(00:00:00) I'm going to introduce him but some lines from Kodak and ancient Irish poet which is which in my judgment quite accurately reflects, mr. Turkle philosophically to it. I hate to judge who loves money the Scribe who loves War Chiefs who do not guard your subjects and Nations without Vigor. I hate houses without dwellers lands on tilled fields that bear. No Harvest. I hate him who respects not father or mother those who make Strife among friends Journeys without say 50 families without strength lawsuits without reason a society without teachers (00:00:51) false witness before a judge there (00:00:54) undeserving exalted to high positions fables and place of teaching knowledge without inspiration sermons without eloquence and a man without conscience. So that ever that I introduce to you, I should cargo gangster and radio spot soap operas Studs Terkel. I'm thinking of and he's quoting the (00:01:25) old Irish barred and the line of like was the undeserving exalted to high position. I'm glad I'm a Minnesota today to say that card. You said the (00:01:35) same thing. And he referred to me as (00:01:41) Chicago gangster and radio soap operas. And that's true. I was the one who threatened mop Perkins a good hard-working middle American. I was at malevolent outside influence. I threatened Mary Marlin who suffered more than st. Teresa ever Envision Mondays through Fridays courtesy of oxydol and I threatened Helen Trent and the subtitle of that was kind of woman find love after 35, but the one I remember best was Betty and Bob and that's rather appropriate today. I think Betty and Bob was a popular soap opera and the mother of Betty was played by a very elegant handsome Silver Head actress named Eddie Davis and years past it was a forgettable script and all the performances including hers and mine were equally forgettable but years passed and I'm watching election night nineteen eighty four years ago. Plus to president elect Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy Davis Reagan and reference made to her mother mother-in-law of the new president ET Davis. And I said, it's my ET Davis and that's when I had what James Joyce calls an epiphany experience. I was Paul on the road to Damascus a blinding light hit me and this was the Revelation you can no longer tell where soap opera leaves often Life Begins. And so we're living in a time. I suppose of soap operas as a reality that may help explain the events of two days ago. Possibly. I'm thinking about the good ones. By the way. I want to make this not too long. I like the other questions from the audience. See this is my pulpit and may I used to work for me hand your Jackson gospel singer, man. You said studs. You should have been a preacher because I'm always saying something and getting into trouble and she said you should have been a preacher. Well here I am. I got my pulpit and I got my captive congregation and when this is over I'll pass the collection plate but I was thinking but also, you know in some of the churches storefront churches there is give and take call and response. It's called a became the basis of jazz to and so I hope to have the response from you somewhere after about 20 minutes or so of my talking and I like the idea of question and answer because it lends certain zest to life one of the things we lack today. It's precisely that I was thinking the book The Good War and the question always comes up the good War. Why do I have it in quotation marks the title. Well, it's a phrase my contemporaries those who are at the front and those who were home or in the rear used it. We were in the good War World War II one in contrast to the obscenity. That was Vietnam War. Yes, it was good in that sense. Yeah, but no war is good it I merely haven't go to because I'm merely repeating an expression that was used at the time and today, you know, we were in the last good war or the good War but also because they noun and the adjective don't match good and war never did match. No war is no matter how Justin even on the recounting of it through the various people. I saw whose portraits are in this book whether it be a guide. Teacher of ornithology in a town called Montevallo outside Birmingham Alabama who was a marine describing the savagery on both sides in the Pacific perhaps a little more than was in the European theater because the aspect of race had to be there because I don't think they would ever do to a German corpse for the young boy. We did do a Japanese corpse-like use the K bar which is seven-inch knife and knock out the gold teeth to carry all the or the ears to carry which was a precursor of course of the gook idea of world war of Vietnam. However, in all the theaters was a terrible thing at the same time, there was this nobility of these kids who were the soldiers in this war or any war that just 19 year old kids pimply-faced acne scared stiff. Open innocent becoming less innocent after the battle and they did remarkable acts of heroism. And why did they do that? It wasn't because some president said flag and country and God know they were abstractions to him. He did it for very specific flesh-and-blood reason the kid next to him needed him and he needed the kid next to him. And that's why they did it in all the wars. That is why they do it because even in that horrible barbaric circumstance War there's this Cooperative spirit that you don't find back home when they went back home. There was that mean competition that seems so glorified these days you see and so that is one of the contradictions within this book and I think all books dealing with war but this particular War changed the whole face of society like we have women in the book who worked in the plants for the first I'm woman stepped out of a kitchen or in this case an Appalachian woman who had worked as a transient worker suddenly in a plant and Viola Kentucky and she describes the feeling of actually doing a certain kind of work that is part of a community effort warlike though it be and then they were told as you know, we were all told now you go back home. Go back to the kitchen because the boys of now come back. Well, they may have gone back to the kitchen. But the seeds of what is feminine to didn't feminism today were planted at that time. And of course with the with the end of the war came the GI Bill and with the GI Bill of Rights the soldiers and for the first time the kitten the family of blue collar people went to college the first ever and so he became at least in his mind middle class a whole new middle class came into being as a result of World War Two there was a prosperity of sorts because Were to end of the depression that's the irony and you notice I worked two books here among the oral histories one is called a hard times and oral history the Great Depression and the other is called the good war and oral history World War 2. These are the two epochal moments. I think within this century and they both happen to be contiguous one following the other because of the depression Arthur Miller the playwright says the depression to him. Where's the key moment in American history that and the Civil War the two most traumatic moments because with the depression we became aware. He the society can slip on a banana peel the gears can be stripped economically and it's a lesson. Of course, we don't remember. I mean, obviously the election tells us there is no history. There is no past because the regulations are all being knocked out more and more and you know, that's going to be repeat that has to be because the freebooters would be back. Need to be a repeat not the same way in history repeated often in the form of fires. But repeated will be answer. The big question is in all these books. I try something, you know as I'm wandering around and about I'm a next disc jockey too. So I freely associate. In jazz and Jazz has beginning middle and end but you improvise in the middle. And so one of the reasons for this book or books like these are called oral histories is that I want to give an idea through the people who live at a certain time. What was it like to live at that time in certain circumstances? What was it like to be a small child here during World War II or during the Depression, but I also dotted with non-americans like the woman an ordinary woman in London during the blitz who's trying to read Cinderella to a three little girls as a v bombers coming right next door and then she says and so the ugly sisters Edna don't fidget dear room comes the bomb next door. What was it like something? We don't know because we are the only one of the participants of the big ones in World War Two whenever suffered Invasion and never suffered bombing in every country there did now we did suffer. And losses of young men and those families grieved inconsolably, but as for the rest of us, we've got to face the reality. It wasn't really that bad rationing sugar here and there but there was no made the only country every other country England France invaded collaborationist partisan. The Axis powers to Italy Germany toward the end firebombing of Dresden Hamburg need we say Japan Hiroshima Nagasaki the Jews dissenters and of course our enemy the Russians, they lost 20 million people and when recently the Normandy 40th anniversary was celebrated as it was in the president was there and look good indeed celebrating Normandy. That was called never mentioned that one at all in the press that was called the second front when they came to normally it was called a second front. No mention of the first front which was the whole Eastern front where the Germans lost four out of five and the Battle of Stalingrad turned the European theater of war around it's never mentioned. See we have no sense of History even without the Cold War but the Cold War I think accentuates an absence of memory, which may explain why if I could just introduce the election for a moment. I'm doing this because it's connected in my mind why 45% of Trade union men and women voted for Ronald Reagan who perhaps and I think there's no there's no controversy about this is the most flagrant union-busting president within memory ever since PATCO. Of course in the reckon of that now, why did they do that? Do they know how they got a minimum wage? Do they know how the 40-hour week came to be with you know what the protection they have how many heads were busted during those years? How many people are Blacklist during those years people were out during those years. They know nothing about that. And so they vote against their own interests say and so we can go on and on about this and certainly the Young on campuses is the remarkable transformation in a horrendous sense the acceptance of authority gladly without question mindlessly when students through the centuries, we're known as questioners students were always known as somebody that was the purpose of Education to have a curious mind to question and not a kind of have a nice day mindlessness. And that's one of the aspects of these books. Anyway, you follow what I'm saying? There is a memory and I'm saying we are the richest country in the world industrially financially. Certainly militarily and the poorest country in the world in memory in history. We have no past now. We've got to recapture that past our know what it was like that's why do these books on him? And so there are non America, but the book is primary the American experience. And of course, there's the nice a couple who were a shameful episode during that war of Liberation. We put away the Japanese-American course, there were Japanese Americans blacks, of course segregated army. They had to fight Iron had to fight for the right for a chance to die upfront had to fight for that. But then there's John Smith him and perhaps could end with this and then throw it open to questions John smitherman. Now, we know about Nagasaki and Hiroshima and I won't I said the heroism of our boys and of women to and the generosity of Spirit by the way that America did show to that's in a to a tremendous generosity of spirit. We have this Americans The people certainly do but there's John smitherman. Just I worked like a detective I hear about a certain guy as someone taught the certain guy at a certain place. So I go down there see him. It might be something more. Like what was a mutiny and porcher kago just off the coast of San Francisco or it might be John Smith ermine. Just outside Nashville. He was a young Farmer Boy sailor who was in bikini during the atomic tests shortly after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And so I hear the voice that come on the house studs. We traveled there and is a dog barking and I come in. I see John Smith him and he's very handsome guy the face across between Robert Mitchum and Young Jack Dempsey, you know, but then I see has no legs and then I can't take my eyes off his left hand his left hand as an elephant's trunk. Irradiated he was the elephant man has John and he's trying to explain what happened to nobody warned them. He and thousands of other young men have middle-aged men now they got one. Defect or another the kids have it they have it but VA and the government and certain not this administrable ever acknowledge the connection between those that they're swimming in that Lagoon and being in those tests ships and what they've got today the evidence of course is overwhelming. He gets five bucks a month. That is he did get five bucks a month. John died a month after I saw him he knew he was dying. This is my wife. Rosa Works, Ohio should be taken care of and his wife Rose. He's quite marvelous couples that he he loves his country America very devout religious, man is you know, you think that treating the boys right says rose that was his as indignant as she could get do you think the treating our boys right the irony of John Smith in this is and the beauty in the midst of all the agony is that Japanese doctors called him to Japan to help treat him as they treated the Nagasaki. Key and the Hiroshima people and he says and I became one of them. I became a hibakusya Ibaka sure is the word for Survivor of the atomic blasts. That's the paper. Crane symbol. You've seen his I became a her back assure and there I was with these Japanese people of Hiroshima Nagasaki and those who could get up could I walk would come to me and speak to touch me and when I when I was wielder, he was wheeled down the streets of Tokyo the people Rush up to him because he was them and in that metaphor. It's almost theological I think in religious and that metaphor is the common Humanity that adds to any talk of War sheer lunacy today will have today of course and he talked of winning a limited nuclear war as we're set now and then by some administrative figure is absolute lunacy. No other word for it. Every scientist of Sanity says it Jorge Castillo Kowski the man Who was Eisenhower's Chief science adviser? Colleague of J Robert Oppenheimer, you know, he says George was dying of cancer at the age of 85 talking to Young scientists in Chicago. And he says to the young scientist. I may be the only one in this room who will die in bed says George herb Scoville heat Scoville former CIA deputy director of science. He says his sanity. I'm picking every saint sinus not not any teller of tall tales in any event. I have to end with an incident that nothing to do with the book but had to include it in the book about 20 years ago. I'm visiting an Aryan Chicago. The racially tense. I was doing a documentary on it of little kids eight nine years old and there were skipping rope and rope skipping, you know is a great art form, you know Double Dutch and the kids make up Rhymes and these little black girls and they were Mexican kids and some Italian kids to answer. I'm asking all the silly adult questions and asking about what do you think a god? What does God looked like to you? How do you envision him or then finally they knew about the bomb they heard about that thing called a bomb this in the middle 50s some time. And finally I say to one little girl the usual stupid adult question. What do you want to be when you grow up as she's skipping rope? She says, how do I know if I live to be grown up so skipping rope and the other girl skipping rope were they and then she says something that is as a poetic. The day wasn't promised to me. The day wasn't promised to me and said my life wasn't promised to me and the other girls kept his it was use it wasn't it was it wasn't and it became a children's game the talk of life and death of a species. That's how I had to end the book just that way and that's I suppose how I end this thing because now I'd like to have questions. Good not to forget history isn't there a need to reassess continually or of course to reassess history? Always he one of the things in school today. I suppose miss something to do with what's happening on the campus. There's more and more ba degrees not I mean Bachelor of Arts, I mean business administration more and more engineering courses more and more computer programming courses more and more silicon chip courses more and more High Tech courses and less and less Humanities. I mean three symptoms music literature sociology and some I got a feeling that Humanities and Humanity are not unrelated is education. Well, that was the way of the answers that second question is education a key, you know, Adler's theory of the new education. That that'll be an at Mortimer Adler. You thinking of I suppose yeah, that's another long. I'll be a longer Mortimer Adler. It's a long one. (00:20:33) 10 good you coming out of the Next is the basis of Elections. Wow. Let me think of the next one. Good thing to come on. Well, I would say that (00:20:43) an awareness. I think there will be it's been cast the die has been cast not the die. The vote has been cast and I think I do see a journalism. Now that maybe perhaps a little more inquisitive and curious than has been a recent years, perhaps something of the six something new. It can't be replay. What was in the 60s. Nothing is ever the same. That is a big one by the biggest thing I think is us all of us. No matter how we voted or leaving those who did not vote. I think the has to be a process now of thinking and re-evaluation. What's our country United States the first democracy in the history of the world all about it's about discussion the town meeting after all New England was the basis of it all what did Jefferson who is called upon by the president find such irony. What? (00:21:36) Is (00:21:36) guys call upon all the time and aware citizenry and aware not many aware where the gun but aware with intelligence and tongue and I see certainly those I think they'll be coming forth. I think a lot of the other thing by the way, I'm glad you did raise that because I don't want to paint a negative picture. Something is happening. That hasn't made six o'clock news. There is a legacy of the 60s in a way in communities. There are people now older than they were two students and others who working nuclear freeze movements outrageous, utility rates non-polluted matters local matters that a local and what you could put your hand more than you can matters International and meaning in scope. But from those people acting taking part the juices start flowing and that's a tremendously important thing psychologically to once you take part in something. Your pessimism is less. You're feeling of helplessness is less and even and you win these little Adams now and then and that's terribly important. If you lose a battle of two actually being active on some issue of the moment of the community or the country makes that person feel or that he counts if I could be theologically and you count and that's terribly (00:22:52) important. Ultimate competition. No, I certainly don't that's (00:23:07) been the old way of saying that you can't another way of saying you can't change human nature or do think the most horrendous cliches in the world. You can't change human nature will always have wars a perfect way of saying except the horrendous condition what it is. We haven't even scratched the surface what man is capable of being and doing when I say man, of course, you don't mean man and woman, you know that but we haven't we live in prehistory, you know Einstein before he died. Yeah, you know, the irony is Einstein himself because of his Brilliance is response for the atom bomb was his equation that did it. This is this can happen matter energy and all that but Einstein before he died. He never dreamed will be dropped on humans before he died said man has taken a Quantum Leap scientifically technologically unless he takes that same Leap in human relations and Nation to nation and person-to-person were in the soup. And so this matter of will always had man's he needs another Outlet. I think it's absolute baloney because there are so many ways that man can exercise that same challenge not yet tapped. I have a friend his name is Myles Horton. He's teacher of a great School in Tennessee called the Highlander Folk School. It's a labor school is one that Martin Luther King attended and Walter Reuther attended a lot of guys did exclaims man. Attendant klansmen changed see people have a great capacity for change in my previous book. I have a clan leader who becomes something else a remarkable story of transcendence. His name is Claybourne PLS. It was remarkable. But anyway, so Myles Horton says I look at a man with my two eyes one. I see the water is the other eye for what he can be and what interests me is not what But the possibilities people that's what it's about. after the human species is (00:25:05) about You think of both political parties are out of touch with the people? Oh God. I don't (00:25:15) know. That's the setting a revaluation of one certainly right now as out of touch. It's beyond Pi. I'm not talking about the parties. It's the people. I mean, there's something Saturday issue is Reagan or Mondale or Mario Cuomo for that matter order Geraldine Ferraro issue isn't these individuals? This was us? And she in a way the election tells me and it doesn't matter who you want. That doesn't mindlessness at work. And I'm not saying we're mine. I'm really saying we never really tackled issues. I think polls, you know poles are predict. What's going to be should be abolished immediately. If I were a congressman I was a bill of me to abolish all electoral polls make it illegal and I will use in a cockeyed goofy way the First Amendment does the aren't you fighting the first know? I'm helping the First Amendment because that is suppressing free speech and free expression of opinion because the polimedia says hey he's ahead. How can I get ahead I know issues are discussed suppose. We didn't know who was ahead. And we hear Reagan talked. I mean the real Reagan the first debate Reagan, that's the real one. You know that now, you know that and I know that why do we kid ourselves? We know there's a creature of guys who write speeches and do it and he'd stumble if he hasn't something prepared or equip from Hollywood. We know that and many people vote of them really know deep down that he's not Albert Einstein they know that and they know possibly can spell cat they know that but they voted for him because they themselves don't think too much of themselves. That's the key to me. I don't want to sound a little bit Scalia here engine. I'm talking now about self esteem and self esteem only comes from open free discussion arguing heatedly passionately Cooley. I love to have questions toss that me there antagonistic to me too because the challenges and the person who I feel is dead wrong and he goes I'm dead wrong. That's good when we just give it back and forth because then again the juices start flowing It's that acceptance of the banality these as profundity that I find so horrid anyway, (00:27:30) sure. Ronald Reagan's, which I think he said the West will not contain Communism, but the West will transcend communism. Comments on that. I don't know what it (00:27:50) means as you coming to the West will transcend communism why I agree if he really means we're not going to fight them militarily but challenge them in thought I agree with that. I like that but does it but exact Stone indicate that not the ACT about Nicaragua since you mentioned that me not to be more and more in the news now isn't it? You know several people are predicting that we're going to go in there in one way or another and immediately here now about a Soviet ship. Now, you know that was going to be something has got to be if not true or not. Something's got to be because this is by way of answering the question that his comment and his act may be two different things now Nicaragua I'm using this a case in point has had revolutions long before Castro is even a blush on his mother's cheek. You know, that old phrase not even twinkle in his father's eye a blush on his mother's cheek long before. (00:28:47) One (00:28:47) was ever born. There were Revolutions in Hispanic. America Evans conquistadores came peasants fought all for centuries against the view landowners. It's an old story and the best authorities are the young priests and nuns who so heroic down there and know when they express the Theology of Liberation, they are expressing Christ's work in their very being in life because they know it means that long before there was ever a thing called communism now in 19, I (00:29:17) got to read you something. I'm glad you brought that up. I got something here (00:29:20) back in the 30s late 20s. That was a great American Marine hero. His name was Bridget a major general Smedley Butler now Major General Smedley Butler was a combination of MacArthur Eisenhower patent and John Pershing all rolled into one and he was the hero of the right of America the hated Roosevelt and there was talk of maybe not a coup, but a beating Roosevelt with Smedley Butler. Who was chasing the original sandino after whom these guys are named Agostino sanding all over the Nicaraguan landscape and he came back and all these big boys who will be on Reagan and the supporters loves Smedley Butler, but he wrote his diary and part of publishing a magazine called common sense. I carry it with me. I read just a piece of it. This is from Brigadier and Major General Smedley Butler USMC retired. There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag. The military gang is blind to it has its fingerman its brain guys, and it's big boss. It seems odd for me and military man to adopt such a comparison truthfulness compelled me to do so, I spent 33 years four months and active military service member of a country most agile military force the Marine Corps and he tells his life serving only ranks and beginning 2nd Lieutenant to Major General and it Continue is going thus he tells about his life in different parts of I helped make Mexico especially Tampico safe for American oil in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank to collect revenues. I help Break by half a dozen Central American Republic's for the benefit of Wall Street. I'm reading Major General Smedley Butler and he goes on I helped purify Nicaragua for the banking House of Brown Brothers 1992 12. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar in 1916 in China in 1927. I helped see that standard oil went on its way unmolested and he ends during those years. I had what the boys in the backroom called a swell racket. I was rewarded with honors with metals and promotion looking back on it. I feel I might have given Al Capone a few hints the best he could do was operate his racket in three City districts. I operate on three continents. Signed Major General Smedley D Butler USMC retired from an article in common sense magazine November 1935. That is what I mean by history. We know it's badly. But otherwise, we don't know we never heard of him. We're not supposed to because he was never heard from Again by the (00:32:08) way. Hey, but in any event, this is (00:32:12) what I mean by re-evaluating history. That was the only question we have to continuously. That's the duty of any citizen living in our open Society. Yes, (00:32:23) sir. You made a day yesterday never heard of. There's a cop. Area which regularly publishes that article who did a communist organization. Is that what you sent him? Thank you for thank you for the free association. That's an old trick. You know, (00:32:45) that's what your Micaiah pardon my saying this. That's what Joe used to do all the time. I did something and you said that's a communist group publishes that regularly but it's a trick. I'm sorry, (00:32:55) sir. Okay. All right. I like this by by like this. I'm just counting what someone else says I neat little trick. (00:33:05) What is that? I like this by the (00:33:07) way. That is known as a (00:33:14) conversation stopper step down step down. That's enough that's enough of that. I love the United States as much as you do. I think that the spirit of Jefferson and of Tom Paine and of Sam Adams and of FDR and of Harold ickes involves intelligence and not simply this crap you're dishing out telling me to why do I hate United States? How dare you say that to me, sir? (00:33:38) Coming problem. Let's you're next. I don't know. (00:33:41) I've known I have no I can't suffer that stuff gladly I used to as a kid. I can't anymore. I'm sorry. When you say what know, I hate United can't we be self-critical for a moment aren't we allowed business for our societies about the makes us different from a totalitarian Society (00:33:57) sir? I'm not because I'm spoke (00:33:59) of the resilience of the American public of the generosity. I merely urging all of us putting myself to think more deeply and (00:34:06) thoroughly. criticism Yes, sir. Okay, when the United States invaded a small island while ago I was seen as as proof that America is back there were not afraid to use military force anymore. And you think this is an indication that the American people miss the good War perhaps I'm a war with moral truth to our moral certitude where I don't (00:34:29) know that's comes up a lot the romanticization of anything. Now the question was do we miss the good War he's talking about the possibility of invasion of some other country. And is there an assist as art museum Nostalgia for something like that? (00:34:48) Yeah. Well that's similar (00:34:50) to is he one of the problems World War Two is we equate everything with that and you can't equate things without you can't equate Vietnam with World War II there's a different to say and there was a victory a tremendous Triumph you say and so the fact that there wasn't a Triumph in Vietnam. came as a blow Jazz, but the fact that There was an immorality again. I feel is any morality and I being that he can't compel the World War Two. So the ethical aspect is never discussed, but the winning is and it may help explain why we feel we had our nose bloodied by little guys in Black pajamas who just ran away and was Furious because our John Waynesburg was offended by that and so we invaded Grenada and Buddy cheers big Victor because we're not Air Force going to invade us (00:35:37) tomorrow, you know. Yes, sir. Corresponding to the 6 p.m. I'm sorry. About the correspondence. (00:35:55) Oh, well, it's just a problem. We have generally with TV the shortness the brevity of time the outline Mystic approach when often you appear on TV, you told you got two minutes, you know, give you philosophy of life and two minutes because the commercial is coming up, you know, it's very difficult. I think TV is done good things as well as bad things. It's given us an outliner stick Approach at isn't good. But I think it helped during the Civil Rights Movement days. Very very much. People are the first time saw Sheriff Jim Clark on a horse and the hose and women and kids. So in that sense, it was good and to some extent in Vietnam matter to certain that Vietnam program on PBS, you know, the one I'm talking about was awfully good and so in that sense, it's got the big thing is the nature of the technique of the instrument itself and the fact that it has to go like that and that's not Deep enough to make us think it's just a fact we get a fact but not a truth as difference see a fact comes (00:36:58) out. (00:37:07) My position yeah, I'm evaluating myself and all of us. I mean I come back to the subject of thinking things through more deeply very attractive person with marvelousness medium and contrast to to Mondale who is uncomfortable quite obvious with the medium. And so the medium to use of Marshall mcluhan phrase, the medium was the message in a sense that is what really comes out of it the medium and it's as though we have to go beyond the medium is the (00:37:34) point Coming for years to what degree do you see the influence of the Moral Majority growing in our government? (00:37:43) That's a big question. Well, it's powerful certainly and there's hardly any opposition to it now and then there's Norman Lear I has this group called the American way, but if you watch TV and Sunday mornings, it's overwhelming the number of electronic preachers there are and she think about what would your frightens me is mine is the way says Jerry Falwell and Jerry says he's in conversation with god continuously. I have a friend named John Henry fog from Texas genres. I want to check on that. So I called up God he says and I said God, you know, Jerry Falwell the Reverend says he's in direct communication with you. And God said to me says Johnny I never heard of the guy. And so it's going to have what has to be challenged certainly by ministers priests clergyman others who who feel that? The ology is related to life itself into The Human Condition and the world (00:38:46) started The anecdotal kind of to do well, I don't know what just it was an (00:38:51) accident. Really. I reckon he was interviewing a couple of guys on a radio program and some listen to calls it. Hey that have you do is somewhat different. I see what you mean but different. I don't know but it seems different. It seems I hear something. I hadn't heard before something like that and then a publisher named Andre schifrin who's my publisher for all these books and Pantheon said one day. How about doing a book about report from an American village? And that was Chicago He meant, you know people talking about changes and when they were a child and childhood today and so out came Division Street America and then one days is how about something about he was thinking about history, you know, the Great Depression kids don't know about that and so hard times came into being and so one thing led to another and that's how it came about. I was raised in the hotel in Chicago and a small hotel and that hotel that Lobby may play a big role in my life. I think I wrote Kinds of conversation discussion these guys were skilled Craftsmen. They were Boomer firemen and carpenters and engineers. And so they may play a role to it wasn't any one thing was a called an accretion of (00:40:01) accidents is Jonathan Yardley in the Washington post renewed your book, I guess last week sometime and I was very high and it sprays. How are we said he is very concerned that the books already epitomize. The militaristic attitude is prevailing and people still think that this is the way to go which a (00:40:20) comment on that. Yeah. I chose very I'm not sure I was pleased by the review but the last part he left open and as though He's implying just the opposite where he wasn't that I wasn't sure that is which where I wanted to go that as I valued the War and what it meant the same as a war is horrible. I would go on the side of saying basically the amounts to being an anti-war book. That's my opinion of it and Yardley meant deliberately. Very good way to raise that question. He wanted his review to be open discussion on that. Very subject is he it was I thought as a very am I was excited by the review. It is the Hard One to answers when the because the Paradox is there of a war that was had to be at that moment and the horror of war itself. At the same time the accelerating feeling these guys. That one guy says I remember every moment of it. I must describe this incident as a very often. Someone says you should talk to my father. Well, I've heard a million times. Well, this kid named Johnny Erasmus says, I spoke to his father Bob Rasmus a tall guy and suddenly becomes this 19 year old Rifleman a young mama's boy and he's right up front going to this town are the German snipers are not the millions in the Army, but he's the point man, but he also loves art and music and so he's describing a horrendous Carnage which is part and barely gets out of and he's heading toward bone. Jeremy is bone. Beethoven's birthplace in the middle of everything and he's an argon not Oregon working Forest during Battle of the Bulge days. And again, it's horrendous. He's gee I could just have one area music here. So you have a crazy Paradox of this kid in the middle of all but here's the funny part. How I work my tell you I work in privatization lie. He says just the other day. This is during the interview. Bob Rasmus says to me I'm standing on the loop Corner waiting for the light to change in Chicago when a guy says to me. Are you Bob Rasmus? And I look at him and says red Prendergast. Am I right? We hadn't seen each other for 40 years. We're together one month and we knew each other immediately. And so I'm put the two together. That's I get red Prendergast number of course, and I went to see red and that becomes a chapter called a chance encounter and it's red who says coming back to the war and its effect retches, you know, that war to me was the climax of my life. The climax was shot in the first real. The rest of my life is anticlimax very often here guys talk that way of a high moment in the middle of a barbaric circumstance. How we doing for time? (00:43:06) Okay. Okay. I have a question. Yes, sir. The Mondale and the Democrats were criticized for not providing new ideas. What new ideas are there in our so called free enterprise system and I think the Catholic Bishops are coming out with a document and I economics which criticizes capitalism quite severely do you have any a slide like well, (00:43:43) I'm looking forward to reading the Catholic Bishops paper, which I like to see I he's asking about what new ideas do we have in our society and he mentioned the Catholic Bishops coming out of come out, you know with a paper on War and Peace recently with a paper on the economics of our situation. I'm not I'm not an authority on this quite frankly. I know I have nothing to say about the ideas are very system. But I do know the human being all of us in this Society. I'm sure that applies to other societies to are capable of thinking further than with thinking thinking Anew as well I'm saying and I'm looking forward to reading the Catholic Bishops paper, of (00:44:22) course. (00:44:27) Well, I'm you probably guessed. I'm for it and Liberation theology. We should describe as well. How can you describe it as the Theology of Oscar Romero of killed? No sobbing using him of Melville Brothers, the the Marinol priests and the nuns in Latin America of the four women who were killed in El Salvador of any of the priests and nuns, especially Hispanic America and working in the communities of this country who believe now, I know that too fathers here. So very presumptuous of me to talk for them. I'm talking about religion generally who believe there's a connection between Testament and humanity and Human Condition and poverty and F and and french fries and disenfranchised my vitamin and women and men has to be related to our daily immediate lives as well as my fee to my so do I like the Geology indeed I (00:45:26) do. Must have never called anyone that before Oh, I got to tell you a story about that a minute question is you seem to enjoy people across and I would guess that you would enjoy just as much talking with an individual. How do you discipline yourself do the writing which seems to me to be a very private experience. (00:45:49) That's a good question the very top one answer if you didn't hear the question, how do I sense? I'm gregarious by Nature. I do like crowds and obviously yet on when I interview an individual alone as a private matter and how do I discipline my own writing? It's I guess I'm uh sort of schizophrenic. I split myself and when I'm home, and I've got all those voices now on tape transcribed now begins what I call the gold prospecting process. I become what I call a gold prospector a gold prospector night 18-49 the guy in Kentucky heard about us gold strike in California. He heads up. That by Conestoga wagon a covered wagon Pikes Peak or bust I hear about a certain person I had out there and then he starts digging the prospect. It does outcomes all this rough or and I start talking and outcome these 60 pages of conversation, but now he's got to find the Gold Dust so now he starts as filtering his sifting and he comes a handful of Goldust. So I do the editing and the cutting and the putting together here comes my Goldust eight pages out of the 60 and now it's still not a form that how does it become a necklace the gold or a ring or a gold watch? Our how does this become a book and so you got to find a form how this one connects to that and that's more or less how I work now is for he never called anybody studs. I must tell you about this, you know, it was named not the way somebody may think unfortunately, I was named because I love studs lonnegan. My name is Louis, but though I love the book studs learning about James T Farrell. And so I loved studs in it stuck around and then I got a letter from a librarian down in Georgia. She's a Librarians life is not the most exciting. Although it's very rewarding for me. But I have a Moral Majority associate who thinks your book is pornographic working that is working at just come out and he said to me a subscriber called up and asked for this book and I said, we don't carry dirty bucks. And so she says I ask what because you referring to he said, I believe it's called working studs by Terkel. And that's when I knew I had me a best (00:48:07) seller. That's how I got the name. that man part of the problem today is that you've has no sense of History. I think you're right on the money and I'm almost done with five years of college and I'm think my sense of history is still pretty shallow, even though I studied it two semesters in school. What do you think can be done? So that children from Little on know about these things can learn I wonder if should I repeat her (00:48:47) question. Did you hear a question? I'll what she's saying. She agrees who I said about we lack a sense of History because she studied it for five years in college and she feels deficient in it and she's asking what's to be done a little kids. That's a tough one. I think we have to re-evaluate it. Let me put it this way. I can answer in a poem a phrase Berthold brecht drug Threepenny Opera that, you know of Mack the Knife three, we wrote a poem and it's about what I call oral history. It's about all those people. What was it? Like Mary said beginning. What was it like to live a certain time in history Smithsonian Institute in Washington Smithsonian has a marvelous room of all time artifacts of early America and the world and it jumps at you because he was it like to be in that steam engine or before thirst or to live in that covered wagon a movement of time. What was it like And so if I say to you to our history books mostly deal with the makers and shakers on the best history books with Kings and royalty and presidents, you know, I'm big shots, but they don't deal with these Ordinary People. What was your life like and so if I say to you The pyramids reaction is pharaohs or the Pharaohs didn't lift a finger. The pyramids were built by Anonymous slaves though his palm goes like this when Caesar conquered Gaul and in Latin one, we always say in Caesar's commentaries all gold divided into three parts when Caesar conquered Gaul was not even a cook in the Army. And when the Chinese wall was built where did the Masons go for lunch see and then 1588. I remember this in school McKinley High School Chicago. Her name was Amelia pruner. Our teacher and was pruner had upon snake and stick the ponds the off yelling now children. The year is 1588 what happened in 1580 and all the hands go up. We know teacher Sir Francis Drake conquered the Spanish Armada. And so Brett asks when the Armada sank we read that King Philip King Philip of Spain wept King Philip wept were there no other tears That's the question where there no other tiers was nobody else on those boats who drowned nobody else of the English soldiers who drowned or one and that's the question. What was it? Like, what was it like to be at Calvary the foot of Calvary on Good Friday we can end with this for me. What was it? Like if there is a man who is leading an underground movement of a new philosophy a new religion in the world ending with love? With the cooperation and he subversive to the Roman Empire and he's being executed. He's going up the hill at that heavy burden and then down below as young Roman soldier. Oh just a pimply-faced kid a 19 like all soldiers got a helmet on a Roman but just the kidnap victim adore you just this kid, you know, and and he doesn't know what it's all about. And then you've got some members of this underground they love this man and what he has but they're scared but the faithful and then they got some guys who are singing like Judas was thinking for the house on Roman Activities Committee and I and c and and then and then you've got the judge who's a pretty decent guy but he's washing his hands he wants nothing to do with it. But his wife was saying is a nice guy. This guy's got something see what now Jerry Falwell wouldn't like this approach Testament because it isn't his approach but the one I would look at the I'm not a particular religious person that sense I think Religious but not an organized religious sense. Well that that was the kind of History. I like 1066 William the Conqueror spans the channel. We know that and the Normans conquered the Saxons. We know that but how did that affect that Hut where that Saxon peasant lives that his wife start speaking French or what? Does he see you stir how it affect so that's the kind now, we're taught that way. I'm just giving an idea. There's again, it's my presumptuousness that the exciting. You know, what some kids are doing now take a little tape recorders. I get some lettuce and and they're asking that grandmother or that old woman on the block or the old man. What was your life like starting your childhood and some of these kids are doing a little tape recorders and it's very exciting to know what that old person that community and a clown is thinking (00:53:21) of Woman, mr. Turkle. I'm a guest here today, and so are you and I'm going to tell people in the next couple of days. That on Thursday noon. We pushed back a corner of Truth together, which your friend Einstein said is the most important activity in which two people can engage very grateful that I came here today. I was a chaplain in that good War. Nobody ever questioned it until a month or so after I got back one reason the men thought it was great is they counted there was meaning Carl Gustav Jung says the neuroses of this generation is that my father could you could you (00:54:02) what you're saying to me is so tremendous. Could you come up here and said because back there they don't hear you. (00:54:08) Well, all right, please. Okay, this is this is tremendous. I feel my visits worthwhile. I'd like to say to mr. Turkle. I wish I were as good a (00:54:22) priest as he is a thinker and a human being and I'm most grateful to him this afternoon. I don't want to be unhappy or unkind anybody else because by my profession I'm a reconciler Rollo May was in college in 1935 and he heard all the evil about World War One. Just the way you've heard all the evil about World War since and as professor said in spite of everything war will go on because it's the only time men feel important in this century and on this country. You don't have to agree but there's got to be some reason why these guys get together the American Legion convention. I thought I was engaging or listening to a first-class mind this afternoon. I want him to know what I thought as usual. I probably represent a minority opinion, but I'm very grateful to mr. (00:55:15) Turkle. I ought to quit one on my head.