next on booktv carthy discussing teaching peace to students over the past decade with the cofounder of code pink. >> host: it's such an honor to be able to introduce you about the book and your life and i know you say you don't give homework to your students sometimes you do and you tell them to say that you love somebody so i want to start by saying that i love you.

>> you are sweet mightier. you and i are good pals and i admire your work and remember that interview that you did with brian lamb on q-and-a. that is a credit to both of you and you did that with a great sincerity and honesty. >> host: brian lamb is an amazing person and i love the interviews that he does. c-span is such a gift and as an educator -- >> guest: via the grade school program. he was here and have been here for a great time. it was in the mid-1980s and another student that year was jim nick governed who became a member of congress as an antiwar

liberal. he helped end the war in el salvador. i had him in class and i was kind of worried about him. you've got to get out. you are missing out on things. what do you suggest? he said there there's a wonderful shelter in dc. we go down and volunteer. he was working for a congressman said he went to town and met women from el salvador and said what's going on down there so we started taking the members of congress to el salvador and i think that he knew a lot -- i don't think that he knew where

it was, but he had a good heart. finally, joe persuaded congress to cut off the funding for el salvador. >> guest: it's amazing to think of the recommendation. >> guest: to get into congress because of fidel castro and he managed 8% of the vote. there he was again the "boston globe" and the worst the incumbent republican and they gave been little to no money and he was down in the polls for days.

meanwhile they had taken them to cuba and the incumbent wanted to have a little fun. he put him on the main intersection all day long holding and an armistice line -- enormous sign. it was so foul and dirty but four days later he still won the election. how are you doing, you are way behind. i was on the other side of the vote because a little while before i went to talk to him so did the pope. [laughter] >> host: that is a great example. >> guest: >> host: i was thinking how it would be marvelous to see a

diagram in the center and all of the links that go out to people doing amazing things around the world and you certainly just from reading this book you get a wonderful birds eye view of how many lives you've influenced in your teaching. >> host: they commended the classes and they go all through elementary school and high school they take math and science every year. with the ever put anybody through the schools with only one math course whether they like it or not so i've been trying to for years to get the curriculum to get them talking

about these things. >> host: said you were known for many years as a columnist for the "washington post" which women think of a writer as kind of a peak. you have tremendous influence here in the capital, you are reaching is that millions of people. why did you. they are from belfast and buenos aires, bangladesh all nobel peace prize winners. and bernie sanders and jim nick governed and people like that. and i always ask them what is

the best way to increase peace and a decrease in violence which if you seek a life of purpose the answer always came back the same you need to go back to where people are. so they took it to a local public high school a few blocks away from the "washington post" and asked can i come in and teach the class on peace studies class we don't have a class like that but if you want to teach the class come in. so that's when i started in 1982 and i had about 12,000 students over the years. you teach a. on the first day they didn't really get into it and they

asked why haven't we heard about these people? postcodes not only the people that you introduce them to but it's your ideas. first maybe we should say that this book is a collection of marvelous letters to you that you then respond to come and i must say i learned so much and was inspired to justify reading their letters and your responses and that is the beauty of this book. there is a combination of you pulling quotes of text from people that you just mentioned and your own wisdom and humor that comes out. there is a combination of that. you are such a unique person and here you sit in front of looking like you could be a republican. >> guest: ouch. >> host: i remember reading

the columns and then i remember you were appearing once at a protest that we were doing and you rolled up in your bicycle and you said i am mccarthy and i said that isn't all been mccarthy, he is the writer for the "washington post" and we made you get up and say something. but you embodies so many amazing volumes and concepts and challenges to students that come out so beautifully in this book and i think you said in the book if you don't teach them peace everyone else is going to teach them violence. and your concept may be for the listeners that start out with your basic sense of what is

peace. >> guest: if the result of love, if it was all easy we would be good at it. you have to talk about that. in my high school classes i deemphasize whenever a professor says we have a lot of ground to cover today, i told them to be the track coach where they cover a lot of ground. [laughter] there is no hurry to rush through. there's so much there. >> host: but it isn't just the absence of more like animal rights you write your bicycle. could you maybe give your personal philosophy? >> guest: i think we are all called on to decrease the violence and in many ways to go

about that, i decided one way is through my diet. i always ask my students for questions, who would like to reduce cruelty in the world and all hands go up. who would like to reduce world hunger and all of their hands go up. would like to reduce global warming clacks all of their hands go up. who would like to have a healthy body, all of their hands go up. i've never had anybody say i want to increase cruelty. okay, four a-alpha four. so then having to go up that you will make some progress and if everybody did that, we would have a very serene world. as the people say okay i can't do much about stopping the death penalty right now. i can write about it i can't do

much about bringing the troops home from afghanistan or the other 700 military bases we have around the world okay tell me something about my next meal. >> host: one of the marvelous exchanges in the book is when you talk about bringing the turkey into the crowd. maybe you can tell us about that. >> guest: two weeks before thanksgiving a little traverse im there were a lot of thanksgiving dinners where the kids go home, the rest of you keep eating. [laughter] >> host: you bought a turkey into the classroom for the students to take a sense of empathy. >> guest: the turkey's name is abigail.

bringing the turkey is down and the truck crashed on the highway. some friends of mine from the sanctuary was riding along to bring them down to the rescue center. so for four or five days a lot happened that day. it brought the reality home because the way we tell them is out kill them is out of sight. there's too much of violence. there's hot and cold. there there's the gun shootings. we feel that ended the media talks about that often.

they are written by drones, it's out of sight. whether it is hot or cold it's still happening. >> host: are they are personal things that you've made lifelong commitments to as long as you don't drink and you challenge your students as you write in the exchanges with the students is such a devastating impact on the society. can you talk a little bit about your interaction with the students? >> guest: that was a very touching letter that i had from a student.

i've been pondering if we can share. here it goes. i've always known that i don't need an toxicants of that sort to enjoy myself. so she goes onto you have any counsel this is august of 2009 you may have come across it in the world of the fugitives they are taken in the opposite direction that would appear to

run away. that's you. so i would encourage you to take a stand. it is the worst as more families are ruined by that drug than any other. >> host: you started off because a friend of yours was killed back in high school in a car accident having been drinking and that led you to make a lifelong commitment to drink. >> host: i always ask my students if you want to write a paper due do a research paper and research your goal in life where you spend your money and your time and spends a -- that tells a lot about you. if you want to research something close stop drinking this semester. >> host: i wonder if they see you as to good advantage sample and that makes it hard for them to aspire to you to write your

bike everywhere you don't drink, you are a vegetarian. it is on the larger level do you think that makes it less of a model? >> guest: we joke or not we are glad you are here professor they are a little loopy but you will wake up one of these decades. >> host: you don't even agree with drinking in moderation. it is that the commercial that anybody holding the book.

i have no friends i just had drinking buddies. >> host: the whole life revolved around the postgame drinking when she stopped drinking she didn't want to have anything to do with this when they realized the value. the name was george a harper. >> host: i wonder if we can talk a little bit about some of the other controversial things that you bring up. one thing that i'm sure is very controversial in this town is

that you don't vote and maybe you could explain why you don't and is something you that something you just put out to the students saying this is something i do or do you actually tell them don't vote? >> guest: the constitution sanctions violence in the article one section eight inaugural of the commander in chief they shall raise money for the militia. so anybody that votes for them to matter how they are is the document that sanctions violence and we've been doing that all these years, all the intervention. that is tracked in our economy and i've always show my classes this visual from the service committee and on the left is the military spending.

59% of the discretionary funding goes to killing people are threatening to kill people. we don't say we are defending democracy. and over here on the right or the social programs for the state department five for education. if you have the peace corps budget it would be way over here. >> host: there is no light dennis kucinich tried for many years. >> guest: i had written about and congress demings it by not funding it adequately. >> host: what about the rotc campuses and your involvement in opposing that? >> guest: they have rotc

programs. notre dame is the biggest in the country percentagewise. boston college, all of peace schools, and here christ was a pacifist. how can that be? i'm waiting for that hope to see whether he ever comes out and tells catholics you are forbidden to go into the military. there is nowhere near saying that. >> host: you live in dc. i could see if you had his views if you lived in ann arbor michigan or berkeley that you are in the nation's capital. you are surrounded by the contractors, surrounded by databases and yet you say things like you want to serve the country, don't join the military. and you're constantly in this book advising your students not to join the military. >> guest: the reason i do that, you hear this phrase thank you for serving the country. while no one in the military

serving their country, they are serving those that run the country. there is little evidence of those that run the country that cared cares about you. otherwise the va wouldn't have a long waiting list you wouldn't have a high suicide rate among veterans in vietnam and iraq and afghanistan. they don't care about you. otherwise they wouldn't have declared them in the first place they had only one in that war. that was the son of a longtime democrat whose son was killed but the other boys can i send this out to my classes.

this is a good bill by one of the journalists here in town and there he was. a father talking to his son and he said everyone that went to college in the 60s there is a war going on. [laughter] >> host: but today was the field war in afghanistan, iraq libya people are voted into congress because of war record and must be very controversial to many of the students. i'm sure some of them have been in the military or their parents have. how did that go over with them? >> guest: i didn't blame soldiers. i think many in my class and have one now. they all saw combat in afghanistan and iraq.

they said please don't ask me any questions. i promised i would not ask. it was very tense. here's a marine and yes they were so strong it was published in the newspaper. he is doing fine now. he said they tend to be disciplined people. the peace movement was strong in the dedication. >> host: if the peace movement had the resources that the military had for people to go to college because as you know, a lot of students go into the military to get their college paid for and in fact we have students writing letters about that in the book. but you see that you don't blame the soldiers at you tell them

don't join the military and doesn't that kind of overlap and make people uncomfortable? >> guest: you can't tell them what to do. you can show them what the options are. the first letter is a student from the naval academy she wrote a piece to me how she was an english major and it came to the panama organization in 1988 and they said women shouldn't be in combat and i don't think men should be either. nobody should be. they said you have some crazy ideas about women in the war. so she goes on in a very gracious way letting me know.

so i wrote back to her and said half a ton of thanks for the letter and it's in passionate language. so i go on and quoted einstein do the school books glorify the war they indoctrinate children with hate it. i would rather teach peace rather than war. they should fight for things worthwhile, not an imaginary geographical lines or racial prejudices and private greed draped into patriotism. there should be weapons of the spirit, not a shrapnel and tanks.

einstein who was largely ignored. so i invited them to come to georgetown university. she have to go had to go through the navy to talk up the admiral to see if she could be allowed to go with those liberals and she had to get security clearance. she came in every week. she had no credit for the class and came in. she invited me to her graduation and i kept up with her. she went five years in san diego and went to night school, san diego law, became a public interest warrior and has done work in bringing the war in africa back to justice. she now works for one of the largest law firms and is doing

good deeds and had she come to that class and never had this before and a student named grace armstrong wrote to her and said your visit to our class was the most fortunate thing that happened to me all year. she goes on and thinks them. listening to your story encouraged me to pursue my passion. i am so glad to have met you and in one afternoon i see you becoming a role model in my life so you never know. i always tell the students you should never ask any questions instead come in here and question the answers.

i quoted that great line from the great philosopher and she said violence like all action changes the world. but the most probable change is in the more violent world. >> host: i think one of the amazing things about your teaching career is that you are on so many different levels of teaching in high schools and colleges and law schools and also in prison. and one of the most compelling exchanges in here and the discussion is about the violence started by the prisoner on death row. >> guest: i wrote about the case and finally he was taken off death row by douglas wilder

but he couldn't get in because of the rule in virginia. if you have proof that you were innocent but i funded a class and inmates would take the class and its lowered the violence. >> host: the officials didn't like it. >> guest: they told the director you are running a prison not a school and they did close it. >> host: while it was going, you relayed in the book how you took your students however you managed. they gave a diploma to the roommates and it would wreck

ignited the other educations. >> guest: nobody coming home is pro- death penalty and when they met them in their car they they were still human beings and we shouldn't. they've been exonerated and scully john roberts, pro- death penalty people and obama is pro- death penalty. he says while in some cases it is so heinous that we have to do it. >> host: because he is pro-

killing people, too if you can kill people by drones. >> guest: i've been very lucky in my life i have a family with three sons that are doing good deeds in the world. they were athletes, and my wife i love and adore her. the family said zero now you are rushing into this. it's been 96 years. 48 for my wife and for me.

>> host: does she worry about you writing around on your bicycle? >> guest: i broke my jaw one time and i was hospitalized. >> host: and you still write everywhere on your bike and you are at 76? >> guest: 77 now. i run marathons, i've run 18 marathons and i just did the cherry blossom race on sunday. she was an obstetrical nurse and they do a class now that

obstetrical violence and how they treat women. and i admired the midwives and the obstetricians. the hospitals are run by men and i think that home births are low-cost and the midwives can do it and i bring them into my class. >> host: i did mention one thing when you said that you have a cost for writing letters of recommendation for the students but they have to bake something for you and your wife. can you tell us why you think that? >> guest: will you write a letter for me and if you do it by friday, okay you've got to

bake something for me. so some of these college folks they don't know much about the kitchens. this will help. but when you have the vagaries of think of all that you would save. >> host: a lot of the teaching you do you don't get paid for. >> guest: i don't get a love payment but i get a lot of satisfaction. the students that are debating

the issues i had a high school teacher that saved my life. you are not going to get out of this place. it is any secret high school. i told you what coming you write for me and right for me and i will get extra credits for you. so we wrote a thousand words every night during my senior year of high school. i love writing. but thanks to bernie i was able to get out of high school and i wrote in college and then i ended up at the post. i've been lucky all my life. >> host: one of the things in this book they are beautiful letters by the students and i

wonder with young people these days focusing so much on social media, twitter facebook where you are not writing more than a sentence or two are they good at writing any more? >> guest: i often do a little exercise. write out all the words you can think of beginning with the letters a and b.. you have ten minutes to do it so they start writing it down and rarely do they get into 20 words there's about 150 words in the dictionary beginning with the letters a and b.. you have to have a great language to get it out for people to value that it and pay you for it.

>> host: this seemed like it was from a young man that came from a upper middle class family that was lost. he said he had as much attention span as a goldfish and he worried you because it made you call his father to to say is he okay because he's worried about suicide. >> guest: that's right. i lost all students to suicide one in law school and to encourage and one in high school you often worry about that someone going through tough times and i told them no matter how bad it is you can do two things, call somebody and say i need your help. number two, no matter how hard a time you were going through the others have had the same decline in fury to overcome and you can

do it, too. for example i always think about that. he is doing fine now by the way. students worry that their grades endlessly and this one student wrote. it begins, she tells me her name dear professor i was in your class this past semester. i was quite shocked and slightly offended that i had received a b+. i did every assignment helped with the video, joint discussions where i could and i

even gave up a part of my former diet for this class. i'm still not eating meat. i didn't expect a b+ so i wrote back and said b+ isn't so bad. i think grading is degrading. >> host: you called call into fear-based learning. >> guest: the american education system no more than socrates i don't think so. but i have to do it. i teach at a class and i walked in and the very first day is

anybody here just to get an a if you are here tommy. and i promise you you can leave right now and i will turn it in for you at the end of the semester. my god what is the catch? one boy put his hand up and he said i'm here to get the a come and he left the room and never came back. so, the word spread. they are handing them out like flowers in the spring time. so they didn't invite me back and i never saw him again. he now runs a shelter for homeless people and he was in the class and it worries the

students and they tell him take a look at the obituary page writing a 2.9 average in college, he died yesterday. [laughter] go find somebody that said i wish i need more in college. >> host: it's also the parents pressure with a great letter where the mother calls you to say how is my daughter doing in class and instead ask your daughter. i said how would i know. [laughter] just ask your daughter she will tell you. i said send them off with the poison ivy doesn't make any difference. >> host: but you know it does make a difference in terms of the students of these days

getting out of school with so much debt. they are on this track that they have to get high-paying jobs and a lot of times that depends on what college you went to. >> guest: plus what you measured in. now obama is pushing science technology engineering and math. >> host: what do you advise people that stand coming with $100,000 in debt i want to do something good for the world what can i do? >> guest: it is a tough thing that i think that they will excuse much of the public-interest law and some of

the colleges also. but they are the bigger in the economy fighting all these wars. we've been fighting iraq and iran that can't be explained or afford it. and that children and the school are victimized by that. >> host: speaking of that, when the war in iraq started, it seemed like every friday at the chevy chase high school where you talked the students would go out. >> guest: 1991. i'd i've been a volunteer at the bethesda chevy chase high school. we would go out every friday. >> host: was it in the

beginning that you got in trouble? >> guest: we were right near this highway and we had signs and then 25 down honk again for peace heat. >> host: i love the stories that you tell of a woman coming over and then you think you're not giving it loud enough in my up loud enough in my day in vietnam we were allowed go and get a megaphone. >> guest: and there it was. you teach them make your voice heard. >> host: and the parents don't complain? >> guest: dot so far no. i encourage them the whole time.

>> host: again this is a military area how can you not get complaints that the teacher is coming in and encouraging students? >> guest: i.e. do not force them to come out and make signs where they stand. >> host: so do some of the students stay in? >> guest: . i have never asked about about except for a few complaints from the teachers and the student newspaper had to defend the protest because the teacher didn't like it because you made noise and i said the whole school should be out there doing this. not just all in the peace class.

everybody should be out there. but high school can be very high anxiety because the pressure on grades and colleges. so i say no homework, no test exams those examines how those are all forms of academic violence. there's never been a debate about that one. the pressure is on them. so we will discuss the things and then there's another teacher in the room as well. they are very good about it and so i love being at school and i taught in high school we had police in the holes carrying i said you must feel pretty safe, don't you with bulletproof vests and he said no, they are not knifing proof.

>> host: the issue of violence in the community and the home how do you deal with those issues? you talked about some whose parents were killed. >> guest: i had a student one time a couple of weeks she was leaving the classroom hearing about the ideas of war and peace my parents had been quarreling for years, verbally abusing each other, often physically. how do i stop that, she said and i said maybe if we had the parents in school when they were younger and taught them the basics maybe we could lower the domestic violence rape.

>> host: you bring up that some of your idols in terms of people were not so great in their personal lives. >> guest: he was a distant and cold hearted father. he was so angry that he couldn't get through to his father that he joined the military and now he suffered from alcoholism and became a prostitute. he wasn't a waste particularly a good husband or putnam was often an absentee father. a tall story, she was constantly depressed, he was cruel emotionally to the lives so you

have to take care of your family first. >> host: did you talk then you talk about people that do terrible things in the world. >> guest: hairy truman idolized his wife. i got to know his daughter margaret and clifton daniel who was the bureau chief in london survived to know margaret and harry truman idolized his wife and left his family. he bombed 100000 people and families, great family man. >> host: i assume that george bush was a nice father. >> guest: yes indeed. >> host: how do you deal with that keeping people in the personal lives and what they do in the room ex- >> guest: i try to tell my

students to be professionally not angry with personally gentle there was a great reporter but he was always seething in the drug industry and general motors and he was a great reporter and would leave the newsroom that he was the most gentle man and raised three loving children and had a very happy marriage. >> host: but you are not even seething -- you are seething when you talk about the issues that you do it in such a gentle way and with a sense of humor. so it is a beautiful combination of things where you still have

to fight the fire in the belly. >> host: you can't go around and raged -- i'm sure you do, we all suffer outrage overload. i can't take another. i'm sure you get through that yourself and you know how much i admired the dedication and getting the word out. >> host: another thing i wanted to bring up the advice to the students that want to live a life that promote a more peaceful world. i was a little confused in your advice because it seems like sometimes you are giving a great congratulations to people that go into the peace corps or become judges or people who are out in the world on some kind of a larger level trying to do

peacekeeping. and then on another site you see the most we can do is at this at the local level doing something in your survey said both? >> guest: some end up in congress like jim mceachern and i also have mark garrett as the director of the peace corps. so some end up that way and others to. i remember mother teresa one times that few of us will ever be called on to do great things about all of us can do small things in a great way so it is good to keep that in mind.

and also we emphasized to be successful. but it's more important to be faithful then successful. >> host: i know that my mother passed away, her greatest role model was donald trump. she thought that success meant money and i also wonder if you're talking with students how much you bring up the issue of consumption. it doesn't come up much in the buck or -- >> host: she had a great line live simply so others simply live. live simply. >> host: what about the other aspects of living? at catholic worker kind of model where people live collectively. do you bring that up with your students?

>> guest: i bring up a lot of guest speakers over 400 in the years. i've had a homeless veterans coming, i'd have members of congress and all varieties so they see there is a lot you can do. it's when you're in high school and college. many grew up in a very privileged family and haven't had much to struggle about. but if you have a grounded philosophy in nonviolence that helps a lot. i encourage students don't go overseas. go to el salvador.

you will learn the results of american foreign policy. go among the victims of the what the country has been with so many people. and then you come back really educated. >> host: or you can go in this country where would you encourage people to go? >> guest: maysan runs a baseball camp and they give you a lot of scholarships from underprivileged families and my son has a program here and it gets a lot of scholarships. he played minor league baseball and he has a program in the

dominican republic more than any in the world. it's right here in dc. >> host: i want to thank you for this beautiful book that people should read and would be inspired by and thank you for a life that is just a wonderful inspiration to many of us. you are one of my heroes. [laughter] >> host: me, to. >> that was "after words," the signature program which offers of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists public policymakers and others familiar with other material.

"after words" airs every weekend on booktv at 10 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9 p.m. on sunday into 12 a.m. on monday. you can also watch online. go to booktv.org and click on "after words" in the book tv series and topics list on the upper right side of the page.

>> >> but they don't know

anything of clinical process to discover what works. >> so we were gone the novel partnerships. well. there is a new book out on several bestsellers list and it is called "ghettoside: a true story of murder in america." and it is written by los angeles times reporter, jill leovy. she is joining us now at "the l.a. times" festival of books. who was bright in l.a.? >> guest: brands finale isn't 18-year-old living in south los angeles, the son of an lapd homicide detective who is black. his mother was an anagram from costa rica. he was murdered in 2007 and the story of his murder is the central narrative of the book at her