here were no casualties, but the nurses were forced to evacuate. to evacuate the patients in a pitchdark building without electricity. brian: when you saw this, when did you actually do this piece? molly: after i got home. when i do pieces like that, i need to do them in my studio. as you can see, there's ink, there's dye, there's acrylic. my technique of working is, i go around with my iphone and sketchbook. i take thousands of iphone photos. i also draw from life. i can draw a really, really fast. it is a way that i build rapport with people. when i come home, i take the stuff that i've drawn from life and my iphone photos and figure out, what are the images i want to have here? what are the most dramatic shots? what are the shots with the best lines? what are the things that boil down the essentials for the viewer? and, those are the images brian: i choose to work from.

what is more important to you, the art or the politics? molly: i think the art at this point. artists are really defiant by nature don't you think? brian: how would you define your politics? molly: i'm a leftist. brian: what does that mean for you? molly: what does being a leftist mean for me? i think i have a rather old-fashioned definition. i believe in the individual. i believe in their inalienable rights, however, i also come from a more leftist economic perspective. i believe the best way to ensure those sort of inalienable rights is a social democracy. perhaps even more socialistic. you know? brian: where did it all start?

i know it says on wikipedia that your mother was jewish and your father was puerto rican. molly: is. they are both fortunately alive. brian: your mother, you say she is an illustrator. molly: she was an illustrator of children's books and toys. in the era that she was working, toy packaging was very artistic. everything had these beautiful hand-done illustrations. she did stuff for the cabbage patch kids. holly hobby. she raised me in a house where art was not some airy fairy thing that was far away from us. art was just a prosaic way that adults made a living. art was what my mom did. art was what my great-grandfather did. art was just, you know, how we lived. brian: what about your dad? molly: my dad was a professor. brian: where did you get your views? molly: i was very influenced by my father. my father was a marxist. he was someone who told me i had only two rules to live by. to challenge authority and be interesting. he was someone who bought me goldman when i was a little girl, the russian-american anarchist. brian: people, if they want to see your art, they want to see the videos, they can find it at what places?

molly: my website is mollycrabapple.com and since i am a contributing editor for "vice," they can go to vice.com. they can see my illustrations, not all of my illustrator journalism, but a vast amount of it. brian: what did you do for fusion tv? molly: i did a series of five animated essays for fusion tv. i did them with my dear friends and collaborators, a sound designer and director. they used stop motion animation and illustration to talk about the prison industrial complex. and about policing in america. brian: what we are going to look up first is locking up immigrants for profit. explain what that is. molly: there is a vast system of detention centers for immigrants in america. these detention centers are very expensive, but much more important, they are taking people accused of a civil

offense, not criminal, and locking them up in conditions that are as brutal as that that we would put a convicted criminal in, often indefinitely and always without the rights we would give to someone accused of a criminal offense. brian: let's watch a little bit of this. you can explain more about how you do this. [video clip] ♪ >> on march 31, 2015, 80 mothers announced a hunger and work strike. they were undocumented migrants in prison with their children, some for up to 10 months. they were held in a family detention center in texas. they were demanding freedom for their children and for themselves. the united states puts immigrants behind bars every day. they are locked up in a patchwork of government facilities, for-profit detention centers, and local jails. the vast majority of these immigrants are not criminals but they are kept in conditions as brutal as any prisoner and they have fewer rights than if they were charged with a crime.

there are currently over 34,000 people in immigration detention today. they sleep in dormitories often so crowded they are forced to sleep on the floor. communication with the outside world is limited. they are subjected to punishment like solitary confinement. brian: have you ever visited one of those centers? molly: i haven't. i have visited prisons obviously,. i went by reports of people who have been in them. also, testimonies from former officials and lawyers who represent immigrants. brian: how do you do that? molly: what do you mean? brian: the artwork. how long does it take for something like that? is the camera up above you looking down? how do they do the stop action? molly: for something like this we start with a script, then we take the script and we break it into the most compelling images. for instance, we start out by talking about these mothers on

hunger strikes. i found photos of mothers on hunger strike. and then i thought i would draw them behind the fence. i do something called a storyboard, which is kind of like a series of sketches that show every image that is going to happen. then, after the storyboard which takes about three days, it is time to shoot. the way we shoot it is, we have a ladder over the drafting table. next to the ladder is a stepstool. on that stepstool is whoever the cameraman is. over the next few hours, that

person stays on the stepstool, maybe 15 hours, with the camera pointed at my table while i draw every image. in the order we figured out before hand. brian: how long does it take to do one of those? molly: everything for that project was between three and five minutes. and, the actual filming takes about 12 to 15 hours. brian: and where is it seen? molly: they are seen on fusion's website and on youtube. brian: so anybody can watch all of them? molly: anybody can watch all of them. brian: how many have you done? molly: i've done five of them. brian: we've got some video of a place that you say played a role in your life. it is in paris. it was owned by an american. he is deceased now, but his daughter now runs it. it looks like this. shakespeare books. explain. when did you have a relationship with that place? molly: i'm getting drunk with nostalgia here. when i was 17, i was in paris and i heard about shakespeare and company bookstore. i thought maybe i could meet those people. i was really shy at that age. so i sat in front of this place, and i started drawing and this old man comes out. i think he was 86 at the time. brian: by the way, that is a bed in there. molly: what are you doing to me? this is like seeing my youth. this is so beautiful. i love that place. george whitman, the owner, he

invited me to stay there. i met him that day. i lived there for a month, then i came back for another month. then i would come back over the years, back and forth. we would sleep in the books and between the stacks and we would work at the cash register. in my case, pretty incompetently. that was -- i don't know, i guess my little heaven. that place that i always return to. it is this place where -- i guess i felt the lesson that george gave us was that if you enacted your dreams with enough rigor and practicality, you could make anything happen in the world. this is a place where anyone could stay there for free. in the center of paris. as long as you wanted. it was a successful business for 52 years. so, george would always call it the little socialist utopia that could. but unlike most utopian experiments, it didn't crash in

flames and recriminations after two years. it is still going on now. george's daughter runs it. brian: there aren't many beds there anymore though. i wonder why. it is a different place than when george was alive. molly: i didn't know that they kicked out all the tumbleweeds. i do know that the upstairs apartments where they used to have writers were changed. brian: why do you think you believe what you do? in other words, what is it that -- molly: why do i think i believe what i do? brian: what part of the world don't you like? molly: these are very broad questions. brian: you've got molly crabapple's 15 rules for creative success in the internet age. find that on your website. molly: you can find that on boing boing. brian: what is boing boing? molly: boing boing is a very successful blog that highlights things usually about technology. brian: you've got some stuff on here. that is why i'm asking you. for instance, you say, companies are not loyal to you.

molly: obviously not. brian: why is it obvious? molly: a company is motivated by making money. especially a publicly owned corporation. that is their responsibility to their shareholders. a company is not motivated by personal loyalty. perhaps a small business is. you know, i -- i have a few employees and i am motivated by personal loyalty to them. but nothing like disney or nbc can be motivated by personal loyalty. it is written into a corporate charter that to you cannot be. brian: what have you done because of that in your life? how independent art you? -- are you? molly: what do you mean? brian: well, "vice" is a corporation.

molly: i don't think that you read my whole rule. brian: right now i didn't, no. but, yeah. "please never believe a company has your back. they will discard you at a moments notice. ask other freelancers what they are getting paid and don't buy into the financial nagging of some suit." molly: exactly. you asked me what i said about it, and that is the full thing. once you realize that they are immoral by design, you can deal with them in a more honest way. if you think they have personal loyalty to you, they are going to take advantage of you. brian: you say "i am both sick of social media and addicted to it. what nourishes you destroys you. the internet is getting increasingly corporate and centralized. and i don't know that future is not just going back to big-money platforms. i hope it is not." so, what do you think of the decision to regulate the internet by the government? molly: can you be more specific? brian: the most recent decision where the fcc decided how they are going to regulate under title ii. molly: i've been in the last days of copyediting my book. and so all recent news events are reaching over my head. can use spell it out a little bit more? -- can you spell it out a little bit more? brian: would you rather the internet continue like it is now or rather the government

regulate it and keep tabs on how people can use it? molly: i think those are rather -- they are questions that are lending themselves to distortion. what do we mean when we say the government regulating the internet? controlling what people say? are you talking about enforcing net neutrality? are you talking about the government preventing corporations from spying on you? selling your data to chinese firms? i mean, really, what are you talking about when you are saying, what do i think about the government regulating the internet? i don't necessarily think the government is -- i don't think the government is any less or more evil than a large corporation like facebook necessarily. in fact, they are in bed together. do i think the government should regulate free speech on the internet? no.

dear god, never. do i think they should enforce net neutrality? yes. brian: you said you have cobbled together many different income streams. are you still doing that? how many different income streams do you have now? you are getting more and more successful, as you know. molly: well, i write. i have a gallery that sells my paintings. i have a book coming out with harpercollins. i still draw pictures. brian: are you afraid of being successful? molly: that is an interesting question. i don't know what that means. i mean, i suppose, very often when people become successful, they become swaddled in their own success and they become soft and stop seeing things clearly. i might fear that. brian: let's go back and look at some more of your art. [laughter]

molly: oh, that handsome gentleman. brian: yes. when did you do this, and what are we seeing here? molly: i did that based on a picture that i took in dubai last summer. i was in abu dhabi doing a piece about migrant workers that are building western museums. sort of as a lark, i went to dubai for a day. because i knew that trump was going to be there. because trump was building some golf courses and luxury housing. with a dubai firm, i have forgotten the name of the firm but you can read the article. i got into the press conference and trump is saying, the world is so full of failure, and here in dubai everything is perfect. and why can't new york be like dubai? i am from new york. new york is my city. trump would never dare say that in america. and you know, it made me somewhat angry. also, i had been doing some investigative journalism and i knew that the guys that were developing trump's golf courses and housing get paid $200 a month even though they work in the hot sun 12 hours a day doing construction work.

and so, at the end of the press conference, i got up and i said something like, you are making all of these luxury buildings in dubai and your guys are getting paid $200 a month. how do you feel about that? and because it is dubai, which is a very censored place, the room went dead. i got yelled at by the publicist. security guards wanted to throw me out or do worse. once the people from the local papers saw that things had quieted down, they all told me how much they wished they could do something like that. every single other person in that press conference just had to tell trump how wonderful he was. brian: the security guards, were they from dubai or were they traveling with trump? molly: i can't totally verify this, but my impression is that they were with the dubai firm that was doing the event. brian: here is a solitary confinement as modern-day torture that you did for fusion tv.

it is about one minute and 25 seconds. as you say, these are four or five minutes long. we have a shorter version of it. [video clip] ♪ >> in july, 2013, 30,000 state prisoners went on hunger strike in california. the strike lasted for two months. it was the second one since 2011. the prisoners were protesting solitary confinement, what many people consider a form of torture. in solitary, your world is a gray concrete box. you spend between 22 and 24 hours a day alone in your cell. your bed is a concrete slab with a thin mattress. three times a week, guards shackle you and take you to the showers for 15 minutes. for exercise, you pace around another concrete box. sometimes a bit of ceiling is uncovered. this is the only time you will see the sky. as punishment, the use of solitary confinement is often an arbitrary decision.

nearly 3000 people are held in pelican bay prison. in crescent city, california. over one third are in solitary. most of them because of "gang affiliation." but that is a meaningless phrase. gang affiliation might mean reading a book by a black panther, or drawing aztec patterns, or even having a tattoo. pelican bay isn't alone in this. around the country, you can land in solitary for your art, your reading material, your beliefs your sexual orientation, or your friends. brian: should we not have solitary confinement at all? molly: it is hard for me to say that if you are someone who is incredibly violent to other prisoners that there shouldn't be some way of protecting other prisoners. but solitary should not be used like the way we are using it now. i mean, we -- solitary is being

used like an archipelago to lock up people because they use the phones in a way that prison doesn't like or because they got a tattoo. i think that once solitary stops being used like that, we could devote our minds to a few niche cases. but, as of now, it has to be stopped in general. and also, it is torture. it destroys people's minds. shane bauer, who was an american hiker in prison in iran accused of being a spy, spoke extensively about when the iranians imprisoned him in solitary, it was the most brutal part of his ordeal. since solitary started being used, they've known it was torture. i don't think it is appropriate to torture people to enforce minor rules. probably rules that people never should have been in jail in the first place. brian: when you were traveling you were put in prison. molly: i was detained.

i was detained when i was 18 traveling in eastern turkey. it was right after the cease-fire. i actually think i was detained because in turkey they have a draft. a lot of the policemen are military police. they are young guys who are drafted in. they kind of saw an american girl and wanted to hang out and didn't realize how scary they were being. but i was very, very terrified at the time. brian: you've been to syria. when did you go to syria? molly: last summer. brian: why did you go there and how did you get in? molly: i was doing a story about a camp right over the border. brian: here is some of your artwork on the screen. molly: that is actually something i did in collaboration with a young syrian man who was under the islamic state. i and other western journalists cannot go there. but, what i did was, i went over

the border with another freelance journalist. we embedded with fighters for a day. we went to a border town that was being repeatedly bombed. when i was there, the islamic state had just been kicked out. i think the most touching thing i saw was that residents had taken the islamic state murals and painted over them in hot pink and orange. they put quotes about tolerance there. it was beautiful. brian: when you saw the situation over there, who is right and wrong? molly: how can you even say that in a war, who is right and wrong? what does that mean, who's right and wrong? define that for me. brian: when you were there, you must have come to some kind of conclusion about what was going on there, who started it, is one

side more dominant than the other, when you were over there, other, when you were over there, did you ask your self if the united states should be involved, where did you go with all that? molly: the syrian conflict was started when the assad regime brutally cracked down on protesters that were asking for basic liberties or protesting because their family members were killed. since then, the conflict has become incredibly brutal. war crimes are committed on all sides. the sides are incredibly regimented. i think it would be difficult at this time for anyone to say there were wholly clean groups in syria. if this was 2011, i would feel very comfortable saying the protesters were right. at this point, the thing is the biggest humanitarian tragedy of our generation, and i wouldn't feel comfortable saying this person is good, this person is bad. except that the assad regime is hideous. dash, isis is hideous. anyone who committed war crimes in syria, i hope they are brought to justice and i hope the conflict stops.

brian: what role should we play? molly: we should start taking more refugees. that's one thing. i believe the amount of refugees we've taken has been in the hundreds. this is a conflict where millions of refugees are in turkey right now. one out of three people in lebanon is a syria refugee. you cannot have populations of millions of people living in tents. most of these are women and children. you can't have kids growing up in tents. i mean, not just because it is wrong, morally reprehensible but because it threatens to

destabilize the countries that it is happening to. i have to say, for all of the racism that syrian refugees face and all the violence they face in turkey and lebanon, and jordan and the camps there, i can't imagine america allowing a similar proportion of mexicans or central american refugees to flee here at all. what should america do? america should ease the burden on the states that are bearing the brunt of this. brian: as an artist, how many hours a day do you work? molly: it depends what i'm doing. i think lately i've been getting a little more burnt out. when i was starting out, i would work until i fell asleep from the time i woke up. i tend to do that when i'm doing any major project now. brian: when you were over in syria or gaza, do you do any artwork on scene? molly: i go around with a sketchbook and i draw. and a lot of times that's not to showt he -- to show the finished

drawing. it is to build a rapport with people. very often, when you have a big camera, it puts a distance between you and the person. a big insect-looking thing right in front of your face. they can't see what you are taking. it is almost vampiric even though you are producing beautiful things. when you draw, it is a vulnerable thing. they can see exactly what you are doing. if you suck, they can tell you so. it is more of an interchange. most people haven't been drawn before. most people are delighted to be drawn. a lot of times, i draw people because i like to. and i like talking to them while i do it. brian: do you work fast? molly: very fast. brian: how do you explain that? in other words, do you sketch first, or is what we are seeing exactly the way you do it on paper? i don't know anything about art, but i just look at it. molly: something like that is a finished piece that took like 10 hours. however, let's say i'm doing one of my quick sketches from guantanamo.

i would have a light gray marker that has a fat tip and a skinny tip. and it would be light gray. and so, first, i would draw this loose sketch with the skinny tip. it is like shorthand. then i would take the bat tip, and shade in all the big areas of dark, and take a pilot pen, like a cheap rollerball pen, and start doing all the little lines. one of the things i learned with that, it is better to make the wrong line confidently than the right line tentatively. people want to follow that confidence in your work. they want that sense of vitality. if you believe it, they believe it. you just do it as best you can with as much belief and rigor as you can and do it fast. brian: how many times have you been to guantanamo? molly: twice. i was on commission for "vice." i did two features for "vice" and a number of other features. brian: here's some part of your story on gitmo. explain this. molly: guantanamo bay is one of the most censored places on earth to make images of. this is for what the military claims is operational security.

but, if you are photographer there, you feel like you are playing a game of twister. you can't take a photograph of anyone's face. you can't take a photograph of doors. you can't take a photograph of cameras. you can't take a photograph of multiple buildings. as an artist, i had an advantage. i could just draw around it. i gave the soldiers those masks because i can't draw their faces. when i was in guantanamo bay, it was at the height of a hunger strike. a hunger strike by the prisoners. the majority of the prisoners were hunger striking. there was a number of them being force fed at the time. the military made up a special term for that. that piece that you showed has on one side of the fence military nurses. on the other side of the fence they are at this caribbean chicken place that we all enjoy. brian: how much access did you have? molly: at guantanamo, nearly no access. the first time i went was for the military commission. i was at the pretrial hearing. the military commission of sheikh mohammed.

the second was for the tour. which is the most potemkin tour that you could ever imagine. you do not get to speak to prisoners except for the defendants. except on the last day i got to see prisoners while they were praying through a two-way mirror. brian: here is a piece you did on the mastermind of 9/11. what are we seeing in this? molly: the alleged mastermind of 9/11 is in court all day and is bored. he messes with his beard. he is wearing this sort of like hunting jacket in an attempt to look military.

he has dyed his beard orange. that is a traditional thing that a person who is done the harsh -- haji might do. i'm pretty sure there's no henna there, so he's probably done it with the very artificial fruit juice they have there. that is just him hanging out. brian: how close were you? molly: very far away. the way they do it is that there is a room divided by layers of soundproof glass and monitors on a time delay so that the cia can stop the video if something is being discussed that they do not want us to hear. when i first went and now, i brought opera glasses but they were confiscated. as prohibited ocular

amplification. brian: why? molly: that is what they said. it was prohibited ocular amplification. brian: no other explanation? molly: nope. brian: first of all, "vice" is what? molly: a magazine and a tv show on hbo. brian: who reads it? what kind of an audience does it have? molly: mostly young people. brian: how young? molly: what is the usual demographic? marketers golden demographic. 18-34. brian: do you think about that? molly: i am an artist. no. we do not think like marketers. brian: what do they expect you to come back with? molly: word count and pieces of art. i do a column and they have a certain amount of features so i say i do two major print features. and an article every month. brian: who watches fusion? molly: a similar age group. it is partially owned by univision and is more latino oriented but a similar age group. it is in english. molly: yes.

brian: do you worry you are too close to corporations? molly: oh god, everyday but what can you do? brian: let's go back to another one of your pieces. this is how police profile and shame sex workers. what is the basis of this one? molly: there is this law called the manifest prostitution law allowing police to arrest a woman for prostitution without witnessing her exchanging sex for money. instead they can arrest her based on things like, if she has condoms on her or what she is wearing, or if she says hello to a certain number of guys on the street, or in my opinion, very often if she is trans and is black. i saw so many who were arrested just for who they were. brian: let's watch it and you can further explain. molly: monica said she just

accepted an undercover officer's offer of a ride home. she is among the people arrested every year for prostitution. according to the fbi, police arrested 57,000 people in 2011 the vast majority were women. monica was not arrested for exchanging sex for money. according to the municipal code you can be arrested for manifesting. like monica was, if you wave at any passerby or start conversations or even ask if somebody is a cop. this is not just an arizona. manifesting statutes exist all over the country. in january of 2013, in new york, they arrested felicia for wearing jeans that outlined her legs. with the manifesting law racial profiling is epidemic. in brooklyn black women are 95% of those charged.

in addition, trans women like monica are routinely profiled as sex workers. police sometimes place fake ads on websites where people find sex workers. after sex the cops make arrests. brian: what do you rely on for information? molly: i know many sex workers personally. for something like this, i also spent a lot of time in what are called the human trafficking intervention courts in the bronx. and other things like the felicia mcginest thing comes off of the police report. that is what police officers accused her of doing. brian: when you were younger your wikipedia site suggests that you describe yourself as gothy, dorky, and hated.

why do you describe yourself as gothy? molly: i describe myself as gothy, because i wore ankhs, all black and, you know, studied french. brian: what is the black part? of being gothy? molly: i am explaining what goth is on c-span? brian: that is what you are doing. [laughter] brian: why do people go there? molly: i think being a smart kid who is into literature and feeling alienated, terribly sophisticated and romantic at that age. that is what i would say. brian: what was your favorite subject work that you did in high school? molly: i loved literature and art and i did not study french in school but i taught myself french. brian: you describe yourself as dorky. molly: i love books. always have loved book. brian: is that what a dork is? molly: somebody with passionate intellectual interest and not as much interest in socializing. brian: does that bother you?

that somebody would describe you as a dork? molly: i am describing myself. so, obviously. brian: hated? you are hated? molly: i was an outcast when i was 12 years old. brian: why? what made you an outcast? molly: i was a girl who dressed funny and was obsessed with books. brian: does it bother you today? do you still do that? does that still make you a dork? are you hated? molly: no, i think that is something that people get out of their system, i hope. brian: what do your mother and father think? molly: they are proud. and they both inspire the hell out of me. brian: are you an only child? molly: i am. brian: what effect did that have? molly: it is hard to say. my cousin was, unfortunately, or --was orphaned when she was

12-years-old and she spent some time with us. i don't think people can speculate what they would be. it is hard to say. brian: explain to me what molly crabapple's week in hell was. molly: i was sick of the work that i have done and i wanted to do something that i drew so intensely that i got all of my cliches out of my system. i was 27-years-old. so, i locked myself in a hotel suite and covered all of the walls with paper and i drew all over them for seven days. and i drew and i drew and i drew until i got to the very reservoirs of anything i thought i could do and ran out of them and came across something new. brian: did you have to ask permission to put the paper on the wall? molly: we should have but we did not. brian: so you just checked in. what was the hotel? molly: gramercy park. brian: you just checked in and got a room? molly: yes. brian: let's watch the beginning of this so people will have a better idea of what we are talking about. ♪

brian: so? molly: yes? brian: all around the room. molly: every square inch. brian: did you keep it? molly: we cut it up and sold it. brian: sold it? what is it worth? what kind of money to people pay for that kind of thing? molly: a little piece was $20 and a whole wall was $1000. it depends on how much people got, we sold by the inch.

brian: where did you sell it? molly: we sold it on a website called kickstarter. brian: what were the things you drew? molly: all sorts of things. dorothy parker and the algonquin roundtable as scuba divers, i drew my friends all over the wall. i drew a medieval green man. i drew reverse mermaids. i drew an angler fish with a cupcake luring mice. i drew every surreal fantasy that came out of my head. brian: how many hours a day did you do it? molly: all of the hours. around the clock, pretty much. brian: seven days. molly: it was five days, like a business week in hell. brian: did you like it? molly: i love it. brian: would you do it again? molly: no. not going to do it again. brian: so, at the end of five days, what was the result? what did you feel? molly: i was exhausted but i was just broken, but within a month of that i started doing a different sort of work. more around politics.

that is when occupy wall street happened. i think it served its purpose of clearing any cliche in my head. so that something new could happen there. brian: you say that occupy wall street is when you started being political? molly: no, that is when i started allowing my work to be political. brian: explain the difference. molly: someone might be political by donating to candidates or marching in protests. volunteering, all sorts of things like that where you are expressing it as a private person, basically. but somebody's work might be political if they are writing books about politics or doing artwork to support political movements. so before this i was political as an anonymous participant. i would donate money or raise money or march in protests. or vote for people i believed in. that sort of thing, sort of. like a citizen is, right?

but after occupy, that was the first time i felt i could allow it in my work as well. brian: what did you do as a result of that? what did you do that was political? molly: one of the first things i did is that i got frustrated by the media portrayal because i live down the block from the park so i was seeing it every day and i was in construction workers and veterans and grandmas and union guys. but then when i saw them on tv they would just find one dumb hippie was tie-dyed leggings beating on a drum. without rhythm. and i was like, why are you focusing on that guy? he is so untypical and had almost nothing to do what is going on. it is to trivialize it.

the first thing i did was to do portraits of people that i saw there. brian: what is the result of occupy wall street? was it worth it? molly: it is a hard thing to say, right. i mean, we live in a society with such a short time frame on things. we think, this has been going on for three weeks and the world has not changed. what was the point? right? but then we might look at other struggles, the civil rights movement and how long between one event and another and you think that we have lost our patience. i think that in some ways obviously, occupy was a disappointment and in some ways it failed. we made a lot of tactical errors, dear god. drum circles are terrible and everybody hates them. but i also think that occupy radicalized and politicized a generation so i do think it was important. brian: back to fusion tv. this one is about ferguson. when you first heard about ferguson, what was your reaction? molly: i had a lot of admiration for the people in the streets that were having the vigils for mike brown even though the cops were bringing dogs against

them. brian: what was your reaction when you find out they did not indict the policeman? molly: the police are sort of the ground enforcement of the state. obviously, the state does not want to indict and the police and the police are very powerful. the police work hand-in-hand with prosecutors. these are three reasons why police do not get indicted. i was not surprised. police are now getting indicted because there are militant protests. brian: so protest works? molly: protest works. yes. brian: this is artwork from ferguson. molly: tonight ferguson symbolizes protest. lawyers and medics came from around the country. amnesty international sent observers. protesters risk violence. one local women gave out water all day. that night the police maced her.

she told huffington post it felt like hell on fire. but deaths like mike brown's is all too common. the policeman commit 400 justifiable homicides a year. but that number is way too low. 1450 deaths were documented, three people killed every single day. brian: how do you do, we are going back and forth between politics and art, but how do you do that when you have a piece of art on your board and you blacken it? molly: i pour black paint on that. i am destroying my artwork. brian: that is not saved? molly: no. no, it is not.

brian: how do you know, or do you know when you're getting through to a public? a public that is looking at what you do? molly: that is a really good and hard question. i mean, generally the people that write me are the -- or the confrontations i see happening around it. generally, when i do it i am not thinking i must get through to this public. i am not somebody that does seo enhancement, i am an artist. i am just trying to create my art to the best of my ability. i know that things have gotten through to me when people write me. also what is meaningful is when people were involved in what i am writing about right about me or write to me. or if i am doing a piece about abu dhabi, if pakistani migrant workers write to me. brian: what impact is the internet having and changing the world? molly: one thing it does is that it makes things that would have been ignored previously difficult to ignore. ferguson is the prime example of that.

the media was not particularly interested in ferguson until it started blowing up on social media and that is what drew the media to cover it. second, that can have a distorting effect. it can make things that are not that big seem bigger. but i also think it creates the potential for things that are not funded or do not have a mass platform to get equal attention and that is important. brian: with all of the things that you do, you speak to groups, you do your artwork, you do your writing for "vice" you do television. when did you notice people spending a little more time talking about you or being interested in you? when did it change? and of course, you got the art galleries?

did it ever change? when did you notice the change? molly: a big change -- i think the time that i started -- i have been in the media for a very long time but i think that the time my career started to feel the most meaningful to me was after i went to guantanamo bay and had an art show called "shell game" that was the first time i had done these big, ambitious paintings, six feet tall, hyper detailed. and, i had a show that drew attention from all over the world where a lot of the participants came and were involved in it. and, it got a lot of media attention. brian: when did you see your prices going up? what people were willing to pay for your art? molly: right around then. brian: has there been a big jump? molly: yes. brian: buying a molly crabapple today is a lot more valuable than it was 10 years ago? molly: maybe. brian: what do you mean maybe? are you worried that if you make money it will change your life and what you are interested in?

molly: i mean -- i do not think it is about making the money, i think it is about the snames that comes with money. one thing is that i am not an employee of anywhere and i have no desire for being an employee. despite some fancy sounding titles that do not bear power, i work with myself and that is the truth. you know i -- i am ultimately beholden to me. and i think as long as you can maintain that, that is what is important. as long as you have the ability to tell anyone to fuck off. am i allowed to say that on c-span? brian: you just did. molly crabapple's 15 rules for creative success and an internet age, and back to the things that you have written. "never trust some silicon valley d-bag who is flush with investor money but telling creators to post on their platform for free

or for potential crumbs of cash." molly: something you see a lot now where there are people that have websites that obviously the point is to get them invested in and sold fast but to do that you need the user base. and so, they will try to attract a user base, a community of artists or journalists are all sorts of layings, to get them to post on it and do a lot of work for free. it is not just the posting. i mean, it's like you tweet and it takes 30 seconds and that is one thing but if you are writing a whole article that is a different thing. they often say, we are scrappy. we are independent. we are in this together. but their actual purpose is to sell for a lot of money.

maybe the site will close, the founders will get a lot of money, they will get the sale, but you, the creator, will not take part in that. brian: your number 10 is "be a mercenary towards people with money. be merciful and generous to people without it." is that just obvious? molly: i mean, don't you think? like, if you are talking about raising money for some broke kid's bail fund, it is the right thing to do. but if you are talking about raising money for some broke kid's bail fund, it is the right thing to do. but if you are talking about whether an heiress that wants you to draw frescoes for her tea room, that is a different thing, obviously. brian: "working for free is only worth it," this is number 11 "if it is a fellow artist or grassroots organization you believe in and only if they treat you respectfully. and you get creative control." molly: very often, because society does not value what artists do, all sorts of people tell you to work for free. i have had fortune 500 companies want me to work for free for them. and, while i work for free all of the time, more than most artists, i do not believe in

doing it for somebody that is already rich. i mean, it is their job to hire people. people give them money. i do it for people who might need my help, where my thing might have impact on their lives or raise money for them. you know, it might raise attention for them. i say that it is important to do it where there is creative control so you are not doing endless revisions. nothing more soul killing than that. brian: "drawing blood," your memoir, what are you, 31? molly: yes. brian: early for a memoir. molly: look at how much time we just filled, right? brian: what is the book about? molly: coming of age as an artist in new york city and working as an illustrator for nightclubs in the manhattan demimonde and being an artist that does work around conflict zones and prisons. brian: when is it coming out? molly: in december. brian: how big is it? is it written, or is it just your artwork? molly: 100,000 words of prose and about 100 illustrations. so, it is a big, book.

brian: we have one more video, this one is called "broken windows policing." before we look at it explain it. molly: this is the theory that minor signs of disorder create major crime. the classic theory is that if a window is left broken in a neighborhood, in a matter of time people will start smoking crack and murdering people. because of that little sign of disorder attracts a big one. however, the name is misleading. because, when i get up, the first thing i think as we are going to fix the broken window. but what broken windows is really about is arresting poor usually black and latino people for incredibly minor things like hanging out on a stoop. or jumping a subway turnstile. brian: let's watch it. molly: scientists introduce the

theory in 1992 in an article in "the atlantic." according to them, if a neighborhood had a broken window, residents will break other windows and crime will soar because nobody pushed back against the first signs of "disorder." eight years later william bratton became police commissioner of new york city and began to apply the policy. he applied a zero tolerance policy for crimes like turnstile jumping and jaywalking. subway graffiti. under his leadership a new yorker could be arrested for selling art on the street. the idea is that they would find people with outstanding warrants. that would prevent bigger crimes from being committed. let's be clear. let's be clear. broken window policing does not mean that the police will fix up poor neighborhoods. it means they will arrest poor people. the focus is on crimes by the powerless and it is about controlling communities. being questioned is intrusive and demeaning.

brian: what should the police do? molly: well, there's two things there. first of all i think the police should stop getting quotas. in new york, police have quotas of people they need to arrest. i think that creates perverse incentive where they are arresting people who are committing crimes that really do not bother anyone. secondly, i think that things should be decriminalized like standing and hanging out. there is no reason somebody should be rotting in a cage because they drank booze out of a bottle or put up some graffiti. and, as a final thing i think it is impossible to look at broken windows outside of this you know, sort of paradigm where the police are just disproportionately targeting black and latino people.

i mean, i am 100% sure that if the police went around wall street and searched people they would find a lot of cocaine. i am sure that if they searched their computers they would find tax evasion but they do not and the reason is that wall street is full of powerful people. and, the reason they do something similar in a place like crown heights is that it is filled with black and latino people who are already criminalized. brian: what is on the molly crabapple dream sheet? from here on out. what more do you want to accomplish? molly: i cannot think of things in advance like that. brian: so are you -- could you be any freer than you are now? to do what you want to do and say what you want to say? molly: what is freedom, right? i suppose if i have a dream of what i was going to do, i like going to conflict zones. i like drawing conflict zones. i like drawing big paintings.

so, i suppose that is what you will see for me in the future. and probably, some more books. brian: if president obama invited you into the oval office and said you have two minutes to go and what he should do, what would you tell him? molly: i am not the person who should be invited into the oval office. brian: why not? molly: there are people that could give better advice. i am just an artist. brian: what do you want changed? molly: the things that i want changed in two minutes are not things that could be fixed by appealing to somebody who is so tied into the power structure that is causing so many of these problems. brian: as you look at the future, are you optimistic? pessimistic? where you come down on that or do you even think about it? molly: i think anyone that is trying to make projections in a world as in flux of as -- as

influx as ours is playing a mug's game. brian: if somebody is watching that wants to be an artist, can you train for it? you either have it or you don't have it? do you have any instruction at all on what you do today? molly: it is not that you either have or not have art, it is you either have or do not have love of art because we are all horrible at the start. i was so horrible at the start. i look at my work from 10 years ago when i think, how did anybody hire me? what i had was that stubbornness and i knew that this is what i was going to do. i would do this or i would die. and so, i did it and i put in the work that you need to become good. and so, i think that, yes. train like hell. like work to the very limits of your ability. work with discipline and rigor and passion. but if you do not want to do the work you will not be the artist. it is about wanting. that is really what makes you an artist. brian: if somebody wants to see your work now, where can they see it? what art gallery in new york? molly: in tribeca.

brian: if they want to see it online? molly: molycrabapple.com. brian: your book? comes out in december. molly: harpercollins. brian: how expensive is it going to be? molly $25 for hardcover. : brian: you work for fusion and "vice." anyone else? molly: i have done a few pieces for "vanity fair." i have a piece coming out, a friend of mine, sent me photos of what life is like under barrel bombing and i hope to do justice to that. he wrote a beautiful essay to a company that. brian: thank you for spending an hour. molly: thank you so much. ♪ >> for free transcripts or to give us comments, visit us at q&a.org. programs are also available as c-span podcasts.

>> if you enjoyed this week's interview with artist and journalist molly crabapple, here is some other programs you might like. alex gibney talking about a his profile of jack abramoff. genetical, the director of the smithsonian african american museum of art on its 50th anniversary, and aaron wolf on his project "king corn." you can see these programs on q and a.org.

my your comments and calls on washington at journal. then the opening of the cuban embassy in washington, it the sea. -- in washington, d.c. >> tonight on the communicators, we will at information age reporter on why he thinks washington is a danger zone for information. >> if you go back to earlier technologies like railroads and the mob bell telephone monopoly, they were regulated as common carriers. regulators set prices. they set terms. they said to the rules. we all know what happened. there was very little innovation in railroads tracking, and

telephones until they were all deregulated and all those common carrier statutes essentially undone by congress when it was so clear that innovation was being suppressed and the united states was falling behind in its competitiveness. that was the background for bipartisan consensus and the 1990's that the internet was going to be different. this was during the clinton administration. a clear consensus democrats and republicans, that unlike the earlier communications, the internet with a largely unregulated. > this morning, anna palmer on lobbying efforts in washington, and across the country concerning the iran nuclear agreements. the recent prison escape of a mexican drug lord, that impact on mexico's fight against

organized crime. later, dave leventhal of the second -- the center for public integrity looks a conjuration reports filed by presidential campaigns. as always we take your calls and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal," is next. ♪ host: good morning, it is monday, july 20. the house is set to meet in a pro forma session today before resuming legislative work on tuesday. the senate isn't set to hold its post -- first vote until tuesday afternoon, but a busy morning here on "washington journal." we begin with a renewed national debate over who should be allowed to carry guns in military facilities and under what circumstances. last week's deadly shooting spree at a tennessee military recruiting office and reserve center has some lawmakers calling for on-base gun restrictions for so little to be