i am very grateful to you for the way you have conducted proceedings. thank you, chairman. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> coming up next, "q&a," with radio talk-show host thom hartmann. then prime minister gordon brown at house of commons. c beenlare short -- and then clare short. .

>> thom hartmann, a couple weeks ago, we had fred grandy on this program, he is a republican, conservative, washington based former congressman on and on. you are oregon based progressive, not a former congressman, what's the difference of how you approach your day on your radio show? >> between me and our conservative congressman? >> and doing it from oregon and doing it from d.c. >> you know i think perhaps even more important than the difference is the similarities. i was -- i didn't see that particular show but i have seen many of your interviews and i have some pretty good friends who are conservatives, my father died a republican, as he died a couple a years ago and as he was dying i was sitting there with my hand on his shoulder and looked over and his two favorites pictures were on the wall, one of me shaking hands with the pope john paul ii and george w. bush on the aircraft carrier abraham lincoln declaring mission accomplished. what i see in the commonality is

that we all love this country, that we all want to make this a better world, that we all want our children to have more opportunity than we had and a better world. what -- and that is kind of the stepping off point for what the differences are between what i am doing and the fellow that you just described. you know he is working within the system and many people do and i applaud them, i am not constitutionally made for it. but being a politician, even a republican politician, i honor, that's a very tough job to do the people's work. and what i am doing is by and large trying to bring out the largest vision possible to give people an opportunity to hold a sense of the whole thing rather than the micro units for example, if i am talking about healthcare, i am ultimately always going to get back to is it a writer or a privilege.

you know the kind of debates that the founders would be having, and in fact i would say that they had because during the george washington administration they passed legislations, the care for the poor, the healthcare of the poor in washington dc in fact it was james madison's first veto, was vetoing a bill to give money to a church to do that and he said this shouldn't be done by the church this is secular job. so if it was that, they would do that, if it was, you know, large cap-and-trade or carbon taxes or things, i am trying to take a picture of global warming and even beyond that i think the whole global warming issue is even a bigger picture there and that is our understanding of who we are relative to everything else that is alive on this planet. the planet itself is a living organism. >> may i ask you who can hear you and see you now? >> we are on -- we're syndicated by i mean,

technically in all area -- we're syndicated by three companies dial global which used to be called jones syndicates me. they syndicate a number of progressive hosts as well as some conservatives', mail boards and clark howard who does a, kind of a consumer show, that is on commercial radio syndicated by pacifica. so we're on radio stations around country, non-profit radio stations. plus we cover about an eighth of the uk and we're in ghana in africa on pacifica stations and we're syndicated first page tv on television, the third hour of radio program, we do like, don imus used to do, you know, it's radio and tv at the same time. and so we run that through that third hour on first page tv which is on dish network. >> what time of the day are you on in oregon, when you do the show? >> in oregon it's nine to noon pacific time, it is noon to three eastern time. >> how would you say you approach your show different from most others that have one of these radio shows? >> i try not to do complaint radio, that is one of the

things that frankly turns me off, when i hear it. i think it's really easy to just complain about the issues with the people and the politicians, but that i try to be entertaining, informative and relevant obliviously but in a way that offers solutions. i don't, in fact i have a kind of internal rule that i have used in certainly writing the books that i have in print and articles and things and speeches and what not, but have brought to the radio show because my writing long preceded my radio show and now tv show. and that is, it's something my dad used to say, you know, "if you can't come with a solution, don't tell me about the problem". you know, i am paraphrasing badly but you know there is, what are the ways that we can fix these problems? i am very interested in results. i am very interested in solutions. but i think that the solutions have to come out of a large

understanding and that's the other thing that concerns me about some of my colleagues on the right and the left is that they will take a small issue and blow it up and hammer on it, as if that's really what it's all about. and i think that as a culture, you know, my last book, i don't mean this as a plug. >> yes, we're going to talk about your books. >> ok. well my last book is the subtitle of it, is "the crisis of western culture" and the reason we chose that subtitle is because i really think that there is a cultural crisis. the stories that we tell ourselves about who we are, relative to each other, relative to our political structures, relative to our corporate structures, relative to our religious institutions and most importantly relative to all life on earth. many of those stories are very dysfunctional and we need to change those stories. so rather than just complaining

about, you know, so and so did bad today, i'd rather, if i am going to even go there, or use that as a stepping off point to talk about the issue. >> i've listened to you for years and one of the things, i hear more often or not is your brunch with bernie. >> yes. >> let me run a clip when we covered your show, where you're talking to senator sanders, i'm going to ask about that. >> sure. >> and that's an appropriate role for the government is to protect us from the predators among us. >> it's funny, i mean this logic of bush and reagan and these guys, carries over to the degree that bush recently issued some rules, that wants to cut children from health insurance programs that are working very well, we have the s-chip program which is a very successful program, insuring more kids in this country. we got to insure every kid. what bush's response is he wants to cut kids because he is afraid this is in tinges on private insurance companies' ability to make some money for our children. but the full role of government

is protecting the american people is something that has to be re-evaluated. >> yes, it really does, we really need to go back to the mean of it. so we society not a me society. senator bernie sanders with us for the first time on our program every friday taking your calls brunch with bernie sanders, sanders.senate.gov website. bernie, thanks so much for being with us. >> good to be with you thom. take care. >> always great having you on. it's 57 minutes past the hour thom hartman with you on air america. >> you're listening to the thom hartmann program. talk radio with the rest of us this... >> two questions. why do you give an hour to bernie sanders and why does he do it? >> i gave to bernie because he is willing to take calls from listeners for a full hour unscreened and we ask people what their name is, what their city is and what their topic is and sean make sure they're not

drunk or screaming obscenities but that's it, i mean, that's you know, and he has no idea who they are or what's coming. and so here is a member of the united states senate, at the time that was recorded i think he was in the house of representatives who, and we've been doing this on our program for i think six years now every friday, who is willing to answer any question and somebody calls and they want to talk about carbon taxes or they want to talk about schip or they want to talk about healthcare or they want to talk about, you know, 9/11 conspiracies, i think bernie will take any questions. sometimes, he'll tell our listeners, that thinks that they're crackpots and sometimes he'll tell them that he agrees and he just -- he is one of the few politicians that i know who is absolutely willing to just be who he is in all cases. i have so much respect for him. i lived in vermont for 10 years and he didn't come on the program because we knew each other because we didn't because,

it was the result of a radio station editor in vermont who was carrying my show, who suggested that i should have him as a guest and all this kind of grew out of that and... >> why does he come on -- why does he spend a whole hour every friday? >> i think because he believes in his message. the thing that i got living in vermont was i remember, the first fundraiser, there is a friend of mine who knew bernie and he ran the alcohol and he runs a community action program in central vermont and he said, "lets go to a fundraiser for bernie, you know, it is just down the street, you know, and there is some music and free food or whatever" and i said, "oh no, how much is it?" and he says, "well the suggested donation is five bucks". and suggested, so i went down there and here is this guy who is doing the retail politics. and every week virtually, he is back in the state and he is

knocking on doors and talking to people and listening, actually listening and in the northeast kingdom part of vermont which is the third, the northern third of a state where you see bush signs in 2000 - 2004, you know, a lot of gun racks in the backs of pickup trucks, and a lot of mobile homes, a lot of poverty and a very, very, very fundamentalist and conservative area. bush carried that area in both the 2000 2004 elections, well over 70 percent, bernie carried it in both elections, 70-80 percent, and he calls himself a democratic socialist. the people get it that he's genuine, he's the real thing. >> is he you? >> no, bernie and i -- bernie is working within the political system and is -- while he has the big picture, he's willing to work at the micro level. i'd rather work at the macro level and i'm in the media. we agree on many things. >> let me guess, i heard you, especially in the light of the supreme court decision about corporations having ability to

take out -- you spend money on ads on behalf of a candidate. what is the difference between that and you have been critical, that of having corporation all these years who have owned radio stations, television stations, and encourage favor with politicians, or giving them what you've giving him, a whole hour every week. isn't that the same thing, inclined contribution? >> no, it's really very different thing. i wrote a book about this in 2000 called, unequal protection the rise of corporate dominance and the theft of human rights and i originally sat down to write a book about jefferson, because we had bought a house in vermont and in the attic was the 20 volume complete set of writings of thomas jefferson. i just sold the business and we were kind of retired and so i took a couple of years and i read it. it's only printed once, 1909, thomas jefferson memorial association. his diaries, his personal letters, his private notes, i mean, it's just incredible. and in the middle of writing this book about jefferson, i was kind of taking jefferson's

vision of america up till today. and i kept reading, i read in so many books that in 1886, the supreme court ruled that under the 14th amendment, because it says no person should be denied equal protection. there are natural persons you and me, and there's artificial persons corporations, governments, churches and they have to have some personhood status in order to pay taxes, own property, be sued or sue, things like that. and because the 14th amendment doesn't say natural persons it simply says person that the court had ruled, that therefore corporations had rights under the bill of rights. so i went down to -- so at that point i thought i was trying to do everything from original resources, i was actually reading jefferson's stuff. so i went down to vermont supreme court law library, which was a really old one. vermont was a nation before joining the united states -- vermont and texas are the only two that were and paul donovan,

a librarian there, found the original published in 1889, you know, decision and i read it and discovered that in 1886 the supreme court actually didn't rule the corporations are persons, in fact they ruled the opposite. but the clerk of the court, in his head note, in his commentary, which had no legal standing, opens it by saying corporations are persons under the 14th amendment and entitled to equal protection under the law. and so then i started digging into who is this clerk at the court, his name was john chandler bing clarke davis and he was formerly the president of newburgh and new york railroad and this was the railroads were suing the santa clara county versus southern pacific railroad case. and it was one of the first examples, that i could find of major, probably bribery level corruption, within and on the supreme court, him and stephen field one of the justices. and in fact, he wrote that head note after the chief justice

morrison waite, who he said he was quoting, had died. he died a year after the decision of heart failure and i think that chief justice waite is rolling over his grave. so in the intervening years, we've had corporations claim 14th amendment rights against discrimination, you know, if you can't say no to a black person at the lunch counter at woolworth, you can't say no to a hog farm in your neighborhood or a wal-mart. we've had them claim 4th amendment rights of privacy that we can't tell you about, or 5th amendment rights against self-incrimination, we're not going to tell you what we know about tobacco or asbestos things like this. and now we had them claim 1st amendment rights of free speech and they tried that in kasky vs. nike in 2002, which came out just after my book was published and were not successful in as much as the case ultimately just got pulled. it wasn't decided by the supreme court. and so, citizens united case

that just happened, the grounding assumption of it was that 1st amendment rights are extended to corporations because they're persons just like you and i. and the grounding assumption is based on a misread, misinterpretation of that original supreme court case. in fact, in the kasky vs. nike case, the good folks wrote amicus brief on kasky's side saying, you know, corporations should not have these rights, you know, a hundred major american corporations were saying, no corporations have to have the rights to lie, you know, the free speech right. and like we all do, i mean, there's no law against saying, no you don't look fat in that dress, you know, no law against it. if you're under oath may be or a police officer, those are the exceptions. so, what we had noticed was that in an earlier case

regarding this stuff boston -- first national bank of boston vs. bellotti, where in massachusetts there was a law that said that corporations couldn't involve themselves in politics, unless in clerical campaigns, unless the campaign directly impacted the corporation. and the first national bank of boston had put money under a political campaign that had nothing to do with banking. and so they were sued by bellotti, who was the attorney general, it went all the way to the supreme court. and in that case, the court -- that was one of the cases that set the precedent for this case, the court ruled that corporation actually had the right to speak beyond just it's own little narrow area, but in a dissent, justice rehnquist, who i always thought of as, you know, kind of conservative, justice rehnquist in his dissent said, this is from memory and it's a couple years old, but i think it's pretty close to, a pretty good paraphrase any way

he said, back in the 1886, without the benefit of open debate or discussion, this court rule the corporations have the right for natural person. i think that this court ruled in error in that case and this is an extension of that error, that's essentially what he said. the first half of that sentence was pretty much verbatim. and he had obviously never read the case, you know, when my book came out, i spoke at a law school, and there are several amount of user and there were about 300 law students and probably 20 to 30 faculty there and this was in 2002 and i said, everybody who knows that in 1886 in santa clara county vs. southern pacific railroad, the supreme court gave corporations access to the bill of rights the same as persons, raise your hand. everybody in the room raised their hand, they were all wrong. and even rehnquist believed this.

so, when in fact the court brief was put together on behalf of mark kasky, who was suing nike, the goal was to make sure that rehnquist realized that he was right, that, well he was wrong, but you know, his position was right that it was a bad decision. but there hadn't been a decision. and after the briefs were filed, the court did something that it almost never ever does. they came up with a one- sentence line, you know, writ of certiorari the decision to hear this case. this is after the debates and everything, you know, all this work that the court did was granted improvidentially, was we should never have heard this case in the first place it is just like that and i think you know, nobody knows why, but i think it's because rehnquist read our friend of the court's brief and went back and read the case, and had one of these moments, and now rehnquist is gone and he's been replaced by

somebody who thinks that corporations should have rights. that's really what it's about. i'm sorry, you asked me what time was i told you how to build a watch. >> no, we go back to the original question about the power of radio stations or television stations to be involved deeply in the political contest with no regulation on them whatsoever. why should they have that kind of power? or you, as a matter of fact, with your radio program, and the other -- the average, a lot of other entities don't have that kind of power, don't have that kind of access. >> it's the -- on an unlimited basis, they shouldn't. no institution on an unlimited basis should have free speech rights. this is where i differ -- this is where i agree with the four justices who dissented in the citizen's united case that was just decided. i think that whether it's a radio station, a television station, a cable system, a satellite, you know, whatever it may be that there needs to be, if it's part of the commons,

if it's using the public airwaves, or it's using the rights of ways that are maintained by we the people, to lay their cable systems and things. there needs to be some accountability to we the people. and so well i am not in favor of a fairness doctrine where somebody sits and says one liberal and one conservative because i don't think that it's even possible to calculate. michael savage spent most of the last year at the bush administration trashing george bush, does that make him a liberal? but, i am not in favor of that, but i do think that broadcasting in the public interest is a doctrine which held up until really 87 reagan weakened it and in 96, with the telecommunications act, clinton came and blew it up. that's something that we should be really seriously looking at again. >> i like given time to time read the back your wikipedia entry, just to see how much you

agree with it but there is a lot here so we're not reading the whole thing. >> yes, i didn't write a word of it. >> well i know but i just wondered, you know because a lot of people go there when they want to know something about somebody's background. it says you are 59 years old this year. >> i will be in may yes. >> american radio host, author, former psychotherapist. >> yes, i was mastered in the state of vermont as a psychotherapist. in 78, my wife and i started a community for abused and severely emotionalized kids in new hampshire. it's still there the new england salem children's village salemchildrensvillage.org, if i can give the plug. and ran that for five years and that was just, you know, was a slice of my life, i have done a lot of different things. >> was it a business or was it a non-profit? >> it's a nonprofit. we put a fair amount of our own money into it which we never got back of course and we worked there for five years at a $25 a week salary.

>> how did you survive? >> well, we've done well. in 78 we sold an ad agency that i was a partner in and louise and i, we've been married 38 years i think, something like that. i keep forgetting because, you know, it changes every year. we decided early on that we didn't want to retire when we got old. we wanted to take our retirement in little pieces throughout our lives. so we've built up and sold off five quiet successful businesses and a couple and we had one that failed and one that was. and then we'll take a year or two and we took a year and lived in germany for example. i have done international relief work for years in between and sometimes even when we're running companies. so that was actually kind of a retirement for us. we got out of the business

world and decided that we wanted to do something that had a lasting impact. something that was... >> where does that -- i know because of i've done some background, where's the word salem come from? >> salem the organization that we modeled our program after at the time in 78 when we started this. the only institution in united states that was family based for kids who couldn't make it in foster care was the menninger program in topeka. and knew karl menninger and heard of the program anyway. and the program in germany was started after world war ii by a german who had been a prisoner of war throughout the war and he started a program originally for widows and orphans and you know, just the people who were just ruined by the war but it turned into a program for abused kids and it comes from shilom and salem, they are hebrew and arabic words for peace and in fact the logo, the phrase next to the logo is salem means

peace or solemn actually, that's how it is pronounced. >> and the fellows name? >> gottfried muller he just died last year at the age of 92. >> he is important to you? >> he was my mentor in so many ways. i wrote actually a book mostly about him. it's called the prophet's way, it's nothing to do with prophecy. there is this path in forest in germany that he and i used to walk on -- he would walk everyday, it's couple of miles around the backside of a mountain, where he would go to pray and he would yell, jeremiah where are you when we need, and things like that and so he called it the prophet's way. so i named the book after that path in the forest it's about my relationship with him. i learned a lot from that man. >> did you know him well? >> yes, i met him in 78, we were running this ad agency in michigan and a friend of ours who was a vice president at holiday inns and was in the same church that i was in and don hough called me from germany one day, it was in march 78 and

said "thom, i am here in germany and i have just seen the most amazing thing and we need your help and i want you to be in nuremberg tomorrow morning". and i was like "don, a little busy right now, we got this big job to do for kellogg's'. and he said "no i've already bought your ticket, you're going to be here". i am calling in my friendship favors. and so i said okay fine, i have a passport, so i hopped on the plane the next day i went to germany and i saw this program where, you know, no more than eight kids in a house, a mother and father house parents, a family model for kids who otherwise would be institutionalized and it was just amazing. and mr. müller needed, they were starting a program in united states and he wanted, now this is in march 78, it was the international year of the child so it was the perfect year to do it. and he wanted to, he even had an orchestra of 34 kids who played beautiful music retired famous,

polty was his name, famous what do you call it, conductor, in germany, had taken this as his retirement work to build this orchestra. he wanted them to play at kennedy center, berklee performance center at boston and lincoln centre in new york in march and he wanted me to book that for august of the same year. and, i just, you know, and i said you can't do that. he said, you'll be able to do it, you'll make it happen and i told him ok. and he wanted our ad agency to promote it. he said "thom, you know, we need an ad agency that can do this". and so i originally took it on as a job and i spent the next four months putting this thing together. we actually did it ted kennedy got us playing before congress but andrew young's wife who was head of the international year of the child does know her quiet well, jean young she is, there is a chapter about her in my book about herr müller. and the kids played for the un, they played at lincoln center and berklee performance center and all those. and when it was all done,

maestro rostropovich and celeste holm had thrown a reception for us at the watergate. and i had flown home for about a week in the middle of this tour because our son was born a little child and we did a homebirth and so i delivered him. and so, he was there, a week old, and my wife and me and we were sitting at the table with herr müller and his wife and lewis richard who started salem program in maryland. and he said great job, thank you for everything you did and then he turned to me just looking at right in the eye and he said why don't you sell your business and do something worthwhile in your life. and i, the job, the project that i had done before i took on his job for which i never billed him, by the way, was to produce a 25-30 page booklet for one of the largest cereal companies in america that went out to millions of schools children called sugar-the

essential the nutrient. i still feel guilty about it. and we were making good money and, you know, we had the company volvos and the big house and all that and i just wasn't making it. and, so i turned to my wife and i said i would like to do that, you know, and in fact i said to him "what would you suggest i do" and he said "why don't you start the program like we're doing". so i turned to louise and said "what do you think" because she has always been my partner in all these things and usually ends up running them. and she said "that sounds like a great idea". and, so, we literally that month sold the business, moved to new hampshire over the next three months, bought a 136 acres on a 2000 acres lake over the next couple of years, built three houses it's still there and still running. >> and i know you were born in grand rapids. >> michigan, yes. >> name as many as you can the places you've lived in your life. >> well, i was born in grand rapids, i grew up in detroit and then lansing for most of my

life. we left lansing in 1978, moved to new hampshire started with children's village. then we moved to georgia to atlanta in 1983 and started a wholesale travel business, international wholesale travel. sold that in 1986, moved to germany for a year. came back to atlanta started an ad agency. sold that in 1997 moved to vermont and just wrote books for a while and started this radio show in 2003 in vermont and then five years ago moved to portland, oregon. >> there is this about you in wikipedia, "he received his c.h. chartered herbalist degree from dominion herbal college and m.h master of herbology degree from emerson college of herbology and a phd in homeopathic medicine from brantridge? >> brantridge.

>> is that the way we pronounce it, in england. >> yes. >> is that your education? >> well by large i don't even claim of it anymore. one of my books long ago had that in it and somebody put that on the wikipedia page. i don't talk about it. i mean, i don't call myself any of those titles. long before that i dropped out of two colleges. so i present myself as a lay person. those -- one of those was part residential program. a lot of them were basically kind of like university of arizona courses. i did that because in the 70's we ran a herbal tea company and i was just fascinated by herbology herbal medicine. went through a period where, you know, i was just really into it so. >> father an atheist, mother a christian. >> yes. although i didn't know my father was an atheist until the year that he died. >> why didn't you? >> he never told me.

he always dress us up and take us to church and sit there. >> what church? >> mostly methodist, i grew up mostly in united methodist church. there have been a few others that we're just nearby for convenience, cannon drive church of the nazarene when i was in lansing for a couple of years. i think he thought it was important for us to have a religious background. my mom was not a fundamentalist but passionate, she was spiritual. i mean she -- rather than religious, she went to church but she was -- and i will say my dad is deeply spiritual. he just framed it in a different way. but when he was diagnosed with mesothelioma which killed him, he and i sat down and i said you know, "what are your thoughts on this, what do you think is going to happen when you die?" you know. and it wasn't like i was trying to evangelize him or anything i was just you know. i wanted to know what my dad

thought. and he said "i think the lights are going to go off". and he said "what do you think?" and i said "i think that the entire universe is a living organism and that we're a small expression that's intelligence. and that we like came out of the light into this body and when i die i'm going to go back into the light". and i don't what that means but that's the best i can do. and he said, "well that would be nice. so i guess i'll find out." >> your mom alive? >> no. she died a few months ago. >> we have some video of you, i guess 1998 with the dalai lama. >> yes. >> show that and ask you what this occasion is? >> sure.

>> i was a -- traveler of the 60's as it were you know, i mean, i was part of the anti-war movement and all that sort of thing and i've carried from that day until four days ago with me the idea that there is them and us in situations where this clearly identifiable evil. and that -- and i only realized that just a couple of days ago honestly speaking that this was the level of story that i've been operating at that institutionalized evil creates a "them" that we have to oppose. and that's what we had done during the time of vietnam war for example. >> what's that? >> well, two things, first of all just to finish that story. we had -- there were 30 some of us who were invited to spend the week with his holiness dalai lama for what was called

the sythesis dialogues which we spend every morning talking among ourselves and every afternoon we'd spend four or five hours sitting with him and conversing about how to create a world that works and that has been made into a movie that is narrated by harrison ford it's called dalai lama renaissance. and at one point we there was a huge debate among us and it wasn't all americans but many of us were, about what we could to help the dalai lama free tibet and that we should have a boycott and that we would this and all those kind of stuff. and there were a few us who were saying no, no, no, no. this is -- we didn't come here to talk politics. we came here to, you know, for bigger things and spiritual things what not. but ultimately, we decided that we would present his holiness our willingness and between the 30 some out of us there, you know, we had millions, tens of millions, maybe hundred of

millions of readers and viewers and listeners what not. and so the fellow who is doing the presentation stood up and said "your holiness we're prepared to call for a boycott for chinese goods until china stops trashing tibet". and without going through a long story about it, i'll just kind of cut the chase. he pointed out that outside institute there was a steely 700-year old tower with 4 sides with 2 sides in tibet and 2 sides in chinese. and that this was when the emperor of china and the king of tibet's son and daughter married. and for all these hundreds of years, maybe it's more than 700 years probably years that tibetans have been saying that it was basically they were signing a trade deal and the chinese have been saying that tibet agreed to become a state of china. and so a) this isn't something

that we're going to resolve next week and b) he said, he asked this fellow this question, this fellow has been very active in the entire anit-partha movement in south africa. and he said "could this lead to the death of people, you know, will this create a crisis in china". he said "my understanding of economics is that you stop buying things people will be out of work, they'll be hungry". and the guy said "yes". he said "people died in south africa because of the boycotts and that's the price sometimes you pay for freedom". and his holiness said "well there is the problem". he said that "if one child dies because of the actions that we've taken us from, it's too higher price to pay". and that was the moment for me when that, circle in the sand that i was describing in that clip the dalai lama came along with a whisk broom and just whisked it away and said "sorry there's no us and "them," it's a giant we. we're all in this together".

>> why do you people consider that dalai lama to be holy? >> well the buddhists thinks that he's the reincarnation of the buddha of compassion and i don't want to speak for the buddhists so, you'll get a better description of that. i think that most people around the world think of him as, if not holy at least worthy of tremendous respect because he absolutely lives his values. i think the story i just told you is a great example of him. he actually lives his values and has risked his life at times for that. and he's an outspoken advocate of peace in the world, you know, the ideals that we all love. ideally, i felt the same way meeting pope john paul ii. he was -- he invited us to --

for a private audience but it was in the context of a concert in at castle gandolfo. >> this is about a year later from this... >> i think it was a year before. >> year before? it's right in the same time. >> yes, yes. and in fact i haven't -- this came out of the blue. it was my book about herr müller. there was a woman who used to work as a volunteer in his programs back in the 50's or 60's. and her husband was one of karol wojtyla best friends and karol wojtyla of course became pope john paul ii. and when i wrote about the book of herr müller she shared it she sent a copy to her, she showed her husband and he said oh, this is great. we've got to invite this guy to this annual thing that we have where we invite people to -- it's an ecumenical words. you know, they'd bring protestant and catholics and people of other religions together for to listen to a concert and there's about 30 or 40 people who get to have what's called a private audience its really a photo op. and a few short words with the

pope and i was sitting about 30 feet away from him through the concert. and behind him was this 9 foot statue of peter, you know, with keys to the kingdom and a book. and suddenly it occurred to me that, this is the man who with a dozen or twodozen words could bring war to the planet and other popes had or could advance peace. and when i met him, well actually shook his hands and talked with him, i just got this sense of this very grounded decent person. and i went back and started reading his writings and things and you know, he begged george bush not to invade iraq. he tried to intervene in the karla faye tucker case, you know, against her execution. he was a principled and i think very good man. so i think that the world views people like that as holy because we all aspire to be in

someway that consistent to our values. >> who do you think if anybody, convinced you or lead you to be a speaker, a writer, and then run a talk show? >> i've always wanted to be a writer. it's my mother was an english major and she graduated from the msu with a degree in english. >> michigan state university? >> michigan state yes. and she and my father also they had when he died, there were over 20,000 books in his house. i lived in a library. >> 20,000 books? >> 20,000. the entire basement was organized like a library. >> what had he done as a profession? >> he worked in a tool and die shop.

when he came back from world war ii, he was in an occupation in japan for the gi bill, he was going to college and he wanted to be a history professor and then my mom got pregnant with me which was unplanned. and so he dropped out of school in his second year and went to work in a steel mill in grand rapids which is where he was exposed to asbestos that ultimately killed him. but he continued a lifelong passion for learning as did my mother. >> but he worked in a tool and dye shop? >> yes, for 40 years. >> for 40 years and had 20,000 books in his library. >> that's right. >> and ended up his life as a conservative? >> his entire life, yes. in 1963, i went door to door with my dad, i was 14 years old, or in 64 i was 13 years old, i went door to door with my dad for barry goldwater. >> did he, when you would get together with him, will he talk his philosophy and what... >> oh we talked all politics all the time and i think one of

the reasons why i enjoyed having conservatives on my program and i do almost everyday and debating them respectfully. >> which by the way, i was going to ask you about that as unusual in talk show world because when you hear a talk show whether it's a conservative or a liberal, they're only talking to their own. >> yes. >> then why do you this? does this come from your dad? >> well i think in someway. first of all i think it makes good radio, you know, people slow down for fist fights and car wrecks, you know conflict or conflicting ideas. >> yea but you don't scream at them. >> no i don't but i mean it's not gratuitous, it's genuine. and which leads to the second reason which is that i think that when you have people disagreeing on issues and not calling each other idiots, that is disagreeing on issues, it highlights the issues. it makes them brighter, it makes them clearer, it helps people on both sides frankly to understand them better. so, you know, i am trying to model for people how they can

have a debate with their crazy brother in-law over thanksgiving dinner and not have a fist fight or how they can talk to the who works next door with them. >> but when did you depart from your father's thinking? >> when i was 15 or 16 years old. >> what was the moment? what was the reason? >> you know i think probably the anti-vietnam war movement was what awakened me. i wasn't old enough to worry about the draft that it was all around and... >> was he for the war? >> yes, absolutely. still defended it until the day he died, you know. >> was he for iraq? >> yes. he thought george bush was -- he was a little uncomfortable with george bush. my dad was more of a eisenhower republican than a neocon, but he was a republican. >> so age 15 and then what about the writing thing. when did you start to write? >> oh yes, we were talking about writing. i started trying to write for

publication when i was 12, when i left home, when i was 16 i have 56 rejection slips on my wall. i wall papered my bedroom with projection slips and so i've been writing my whole life. >> when was the first time something was published in a real publication that meant something? >> you know i've never told anybody this, i probably shouldn't but what the heck. it was when i was 16 and i was virgin and i wrote a short porn story for a men's magazine that they paid me a $100 for. >> and published? >> and under a pseudonym and... >> have you ever published that? >> no i don't even know where it is now because i used my friend jerry's address to send it in and when it came, they sent the tear sheet along with a check and jerry's dad opened it and he thought it was just -- and he tore it up and threw it away. >> what had led to you, i mean was it the writing or the porn

magazine? >> well it was a actually a love story that just happened to have enough sex in it that it would satisfy that magazine and i've never written erotica since then but... >> when did you find yourself... >> i am fascinated by... >> ...you've written 20 books at least. >> i've written about 30 but i have 20 books in print right now, yes. >> and your first book was about what? >> the first solely published book was about attention deficit disorder. in fact it came out of the work that i was doing with the children's village. >> and your publisher now at least, it has been over the last few years random house in one way of the other? >> well random house we're actually viking penguin publish 'threshold' my most recent book and berrett koehler has published several of my book. they are going to be reprinting i think for "unequal protection" in may which is the book of supreme court. we're updating it to include the new decision. >> is this been good financially? this part of your life. >> it's been ok. its help put three kids through

college and i haven't gotten rich on it but i... >> how are the kids now? >> our oldest is in her mid- 30s, our middle child is 30 i think and our youngest is 27. >> give us the radio station, i mean the radio show part of this. you are i know one of the things in wikipedia is the hartman original article talking back to talk radio became part of the original business plan of air america radio and we are in the shadow of the closing down of air america radio. i know you have left it but what was it all about? how did you get into that part of it? and had you had a radio show before air america? >> well yes, i started in campus in radio actually in 67, in brody hall as i recall. >> they ask you? >> yes and then made a tape and got a job when i was 17 as a dj at a local country western station. and you know back then you could put yourself through

school with a part time job. my wife put herself through colleges as a waitress at the howard johnsons and i put myself through school to the extend that i did $2.65 an hour as a dj and which is pretty good money back in 68. and i did that for a couple of years, i did news for seven years and i was program director for a while most the news stuff ended just being, i just mornings and then in the afternoon so going to work with terry, my partner in the ad agency. >> where were you right before you wrote this article on air america... >> so i had 10 years in radio back in the 60s and 70s so i understood the medium. and in 2002, thanksgiving of 2002 louise and i drove out to lansing we're living in vermont, we drove to see our family in lansing. and all i could get all the way there was right-wing talk radio and i am businessman and entrepreneur and i knew radio

and i thought you know there is an opportunity here to not only to do some good but also to make a living. and so i wrote outline called talking back to talk radio and laying how to you know the idea of formatic purity and how to do radio, how to do talk radio basically. and shelly drobny, shelly anita drobny who started air america read it and said bingo and called me up and i... >> mean read it and just picked it up somewhere? >> it was published in common dreams and then it got picket up by which the website on and a bunch of other ones, picked it up and it got around and... >> called you and said what? >> you know i like to talk to you. can you come over to chicago and lets kicks around some ideas. >> where were you then? >> in vermont. >> doing what? >> well at that time i was just writing and kind of retired

from having the ad agency but a few months after that i thought "maybe i should put my money where my mouth is, you know try this out and" so we found a radio station in burlington, vermont that was willing to give me two hours on a saturday morning after the tractor swap. half our calls were "is that john deere 301 still available" and >> give it to you? >> yes like well he let me do two hours on the radio. he say try a liberal talk radio lets see what happens. >> just free. >> yes i didn't pay for it and he didn't pay me. >> did you have calls right away? >> yes actually other than the tractor calls. and after three or four months of doing that and we put together a pretty good tape and got a show on a network, ie america network at that time was on for the uaw. this was before american had started. we were on 34 stations as i recall plus sirus satellite radio. >> daily?

>> yes i was on from noon to three i still am. five days a week and that's how the show got started. it got started as a lark, you know, as let's see if we can still do -- can i still do talk radio. >> and the uaw owned the network? >> yes, yes and they shut it down... >> united auto workers >> yes, yes, the previous president had been really enamored of the idea and by the time they brought me on the next president he have died the earlier guy and the next president thought they really shouldn't get in the radio business and so when air america opened they closed that network. and so i independently syndicated my own show for about a year and then i signed a contract with air america and ended up replacing al franken for a couple years. >> how hard is it independently syndicating your own show? >> you have to have a product that people want to carry. i just bought some satellite

time and we just kept on producing the show and kept it on the satellite on the same place where ie had it. >> did you buy it for your show and then give away you know, bought it for the others or how did you work it out financially? >> we were running the same business model that is run in talk radio in general which is that the radio stations have to carry five minutes of our advertising along with our show and we sell that advertising time and that's how we make a living and then they have worth 11 to 14 minutes in the hour but they can sell advertising. >> and you... >> and that's how they make their money. >> were you selling the ads also? >> yes, chief cook and bottle washer, louise and i and we had one fellow working with us and we sold the ads and we produced the show and i engineered the thing, i mean, i was a hand radio operator when i was a kid, i know electronics and, you know, we got it upon the satellite and when ie went down we were able to keep most of the radio stations and we kept our

sirius satellite clearance and we're still on sirius and xm. >> al franken moved to minneapolis, did the radio show for air america out of there everyday. >> oh he did from new york for a while i think. >> but eventually he moved there and he then ran for the senate and he won. >> that's right. >> did you then moved from vermont to oregon to do your radio station and eventually you're going to run? >> no, i did move from vermont to oregon. >> and why did you do that? >> well there was variety of reasons, one of our youngest daughter had moved out there couple of years before we did, my mother-in-law moved out there and my brother-in-law before we did. one of our other kids, she and her husband were getting moved to west coast and they could choose la or portland, and they were going to go to portland so. >> is it fair to say that vermont and oregon are the two most liberal states in the union? >> i don't think as a state they are but i'd say portland and burlington and montpelier are very liberal bastions so.

>> do they think differently there and say, when you used to live in atlanta or you used to live in lansing? >> oh yes, very differently. they're different cultures and there was book written 20 years ago, the seven nations of america about the, you know, the rustbelt and the sunbelt and the different cultures and different language and different world views, it's really true. >> when do you find that you're the most effective in communicating? >> when i am talking about something i really care about. >> and do you speak? >> yes, i do a lot of public speaking, yes. >> and would you rather do that or talk on that radio or everything? >> i enjoy both, i still get stage fright when i do public speaking, but it goes away after a few minutes. the bottom line for me is if and this sounds really corny and dorky but it really, if i can accomplish, you know, i've incurred a lot of debts in my life.

i've not been and i think this is true of all us i am not, you know, i've not been the world's best human being, you know, i had many failings in many ways and i also have a great debt to my parents for having brought me into this world and raised me well and a great debt to the founders of this country who created a place where it was possible and all the people since then and to people like herr müller who have taught me so much. and i actually get pleasure from giving back, you know, when i used to do relief work for salem in germany, we went into uganda in 1980 during the war when the tanzanians threw idi amin out and the red cross had just pulled out, people were getting shot left and right and we took over the namalu prison

farm. we had 10,000 or more people dying of starvation, i mean, we've had little kids die in my arms it was really-really grim. and there was a guy there, there were five of us who were not ugandans, who were there working and one of them was from one of the christian agencies in united states and one night we were all sitting around talking and he gave this big speech about how he hated being here but he knew that this was the thing that was going to get him to the heaven. when jesus met him at the pearly gates, jesus would say ok, you did that, i know you hated it but you did that and came my turn to talk and we kind of go around in circle and i said, i am here because i can't think of anything i really do. fun is the wrong word for being in the middle of a famine but i've lived my life on the edge

in so many ways and that was just another edge and we were doing something and herr müller always used to say to me you know, do something, you know, just what's the next thing, what are we going to do next, what are we going to do next? >> people can listen to you if they can get you on xm or sirius or in a local community on the website. >> sure, thomhartmann.com, however you spell it will get you there. >> thomhartmann.com. last question why didn't air america make it? >> i think their biggest sin was that they were under capitalized, rupert murdoch spent -- lost $100 million a year for five years on fox news. so before sean hannity made his first dollar they've lost $500 million. the washington times had lost a billion dollars for reverend moon, air america lost probably $20 million in all those years. their biggest sin was they were under capitalized. >> thom hartmann, thanks so much for joining us. >> brian thanks you much for

having me. >> for a dvd copy of this program call 1-877-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. episodes are also available as podcasts. >> coming up next, prime minister gordon brown at the british house of commons. following that, former british international secretary is the

witness at the british inquiry on iraq. remarks by british national committee chair -- democratic national committee chair tim kaine. tomorrow on "washington journal," detroit news washington bureau chief david shepherd looks at the impact of the toyota vehicle recall. lawrence yun discusses the state of the housing market, home sales, and foreclosure rates. we examine how the pit -- political process influences national-security and foreign- policy decisions. "washington journal," live at 7:00 a.m. eastern here on c- span. >> what a lot of rubbish. what a lot of rubbish. the reason he is in favor of the alternative vote is is election time.