tavis: good evening. from los angeles i'm tavis smiley. tonight a conversation with alph nader who has been tireless champion of putting the oflic interest ahead greed.te he onty miss tackily argues a new spirit of cooperation is possibly when it comes to a issues.of important a conversation then with mad men actor john slattery. directed "god's pocket" which turturro, kristina hendricks and philip seymour hoffman in one of his last roles. we are glad you joined us. those conversations coming up right now. ♪

♪ >> pan by contributions to your pbs station by viewers like you. thank you. ♪ tavis: ralph nader has been a side of big business, big banks, big media and career politicians who care supportut corporate than protecting the public among instigated he has

through grass roots action we take for granted today like say carsion cleaner air and healthier food. the latest text is called the emerging left right alliance to dismantle the joins us state and he from washington. ralph nader, always an honor to have you on this program. >> nice to be here. suspect that some might have just turned the volume up on their television they thought they heard me introduce ralph mader to talk an emerging about left right alliance. you are the guy who has fought guys for all these years and now you want to get into an alliance? enoughnk there is goodwill in washington for the left and right to come together issues? >> only he we start with the people back home and that is where the left right alliance start. people whether liberals, conservatives, libertarians, don't wants, they corporate subsidies and bailouts of wall street. street. more for main

they don't want restrictions on civil liberties and freedoms and governmentwant the to snoop. they want revisions in the patriot act. wage for 30 million poem, they want them to get at inst when people were paid 1968 adjusted for inflation. ant could be close to $11 hour when the minimum wage is frozen at $7.25. they don't like the job-destroying corporate trade agreements like nafta and wto. community aswhole being hollowed out, jobs and autories shipped abroad to crattic regimes that put the workers there in their place at 0 cents an hour and there are all kinds of areas that are terms ofrational in slate legislators, left right, reform.juvenile justice taking a look at the prison industrial complex and the war drugs. and the trade agreement from the pacific that mr. obama is going to beg is

negotiating is going to be blocked by a left right coalition in the house of representatives in defiance of their own leaders, john boehner and nancy pelosi. tavis: you were right about the facts, no doubt about that and huge disconnect between the facts you laid out the do in fact make up opinion of the american public disconnect between that reality and the fact that in washington nothing can get done even when polls indicate this is want.he american people the question is not what do the american people want. folks in thet the building behind you to come together and do something on issues? >> the politicians in the pockets of the wall street point amebacks are terrified of left right alliance because they know it will get press he it mere verbal agreements by millions of people left right into more

like ifative visibility they have marches or if they picketsonstrations or or if they even have petitions, left right petitions going to state legislature or the senator representative. i have seen it operate, tavis. it operate. the n.s.a. vote against snooping lastt went to the house year. and the intervention in syria we another war inen syria. that was locked by a torrent -- e-mailsby a torrent of coming to every member of congress, 100 to one, 50 to hundred left right. he they sniff a left right they are terrified of it and so are corporations they are dividing and ruling left right and focusing on areas they gun control and reproductive rights and making and the areas they do agree i have 24 described in my book are offed the table and therefore out of the media. idea is to take that con a levels and move into

of visibility and did he monstrative urgency to the decision makers. tavis: i can't imagine, ralph, wantthe american people to -- want or wanted to intervene in syria militarily they want to increase the minimum wage. so how is it that we can be effective? how is it that we could have activated our agency about not wantinwanting to go to syria but americans who are suffering every day who want to see the minimum wage raised to a living have not been able to impact that particular issue? it was is interesting is like an electric grapevine and we ares of people said not going to go to another war or send our soldiers to another we in the middle east and had enough with iraq and afghanistan. on the minimum wage it is coming support and that means there are a lot of skirt workers at wal-mart not saying i don't want a raise from 8 bucks an hour because i'm

conservative. they want enough to feed their family and provide the necessities of life. operational. you see cities around the country passing with bipartisan higher minimum wages. san jose recently. santa fe a few years ago. seattle is going for $15 an hour. and you see states that are now higheres that have minimum wage than the federal. that is beginning to really and put pressure on congress. so now the democrats see it as a issue in 2014 so they are pushing $10.10 an hour minimum wage. republicans haven't not the message yet. they are still in hock to the mcdonalds andthe wall street boys but they will see that that minimum wage issue ingoing to cost them votes 2014. tavis: what do you say to people like bill gates and buffett who are great philanthropists and used their of good.do a lot i make a distinction between fantastic four-game longest

philanthro prime minister py an. against they are not increasing the minimum wage but how and how fast you do it makes andfference says bill gates warren buffett. how do you respond to that? is way overdue. years new since 1968 up and down the minimum wage has fallen beyond inflation. means that workers are giving a winfall to the andoyers year after year not getting that back pay. all they are saying today is well, let's bring it back to adjusted for inflation and in the meantime worker productivity is doubled. modestthis is the most thing you can imagine. and it will put tens of billions of dollars into the economy to stimulate the economy and create more jobs. brainer. is a no schaffl elfed y

and rick santorum and romney for a minimum wage. >> how do you respond to the following. out even though you laid the 25 issues in unstoppable the alliance,left right wonderful book, i read it obviously. you thinkues where there can be coalition building collaboration on the hill and ever which poll and survey and study i read of late, ralph, suggests to me in one way or another that the american people know there is a system of government that is broken and that congress is dysfunctional. you have seen the paltry approval ratings for congress and white house not much better. way behind the president even. keep getting the supreme court decisions that keep allowing more money to be poured into this. there could be a left right alliance in washington, be seen, theains to

american people seem so turned off to the process and the way works.shington what to you do about that? >> i don't sugar coat the obstacles. there are obstacles. the established power vs. to be challenged. be challenged by a left right alliance that becomes more visible and more active and sense of its own self-respect politically and stops making excuses for itself oh, politics is a dirty game, i don't want to have it.hing to do with politics will have a lot to do with you if you don't have a lot politics. i understand. but i see it at the local state and moving toward washington. examples earlier when they see this kind of thing coming. really unstoppable because they can't split the eachand right against other. richard nixon signed all kinds environmental laws that we got through congress because he was afraid of the rumble of the people.

tavis: what does it say about the kinds of people who are in washington versus the kinds of at the localrve level that at the local level they can figure this stuff out? theye national level cannot. we are all human beings. ha is the difference in the beings we send to washington versus the one ones t elect locally? >> two differences. in a bubble a long way from where people live and work. in the local politics you can't escape, that is number one. number tortion the republicans and -- number tortion the democratss and gerrymandered the districts so they pick the voters by computerized design. pick their own voters in this off in theice it other area. gives them a one party state domination in over 90% of the congressional district so they don't have to worry about the party.arge it as total autocracy. localsn't operate at the

level but can bubble up from the local level. idea is left right saying we don't like where we can disagree on taxes. trillionsike how our of dollars are being spent. we don't want to spend them bridgesup countries and across the world. we want to repair the bridges and schools and clinics and libraries and public transit at home. that is a big left right becomee but it has to more demanding. that is what this book is. is for readers, thinkers and doers who are serious about our country's future. they are not going to be entertained 24/7 and in effect cursed by descendants. tavis: to the readers and thinkers and doers that you direct the text unstoppable to, you have been at this a long time. a long distance runner. to close where i began by saluting your being a long distance runner. or not youether since on the part of the american people the willingness

activism to engage the agency that they do have in the way now that we have done in the have been you successful and victorious on other issues that we celebrate today? so. think the first step is to sense victory. if liberals go their own way and conservatives go their own way they don't sense victory. get ahey lock arms they real sense of morale. they sense victory. victoryple sense apathybegin reseed.o the people in the -- recede. so power of.t tavis: whether you know or not you, i has done for mentioned so much of what ralph nader has accomplished that we are all the beneficiaries of. american icon. the latest text "unstoppable the emerging left right alliance to the corporate state." ralph nader, again, sir, an

ther to have you on program. thanks for the text and thanks for talking to us. >> thank you. ken: coming up, john slattery from mad men. up, john slattery on mad men from his directorial debut. stay with us. tavis: john slattery is just about to wrap his last season roger sterling's say it it ain't so. >> sorry. >> it is so. on one of television's most series mad men which concludes next year. seven episodes this year and seven next year. now tackling a new challenge. he has just directed his first film titled "god's pocket" stars one john turturro hendricks and philip seymour hoffman in one of his last movie roles. "god's pocket" which is now in limited release is a dark comedy about quirky character ms a working class neighborhood in the 1970's. we will start with a scene

featuring turturo and hoffman now. here?t is sal doing >> doesn't take three people to steal a truck. >> he just wants to make sure everything goes down. that.an go with he is pissing on his shoes. him?y don't you tell >> he will shoot you just to show you he knows what he is doing. tavis: so my team went back and forth and back and forth and and forth trying to find a clip that would do justice to it so quirky.se i don't know if you like that clip or not. it does justice to the film or not. what do you think of that clip? >> i like that clip. one we sent out a few and ha that is one of them. to encapsulate

anything. tavis: that is my point. seconds. tavis: this film is really, really -- >> the tone gets heavy. know, almost tragic. and then it is absurdly funny it.h is what i liked about in the novel. when i read the book a long time liked aboutwhat i it. it gets absurd. some crazy stuff happens to phil's character. want to option that the first time you read it or took you awhile to figure out wanted to makeu your debut? >> it wasn't that fully formed a thought. book and thought this seems like a movie to me. i called about trying to get the never directed anything and offshore told that someone else owned them and i let it go. tried a little bit. five years after that somebody reminded me what happened to that book? they said theyd reverted back to the author. so i outlined it which was basically took me about a month. and then they said we made a stille, the other people

own it. [laughter] iti said maybe if they owned this long, that was 20 years that they owned it. maybe they won't make it if i don't make it. kept working at it while i was coulding other things. tavis: i have been fortunate to of a number ofon great hollywood stars like yourself who are doing their and i'm curious as to what it was about project choose it as -- i remember having this conversation with denzel when debaters." great that was his directorial -- everybody has this experience. mott everybody, but anyway, why did this one work for you for your debut? it was that specifically drawn, that vividly render. i read the book and saw the world. every character was specific him or herself. he were funny and capable. reallyaracter the mickey is what drew me. tavis: tell the story.

roughly, a978 or little later than that. visually it was a little richer, played by philip seymour married to jeannie and she has a son from a former a nice guy, is not played by caleb at and he gets killed early on in the movie and everyone else is kind of like isd riddance and mickey trying to bury the body properly, give the kid a proper of save hisort marriage to this woman which is not so good. she wants to know the truth and is rust tryin trying to do -- s just trying to go the right keeps rising on him and he can't get it don't. and he wants truth to get the body bury. a reporter enlisted to help her wants her. everybody kind of has their own agenda. a very small place and a very contained period of time. seemed like a very kind of a pretty linear story and well

drawn characters and i thought -- i think i could tell the story. belabor thisnt to but i'm only raising it because i know for he was who love his we all miss him, philip seymour hoffman. i feel a sense of pride about he passed away, i think we had the record for the conversations he had done. >> is that right? tavis: he was on this show in this chair at least a half a dozen times. we put together a nice tribute to him featuring the best of the six conversations when he sat in the chair. to ask when you are working trying to bring something out and the guy is no longer with us. did you emotionally navigate your way through having directed is a greatrough who pestrana peian. great thespian. >> we were producing partners at roughd been there cuts and gave extensive notes and then we went to sundance and

sold it together. and there is certainly not the experience i thought i was going have. i thought we would be sitting in the back of a theater laughing or justudience reaction experiencing that a little bit. me feel good that we are releasing a movie and distributing a movie soon that was so proud of. and he is fantastic in it. is, yeah.at he this is inside baseball, but let me ask anyway. you figured out as the primary differences the things thelike or don't like about distinction between directing andodes of "mad men" or tv feature film. >> on "mad men" the show is matt show.s you are given the script and our marching orders, as it were. yourre expected to put thumb print ton but that is about -- but the rest of the mattes a. >> and that is all matt wants too. i'm being funny.

all because he has that vision and ha thatch -- shaun livingston specificity which to me is everything. this i wanted to make the decisions myself. mad men is well set up and structured and sets and stages and clothes and people. they were all there for a period tim. if you make a mistake, chances are you might be able to fix it and mattll watch it will watch it and say we should reshoot that or get an of this orpiece that. on the movie it is a tight schedule. days. there are 28 locations. it is period. cars and clothes and people and all of the actors in for three or four days, five days. are all busy. if you don't get it when chances putting all those elements back together. unlikely. is >> want to do it again? >> took me awhile to want to you

consider that. go outside you know. but afteras like -- cutting it and, you know, veryhing it, i'm -- pleased with the way it turned out. if i can find a story that i liked thatch as i one that is the thing. i mean i -- you know. do you think "mad men" is going to be regarded in history?n it made such a mark, i mean. >> it has. second run or its any television show seinfeld is then once isme but kind of cycles through again and then goes away look at how "mash" was. i don't know what the shelf life is of a television show regardless of its influence and impact. so i mean you can't really get impactful. i certainly have never been involved in anything that had

know,ind of, you foothold. who knows. areooking back, i mean you not quite there yet. how do you regard. one thing to ask how you think be regardedl historically. as you look back on your work and your part of it, how do you regard that as part of your langer corpus of work? >> probably end up at the top of the list. the --ll be what is in the real obit. >> and that will be it. a picture of that guy. which i'm proud of. i couldn't be more proud of it. think you don't get a chance to see the evolution of a like -- unless the tv show lasts this long. sides of the character and learn all kinds of things about it. is prominent in my -- tavis: what is your definition success on your director debut or have you already achieved it just by getting it

done? how are you processing it? >> i had a premier the other invited all. and i my, you know, friends and family and people that i go back with in show business in los angeles for a long time. and the people i started with. the response, it was a beautiful theater and it was everything i could hope for. we did the same thing in new york a couple of days ago. you know, people that you youect and whose opinions care about and kind of the people that you make it for really, and they really it anded positively to they all loved it. will drop and the critics will write what they write. i can't control that. i made it. it.happy with i'm proud of it. and i don't know. we'll see. [laughter] so cool aboute in? >> well, i'm not. tavis: of course, you are always cool. i do.t can tavis: if you are not cool you are a great actor. you are a great actor.

is that whatool, that is? >> maybe. tavis: it is called "god's pocket." of oneectorial debut john slattery who we get a chance to see for a few more into next year wraps. men" eventually i suspect you will be back with another film. i look forward to that conversation as i always do. that is our show for tonight. thanks for watching. and as always, keep the faith. more information on today's show visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. >> i'm tavis smiley. join me for an update from katz andwith jonathan connie britton. we'll see you then. ♪

>> penned by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org--

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