tavis: good evening, from los angeles, part two of our conversation with actor and humanitarian sean penn. his efforts on the behalf of the people of haiti earned him the humanitarian at large award. we are glad you can join us in part to conversation with sean penn coming up right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it is the cornerstone we all know. it is not just a street or boulevard, but a place where wal-mart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your

pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: welcome back. i want to pick up where we left off last night. we raised the name of president bill clinton who is our ambassador, asked by president obama, to lead the effort for haiti. what is the top line of what president clinton was able to do in terms of fund-raising? and has that money trickled down to the haitian people? >> president clinton is without

a doubt the most significant foreign aid in haiti. i think that i can say very simply that it is a difficult process to find proper capacity where the money should go. donors are wary of the investments they make. and people critical of president clinton -- what they have to understand is that most of the billions of dollars that was raised, that they complained has not yet been spent, would not have been in the distance if president clinton hadn't been there to encourage the response. he is -- and the haitians would acknowledge this as well -- i

think the great hope partners of haiti. we all associate of everything that is done right or everything that is done wrong with president clinton and that is quite a burden. he is very involved. he is constantly curious. he knows more about it than anyone else there. and i think he has been an enormous support of the best efforts. i think that the picture that he gets the title page john, which is both -- title page on, which is both the celebration of the good works and most of the criticism, is what will have an extraordinary legacy. it is starting to peak through

now. he can be very demanding of individual organizations in the field. in the big picture sense, he understands this better than any of us that it will take a very long time and what will work. tavis: by large, the majority of the money has or has not arrived? >> this is where the media plays an important part. this is separate and apart from what president clinton has to do. people come through on the pledges that they make. we know that the world economy is in a different place. there was a donors conference in new york couple of years ago. those pledges are the hope of haiti. as i said, there is a thing

about haiti that has to be understood when talking about ownership. -- about donorship. martin luther king said that it was fine to tell a man to pick himself up by his bootstraps. but it is cruel to tell a man he does not have any boots. when you're dealing with donors, there is a word that constantly comes up which is "sustainability." it is the investment and understanding with in the haitian people themselves. when you do it in theoretical programs, one time after another, it does not work. it has not worked. my belief is that haiti would have been better off today had there never been a single ngo

there in these last 30 years. i am quite a stir of it. -- i am quite sure of it. it has been primarily destructive force. largely to the leadership of president clinton, the organizations are aligning and understanding that it is not what makes you feel good that does good. tavis: i think i know where you are going with this. but i do not want to make assumptions. how can ngo's destructive forces? >> it can be as simple as traffic. there is too much traffic in the center, in the capital. there is what they call the republic of ngo. all these people come in with stipends and high salaries and are career list -- careerist aid

workers. and they also have careerist domiciles. that means they are raising the rents and the haitians cannot afford to live there. tavis: there is gentrification. >> yes. you do not want to create a welfare state, a dependent state and so on. it has to be looked at for what it is. it is a country where what is available to people is $1 to two dollars a day to begin with. there is almost no clean water around the country. a child gets a fever in the united states and it is high enough and sustainable enough, all of us will take the child to an emergency room. most haitians never had that opportunity. they did not have emergency rooms to take them to. every time your child has a fever of 102 degrees, you wait

for them to die and you have no clean water to give. when you're talking about a country that is really starting from scratch, they want to match littled they do thathe project product -- the little pocket projects and do them as long as the people stay there. this is a good thing. the people who have stayed have been able to identify each other and the government is able to give them various of aspiration and not have overlapped and start to make this whole system work and be turned over to the haitians. tavis: i know that you said former president clinton is the most important political player outside of haiti. what does that say about president barack obama and what he is and is not doing? >> i think president clinton

cordage very much with the white house. the chief of staff of the secretary and the secretary. he has been the most active deputy of the u.s. efforts to help haiti. she is an extraordinary woman who serves while being the secretary of state in the world and for all foreign policy issues. she is available. we call her the haiti desk officer. at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, she's going to be responsive. there has been a great effort. there has been a great change in philosophy. i think the trade policies will be adjusted significantly to allow for what ultimately needs to be more patient exports.

the power structure is a problem there. one of the issues that i would like to see the government look into is a proposition on the lotto. if i had it my way, there would nationalize the lotto. this is the only organization that has been able to successfully tax the haitian people. tavis: a couple more questions about haiti and then i want to get to some movie stuff, some fun stuff. of all the work that you are doing through your ngo, what are the two or three things you feel you have done the best? i ask this because you suggested earlier that ngo's can be destructive. you're obviously not talking about your own. water things that you're proudest of? when you -- what are things that you're proudest of? >> in our camp management, we

have the largest camp in port- au-prince, 60,000 people. 40,000 of them have gone into safe housing and the community -- they have community centers where they have livelihood support for matchmaking between skill sets and training. we put two community hospitals from our camp into the community. we have 20,000 people under tents yet to go. the ngo has moved hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of rubble. we have started a project for the world bank. within the next two months, we will have the first of 30 permanent structure homes. the medical organization has been one of the most dynamic in the country, not only serving the area operations principally focused in port-au-prince and at the camp, but also nationwide

when it came to the cholera response. we had the largest supply of the intravenous aid. our education support is starting to broaden. i have a staff of 300. like i said, 95%-97% haitian. i am equally proud of all of them. i find myself a bystander to a haitian operation and they delegate the operation in a way i never would have imagined. tavis: we saw the humanitarian award given to you by george clooney for your work in haiti. given all that you have done, i assume with the answer is. but given what there is still to do, why do you remain hopeful?

>> when i went to haiti originally, we landed and when you see what you see on the streets, it was like nothing had ever seen. the bodies, the death, the extraordinary amount of destruction, roads completely blocked -- while there's so much legitimate criticism to be had, the miracle of what has happened in only two years is not just the miracle of infrastructure for clearing to make way for infrastructure. it is the spirit of the haitian people. we came to a panicked and devastated and traumatized population -- virtually everybody. and now we see this incredible life inside coming out of these

people, incredible partnership, now turning it into instead of us being able to help them to them showing us the way moving forward. haiti is taking on leadership, both in the populous and in the government. that, hand-in-hand with the support when they do not have the boots to pull up on their own, until they do, is a recipe for success that is clear to anyone. it just takes a visit to haiti to see it. once that happens, we have, in terms of the trade program -- you think about the carbon footprint, we are in an environmental world. the united states has an obligation to invest in manufacturing in haiti. america is one and a half hours away by plane. strategically, businesswas, it

is socially responsible and dramatically more prof potable -- more profitable and investment to make. tavis: you never know whether to believe everything you read. i am paraphrasing here. it is clear to me that you have fallen in love with the haitian people. but i read this the of the day. even you admitted that you are not always crazy about humans, but i love this notion of humankind. did you say something similar to that? and what did you mean by that exactly? >> i phrased it this way. [laughter] tavis: i thought you might want to rephrase it. >> i do not remember the actual

thing i said. one of the first things is i was never -- when i started to be noticed as an actor, i am not good at it. i am not good at talking to strangers, whether they are sick children or -- i am shy, really. so when i get to haiti, it is the same thing. i want to wear a shirt that says tell it to the humanitarian. [laughter] i am there because i have a lot of humanitarian step to work with. miami facilitator. it has kept my mission clear. -- i am the facilitator. it has kept my mission clear. of course, i am particularly touched and proud when i think that i may have had something to do with it.

but when i look at what i thought i was trying to facilitate and a look at the many people for many organizations that may have taken it on or made into something bigger and better and you cannot help but fall in love with a country that you are working in and the group your working with. it does not matter where it is. my relationship to haiti, as it turns out, it was a bit of an accident. whether it is haitians or others -- yes, i have social issues. [laughter] tavis: i will accept your rephrase. i appreciate you coming to see me a few times. i was looking the other day at your discography your long and growing corpus of work. i do not know if it has occurred to you, but this is the 30th

anniversary of "fast *." -- "fast time." 30 years of "fast times at richmond high." let me ask you to reflect. >> first, it is age related. my first reflection is, at the time, i remember how fast i was running up and down and trying to maintain the physique of the surfer and how much slower i was running after that. [laughter] i maintained some friendships -- the producer, who see all the time. that movie represents a lot of

things. it represents the beginning of what has now been a pretty long and very lucky run. it has enabled me to do a lot of the other things that i would do in my life, to be able to work in movies is a tricky road. i had been in haiti until this last week and i came in because we had the fundraiser. and i was rushing from one place to another. i looked out the window of the car in the afternoon as they were preparing people to file into the golden globes. and i thought to myself, i used to be in that business. i was kind of still in haiti. so yes, "fast times" was a long time ago. tavis: you are a long way from

being done, thankfully and obviously. has this journey over these few decades been what you thought it would be? how would you characterize what this journey has been so far? >> in many ways, it far exceeds -- i mean, i have had opportunities to do many things. i was in the theater for a long time. there were not a lot of young actors in that mood. you figured you would be older by the time you were working. on the other hand, it is a struggle that i did not anticipate. i came directly out of a movie- going generation in my teens were the stories that were

written, people just made them. they did both. they made them. now i feel the way films are made, by and large, is that they're made on a budget not to represent what the idea is, but to sell it. the movies that we often celebrate today are midgets in comparison to the texture and investment that was what i grew up with. i did not anticipate to have to fight tooth and nail every timeout to try to get into the things i was -- every time out to try to get into the things i was involved in. and i did not expect the celebrity culture. it is an infection that everyone has embraced. it has been good for me to have the perspective in haiti. the only thing that anybody can

do is try to at least invest that into projects that they are involved in, particularly that they are directing and have ownership in to do it. it is like starting over again each time come in some ways. -- each time, in some ways. tavis: the robert deniro project, that is happening? >> it looks like it is now. yes. we are just trying to figure out the timetable in which to do it. it is a terrific script. tavis: sean penn directing robert deniro in "the comedian." i respect you not just for entertaining us, but also for empowering us in the work that you do. the work you do in haiti is among the best work that yois de

in the world. >> and i thank you right back. tavis: glad to have him back on this program. that is it for tonight. we leave you with a small sample in the memorable role that sean penn has given us over the years. in the meantime, good night, l.a. as always, keep the faith. >> tasty waves, cool but, and i am fine. >> you do not have to go up there. >> the whole nation is watching.

>> my name is harvey milk and i am here to recruit to! i want to recruit to for the fight to save your democracy! >> i have had a lot of time to think about what it is that make somebody a good parent. and it is about constancy and it is about -- patience and it is about listening and id is -- it is of but pretending to listen even when you can not listen anymore. >> thank you for letting me.

that is my daughter in there! he has my daughter in there! no! no! stop! >> is the white house. you seriously think you can pick a fight with the white house and win? they will bury us. >> they will bury us if we don't. valerie, does it make the right if i shout louder than you? if i shout louder than you, am i right? if i am the white house and ninth shutout a million times louder than you, does that make me right? they lied. that is the truth. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> for information of women and children and party at the skirball center, visit our

website at pbs.org. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it is the cornerstone we all know. it is not just a street or boulevard, but a place where wal-mart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >>