A Word on Words; Caroline Kennedy; 3131

i guess caroline kennedy welcome to work and besides its own eyes they're here to talk about the patriots handbook what one of the book no thank you it was great to put together i learned so much about our country an unannounced just a wonderful experience for me and of all my whole family so glad and terry you know i think there are some people who say patriots handbook oh my god we need it now in the wake of all the trouble we've had since september eleventh and since the war in a narrow the men a greater need to rely on a drive instinct but my guess is you'd been working on this for long actually and i was sort of in the back of my mind for a long time that i really decided that i want to put the effort into really did make it into a book and after september eleventh because so many people that i now and then and just everywhere were really thinking about what it means to be american again i think you know we have gone through a period of sort of disengagement but now there's really an outpouring of patriotism and and a desire to

know really what that means is it's a slurry of our past and the heritage that we have an ion but it's also be engaged today endowment and figuring out how we can contribute to you know making our society everything we want to be so was a a really i think from a time combination of those two things that many more sensitive to this put together i think we really need to be informed about what it means to be an american because otherwise i think there's so much confusion now and by looking at some of the things that inspired people in the past and you know and the challenges of our country is facing think it really gives us inspiration for our own time you know i when i think about him look your wrestling as a guide the patriots and book electronically is it's way too long ago but nothing is as long and there's just so much and there are so many different voices and that's really why i want to get across i think that's the most reading this book is and reading this book i think

for a month for a long time but if you if you read if you'd begin just with your favorite pieces in the book there are more of them than you can get through an really i think the idea is really just iran so that you could you know families couldn't pick one thing and talk about it or if there's words to a song that you can remember you know you might go back in and what goes up and then find something else thats interesting and palmer on the you know we all decision but really i'm i want to make an excess what they think we spend so much time talking about your sport or tv or wherever but we don't really have the tools we need to talk about patriotism or what it means to be american or what is freedom really mean and now's the time when people really are thinking about those things on and i think that this hopefully will on them put them in a place it's easy my daughter came up with the title the hand bought a different than originally of

course is the city you know not maybe so long right boeing lease again you look at this the range of voices i think that's one of the amazing things about our society is that we do and we have created this i am concerned conversations dialog and there's there's wary of political there's singers there are streamers and all the as go together to make a really america and so you can with you start to eliminate you end up with something that's maybe serve more drier traditional and i think that was really what i was trying to i can occasionally lonely favorites and i've been there and done you begin with a flag that i think i think symbolically it's a wonderful place to start thinking about and talk about that are two but there's a lot to be said about the flag besides the pledge and start lying about both of which order right way and pledge allegiance of incoming i think the fly sessions is why my favorite because it really sells a sort of emotional connection that we have with mr kelly it an american flag is certainly the symbol of

that but within the flag even the history of our relations with the flags you know starting with the star spangled banner and we're hitting fallen and you've gone through the sort of cases which really came to symbolize freedom and the right individual speech and free on an island and with the case and we know where the harm for the flight suit case and justice jackson that's amazing opinion about the freedom to different and what that that's really at the heart of what mainstream america says that's the point on me and the georgian going they are right but so grateful dead iii that they're really different ways that different prism through which people say that flying ensemble and the end and he's a justice jackson of jehovah's witness get really says you know they had made a mistake because friend gordon made a terrible mistake two years earlier

with nearly five days and he just correct the record and says you know you can do that is you cannot force children who are religious belief to do something that is contrary to their well i think also it really he celebrates kind of this various voluntary patriot idea that most people would be enough oil to around to do this but in our country we have room for people who have a different point of urine and we see that obviously in emerson thoreau and many other great thinkers and aman even in thomas jefferson's in our inaugural speech where on after very barrel action and now min which congress was deadlocked and thirty six ballots for jefferson to the elected president has served interesting given what we've been through recently that on you know he has this great speech about where all republicans were often odorless and and every difference of opinion is neither into principal so i think that's really why the great things about our society is that we do have a mechanism for peaceful change and at the same time we recognize the right for you know individuals

speech or the right to disagree and actually part of calzada juxtaposition of jefferson's aro with washington's farewell which washington warned of the dangers it as they have a full threat of party what is similar and that i think they were really from the beginning you know you really get this feeling of even though we have our nino and given point zero an ice into a common from different backgrounds and they're eating or that were always together and him in a way in washington says the same thing it on you know you gotta be loyal to this national enterprise that we're all involved in and then if you think about what was going on then and it wasn't necessarily a sure thing that this country would succeed we know he was really speaking for economy unity i think jefferson insane that really carries her there's a massive anna quindlen roaches talks about service mongrel nation that really works it's improbable but it's really a marathon and i think that that

spirit really goes back to the beginning and continues of charm time you know speaking of presidential addresses low rating addresses there fdr's aggressive there there's a wonderful speech by lyndon johnson and of course more than one john f kennedy but he is a normal is there to have to go through this selection process i read the acknowledgements in the great staff here working with the new visitor drew still but this is a monumental task and in the selection process as an artist for that the fine as far it really was because i got a chance to go back and re things i always meant to rewrite boring knew very well and down and you know there are there meantime people have done similar i had actually books that belong to my father every now anthologies and so it was fun to see what was in those books that were done you know really forty fifty years ago an answer a way to get arab and more present day and so on so that all causes of

cancer looking back at how people define patriotism in and how much more inclusive i think our definitions to venezuela through childhood the early on he thought about having poor to begin to remain arguable that big no no yeah cesar say with my grandmother i think it was a wonderful way of making this as sir joyful enterprise on because i don't think a citizens' i mean children really approach it with their spare of celebration and now michigan captivate them and continue that very thing then they can engage in as adults and on but she was wonderful because i think she really by the sighting up comic kind of captured our imaginations into thinking you know you might want either one to get up in the night and you know you changed the course of history and it was tremendously exciting and i think i'm really pass down a lot of horrible ways in a way that was you know enjoyable everyone in your family so you know as we approach to do with who

with a patriotism expressed in a whole variety of ways that women right i mean we think of plagiarism that go to war and fighting warming men's work we thought that leash until very recently we don't think that way more but but you know the women's voices in this book are out loud and in a patriotic family from from day for ten the susan b anthony bedford and writing about the feminine mystique and susan b anthony center for just inferred so you know i can vote you have no right what i find the man appears the judge major and my theories and i think that's an absolutely frustrated him and he mentioned it was you and the idea that she was really actually arrested and fined now for voting as really an amazing thing i mean that they aren't we know that women who spoke out against the charge of child labor and the suffragettes as you said in past this it on jeannette rankin the only person to

various for one and mortar witch being on of those courageous are just a little i'm crazy but she certainly stuck to her voice as a pacifist and then i think was tremendous and margaret chase smith speaking of the more creative pieces wonderful and i had i remembered and that it only in my mind and then i remembered what she said i just knew what she didn't do a courageous stand you took and they didn't go well yeah i had that's what's so important right and then you know you eleanor roosevelt artie no other woman can ever be president so interesting to say i say now will be long now bygone times have changed and her sense of how important it was for women to really get it right and even better than being in them and when they finally do take it so so i think you know it seats it's women who raised a patriotic manner and so i think from abigail adams on where there is a tremendous a sense in america of the strength of women and i really tried to get across you say it also early on that there may be have to you in the most awesome interview takes

you into a discussion or the job with the appropriate your new disagree didn't tell us which one you go back in for the announcement was seventeen and john was then stroll about that debate is long line of the last three years have been the collagen dams is now well well regarded that they think that the civilian that play really captured our imagination and planted still and it's based on the actual diary so it's a gray whale or history just eating and we talk with talented and in a new book a patriot and broken it's great that it all about this wonderful book to the two pieces on his desk about why included limits relatively obvious one of them when you think about it though the book traces the development of the live democracy in america and speaking that's the joke was their hand but no one on earth about

one of the cable or from birmingham jail was an interesting selection where'd it come from why is the quality and there's so many of the same amazing speeches and her writings and some of the new direction and i have been cut in a number of them in their i think that really to the town this sense of wait what just law as an end on and what is the obligation of the citizen on and it really comes forth in that letter in a way where are my savior cash is such a time and place it almost hard for us remember sometimes in our familiar some of the scenes individuals and on that if you combine that ladder with now my father civil rights kitchen and sue johnson in other speeches and one of the king and it says it just brings you back in time to this time where segregation and anne what he went through and then went down because the moon was canceled some way and the patients and he you know spoke out so elegantly dancing ids jail in an ounce so i thought the

thousands you know tremendously important close and again i read it then that the really didn't really brings to life reality of time which dark shadows countries with an evident everywhere with regard to so is there is a brief excerpt from harper lee's to kill a mockingbird which actress and scout for talking and and scott says to atticus we knew when we beat when you win you win in this case and he says no and then she says well why well a hundred years ago this week as it will live through london when are you doing and he said even after it is it worth trying to win right and you know for those who've read that book

that brief excerpt jumps off the page and really hits you right where you are because it reminds you of a time when ensure justice ruth all across this regional approach right and i mean i was very young at that time and i myself under her but i know that doing the research for this and i read in many more things that are in their you know we obviously have done stumbling along the way that i think that that our society has changed so much since that time and one of the things i think that baum they come through really is a pair of words and ideas soon after our history that certainly at that time dr king i think really down it isn't just his words in a way articulating tie them back to the original founding ideals of this country really recommitted are all society to those principles and waiting out every child inside someone's birthday and i think that you know that they're really shows you now the power of those ideals and the way that words are really so important it's not nice thing sometimes will just one speech that really you know it it's committed our whole nation to progress in

the two affleck to look at it i didn't know what i didn't know is when the bill is one of the songs i found myself reading and singing tonight you're a grand old flag and but about it but the number of songs in the book that are familiar to all of us from the green woods ray we really have to hear the song when you read it to songs that you can't do that in there i really want to have music in the book as well as just not really possible that i think that romney is in your head exactly so so the songs just yap slowly started to sing and then they realize that they have them in common with just everyone we've all grown up with us and they're really about pardon now like action and the other thing is the photographs and the illustrations are really shaking i mean they are powerful images of what this country has been

about negative i was so happy to include photographs and i mean is he said there and there's amazing images from the civil rights era that end the earliest picture an air one of them goes back to an actual fire vance appealed fatah revolutionary war intimate even though the pages themselves and we now are not armed that dramatic the idea that our history can be compressed like that to me is is really unbelievable that the camera was around when when the revolutionary war veterans were still living so really shows kind of short on this whole span as which is amazing when you think of how much they're this has happened to you did you know which really makes you think ran naked thing about but the piece that made me med is lincoln's peace and death all people in the army so entertaining prices rose show on now know where did that come

from bombing that took them and imagination creativity do include megan well i think there is also this tradition is really a humorous and i think when the great things is that we don't see now take ourselves all too seriously and the total says you know what most irritating things that america has his patriotism and beaches are also patriotic as really you know drive the wall and it goes through main cannon you know groucho marx andy warhol and there's this whole tradition of people who just are not to let this whole thing the time to you know to pompous and i think that that's you know one of the great things about our country making this really now so you are murderous i remember watching on television nikita khrushchev and richer than the percentage of the flick a day i'll i don't know that i have an adrenaline kennedy nixon put grew showdown and that's what he did it than in iran you know and i read it

and then and then there was mark jordan's peace on the impeachment of president nixon right and then there's joe forbes immediately following that gerald ford cure for remarks on taking office why think we really have gone through so so much in our something traumatic events and i think our system really has you know come through town and unable to handle those and i think you only says i was also important how lawless served presidents that were serving living memory representatives in the book nixon also isn't there a for opening up militias with china and certainly since we had come through the last election and i think you are so unnerved by that process although now obviously we've you know so much has happened since then but to show that our system really can withstand these humans coyotes i mean how difficult moments of things as we know we can take her as strength from that your favorite well i think i mean for me i love huckleberry finn it was so beautiful

and an answer to the political eye and i want to go back and the moon landing because we always hear the and the one line you know live one small step for man one great leap for mankind i was singing myself a well city sat when you usually only ever hear that line and so when i went back and read the transcript of the actual landing in an after restaurant gets out and he starts and he looks around and then he says you know it looks like the high desert of here i thought about was so beautiful because it really kind of shows at quito's goes with you so i think that one thousand similar on new notifying moment in our history and i'm sorry i was that a certain undiscovered thing that really stuck with me i had to fear i mean one is john mccain's accounting of migration he's five years in hanoi hilton and this young man so the american flag inside his shirt and each afternoon they put the leg up they're finally vincent legend and they've beaten for it and the next thing

with his bruised and bloody face he's back with them after a while and so innocent lives matter what apple store and my second and you will surprise a journalist i thought and elephants speech and a new trial was was wonderful which is where he says this is not because of a neoprene her alone the scars of the color really am paraphrasing but how are and i mean we're in hand is gravy ways gray also tying the freon and when his spirit free in a sour sure that it's right and so i think that that whole and sense of inquiry is really big because a jury nullification boat overhead costs and pessimism and also you know one of these things reading this book reminds me reminds us of think about renewed focus of reminders that

dissent sometimes is extremely take a variety of great patriotism and those who have the courage to descend and to row on civil disobedience you know i guess i hadn't really read it since no letters but the power of it when you see it sings the line is that this directly with the targeting gathered says now amazing almond i think there's a lot to me and frederick douglass talks about you know but true lover of your country will not excuse it sends and i think that that on in this incredibly emotional address where you know he said if i had a country of your paycheck because of course it before the civil war as a black man he really wasn't on new now part of it but on that i think that with that that whole tradition it takes tremendous courage for people to stand up and say something that goes against the prevailing mood in on an especially that

sincerely held belief that their land and it really is tied to you know something that's a core value of our country i think that that those people really should be recognizing we do over time appreciate down on so but i think we should enhance the courage it takes to do that and the role the individual i think there's a section of open as are the individual has tried to also i mean there's a wonderful piece by alice walker which are really celebrates her mother in the creativity that it takes to raise a family and just aren't then how well known the garden that she created was really an inspiration to alice walker in her own writing and show the kind of changing role of women but i think that this role the individual whether it's ever censor our in our even people who don't go on to become very famous is also some were quite years and it was very hard to and one thing it's a great town but the greater excerpt and it really captures something that the city switches on this intersection where i try to have things that the land in the city town and acc and it's hard to find it's hard and

excerpts are often very hard to find from longer works and so on so i were i would love to have many many more visas encourage but this one certainly i think captured that doesn't and i can use it also signing can hear and words of course so i thought that this was a way of the least acknowledging that too partly on are the thing that makes it an easy read and read that will make it possible for the reader to come back to is the break of sections beginning with a flag and the vision right and going on through the rule of law which is a great interest of years you've written about rule of law and right now they're in the us is the last time that section that you know i've eaten at avarice anger tears off i loved it i loved it and then we then part of what you do is give us really seminal court cases that reflect patriotism

as recommended by the courts lessig often those kinds of judicial decisions are not included in the books of this kind and i think it's obvious it's the third branch of our government really has often than them or three now against and i love pressure or against animal if you know stood strong for civil rights obviously a noun and so and freedom of the press so it's really important that people know that that's absolutely part of it and then often these entities in the many that i tried three cases also there were written in now powerful language and tonight you have to realistically set that i'm absolutely there's there's a tremendous harris and how we will live tumult of the two greatest but have you enjoyed this tour getting up all across the country meeting people than summertime reading in their marriage and then they go out and talk to people

it's in may it brings in it's a whole different way of doing it and and what i really like actors to go to schools and everything suddenly get to do a little more that's when his car the tour is over because i think that kids always come out the sense of a whole different take on the ground that having read all that the land and the different regions going back out now it makes a lot more fun and greg at the weekend talking to caroline kennedy about her new book a patriots and the psychology of watching an experiment for coming and johnson and our foreign words the brady