Latest / Pod Save America / 2020: Marianne Williamson on big truths and moral outrage

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2020: Marianne Williamson on big truths and moral outrage · Pod Save America

• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Jon Favreau, here with
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: another installment in our 2020 interview series. Today we've got author, activist,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: and Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson In studio in Los Angeles,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: we talked about her background, why she's running for president,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: why she wants to establish a department of peace, and
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: how to renew America's spirit. Here's our conversation. Check it out.
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  Speaker 1: Marianne Williamson, welcome to Pod Save America.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm honored.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So you've been a spiritual and inspirational bestselling author many
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: times over. You've worked at nonprofits. You've run for Congress. Obviously,
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  Speaker 1: there are other candidates in the field without much experience
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: in Washington or even elected office. But what is it
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  Speaker 1: about your specific set of qualifications and life experiences that
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  Speaker 1: made you say, I'm the best person to be leading
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  Speaker 1: this country at this moment?
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  Speaker 2: I've worked up close and personal with people for over
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  Speaker 2: 35 years who are dealing with crises in their lives,
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  Speaker 2: seeking to navigate those crises. to transform them into opportunity.
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  Speaker 2: And I have recognized, particularly over the last 20 years,
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  Speaker 2: how many of those crises are at least indirectly and
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  Speaker 2: often directly a result of bad public policy. So not
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  Speaker 2: only do I have a real visceral sense of how
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: bad public policy affects people's lives and which bad public
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  Speaker 2: policy affects people's lives, but also a deep passion for
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  Speaker 2: what needs to change. I think that that's what it's
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  Speaker 2: all about. It's about human suffering, how to address it
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  Speaker 2: and how to ameliorate it. That's what politics should be.
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  Speaker 2: Politics should be a conduit for making people's lives better,
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  Speaker 2: securing our rights, not thwarting them.
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  Speaker 1: Right. So you were a Bernie Sanders supporter in 2016.
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  Speaker 1: What made you say, not this time, this time I
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  Speaker 1: want to do it myself?
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  Speaker 2: Nothing in me has said no. This is not about
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  Speaker 2: no towards Bernie. It's a yes about me. I'm a
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  Speaker 2: big fan of Bernie Sanders. I have been a big
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  Speaker 2: fan of Bernie Sanders. And on the vast majority of
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  Speaker 2: his policies, I agree with him. However, I'm having what
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  Speaker 2: I believe is a more expanded conversation as well. We
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: need an integrated politics. And by that, I mean we
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  Speaker 2: need to factor in much more than just external issues.
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  Speaker 2: The reason that the left was gobsmacked by his success,
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  Speaker 2: the establishment, the democratic establishment was gobsmacked by his success,
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  Speaker 2: is the same reason that the Republican establishment was gobsmacked
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  Speaker 2: by the success of Donald Trump. Both of them failed
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  Speaker 2: to recognize, and for the most part still do fail
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  Speaker 2: to recognize, the significance of psychological and emotional factors in
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  Speaker 2: creating political dynamics. I had seen up close and personal,
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  Speaker 2: as I said, for decades, the economic despair, the economic
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  Speaker 2: tension and anxiety that is prevalent in the lives of
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  Speaker 2: so many millions of people that I wasn't surprised that
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  Speaker 2: this economic populist cry of despair made itself heard. It
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  Speaker 2: was going to make itself heard either in a leftist
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  Speaker 2: progressive populism or an authoritarian right-wing populism such as Donald Trump.
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  Speaker 2: So when I see certain things, certain issues where people
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  Speaker 2: are suffering needlessly, and the political establishment is simply normalizing
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  Speaker 2: that despair rather than addressing it, then I'm going to say,
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  Speaker 2: Speak up. That's what I do.
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  Speaker 1: Marilynne Robinson says the basis of our democracy is the
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  Speaker 1: willingness to assume well about other people. I've always loved
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  Speaker 1: that line. How did we get to a place where
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  Speaker 1: so much of politics here and around the world is
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  Speaker 1: more focused on this idea of the sinister other than
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  Speaker 1: it has been in quite a while? It's always been there.
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  Speaker 2: You, of all people, have demonstrated... how much political force
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  Speaker 2: can be manifest when we go high rather than low.
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  Speaker 2: When aspirational principles are spoken, literally you of all people.
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  Speaker 2: So if you stop extending the light, don't go be
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  Speaker 2: surprised when the darkness comes in. So you have to
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  Speaker 2: be proactive. in extending the principles, the ideas, and the
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  Speaker 2: energies which do create positive force. There's really no such
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  Speaker 2: thing as neutrality. Neutrality is a myth. And a lot
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  Speaker 2: of American, over the last few decades, both economically, socially,
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  Speaker 2: and politically, we have fallen for the myth of neutrality. Well,
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  Speaker 2: we're not really trying to hurt anybody. We're just not
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  Speaker 2: trying to help anybody. We're not really trying to exploit people.
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  Speaker 2: We're just trying to get along and leave people alone. No,
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  Speaker 2: there is no such thing. They used to say in
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  Speaker 2: the 60s, if you're not part of the solution, you're
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  Speaker 2: part of the problem. If whether in our individual lives,
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  Speaker 2: our personal lives, or our societal lives, we're not holding
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  Speaker 2: high proactively and vigorously the principles of democracy and the
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  Speaker 2: principles of deep humanitarian concern and passion, there is no
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  Speaker 2: reason to be surprised. You know, you turn off the lights,
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  Speaker 2: the darkness sets in. So now everybody's talking about what
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  Speaker 2: do we do about the darkness? The answer is turn
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  Speaker 2: on the light.
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  Speaker 1: Well, people would say, I mean, obviously, as you pointed out,
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  Speaker 1: I worked in the Obama administration. I think he conducted
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  Speaker 1: himself in that manner. His administration did. I think Hillary
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  Speaker 1: Clinton tried her best to run her campaign like that.
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  Speaker 1: How do you think we ended up with Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: when there were some leaders, some politicians trying to be
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  Speaker 1: optimistic to lift people up?
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  Speaker 2: Well, I don't mean to pander to you, but words matter.
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  Speaker 2: And once, there was a big difference between, in my opinion,
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  Speaker 2: between the campaign, Obama's campaign in 08, and the way
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  Speaker 2: governance unfolded. The words, you know, I think it was
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  Speaker 2: Cuomo who said that we campaign in poetry and we
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: govern in prose. You should never do that. You should
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  Speaker 2: campaign in poetry and you should govern in poetry. So
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  Speaker 2: it was the poetry. It was the words. You know,
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  Speaker 2: anybody who said words don't matter, say that to Shakespeare.
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  Speaker 2: Words have tremendous force. First, there was the word. It's
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  Speaker 2: even a biblical concept. So words lifted everybody up. And
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  Speaker 2: then the word stopped. Okay, now we're going to get
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  Speaker 2: to business. Well, hello. Hello. And, you know, I think
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  Speaker 2: part of the tragedy with Hillary Clinton is what happened
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  Speaker 2: was Trump named people's pain. Obama named— no, not Obama— Bernie
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  Speaker 2: named people's pain. Hillary did not name the pain. I'm
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  Speaker 2: not saying she didn't care about the pain, and I'm
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  Speaker 2: not saying that she wouldn't have done everything in her
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  Speaker 2: power to assuage the pain. But her campaign, when she
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  Speaker 2: was out there saying, oh, we just need to continue
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  Speaker 2: the success of the Obama years, I knew in my
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  Speaker 2: heart right then, because I traveled this country. That's what
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  Speaker 2: I've done for 35 years. I knew how many millions
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  Speaker 2: of people were out there thinking, continue the success? I'm
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  Speaker 2: freaking dying here. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Well, but that's also an argument, you know, obviously that
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  Speaker 1: pain's out there. It is very easy for a demagogue
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  Speaker 1: like Trump to channel that pain into anger, into division,
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  Speaker 1: into fear, into hatred.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: How do you turn that around while still recognizing it?
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  Speaker 1: Because some people, you know, who are feeling that pain,
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  Speaker 1: who are feeling an economic dislocation that you mentioned will say,
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  Speaker 1: Hope and change, that sounds nice. We've heard it too.
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  Speaker 1: Hope and change, that sounds great. That's easy for them
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  Speaker 1: to say. These are well-off, wealthy political leaders telling us this.
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  Speaker 1: What are you going to do for me?
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  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, Democrats have to take responsibility for
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  Speaker 2: the fact that there is some legitimacy in that point.
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  Speaker 2: When you allow people to get to the point, I mean,
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  Speaker 2: there is absolutely no reason that things got as bad
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  Speaker 2: as they were. Democrats were in charge a lot of
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  Speaker 2: that time. Democrats were in charge a lot of the
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  Speaker 2: time that the trajectory was unfolding of the largest mass
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  Speaker 2: inequality since 1929. Democrats were in charge some of that time.
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  Speaker 2: Democrats were in charge some of the time when we
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  Speaker 2: were moving towards a place where 1% of all Americans
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  Speaker 2: was owning more wealth than the bottom 90%. Democrats were
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  Speaker 2: in charge a lot of that time, including in charge
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  Speaker 2: of the economy during that time when we were leading
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  Speaker 2: to a place where 40% of all Americans are struggling
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  Speaker 2: on a daily basis. just to make basic costs. So
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  Speaker 2: for those of us or for those Americans who do
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  Speaker 2: not have a historical memory, such as I do, of
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  Speaker 2: a time when the Democrats stood for the people no
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  Speaker 2: matter what, even if it was against overreach by capitalist forces,
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  Speaker 2: so that we look at the times when the Democrats
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  Speaker 2: too often cozy up to those corporate forces and we say, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but you know, they're really their hearts in the right place.
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  Speaker 2: And too many Americans haven't seen that or don't recognize
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  Speaker 2: that or certainly haven't seen that in their lives. In
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  Speaker 2: my opinion, while we have a Republican Party that's been
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  Speaker 2: bought hook, line, and sinker into the idea of a
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  Speaker 2: corporatist agenda, my sense, well, two things, going back to
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  Speaker 2: words also. Republicans don't walk their talk, but Democrats too
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  Speaker 2: often don't talk their walk. Now, with Democratic policies, in
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  Speaker 2: my opinion, the vast majority of the time, their policies
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  Speaker 2: seek to assuage the pain. that is produced by unjust
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  Speaker 2: economic policies. But it's too often just pain on the
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  Speaker 2: periphery because too often Democrats are unwilling to address the
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  Speaker 2: underlying forces and to challenge the underlying forces that make
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  Speaker 2: all that pain inevitable.
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  Speaker 1: What policies would you pursue as president to challenge those
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  Speaker 1: underlying forces?
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  Speaker 2: Well, the first thing we need to do is to
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  Speaker 2: recognize that the undue influence of money on our politics
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  Speaker 2: is the cancer underlying all these other cancers. One of
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  Speaker 2: the very sad things, of course, about the fact that
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  Speaker 2: Hillary did not win is that we don't have a
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  Speaker 2: chance anytime soon. of appointing a Supreme Court justice that
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: might give us a path towards overturning Citizens United. So
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  Speaker 2: we have two things here. One, we have the possibility
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  Speaker 2: of a constitutional amendment and the possibility of legislation. If,
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  Speaker 2: and this is why I think it's as important that
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  Speaker 2: the Democrats win the Senate as is important that the
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  Speaker 2: Democrats win the White House in 2020, that would be
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  Speaker 2: the magic possibility here. If that's the case, first thing
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  Speaker 2: I would do is submit to Congress legislation to establish
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  Speaker 2: public funding for federal campaigns. It's not big enough, in
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  Speaker 2: my opinion, for the Democrats to say we want universal
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  Speaker 2: health care. Democrats also need to be making very clear
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  Speaker 2: and standing on the realization, not just in what we know,
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  Speaker 2: but in what we are willing to say, that the
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  Speaker 2: reason we don't have universal health care right now is
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  Speaker 2: because it would cut into short-term profits for health insurance
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  Speaker 2: companies and big pharma. We need to be willing to say,
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  Speaker 2: to name it and to say it and to challenge it,
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  Speaker 2: that the reason we're not addressing the climate crisis adequately
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  Speaker 2: is because of the obstruction from and the fact that
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  Speaker 2: it would cut into short-term profits for fossil fuel companies.
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  Speaker 2: And the Democratic Party should name and challenge the fact
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  Speaker 2: that we do not have a national security agenda based
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  Speaker 2: on creating peace in the world anytime in the next
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  Speaker 2: few decades, because to really do that would cut into
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: short-term profits for defense contractors and the nuclear industry. And
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  Speaker 2: that is exactly what I mean by challenging, by naming it,
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  Speaker 2: by bringing the American people into that realization rather than
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  Speaker 2: exploiting how often the American people, our brains are scrambled
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  Speaker 2: and they don't really get what's going on here. The
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  Speaker 2: Democrats should not only stand for doing the right thing.
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  Speaker 2: But in order to do that, there has to stop
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  Speaker 2: being the moral equivocation on the part of too many
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  Speaker 2: Democrats by which the Democratic Party has itself been willing
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  Speaker 2: to pander, cozy up to, and play footsies under the
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  Speaker 2: table with those same corporate forces because they too take
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  Speaker 2: the money.
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  Speaker 1: Do you see... the support in Congress, even among Democrats
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  Speaker 1: and the public for publicly funded elections?
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  Speaker 2: That's my point to you. That's exactly my point.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think you can pass that?
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  Speaker 2: Well, there are two kinds of Democrats, aren't there? And
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  Speaker 2: that's being played out in this campaign. There are two
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  Speaker 2: categories here. What are the two categories? The two categories
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  Speaker 2: is the incrementalists who say we can have it both ways.
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  Speaker 2: We can take their money. We can take tens of
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: thousands from some security investment firms. We can take tens
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  Speaker 2: of thousands from Big Pharma. We can take tens or
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  Speaker 2: even more thousands from oil companies. But we're going to
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: go and be an instrument of change. Yeah, right.
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  Speaker 1: There's that.
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  Speaker 2: And they're saying, well, we'll make these incremental changes. And
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  Speaker 2: then there are those of us who say this has
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: got to stop. We need a fundamental pattern disruption of
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  Speaker 2: the American political and economic status quo.
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  Speaker 1: Do you see H.R. 1 as incremental or sweeping? Sweeping.
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  Speaker 1: Really good stuff.
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  Speaker 2: I was very impressed by it. And I think it's
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  Speaker 2: a perfect example of if you only have the House
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  Speaker 2: and you don't have the Senate. Right.
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  Speaker 1: What do you do about, as president, this Republican Party?
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  Speaker 1: Do you try to work with them? Do you try
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: to work around them? What do you do with.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it depends on who has the power in the
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  Speaker 2: House and who has the power in the Senate.
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  Speaker 1: Say, okay, well, let's say Democrats do take the Senate back.
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  Speaker 1: which is in the best scenario, but we still have
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  Speaker 1: a 60 vote threshold. Do you get rid of the filibuster?
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  Speaker 2: There should be, they shouldn't be able to shut down
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  Speaker 2: the whole thing, but there should be, there should be
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  Speaker 2: a way of actually, I mean, there is a constitutional
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  Speaker 2: issue there, but I shouldn't, I don't think they should
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  Speaker 2: be able to cut, you know, cut off all conversation.
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  Speaker 1: Do you, so let's say in a scenario where the
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Democrats don't win the Senate back and Mitch McConnell hangs on,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: what happens to your legislative agenda? Or do you have
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: executive actions that you would pursue?
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  Speaker 2: Well, there are times when you take executive actions that
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: do not represent executive overreach but are appropriate, I believe,
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: in the case of Obama they were, because let's not
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: kid ourselves. McConnell said our main goal is to make
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Obama a one-term president. He made it very, very clear
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: that they were not interested in any kind of positive relationship,
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: positive in the sense that that is the great American
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: political tradition. that it is a loyal opposition, and that
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: you try to work together. I am less interested in
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: thinking about how awful it's going to be if it
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: goes back to those days and more interested in talking
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: about all that we can do once we are delivered
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: to a new possibility. And I believe two things. I think,
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: first of all, in terms of the presidential election, this
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: last presidential election, we need to remember, Trump did not
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: win just because the Trump voters voted for him. Trump
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: won every bit as much because of how many of
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: us stayed home and how many of us voted for
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: Jill Stein. Now, I'm one of those people who believe
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: that if the Democratic establishment had kept their finger off
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: the scales and let it be very, very clear that
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: the people decided, then either Hillary or Bernie would have
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: won the primaries, but we would have all felt— this goes
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: back to the emotional and psychological forces— It would have
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: made everybody feel like, okay, it's our candidate. I think
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: we would have had a lot more Democrats at the polls.
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  Speaker 2: That's number one. Number two, look what happened in this
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: last midterm. We have a lot to be hopeful about.
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: And also, I think among women, there's been a very
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: delayed reaction to how much misogyny was at the core
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: of that campaign. Also, we've had the Me Too movement. Man,
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: women are so ready to express ourselves now with this
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: spate of anti-abortion laws. give women a chance, man. We
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: are so ready. The dominance of the Mitch Connors of
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: the world is on its way out.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: Well, so what's your theory of political change? Because in
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: this race, we hear different things from different candidates. There
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: are some who believe they can try to work with
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Mitch McConnell and the Republicans to compromise. Bernie Sanders calls
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: for a political revolution. There's some candidates that believe we
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: just need to elect more Democrats. How do you How
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: do you change the political system? How do you bring
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: in those voters who stayed home in 2016, the Obama
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: voters who stayed home in 2016, the third-party voters? How
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: do you inspire those people to come back into the
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: political system?
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Look who's asking. You know the answer to that.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: I wish I did.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I think you do because you demonstrated it. The
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: only way to defeat a big lie is with big truth.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Donald Trump will eat the half-truth-tellers alive. If all the
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: Democrats do is nominate someone who's one of those kind
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: of sort of people, we can have it both ways, people.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: We can be sort of a better version of same old,
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: same old. Trump will win again. But if we are
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: willing to really lay it down, we have more than
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: a swamp. We have an ocean of corruption. We need someone,
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: I believe, and this is why I'm running, who's really
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: willing to say what we all know to be true.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: That's the thing. It's kind of like the Leonard Cohen song,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Everybody Knows. Everybody knows. Everybody knows what this country has become.
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: We're not functioning as a democracy. We're functioning as an aristocracy.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: We are a corporatocracy. We're not a government whose policy
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: is of the people, by the people, for the people,
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: so much as it is of a few of the people,
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: by a few of the people, for a few of
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: the people. of the multinational corporate interests, by the multinational
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: corporate interests, and for the multinational corporate interests. And many people,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: however dysfunctional this is, I think they are at a
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: point where the only way they have to express their
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: rage is to refuse to vote. However dysfunctional, it is
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: an act of rebellion. But those people, when you lay
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: it down and are honest with them, my experience, and
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: I have experience, I have experience not only through my
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: geographical travels, but also through my socioeconomic travels. I've worked
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: with people in palaces. I've worked with people in prisons.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: I had an experience this last week that was a
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: really interesting demonstration to me of this. I don't care
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: where people are, who people are, how rich people are,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: how advantaged or disadvantaged people are. People are smart. People
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: are smart, and they are noble at their core. And
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: if you just talk truth to them, they appreciate that,
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: and they will rise to the occasions. Have you had.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: Experiences where you've persuaded people? I know you're very persuasive
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: on a whole host of issues. Have you persuaded people
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: to change their mind about politics? That seems to be
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: at the core of their political lenience. That seems to
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: be at the core of our problem right now.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: I remind people of America's mission statements.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: And what is that?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: All men are created equal. All are created equal. God
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: gave all men... unalienable rights of life and liberty and
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: the pursuit of happiness. Governments are instituted to secure those rights.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: And government of the people and by the people and
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: for the people is not to perish from this earth.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: And it's perishing on our watch. And it is the
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: responsibility of every generation when democracy is so threatened to
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: rise up. And that is what happened. The political establishment
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: did not wake up one day and say, let's free
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the slaves. No, the people stepped in.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Abolitionists.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: The abolitionist movement. The political establishment did not wake up
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: one day and say, I think we should give women
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: the right to vote. No, that's not what happened. The
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: people stepped in a la the suffragette movement. And the
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: political establishment didn't wake up one day and say, let's
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: dismantle segregation and just stop with this whole institutionalized white
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: supremacy thing. No, it was the people stepping in a
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: la the civil rights movement. It's happening again. It's the same.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: It's just a new formation. That's what symptoms do. They
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: just morph. It began with the aristocracy that we repudiated
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: in 1776, the many revolutions with which we have repudiated
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: aristocratic forces throughout our history. It is simply time to
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: repudiate them again. Let this not be the first generation
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: to wimp out. on doing what it takes to push
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: back against deeply fundamentally undemocratic forces when they are at
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: the door. And it was naive of us to ever believe.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: And you can't say, well, I was healthy in 2015,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: so I don't have to eat well or diet or
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: exercise anymore. If you don't take care of your health,
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: don't go be surprising when you lose your health. If
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: you don't take care of your relationship, don't go being
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: surprised if you lose your relationship. And I think part
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: of the awakening of the last two years is we
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: have not proactively nurtured and cultivated the deep democratic and
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: humanitarian principles that are at the core of right living
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: within the public domain. We need to harness that now.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: He has harnessed fear and racism and bigotry and anti-Semitism
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: and all of those things for political purposes. But there
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: are far more lovers than haters in this country. But
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: those who hate, hate with conviction. And conviction is a
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: force multiplier. Abolitionists had conviction. The women suffragettes had conviction.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: and the civil rights workers had conviction. We need conviction.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: And just an over-secularized, corporatized mentality that plays it both
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: ways lacks conviction, lacks moral persuasive power.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: What do you say to a lot of activists on
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the left? I've heard this, especially women, especially people of color,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: especially people in marginalized communities who say, our anger is
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: not only valid, but useful. as a tool for political
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: and social change. I remember that you wrote in your
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: first book that you used to be an angry left winger,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: and then you realized that an angry generation can't bring
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: about peace, which I think is fascinating because you're obviously
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: still a left winger, still very progressive. But, you know,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: you see this debate play out in the Democratic Party.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: I think Joe Biden, you know, when he announced, said
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: something about, we don't need an angry nominee. And a
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: lot of people on the left got very upset about
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: that and said, I'm angry. I've been marginalized. I've been
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: discriminated against because of this presidency. And I think that
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: anger and that rage is useful as an organizing tool.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that?
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: I think moral outrage is not born of anger. Moral
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: outrage is born of love. And women have known this forever.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: We express our fierceness, we're called angry. So we know
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of projection and a misuse of that
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: word to hold people down when we're expressing our passion.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: When you allow anger to be the fuel for your
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: for your political activism, it's like choosing white sugar as
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: opposed to a healthy diet as your nutritional support. So
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: white sugar will give you an adrenaline high and you'll
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: have all this energy and then you'll crash. Political change
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: is a marathon. It's not a sprint. And so it
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: ultimately eats away at you if that's your motivation. You
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: are serving, it's higher and every bit as powerful to
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: know you're serving the ages. Something fierce rises up, particularly
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: in a people with a history of oppression. Something fierce
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: and way more powerful than anger rises up when you say,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: you did it to my grandparents and you're not going
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: to do it to my kids.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: You've been a supporter of the idea.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Not anger, it's just that this shit stops now.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: You've been a supporter of the idea of a Department
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: of Peace for a while. How would a Department of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Peace work? What would the function be?
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, there are two categories to address.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: One is international and one is domestic. So right now,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: we have a $ 715 billion military budget. We have a
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: $ 40 billion State Department budget. Now, even Donald Rumsfeld said,
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: we must learn to wage peace. And General Mattis said,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: if you're not going to fully fund the State Department,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I'm going to have to buy more ammunition. Development, mediation, diplomacy, etc.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: All of that is within within State Department. Now, it's
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: like I said, we need an integrative model. You can't
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: just take medicine. You have to cultivate your health, right?
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: So you can't just endlessly prepare for war and hope
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: that you back up into peace because war is the
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: absence of peace. Peace isn't the absence of war. So
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: we have to proactively cultivate peace. Now, There are peace-building
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: agencies within the State Department. So remember the math here.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: $ 718 for the military, $ 40 billion for the State Department.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: And guess how much money the specifically peace-building agencies get?
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a couple percent of that.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: Less than a billion. Less than a billion. Plus USAID
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: is $ 17 billion. And the U.S. Institute of Peace gets
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: a whopping $ 36 million. So with public policy, just like
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: with your personal life, how you spend your money is
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: an expression of your values. So there are two issues
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: here for a Department of Peace. I would not want
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: to go in with some, I think it would appear
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: arrogant and disrespectful if I walk in there and say, okay,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: we're going to have an international Department of Peace there.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: I think that a lot of people who work in
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: those agencies would go, excuse me, we've been doing this.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: And so I would want to beef up what they're
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: already doing. Far better funding for what they're doing. But
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: all within an umbrella of of realization that we not
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: only have peace-building issues that must be addressed internationally, but
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: also domestically. We have domestic war zones. One of the
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: reasons I won a U.S. Department of Children and Youth
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: is because we have millions of American children living with
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: chronic trauma, going to schools where they don't even have
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: the school supplies with which to adequately teach a child
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: to read. And if a child cannot read by the
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: age of eight, the chances of high school graduation are
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: drastically diminished. and the chances of incarceration had drastically increased.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: But one of the other issues with these children, many
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: of whom live in these domestic war zones, is that
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: psychologists tell us the PTSD of a returning veteran from
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Afghanistan and Iraq is no more severe than these children's
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: PTSD due to the fact that they live in such
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: violent communities, homes, etc. We need wraparound services, community wraparound services,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: trauma-informed education, conflict resolution, restorative justice, mindfulness in the schools. Now,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: Some of the issues of peacebuilding are the same, whether
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: somebody's working in the Congo or working in the inner
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: city of Chicago. Some of them are different, however. So
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: I think if we have a United States Department of Peace,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: you make the international part beefing up what already exists
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: in the State Department, and then on the domestic level,
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: addressing all these issues of peacebuilding that are necessary here
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: in the United States.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Under what circumstances would you use military force as commander-in-chief?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: If there's a direct threat to an ally, a direct
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: threat to the humanitarian order of the world.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: That seems to be the tough one. What do you
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: do about an issue like Syria?
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: Rwanda, hello, Syria. He would have said it's a red
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: line and then it would have been his red line.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: Yes, I would have. You would have sent forces to Syria?
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: I believe that when Obama said that's my red line,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: it should have been his red line, yes. And the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: other one, of course, is when our own homeland is threatened.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I guess the question on sending forces for humanitarian missions,
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: and this is one of the most challenging questions in
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: all foreign policy and U.S. foreign policy as well, is
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: how do you know when military force can make a
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: difference in a potential genocide, in a mass slaughter of civilians,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: like in the case of Syria, in the case of Rwanda,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, versus I'm going to send in troops
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: to an open-ended commitment. How do you define the mission?
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: How do you define when to send U.S. troops in
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: to conduct a humanitarian mission?
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: Political leadership is not just a science, it's an art,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: as is medicine. That's like saying, when is this operable?
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: When is it not? When do we use chemo? When
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: do we use radiation? When do we take out the tumor?
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: It's integrative. Once again, I keep talking about this, it's integrative.
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: So one of the things that we'll have when I'm president,
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: if I'm president, is that there will be so much
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: a more robust and sophisticated relationship between defense and state.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: State will have, as the leader, well, I'm president, a
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: world-class humanitarian. a world-class diplomat, somebody whose understanding of what
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: is going on inside people is as deep as what's
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: going on outside people. And we sit there and we
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: figure it out. Just like, you know, just like, remember
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: the television show House?
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: When they all sit around the table. Given the situation,
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: what are the best things to do? However, what we
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: have in politics is what we used to have in
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: medicine like 75 years ago where– invasive measures and brute force, basically,
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: physical brute force is your primary problem-solving option. That will
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: not be true. But I do believe that there are
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: times when, for instance, when you say, would you have
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: used force, let's say, Rwanda? Yes. And I would have
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: gone in sooner. I remember during the Bosnian War, War,
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: I was with the Republicans on that, like, when are
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: those planes going to go? When are those planes going
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: to go? And you know what? This is an interesting
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: issue for me in that situation because I remember it
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: very well. The American people are good people. We are.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: We're good people. I remember this would be before your time.
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: I remember years ago there was some little girl and she,
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: I think her name was Jessica, I'm not sure, she'd
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: fallen in a well. The whole country held its breath.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: And people would like meet in the hallway at work,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: like did they get her? Do you know if they
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: got her? So when you show us one suffering person,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Americans really care, particularly if it's children. But for whatever reason,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: this denial and grandiosity sets in when it's millions and
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: millions of them. We're easy to fool and distract. We
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: are easier to fool and distract from the suffering of
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: millions than we are to fool and distract from the
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: suffering of one. It's very interesting. That's why we're very
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: good with the screaming emergencies, but not necessarily with the
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: silent emergencies, like the millions of American children who live
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: in this chronic trauma every day. So what happens with
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: the system, a sociopathic economic and political system, The way
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: it operates is do what you want to do, and
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: then whatever suffering results, make sure it's on the other
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: side of town or on the other side of the
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: world so that people don't see it. Because if they
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: see it, they care. When Americans can see it, we care.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: So what happened with Bosnia is, and to Clinton's credit,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Clinton kept saying, I want to go in there, I
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: want to go in there. And it was the Europeans
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: who were holding back. And then there were all these...
• 31:17
  Speaker 2: All these stories, and they started making it into the
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: newspapers in the United States of how 12-year-old boys were
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: having their throats slit, how they would go in and
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: grab little boys and slit their throats. Once those stories
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: made the American newspapers enough, you could just feel it.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: Critical mass, you could feel it. NATO planes were like
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: within days. Right. So when you speak to the conscience
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: of the American people, that's what's wrong with our politics.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: It panders to popularity and it panders to self-interest. I
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: can do this for you. I can do this for you.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I'm not having that conversation with the American people. I'm
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: saying we together can do the right thing.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: One of the challenges with that is, though, George W.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Bush would use stories of mass atrocities or atrocities committed
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: by Saddam Hussein to justify a war in Iraq that
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: I think we all believe was a mistake. So how
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: do you, you know, I'm just wondering.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: Well, the point is he wasn't a truth teller. Right.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: Well, he was an awful dictator, but at some point,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: sometimes I think the United States has to look and say,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: all right, this is an awful dictator. If we had
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: our way, we would not want this person in power.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: But do we commit U.S. forces and U.S. lives and U.S.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: treasure to to trying to remove this person, knowing that
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: the consequences of removal could be worse than the consequences
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: of leaving that person?
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Well, of course not. Of course not. We can't go
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: invading every country or seeking regime change in every country
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: that is abusing human rights, for instance. I mean, obviously.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: And we did not go into Iraq because... Because Saddam
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: Hussein was a terrible dictator who was mean to his people.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: The fact he was a terrible dictator who was mean
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: to his people was simply used to exploit the emotions,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: to manipulate the emotions of good people who were not
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: being told the truth and who were led into a terrible,
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: terrible mistake.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I want to ask you about faith and spirituality. What
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: do you think about some of the polls and studies
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: that say Americans, especially young Americans, are becoming steadily less religious,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: or at least less tied to a specific religion. Why
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: do you think that is?
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Because I think that sometimes the institutional dogma and doctrine
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: got in the way of the deep mystical and spiritual
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: truth that is at the heart of all the great
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: religious systems of the world. So even though while it's
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: true and not a bad thing, that there is less
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: interest in a certain kind of dogmatic, doctrinaire, religious, institutional identity,
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: there is clearly an uprising. I mean, this is obvious.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: This is, you know, where do you think all that
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: mindfulness stuff comes from? Where do you think all those
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: yoga mats come from? Where do you think all this
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: health and wellness stuff comes from? It comes from the
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: spiritual center, which is alive and well and mainstreamed in
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: the United States. And I would know something about that.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: What role do you think faith and spirituality play in
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: our pluralistic democracy?
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: The abolitionist movement arose from the early evangelicals and Quakers.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: Many of the leaders of the women's suffragette movement were Quakers.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: And Dr. King, memo to earth, was a Baptist preacher.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: And it was the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Hello, all
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: of the great social justice movements. have been a product
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: of a spiritual impulse. That's why when I said before,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: it's always when the people step in. And the people
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: step in when the heart says, okay, too much. We've
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: got to stop this.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: What do you say as president to the evangelical Christian
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: who says, my religion dictates that abortion is murder and
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: homosexuality is an abomination?
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: This is America. We're a free society. Nobody owes it
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: to anyone to agree with you, to agree with me,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: or to agree with the president.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: And I believe that abortion is a moral issue. I
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: simply believe that it is an issue of private morality
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: and not public morality. I believe that the moral decision-making
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: and the biological choices are to be made by the
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: woman herself, and it is an attack on the agency
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: of women to seek to deny them that right. So
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: if people believe that abortion is a moral abomination— That
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: is their right. But that is very different than saying
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: that they have the right to stop another woman or
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: any woman from making that choice for herself.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I guess the challenge is, when can your personal spirituality,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: private morality influence public morality and public law, and when
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: shouldn't it?
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: When it has to do with the rights of the
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: individual versus the common good. I mean, that is the
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: art of governance. We are always seeking to balance, when
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: we're in our right minds, we're seeking to balance individual liberty.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: And I have a little bit of a libertarian streak
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: the older I get. When it comes to the individuals, it's...
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: But that has to be balanced with a concern for
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: the common good. And it's not as difficult to make
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: that delineation as you might think if that's actually your aim. Right.
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: Well, why do you think Republicans... attend church more than Democrats.
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: What do you think about that divide, especially white Democrats?
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: There seems to be this, you know, when you look
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: at the polls at the end of a presidential election,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest gaps is, you know, if you
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: attend church more often, you're more likely to be Republican.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: If you attend church less often, you're more likely to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: be a Democrat. And like I said, what's actually keeping
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: the gap somewhat narrowed is that black Democrats are quite
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: religious and go to church, but white Democrats especially.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a limited divide. definition of church.
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: To some people, their AA meeting is their church. To
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: some people, a meditation group is their church. So I'd
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: be real careful. That's a pretty old-fashioned view of what
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: it means to go to church.
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: Are you surprised that Trump's strongest support, maybe the demographic
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: group that supports him more than any other in the country,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: are evangelical Christians? What do you think is going on
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: with that?
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: When I was growing up, there was a potent religious left.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: During the Vietnam War, the Berrigan brothers, William Sloan Coffin,
• 37:31
  Speaker 2: and also traditionally, both Catholics and Jews were very, very
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: involved with social justice issues. What has happened in the
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: last few decades, the Catholics got very singular in their
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: focus on abortion, and Jews became very singular in their
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: focus on Israel. And in both cases, this sucked a
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: lot of juice out of what had formerly been a
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: powerful religious backing for social justice and social justice reforms.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: After the 60s into the 70s, I grew up in
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: a generation where we read Ram Dass and Alan Watts
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: in the morning and went to political, we went to
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: anti-war protests in the afternoon. So during that time of
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: the 60s and the 70s, the issue of revolutionary cultural
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: change was both external and internal. It was cultural, sexual, musical,
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: and it was political. After, primarily, I think, due to those,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: to the assassinations, there was a rip. And many people
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: took the sort of traditional political that had to do
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: with addressing symptoms, but not necessarily cause And a lot
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: of that traditional political activism went back to a time
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: where it was all the neck up and making external
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: policy change. Then those who, and I was myself one
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: of those, who felt a deeper calling to address the
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: causal issues of societal dysfunction and societal repair and change
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: had to do with addressing internal issues. But a lot
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: of that movement disconnected itself chronically from political activism. This
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: was a mistake on both parts. And both sides sort
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: of mutually derided the other. And those days are coming
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: to an end now. Many of the people who are
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: dealing with traditional political change are themselves people who they're
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: in therapy. They're in AA. They go to therapy. spiritual
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: support groups, they get it. They know that we need
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: a more holistic and integrative approach. And those who are
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: involved in the more spiritual communities have begun to understand
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: that you can't use your spirituality as an excuse for
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: narcissism and chronic self-reference. And so that has begun to
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: change as well.
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: I sometimes wrestle with the idea that faith and spirituality
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: are often about acceptance and finding inner peace.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm a Jew, and that's not where... No, actually,
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: there is no serious spiritual or religious path anywhere that
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: gives any of us a pass on addressing the suffering
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: of other sentient beings.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: So you see it as outward.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: It's both and. It is both and. I mean, Jesus said,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: feed the poor.
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: Right. No, I believe that. I just, you know, politics
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: and activism is about... And I want to go back.
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: To clarify, if I may, what I said, because I
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: mentioned that I was Jewish. In Judaism, there's the phrase,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: to kun olam, to repair the world. And also in Judaism,
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: one of the old rabbinical teachings is, you are not
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: obligated to complete the task, but neither are you permitted
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: to abandon it.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: But you could look at all the great religious systems
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: and see there an injunction, if interpreted that way, to.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: That the law of love is a command to change
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the world.
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: Yes. There's a story that someone told me. I think
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: of it as the transformation between the Good Samaritan and
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: the Conscious Samaritan. So the Good Samaritan is walking down
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: the road, and the Good Samaritan sees a beggar and
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: gives them alms. And then the Good Samaritan continues his
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: journey down the road and sees another beggar and gives
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: them alms. And then the Good Samaritan continues down the
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: road and sees another beggar and gives them alms. After
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: about the sixth or the seventh beggar, the Good Samaritan
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: says to himself, why are there so many beggars? That's
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: how I feel about my own transformation over the last
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: 20 years. It's one thing to say to people who
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: are in careers like my own. Your job is to
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: help people transcend difficult circumstances. I understand that. Some difficult
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: circumstances are just a part of life, that somebody you
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: love died, a heartbreak. You know, these things happen. You
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: got diagnosed with an illness. Your child is on heroin,
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: whatever it is. But over the last 20 years, people
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: like myself are being called upon to address the suffering
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: that is too unnecessary too many times. to address a
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: need to navigate circumstances that simply should not be so
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: prevalent in the richest country in the world.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: I guess I'll phrase the question a different way because
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: I was listening to you talk to Oprah during that
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Super Soul podcast, and you both talked about how happiness
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: is really finding peace, finding inner peace. And, you know,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: as someone who is in politics and has been in
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: politics all my life, part of the reason that I
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: am in a constant state of agitation is because of
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the world around us and everything that's wrong in the world.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: And how do you, as someone who's also very spiritual
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: and now in politics, sort of navigate the tension between
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: having that agitation about all the wrongs and injustices in
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: the world around you and still finding that peace?
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: There's a difference between happiness and joy. I'm joyful. I
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: am deeply joyful, but I'm not happy when I see
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: things go down that I know should not go down.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Peace is a strategy. Martin Luther King said you have
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: very little morally persuasive power with people who can feel
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: your underlying contempt. When you do the spiritual work, getting
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: rid of judgment, seeking to dissolve personal judgment and grievance,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: it's not so that you would then become... Sometimes people
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: talk about spirituality like it diminishes your brain cells. It
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: doesn't make you less intelligent, but it makes you more strategic.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Marianne Williamson. Thank you so much for joining us and
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: good luck on the trail.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: It was an honor to meet you. Thank you.
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: Thank you.