996. he wrote, the newspaper for free trade surely have something to do -- at least the loss of jobs here on -- at least the lost jobs here on reappearing south of the border at the fraction of the cost. the day that column writing is so sub contracted to high school

students in guatemala. i expect to see a turn around on the trade issue among the opinion-forming classes. he stood up for young people. may 22nd of the same year. the history tiara about teen violation is more than matched by the alarm about fretting about -- with children having children. and children giving one another aide. bill and hillary seldom stop sermonizing. -- trash judgment. in 1970, 20% of boys and 4% of girls in junior high school claimed on self-reporting survey to have sex. in 1992 the figure had risen to 27% of boys and 20% of girls. and it's rising -- how come the pregnancy rate among 10 to 14-year-olds hasn't similarly skyrocketed. in 1976, 3.2 babies, abortions,

and miscarriages. amid the junior high revolution, 98 percent of girls arrive at age 15 without having been pregnant. junior high school students must be america's most skilled condom deployers. seventh graders should be enlisted to hold seminar for u.s. grown-up who support the industrial world's highest rate of unplanned pregnancy. finally standing up for animal in a charming piece about the democratic convention and conventions in general like to -- republican and democratic like to set up and tourist attraction town. he talked about republican convention in san diego and somehow the story of the convention merged with the story of sea world. which is part of the landscape there. sea world owned by the and highser bush corporation and

those 4 million visitor was a favorite venue for convention event. now riched by the -- [inaudible] by dolphins and -- recruited with bhairvel technique to exhibit the fundamental harmony of creation under corporate offices. sea world is nonunion with minimum wage level for the attendance. at least the zoo is teamster organized. but through -- why love it all to the human society? a new pool would enhance underwater availability. three of the bears had some nelly poisoning and confined to what the guide brightly termed their bedrooms. this meant overtime for 18-month sandy hook elementary school who was putting 13-hour days. i thought he looked frayed and angry. the guide insisted he was doing

a real good job in exhibiting polar bearish to the audience. he could with a union rep the say way the elephant needed one a few years back when she was being beaten. don't snarl, organize. the apes carefully built up preserve of rock and caused 570,000 worth of damage to the glass. alexander is going to be recalled here by andrew coburn. who is not only alexander's youngest brother but washington editor of harpers' magazine and the author most recently of rumsfeld. ed -- a contributor to many others.

daisy coburn will follow up and we'll take few questions. but if you want to get close to any of us and ask any real personal family questions. you have to have a purchased book in hand. [applause] >> a that'ser salesman. i think alexander would be happy right now, not just at this happy crowd come here to review his career and maybe even buy his book. but also glorious past two weeks when the war party has been utterly confined. the -- mass ranks to leaders and to leaders in to syria thrown back by the collective shout from the

people. i can sort of i can certainly hear his term of -- the last couple of weeks plus the humiliation of the idiot john kerry and would have been a very congressmen their on the prose style of the vladmir putin. serving as an example to us a all. [laughter] but i think alexander -- i've heard those who don't know him already will domino him better when you read the book. you'll realize what a tremendous influence on alexander our father was. himself a radical journalist. i'm going read a bit bheabt -- about what alexander said about him. talking about his writing style very much a -- refers to alexander to.

he wrote fast with a beautifully easy style. his prose could be light, ironic, also savage. he was never overbearing, cultivated but never patronize. he respected and enjoyed people of all social levels and ages. he loved dogs. under the force of his example who could resist the lure of journalism. none of his sons did 0 who knew first hand that freelance journalism doesn't bring home regular slabs of bacon. his body wore out when he was 77. mind stayed sharp. date before he died at the hospital he dictated a column. he never -- never lost faith in humanity. never failed to see the humor in life. i think alexander those words apply just as well to him including the terminal --

the dictation of a column very last column to this case. it alexander's daughter daisy within days almost as end of his life. alexander, i should say although he wrote about politics and everything, the human condition he had a very well developed sense of theater which he applied that's why his political writing was so entertaining. he -- he considered politics as a form of theater among other things. in reflecting the multiple disappointment of the obama presidency as it may strike some of us, i thought i would read something from november 24, 2009. his thoughts about obamacare. one aspect of obama. no one told us it would be boring. it is. the obama presidency. having an --

what side of bill's head if hillary hit with the land. would george find wait to the end of the sentence with the daily battle of the english language? these day tranquilly rains or seems to. senior white house staffers remain local. politics is getting duller by the day too. as idealish watch their expectations tripling through. what is left in enforcing private coverage and savaging the ped caravaning public approval which is nothing particularly unusual for a new president this stage of the game. let go to stop -- [inaudible] sliding down more? but nothing much improved

really. like didn't get anymore more entertaining. michelle never threw a lamp at obama. obama crurkts sentences nicely. alexander would have been disappointed at that. he would have been -- i can imagine the -- [inaudible] i would have gotten in recent weeks from him. which thankfully i live on the east coast. he would have no qualms about wake me in up in the morning. i could wake him. but given the recent turn of nefnt syria, he would have been pleased to written this on february 17th last year. few spectacle have been morer is -- er-- surreal. lecturing assad an the league of syrian government on the need to

accommodate rebel forces. at one moment last friday, these worthy sermons were by a message by -- [inaudible] the number one target on president obama's hit list. similarly praising the lion of syrian are rising up. al qaeda and the white house in sync. so the things he would recognize the world he left a year ago. but he would be sad. i know, he would be sad to missing it all. the end of joy and theater and particularly america. something i say in the introduction to the book. some fool in england. attacked alexander as antiamerican because he was properly -- [inaudible] about the clinton era.

not sexual which he cared about. i thought what an aid -- idiot. alexander loved the country. he knew it better than 99% of americans. he traveled endlessly back and forth. he traveled out so much wore out so many cars. he was going to be a sad loss. and that's only one of the many -- you wouldn't think of who mourn my brother as i do every day. thank you. [applause] >> hello. it's probably more than half the reason i got to the field of radical pound.

i have a great deal of gratitude to him for the many decades of pursuing this strange career. i was fresh out of college in 1975 had a job at the small brokerage firm on wall street that went but. one of my fellow crohn said you should check out the guy alexander coburn in the village voice. i said, okay, i will. and i did. and it was immediately hooked. was the first place i learned reading "the new york times" didn't always tell the truth. i had a vague understanding of politics but alex reading his columns helped me fill in the details. then i went to the university of virginia after the brokerage firm went under and carried the village voice with me to the lands of charlottesville. it was a marvelous paper.

alex was the far of it. i love the style of the press club column. the rude and loose sort of journalistic style almost. and some of that feel in the wreck as just an observation about this and that. , book, food, live on the tv. meandering from one profound witty observation or another. and i followed him, of course, when he went to the nation and i think the style of the column changed somewhat. whenever one write for the nation it sobers up somewhat. i know, alex fought against the tendencies and inspiration to all of us who write for the nation. but it's sometimes an uphill battle. the late '80s were grande of the nation. it was not only alex doing great

work there but also his sometime friend and collaborator andy was doing great stuff there sign and unsigned and a voice. very much missed by some of us readers today. anyway, it was reading alex and the voice in the nation that inspired me to think about writing about economics and finance political economy. i think the -- i thought at that time it was the left writing on that was either rather dull or out of date or not in tune with the headlines. i thought maybe i can do something like this. one day reading the news letter, which was an 8-page news letter. i thought maybe i can do one myself. i started doing my own news letter. and actually sort of took off. the low standards of the radical journalism trade.

i launched myself on to a little career on the pundit. i can't say i knew alex well. we would talk from time to time on the fop. -- phone. his last two-page column in the magazine. they later cut it back to once a month. about two-thirds of the last page column came from phone conversation we were having. i would say things to him. it was master class in writing. he would type it in his own language and it was just amazing to hear my what i was saying translated transformed in to something raid radiant and felt like i was sitting in the seat of a m.a.er watching him work. it was a marvelous experience. we had our differences there were a few years where we actually didn't speak much. there was a moment in the office where i think the sexist pig passed my lips.

my memory of that is murky. and then i got a little annoyeded about some of the stuff about climate change and disagreements about militia. i went part of the way with him on that. not all the way. but i decided to renounce feuding and several years ago we made up -- the imman on the screen was him with his bird sitting open the shoulder. i would asee siewm percy was named after the author "colocal sal wreck." since alex was creator of a mood earn school of press criticism.

we would talk about that. if got old and tired. everybody is a media critic. and it had gotten a little old. it was nice to see he moved on from that. we certainly had political differencers. what a great writer he was until the last minute. and to read just a little something he wrote in november of 2011 in the nation. i remember when it came out it arrived in the mailbox. i was excited by these paragraphs. these two paragraphs. that i read them about five times and read them allowed to my wife. a fellow nation writer. it was in the midst of the occupy moment. i have to admit writing the line at start of november that after digesting the daily report on national battle field -- my eyes flicker across the world

to greece. my heart beats faster. -- even after the years of therapy circuited with -- [inaudible] i clam in order the top. haul down vladmir's have a thesis and dip in. and dip in. end the war. it immediately murnlg the bank to one giant national bank. hearing my daughter's steps out the library i shove lennon back in to place and get down the ladder and pluck a copy of the book. even though i'm not what it is.

the l.a. interview i did with him with percy perched on his shoulder, alex identified a problem. people don't really spend their youth in markist party anymore reading the classic. because of that a rigor and understanding you can't find on instagram is lost. we have a patience new volume saver and quote a line from lennon that alex like to quote we can be as radical as reality i.t. that kind of thinking might not get you on msnbc. who wants the approval anyway? [applause] >> thank you. i had a feeling we would both

pick the lennon bit. hello. my name is connor i'm editor at the magazine. so i'm guessing everyone everyone knows about alex's great bit. you don't know the story, tradition par rated from the editor who test alexander's

morale and the deployment good fight by asking him if the hate for the powerful is truly peer. he put the question to the nation. one such -- soon to be the next prime minister of the u.k. preplayed with shock that he didn't hate anyone. as alex put. it's all you need to know and my god it really is. so yeah, alex's hay -- hatred was most certainly pure. it doesn't get to what made his writing wonderful. it was a joyful hate he nurtured. an inspiring hate. for all of the talk of the share tongue and pen. we are talking about a man who wants confessed to weeping on an airplane as he watched 1993's homewardbound. a film about two talking dog and a cat trying to make the way home. i believe he was sitting next to a woman in ad sales who was a little bit freaked out by that.

once the discovery came out it wasn't just the writing. it was also through youtube. watching video clips of him on the 1980 or a anti-war rally in california. he kept the spirit smiling all the way through without any kind of nottishnd or anything. one particularly angry young man called in and shouted don't smile at me. alex replied that he would smile all he wanted to. then he let him have it. aimed right at the camera. it was an impression on me. the man could easily deliver a

fiery sermon which is is a lost art on the left. not only dozen of appearances over the year on the show such as c-span but more obscure bit of alex speaking at the anti-war rally in california outside the court house. t on youtube. outstanding next to an actual guillotine he starts off with "a few facts about the gull teen ." it was invent bade liberal. he delivers a -- and the gull teen itself. i quote, every corporate chief in the united as he told the employees to break the law and asked his lawyers to get him off the hook and cheated people with the product. he if knew there was one possibility that the blade would go up and the blade would come down we would a better society. i remember one of my favorite spiel was from the school documentary behind the wheel. the first clip at the peek of

the bush administration's power alex said sure everything has gone to hell and no hope. he said bread and coffee. bread and coffee today in the united states are better than when he first came here. the staple of life he said. he wasn't joking. he was serious. it was the kind of thing no one cares about but he was right. there was change we could believe in. and struck me as a coburn version -- there's hope but not for us.

personally struck me as wonderfully inspiring. alex's hate is the twin of and i'm to sound like a total hippy. his love of america's. love of freak and weird owe and the losers and forgotten. he stayed a rad cam for the entire life. i don't know how he did. it i couldn't have managed. i would be running for an nba or organ commune. as i was telling friend of mine i can't imagine what it must feel like to don't u.s.a. son of coburn in the early '70s and have to watch the whole sorry affair of carter, clinton, and obama play out for decades. thank god he was here. in the words of mccarthy he carried fire. when he passed it off, i couldn't careless if he was taken few detour from the correct and proper socialist

path. or when i thought he was training his fire on the wrong segment to the left. not only because we need a hear a lot of it. because it was tempered with the optimism of his. the joy. i spent the last 25 years feeling trapped. i was -- suburbs. i grew up around lot of fundamentist and republican, football. plenty of guns, and of course lot of deer and dove hunting expeditions. at the age of 11 in a defiantly colorful printed shirt. i accepted an for a 12 minute 5 buckeyed shot. i hated it all. like most left thinking kids grow uing up in such places i got the hell out. the truth was despite my socialism it made me a snob.

alex, despite a healthy love for -- even dreaded lynn nonnever became a knob. he never turned his nose like i can at the red states. whenever i read in talking about the -- i find myself saying don't you get it? the people are racist if you went from ire lend you would get this. when liberal and lefty dismiss the party calling it an astroturf operation he was quick to call them on the smugnd. quoting a website called the socialist website. and alex replied you think the socialist left across america in 647 group or any group consistenting of more than a handful of people. he was right. hof right. he was right to imbuick them for fake politics and right to call out the left for fled the

battle. he was correct which he approached with the right plan of enthusiasm. while other his age are sounding the trumpet he was far more cautious and he was right to be. i was going read the bit about taking lennon off the shelf which he read beautifully. i thought it went to the core of him. when i first read it the disagreements i had had with him. they vanished immediately. in his words used to provide a training ground for young people who could learn the political economy and organizational

discipline and soul not knocklated by sectarian debate. not enriched by the -- [inaudible] i think the most valuable role for the left and might have perhaps hated this term being an ardent milltist. he hurled abuse at us. maybe hillary, slap. if only the democrats, slap. the kennedys were the last -- slap. why he was doing it. why was he doing it? he was mean? no. because he wanted us to survive. he want the us to win. and honestly. we needed it. thanks. [applause]

>> thank you for coming along to celebrate the launch of the fansic book. which really is a treat. and filled with extraordinary and unusual stories and, you know, my father's voice is really alive on every page of this book. i found it almost impossible choose an extract. i would flip through. this one, no this within. i hope you find yourself with a copy. and enjoy it. i'm just going read the first entry. which is actually an extract from a latter he wrote to me in 1995. his letter, his every day speech, his writing all caiment

from the same place. and i'm lucky enough to have a collection of incredible lessons from him and postcards he wrote. when i was a child, this one -- yeah, i said that already. he wrote in 1995. last year a mexican muralist with nothing to do is here. i got him to do an 18 foot by 8 foot mirror of the library. meaning ceiling. staid should more or less address the theme of the meaning of the universe. so there were horses on the wall of heaven then being mexican he had a peasant crucified and lower down a skull and lower down adam and eve looked bumming out. then nice birds and owl with i thinks with extended.

after a year of looking at this. i bumped in to daniel the painter from mexico and anglo irish and not mexico. i wanted everything a bit more bushy failed. the pes sate not yous fied by waiving a machete and adam and eve looking lovely. he digested it with relatively good grace. he wanted a mayan type woman crouching in suffer. i said no and dug up a painting by dna they one of the -- [inaudible] and said it try this one. then he needed a face so i think you were going end up on the ceiling of the library holding a

lily which he huge. the lily will have to be curved and the internal femme anymore is -- so we'll have to see. i hope you survive the final cut as they say in hollywood. i survived the final cut. there is my face looking very strange amid corn cob and machete and stuff like that. that's maybe a sense what he was up to apart from writing, which was paradigm filled with art he commissioned from local artists and hef up to a lot of other stuff. then i'm just going to read the short extract from the after ward.

that's he did. i think that's what we're all hearing and everybody is saying a sense of his voice which was like a trumpet. t exciting to have the book out. except please buy it, enjoy, thank you for coming. [applause] i think we have time for a

question q & a for maybe 2 questions or so. so let me know if you have a question. i can hand the mic over to you. if you have any concluded remarks. if you agree with everything he wrote. he would have been disappointed. it. >> i did not disagree with everything he wrote. specifically about climate change and i think he was, you know, more sympathetic to the maliciouses that he should have been. but he was wonderfully ease

servic especially a fend sincerity among people to say thing like, do you think hillary clinton would be better than obama? and that would have got an large dose of -- it was something he believed. and he was he never met a man he county like, but there was no feature of american life that he didn't embrace and explore

[inaudible] but he and dave and alexander had a close bond many nonconversations every week about -- what was going on in the -- [inaudible]

alexander had a -- [inaudible] [inaudible] and i think that -- [inaudible] sometimes -- [inaudible] different opinion between had very little -- [inaudible] country of the spinnings rescue -- one of the things you be fret the book is a picture how alexander actually lived. which -- [inaudible]

it was a community in many ways outside u.s. society. a lot of barter and community and sharing and exchange. a lot of people -- [inaudible] fig youring out how to get along with each other. [inaudible] through twisting, twisting, turning. and i just to have -- i'm constantly struck by -- [inaudible] soon after he died. a christmas party, actually. and [inaudible]

petroleum -- [inaudible] live in the valley came to remember al saturday. they went around the house talking about the things they had built and the -- [inaudible] and i just urge you to pick up the book read. it's part of -- [inaudible] i think very special. [inaudible] i remember being almost embarrassed. [inaudible] talk about their lough for the work they had done with alexander and the -- [inaudible]

the challenges they had. and gave us the first challenges we ever had. >> yeah. i think he did give them challenges like recreating a 14th century irish -- [inaudible] something normally asked to do and -- [inaudible] in this case it's very -- [inaudible] can do anything. there was interesting projects they collaborated on. also, i've been struck by people saying how they can't recognize the alexander coburn they look up on the internet. as the kind of, you know, generous friend that they knew in person. a lot of people have been -- [inaudible] mentioned what a great guy he was. what a nice man he was and, you

know, not just words of condolence but a sense of somebody who listened very deeply to people and was a thoughtful friend. so there is, you know, many sides to him that you won't find if you look up you'll find con trairn and those sorts of word on the internet. they bear no relation at automatic to who he was and how people experienced him cynical not for a second. [inaudible] obviously all the words are kind the last-minute words when people don't know what to say about someone and don't know much about somebody.

so, yeah the book contains a lot of -- i'll stop rambling. >> meet us at the table. we'll answer anymore questions so you to share -- [inaudible] the information. it's believed the book table is in the back somewhere? >> yep. >> register at the front for your purchase copy of the book. let hear one more time for the contributors this evening. [applause] >> if you have any questions or like any contributors to sign a copy of the book they'll be at the signing table against the wall here. thank you for coming out this evening. [applause] [inaudible conversations] you're watching