Of arrest and prosecution. But Womens Health advocates are fighting back and they just won a key victory. I will call to order this weeks meeting of the book club. The legendary low of lowry joins me to discuss her classic the giver on another hour of velshi which starts right now. Good morning. It is saturday, may 11th. A particularly tough week in court for donald trump. The Republican Party disgraced and embattled president ial nominee. For about a day and a half, his criminal trial was overshadowed by stormy daniels, the former adult film actress for who he is alleged to have an affair. Her testimony dredged up many salacious details that could hurt him politically but the former president gets a reprieve from all of that this weekend as he gets on the campaign trail. Tonight he will find himself in a more familiar and welcoming setting as he hold a rally in wildwood, new jersey. Since he kicked of his political career nearly a decade ago, trumps rallies have been the centerpiece of his president ial campaigns. He has a particular knack for energizing his base and it was at these rallies that trump set himself up as a populist candidate who understood the average american and working class voter better than any un other politician. He also claimed that because he was a billionaire, his policies could not be influenced by people with money. It turns out, donald trump can be bought. A new report from the w Washington Post this week details a meeting at maralago last month between trump and a number of the countrys top oil and gas executives. The former president had a pitch for them. If they raise A Billion Dollars for his campaign to return to the white house, he would enact policies that would benefit their industry. According to the washington g post, trump quote vowed to medially reverse dozens of president bidens environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted giving a ndbillion dollars. And giving a billy does will bei a deal trump said because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him end quote. Trumps is reversing the biden and menstruation policies on electric vehicles and said he would end the freeze on permits for new Liquefied Natural Gas th experts quote on the first day. And he pledged to auction of n more leases for oil drilling in the gulf of mexico, a priority for several executives at the meeting. In some ways , it is not surprising that trump would be so bold and asking for such a large donation. The cashstrapped former president is facing a litany of very expensive legal problems and has previously reported he is using Campaign Donor money to pay his legal bills. On top of that, he is falling far behind joe bidens Fundraising Operation with the Washington Post story making it clear that trump was never that much different from all the other politicians he claimed were corrupt. As david graham puts in the atlantic, many people took trump s frankness about how the system works to mean he wouldnt act the same way as the politicians he excoriated. With this report, it shows he is no different. Trump was describing transactional is him and not critiquing it. The idea of Ndonald Trump whatever object to transactional is him is absurd end quote. Joined me is david s graham, staff for the atlantic and book writer and presidency of the Watchdog Organization citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. Thank you for being here. S l me start with you, david and you are really important mp article. As you point out, Donald Trumps meeting and offered to these Executives Is Quote Entirely legal and absolutely corrupt end quote. Lets talk about that. Is this how it has always been . You hinted that the idea that donald trump suggested he was different and cannot be influenced or bought because he is rich. This is saying all the quiet parts completely out loud. Yes. There is this really powerful e moment i recall from 2016 when he was criticized by the republicans and said, of course i did. She came to my wedding. You get what you want this way. He is showing that and that is h exactly what he is doing. I think it is maybe worse than a lot of politicians because he is doing it so openly. He is making it clear what a quid pro quo is without any pretense. Give me money and i will do what do you want to do. One of the things that i think you have been trying to articulate for many years is, the fact is that on the surface, this is entirely legalr and absolutely corrupt and it is part of the system of corruption. Donald trump is hardly broking breaking any new ground on anything. He just does it. He does things that we think good people dont do or dont talk about having done. You talk about this in a post you put on x the other day as being a perfect example of our corrupt system. First of all, i do want to say that we dont know for sure that this is wentirely legal. You can be charged with bribery based even on Campaign Contributions if there is proof of an explicit quid pro quo. If you read the later articles on the meeting, i think there is an effort to backtrack a little aand say he wasnt aski for a direct exchange. It might be hard to prove that. We are not entirely sure that n what he is doing is legal. But the idea that you can get t vast amounts of money and Campaign Contributions not just your campaign but to super pacs and dark money nonprofits from people and huge corporations. And of course they are going to want policies that benefit them in exchange for that money. That is baked into the system. And a system that the Supreme Court supercharged when it allowed all sorts of contributions in Citizens United and subsequent cases. This is sowhat happens. Donald trump goes further and puts it out there more openly then just about anybody else and really highlights the corruption of the system we have. To that point, it would have to be a deep examination into the details of what was said and how it was. Donald trump is masterful at saying things that skirt actual rules and laws. But for there to be a quid pro quo or a deal or bribe or Something Like that, there has i to be some implication that, i will do this if you do this. There are two issues here. One is that donald trump probably will do the stuff he promised to do regardless and this is sort of an encouragement. Or as you detected in your writing, there is an implicit threat. Trump is favorable to fossil fuels. And he mostly looks out for himself. So i think there is oka threat here. If you dont give this money to me, maybe i will keep the law the way it is. Th and eventually, he is showing his mental mess as a president. I think there was a lot of reason for folks in the room to believe that if they dont pony up the money, they would face consequences for it. It is corrupt in both directions. Noah, you have spent a lot of time in mall humans, a word most of us did not even know before. You and groups like yours popularize them. What surprised us was the degree to which there are not laws or guidelines or enough laws whor guidelines preventing this sort of thing from happening and corrupting the government and politics. I dont mean this to sound like a Naove Question on a saturday morning o■tv show but we haven really made great progress in saying, you know what, this stuff happens all the time. What should we actually be doing to fix it . That is right. There was an effort after the Trump Presidency to pass some expansive legislation aimed at Voting Rights which is obviously a different issue. Also had money and politics and having more disclosure and leslie way and that effort came up just a couple votes short in the senate. That was very unfortunate. And again and again, people sort of throw up their hands and say, we have this system with all this corruption. What are you going to do about it . And of course you can do things. You can pass laws. You can change the system and we need to do that. We see that not just with what donald trump is doing in the meeting but also in what these executives are doing. These are the same executives who, in the wake of january 6, said, we are not going to support people who undermine our democracy and there they are a couple years later donald trump, according his support and hearing his demands that they give A Billion Dollars to his campaign. Again just pretending these problems dont exist when they are in fact solvable. It is interesting. Given the profitability of the oil companies, A Billion Dollars, i think they need to tip a Vending Machine over ito deal with that. If there is such a deal on the table, it is a remarkable deal for the oil companies. What is the problem here . Is that Donald Trumps i corruption or the fact that, as noah said, we have forgotten some of these pledges saying, we will not encourage this kind of behavior. I dont think this moves the political needle one bit. K this could turn out to be a b huge scandal and im not sure ge one vote in america will change because of it. I hate to be too optimistic. I think it is helpful to see somebody saying that. Not just because of trumps reputation but because everybody suspects these types of deals are being made. For trump to say so i think shows who he is and how the system works and i hope that that can drive some support for the kind of reforms that noah is talking about. Lets hope so. Ut we have to talk about these things so people know they are happening and hopefully that will lead to some decision making. Thank you for the great ki article. David grammys a writer. Thank you for your continued great work bringing integrity into the system. He is the president and ceo for citizens for responsibility and ethics in washington. Thousands of palestinians right now are being forced to flee what was at one time seen as a safe haven with the ceasefire deal still in limbo. We will go to cairo for the latest. Later in the velshi book club feature, imagine a Perfect Society with no war and atno suffering. No all you have to do is give up all the things that make you human. Would you do it . We will explore The American Classic the giver with the literary legend who wrote it ahead. 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Peoplefriendly. Bugdeadly. i thought water would help with these dry spots. Thats lawn disease. But Scotts Healthy Plus will cure it lawn disease . Been going around. So like other people have it and its not. Pick up a bag of the new Scotts Turf Builder healthy plus lawn food today. Feed your lawn. Feed it. Her uncles unhappy. Scotts turf builder healthy plu im sensing anay. Underlying issue. Its tmobile. It started when we tried to get him under a new plan. But they they unexpectedly unraveled their price lock guarantee. Which has made him, a bit. Unruly. You called yourself the uncarrier. You sing about price lock on those commercials. the price lock, the price lock. so, if you could change the price, change the name its not a lock, i know a lock. So how can we undo the damage . We could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. Their connection is unreal. And we could all unexperience this whole session. Okay, thats uncalled for. Thousands of palestinians are attempting to flee rafah. More than 1 Million People are sheltering. There are new Evacuation Orders as israel plans to expand its military operations in the city. This is happening despite repeated earnings from the Biden Administration not to do it. Yesterday the State Department issued a report to congress that it is reasonable to assess that israel has violated International Law in gaza using american supplied weapons. But the u. S. That it does not have verified specific instances that would justify withholding military aid. And the report short of accusing israel of violating terms of the u. S. Weapons agreement. Any hope for a ceasefire deal is being balanced on the edge of a knife for joining us from cairo is our Nbc International correspondent. Lets talk about this. There is something of a timeline developing here in addition to the roughly 35,000 palestinians who are dead. This invasion or attack on rafah, which israel says is necessary to completely annihilate hamas, causes a remarkable and logistical problem because that is where they told everybody to go. Right from the beginning really. Since october, the Israeli Government and military have totally told gazans to go south. We heard the News Conference peers they dropped leaflets. Another was a real sense of panic we are told by Crews Inside Gaza because the Israeli Military has essentially ordered hundreds of thousands of people away from Southern Gaza to a small strip of land off the coast. At the same time, idf airstrikes are increasing. There is also a Land Occupation of parts of gaza that involved tanks including the rafah border area. I mentioned the strip of land. It is not a safe zone in the traditional strictest sense of the term. It is essentially sandy dunes. There is no infrastructure there. No sewage. No water. No electricity. Some aid groups are saying that it does not meet the basic needs of the thousands who are seeking shelter. The idf in the past has indeed targeted the safe zones as well. Thank you for your reporting. We will stay close to you on this issue. Our international correspondent, author of the important book but you dont look arab and other tales of on belonging. Coming up, a significant victory for women living in one of the most extreme antiabortion regions. The only Migraine Medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. To those with migraine, i see you. For the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of Episodic Migraine in adults. Dont take if allergic to nurtec odt. Allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. Most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. Its time we all shine. Talk to a Healthcare Provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. Ed gutters. Healthcare provider Call Leaffilter today. And never clean out clogged gutters again. Leaffilters Technology Keeps debris out of your gutters for good. Guaranteed. Call 833. Leaf. Filter today, or visit leaffilter. Com. man mm, hey, honey. Guaranteed. Looks like my todo list grew. Paint the bathroom, give baxter a bath, get life insurance, hm. I have a few minutes. I can do that now. Oh, that fast . Remember that Colonial Penn ad . I called and i got information. They sent the simple form i need to apply. All i do is fill it out and send it back. Well, that sounds too easy man give a little information, check a few boxes, sign my name, done. They dont ask about your health . man no health questions. Physical exam . Dont need one. Its Colonial Penn guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance. If youre between the ages of 50 and 85, your acceptance is guaranteed in most states, even if youre not in the best health. Options start at 9. 95 a month, 35 cents a day. Once insured, your rate will never increase. 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In the weeks after roe v wade was overturned, i visited alabama and spoke with a number of people who were trying to navigate a new reality where the law of the land was government sanctioned forced birth. I want you to listen to what robin marty told me back then. She was and still is running what used to be an Abortion Clinic and alabama. This was right after roe v wade was overturned. Her clinic was obviously not allowed to provide abortion anymore. Listen to what she said about even talking about abortion or even telling someone how to get a legal abortion in a different state. I walk in here and i see you wearing a shirt that says Medication Abortion is extremely safe and effective and i say, can i get some . No. I cant say anything. If i were a regular person, i would say Something Like a person can go to aidaccess. Org and obtain Medication Abortion without a prescription and have it shipped to them regardless of whether it is a legal state or illegal state but that person is running a lot of risk of surveillance and should be very careful week that is something i could say if i were a regular person. Im not a regular person so i cannot say that to a patient or to anyone. Honestly, wearing this shirt is a risk and i do it on purpose because i know that this is one way to make a conversation happen and make people think about this. But i cannot provide that information i just provided to you. Can you imagine . That was not hyperbole. Robin marty and dozens of people like her working in Womens Healthcare and alabama who are trying to helps whose bodies are no longer their own, those People Living under threat of arrest and prosecution every day. They felt it from the beginning based on the deliberate vagueness of the Alabama Abortion Ban and in the State Attorney General said it out loud. Morning in clear terms that any person or group that openly tried to facilitate or fund legal outofstate abortions for Alabama Women could be criminally investigated by his office. So robin martys clinic and others sued the Attorney General. This week, they won a small but crucial victory in court. A federal judge denied the Attorney General steve marshalls request to dismiss the case and more than that, the judge said women do still have a constitutional right to cross state lines for a legal abortion and that the right is inextricably bound up with the rights of other people and groups to help them do it. Joining me now is the Executive Director of the Yellow Hammer fund which is a family and reproductive Justice Organization serving alabama and In The Deep South. It is one of the groups suing the Alabama Attorney general over the right to help women obtain legal abortions. Jennys and i met and had a conversation on the very same trip i just showed you. Good to see you again. Thank you for being with us. Thank you for having me. Lets get your reaction to the ruling. I want to underscore that it is incremental but it is important. It is crucial. It reaffirms what we have been saying this entire time. It is healthcare and a right. What the judge thompson did for us was just reaffirm that the work we are doing for other folks can be done. And i think in a state where we have already implemented a complete abortion ban and have implemented regulations that would make it incredibly hard to practice. Regulations on Birthing Centers that would make it hard to operate. And now we have to be under the threat of, okay, if we get someone out of the state for healthcare we dont offer, we might be criminalized work that does not work for me. It doesnt make since. And it is unconstitutional. The ruling for us was definitely a step in the right direction. And just asserting that this does not work for us and we have to hold the state to our rates and the country as well. The concept of, it is unconstitutional there are a lot of people around the country trying to convince people you cannot leave your state to get an abortion or you cant do it or tell anybody. And in texas, it has gotten super weird. The judge said something interesting. It is unconstitutional from preventing the woman from being able to leave the state and it is unconstitutional as an extension and therefore would be unconstitutional to penalize anyone for assisting the woman . Yes. We were actually expecting for this to be affirmed. The way they were, it was really refreshing. What the Attorney General did was all but name us. Initially, what we were expecting was at the high end, people have to get out of state the cost around would be heightened. To have the Attorney General assert that we would be incarcerated for it is not what we were expecting. In alabama, it was very affirming and it was very much of a relief to hear the judge Thompson Assert that for us. Definitely a step in the right direction. Not all the steps but definitely a step in the right direction. We cannot settle on being able to get outofstate rate for abortion because that still implies that abortion is a bad thing or unpopular issue which it is. We need to be able to Access Healthcare in the state. We should not have to leave the state for healthcare. Lets be clear. This is a move forward in one particular aspect of what you are doing but it is not even close to being a reasonable or just solution for people in alabama and with that, i think we should discuss your line of work right now and alabama. There is an assumption that in states that are close to states In The Deep South and in the abortion desert that is now the southern United States, obviously those Abortion Clinics are remarkably busy. But so are you. You live in one of the most restrictive antiabortion regimes in the country. It is a state that did not have the most resilient Healthcare Infrastructure and it is a state that has remarkable inequality of access to healthcare. So you are dealing with a whole set of other problems given that they have put a ban on abortion in your state . Absolutely, velshi. What people dont realize is that there are so many Different Things that intersect with Abortion Access. Whether it is that thought to have tried to attempt an abortion in the state criminalizing you getting care in any other way. That is a threat also. And the state that is also regulating Birthing Centers. As a black mom of three, i need other alternatives to birthing in the state where im five times more likely to die during childbirth. With the state has done is overly regulate all of my alternative options for the Birthing Centers. Being the safest ob unit which was princeton closing. So there are a lot of issues and there is a lot of work to be done in this landscape where there is organizing around people to make sure they know what they can do in the landscape and how they can do it in with the laws are and how to navigate them and where to go. Who to talk to and how to talk to them. There is a lot of work to be done around Abortion Access and we are definitely still working on it constantly and fighting for it. Not only to Fund Abortion but to get Abortion Access back in the state. And you and your group or at the front lines of that. We thank you for that. Executive director of the Yellow Hammer fund. Thank you for being with us. Coming up, we will explore the concepts of Freedom Of Choice and forced birth with the legendary author behind The American Classic the giver and discuss why his ideas are so polarizing ahead. First, controversy after two schools moved to confederate names. Stay with us ella fashion moves fast. Setting trends is our business. 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Com and ask your doctor if keytruda could be right for you. I thought i was sleeping ok. But i was waking up so tired. Then i tried new zzzquil sleep nasal strips. Their four point lift design opens my nose for maximum air flow. So, i breathe better. And we both sleep better. And stay married. A school board in virginia voted to reinstate confederate names of two schools. The Shenandoah County school board approved the proposal to restore the names of Confederate Generals thomas stonewall jackson, robert e. Lee Ann Turner Ashby to two local schools. The vote reverses the 2020 decision by a previous board to change the names of the Schools Associated with the Confederate Military leaders. Shenandoah appears to be the First District in the nation to return confederate names to schools four years after the george floyd protests. Confederate statutes and monuments came down across the country and many schools adorned with the names of confederate leaders changed their names sake. The reversal is a sign that the debate over how america deals with its painful past is far from over. Current students in the district spoke out against the change. Reverting back to this name is a symbolic regression. Is regarding our past. Acknowledge the community has been left divided and unhappy over the initial name change. But how can we see a Brighter Future when we are afraid of the changes that confront our past . By taking the step backwards in 2024, what foot are we putting forward. What legacy are we leaving behind for the generation to inherit . Im a black student. If the names are restored, i would have to represent a man that fought from a ancestors to be slaved. That makes me feel like im disrespecting my ancestors and going against what my family i believe which is that we should all be treated equally and that slavery was cruel. I think it is unfair that restoring the names is up for discussion. People dont take the time to think about students like me who would not be proud to graduate from a school with the name stonewall jackson. The voting and Shenandoah County come comes as votes are to push back efforts against race and educational settings. That includes efforts to limit Classroom Discussion of racial identity and ban Library Books dealing with race and derail diversity plans. Next, and the meaning of the Velshi Banned Book Club, legendary childrens work of literature the giver. I will talk with low of lowry about her most frequently band book and how it is relevant to what we are seeing in society. Stay with us itted. Slowing my cancer from growing and living longer are two things i want from my Metastatic Breast Cancer treatment. And with kisqali, i can have both. Kisqali is a pill that when taken with an Aromatase Inhibitor helps delay cancer from growing and has been proven to help people live significantly longer across three separate clinical trials. 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One purchased equals one donated. Day to fly. Wooooo would we be happier in a Society Without the brutality of war quits without rain ruining the commute . Babies that sleep through the night . What would you be willing to sacrifice for a world like that . What would you give up . Your freedom to choose or your individuality . How about creativity or love . Those are the questions at the center of the banned book club. The american classic the giver by lois lowry. Set in a colorless and emotionless world that values sameness above all else and mercilessly euthanize as those that do not fit it. The giver tells the story of 12 yearold jonas, all community metrics, normal. He apologizes readily for anything he has done wrong and chooses his words very carefully. He dutifully takes a pill every single day to suppress any new feelings or urges that come with hitting puberty. That is until his life assignment ceremony. Every 12yearold is assigned their wifes work. Maybe to the Fish Hatchery or as a doctor or as a laborer. But jonas is selected to be the communitys next receiver of memory which means jonas will receive every single memory of the collective society from the former receiver who is now called the giver. While in honor, jonas is isolated but it will be he alone who suffers from emotions pain and love and joy. The giver grapples with heavy themes including the weight of memory, the Freedom Of Choice, society and governmental control, individualism. While dystopian literature is becoming increasingly popular in recent years, especially in the young adult and childrens genres, the giver was the first. It served as a proof of concept that those themes are not too complex for middle grade readers to understand. Lois lowry doesnt just use what is within the text to convey these themes. She employs a Writing Style to tell the story too. Trend 97s writing reflects the community with direct language, unencumbered dialogue and pointed descriptions. Indeed, precise language is one of the primary means of psychological control within the giver. Precise language. A society that has done away with feelings that cannot be so easily defined, including love. Father, mother, jonas asked tentatively after the evening meal, i have a question to ask you. What is it, his father asked. He made us say the words though he felt flushed. Do you love me . There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then father gave a little chuckle. Jonas, you of all people, precision of language please what do you mean, jonas asked. Amusement was not at all what he had anticipated. Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it has become almost obsolete, his mother explained carefully. Jonas stared at them. Meaningless . He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory. And of course our community cant function smoothly if people dont use precise language. Says his mother. And akin to newspeak and George Orwell s 1924, trend 97s community has hyper specific vocabulary. The words are similar enough to language use in real life to maintain the pace of the story. Newborn babies are new births, sexual urges are stirrings. The result is an unsettlingly successful valley affect. We know this place, these words, these ideas. We know they are not the same. As jonas begins to under stand the power of emotion, the writing becomes more vivid and expressive and humanity peeks through the cracks of the giver from the first page but the reader does not begin to understand the lack of it until these moments. The very topics that make the giver such a critical read are the same reasons it has topped the American Library associations most banned book list year after year. While in fantasizing, It Euthanasia and suicide are central to the plot of the book of the way the giver handles these topics is what makes it a classic. The giver is not violent or buddy or gratuitous. It is quiet, and prospective and delicate. The giver gives the readers the conclusion that we must have reverence for human life and our differences are our greatest strengths and the darkest parts of humanity are needed to make way for the most beautiful. The giver is one of those rare works of literature that unite american schoolchildren. It is not hyperbolic to say. But the giver has become one of the most assigned contemporary works ever. It has become a Rite Of Passage for middle grade readers. A doorway through which they must pass to begin to consider their own humanity and own place in this world. Right after the break, i am joined by the legendary author, lois lowry. Dont go anywhere. Is some freakin torque. What . Horsepower keeps you going, but torque gets you going. 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But theres no magic involved. dog bark its just smarter, healthier pet food. Its amazing what real food can do. Norman, bad news. I never graduated, hfrom med school. D. What . But the good news is. Xfinity mobile just got even better now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. Plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. I gotta get this deal. Thats like 20 a month per unlimited line. I dont want to miss that. Thats amazing doc. Mobile savings are calling. Visit xfinitymobile. Com to learn more. Doc . Todays meeting of the Velshi Banned Book Club is in session. Im thrilled to be joined by a true literary legend, lois lowry. Awardwinning author of many important children and young adult books including the Velshi Banned Book Club feature, the giver. Thank you and welcome to the Velshi Banned Book Club. Thank you. I love the description of me as a living legend. [ laughter ] you absolutely are. After having been introduced since 1993, we have to get creative in how we do it. We hope you did some justice to it. This one is a test. This one is like interviewing margaret on the handmaids tale. So many people have read this book over the years that they know what we are talking about here and it is newly relevant. I mentioned in the introduction that it is centrally about the power of choice and individual freedom. That in my opinion is more relevant now then it was when you wrote the book. I was going to say the same thing. Ever year, it seems more and more relevant. You mentioned kids in schools here having read it usually in 8th grade. I will add to that. Excuse me, i have a cold. It is in 32 other languages. I have talked to kids around the world. Even in iran and turkey and kathmandu, romania, thailand. And they all react to this book and they all want to know, how can we keep this from happening . And of course i tell them, you are the generation that will make that determination. Lets talk about how we keep this from happening. I want to read from the book about one part of society in the giver referred to as the birthmothers. I think new children are so cute. I hope i get assigned to be a birthmother. Lily, dont say that. There is very little honor in that assignment. I was talking to natasha who lives around the corner and she does some of her volunteer hours at the Birthing Center and told me that birthmothers get wonderful food and they have a very gentle exercise period and most of the time they play games and amuse themselves when they are waiting. I think i would like that, lily said passionately. Three years, three births and that is all. After that, they are laborers for the rest of their adult lives until the day they enter the house of the old. Is that what you want, lily . Three lazy years and then hard physical labor until you are old . I want to ask you about this. We had that about the handmaids tale just literally before the fall of roe v wade. This concept of controlling women and the reproduction and forced birth is central to your dystopian myth. And yet, i tried to seduce the reader, the role of the writer come into believing that this would be a wonderful, safe and comfortable world. And as he pointed out, no crime. No poverty. No discrimination. No divorce. No sexism. No war. And then gradually by the use of passages like the one you just read, does the reader realize that terrible compromises have been made. I hadnt thought about it until you chose that particular passage. Of course the role of women is incremental and integral to the book. Incidentally, there are three more books that follow the giver. And in the final one, the main character is the young woman who had been a birthmother. So you get to find out what happens to some of them. All books are banned for the same boring reasons all the time. But one of them is that this is too much for kids. It is too much for them to understand. How do you process that . Because you are dealing with concepts that are severe and serious and increasingly potentially real. How do you address the idea that eighthgraders are prepared to deal with this heaviness and severity of the concept . Of course, im one end and the kids are there. And in between are teachers, librarians and parents. And those are often the ones with whom the kids interact and discuss this book. And that is where the important stuff takes place i think in those discussions. I tried to write it as an adventure story. And it is that. I was surprised when almost immediately, after the publication in 1993, the reaction was so enormous. And on both sides of the spectrum. For example, in one week, this happened in 1995, i could identify the date because of other things going on. But in one week, i got a letter handwritten from a woman who was so outraged that you could almost see it in her handwriting, as if her hand had been shaking. The first line of her letter was, jesus would be ashamed of you. In the same week, i got a letter from a monk in a monastery who explained that trappists are a silent order. That they are read aloud to at meantime and the giver had been read aloud to this month and said there is a better wow coming up. That they voted to place it in the category of sacred text. Wow. That is a bigger wow. You are right. One of the things interesting from a trappist monk you heard, one of the things in the society of the giver is that society is governed by the idea that sameness is the most important thing. Children are taught not to point out flaws or differences. Tell me about this. It is one of the reasons in this comfortable safe community. The reason there is no discrimination. You only realize after a little while that everybody is the same. They are all the same color. There is no racism. How could there be . But in making that choice, we dont know how that came about in previous decades, but in making that choice, the community, the population, the government, had let go. Had risked everything. Everything they have done has been a choice that has been a sacrifice and a terrible compromises. And of course, it is the young boy who comes to realize that. One people object to the book and try to ban the book, they are kind of caught because there is no explicit sex or violence. And so they take out of context small things that they think they might find objectionable. I think what they are really objecting to, and they dont know this, but it is pervasive within their reading, is that a young person has perceived to the hypocrisy and corruption of the governance of the generation that has created their world. And of course, that is very relevant today. That is increasingly relevant today and it is one of i said all books are banned by the same stupid reasons and that is one of them. Books that allow us to see the truth of what is happening. Especially in terms of control. It is a real honor to have you here on the Velshi Banned Book Club. Thank you for joining us today. The awardwinning author of the giver, lois lowry. My pleasure. Im sorry you have to have the segment but im pleased you have taken it so seriously. It is such a dangerous time. One day, we will drop the ban from the name and it will just be cold of the book club. Thank you, my friend. A quick note from my viewers. My book Small Acts Of Courage just came out. And im traveling to several cities in the next few weeks to discuss it. Join me if you can the next few days. I will be in San Francisco on tuesday, a 14th. I will be in chicago, may 18th. I will keep you posted on all of it on social media. You can follow us on x. I hope to see you out there. That does it for me. Thank you for watching. Tomorrow morning will be here from 10 00 a. M. Until noon eastern. You can follow and listen to velshi for free wherever you get your podcast. Stay where you are. Is the week that was. Marjorie Taylor Greene stepping into saved democrats