the worst rise to the top. >> he's talking about road to surfdom, hyak, a bible for people on the conservative political side. >> i'm glad to know about it. until this moment, i have heard nothing about it. i will write it down and give it a look. >> you have never read that? >> no. nor have i heard of it until this moment. >> here is why the book looks like. thank you very much for joining .. workers from kind of the dark ages of the cotton mill in my hometown. those are folks who had survived the 20's, 30's, 40's, and on into the fifties when it was brick oven and summertime, when the air was thick with flying cotton. it filled their lungs with cotton fiber. they would hang up the windows trying to get a breath of air. kids would ride by in cars and enlightens and see it and it was given to death. these are people that lost their fingers, hands and arms to the machine. there were grateful that they have the work because they came down out of the mountains walking barefoot, came down with all of their children and line. hired men and women and the babies. the children were valuable. their hands were smaller, and they can reach into the gears of the machines and i applaud them, and foul line. >> how young? >> eight, nine, san. >> can you tell me a little bit more about that? >> it is a great town, a beautiful town. as said once that it is almost like someone painted it and hung it. it nestles in the foothills of the appalachians surrounded by beautiful mountains and not far from river. it is one of the most beautiful place on earth. the civil war wrecked the region a lot of people call it the rich man's war. it wrecked a region, star of the region. then came reconstruction. it was almost like a civil war faded into reconstruction and the reconstruction faded into the great depression, not much changed. and the mail came in the early years of the 20th-century. salvation. these people, you know, where sharecroppers or subsistence farmers. they dug wells, the cut timber. all of a sudden this is an inside look, steady. and it saved them. and they see it. many of them, the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters see it as salvation. >> how much to the debate? >> next to nothing. it varied over the years from, you know, nichols and dimes an hour, pocket change to a few dollars a week. even after -- even after roosevelt demanded a decent wage for them the mill owner they're just refuse to pay it. defied the federal government successfully and broke the union. so the mill owners kind of paid considering these poor mountain people and where they came from, it was not very much. now, as the fifties faded into the 60's and the 60's and 70's, it became a decent paying job. the machines, while they were safe, got safer. and by the 70's and 80's if you work for caught no you're making a bid is not -- has given money as a blue-collar worker, except maybe some coal miners and steelworkers. >> she said that people were losing their fingers in my hands in the beginning getting paid next to nothing. why were they still loyal? >> there were still loyal because there was nothing else there. there were steel mills and the bigger cities. to understand why you would work in a place that kept a part of you at quitting time you have to understand that these are folks who don't want to go anywhere else. they don't want to move. a lot of their kinfolks when to the tried and hung bobbers and cadillacs. it was important to these people to live in the minds of the fathers. it was important to them that they live in a place where do is jump across the roads in front of their cars. they live in a place where they're grandmothers but chilly up on the windowsill. it was important to them that when they died nobody sent their body home on a train. >> when did them no clothes? >> it closed after 100 years, i think it was, 2001. >> and what did that do terror jacksonville, alabama? >> it would be a romantic story to say that the economy bottomed out and all that. it is not true. the mill became a lesser force in the economy. still a force. jacksonville stadium, the college became the economic force in town. it wasn't that there was a whole lot of new industry. there wasn't. you ordered your hands for a living in this country. you don't have any champions. and so the bell faded out of existence, and a lot of those workers, my brother was one of them, went to work for jobs that paid less. my brother works for the city. you know, they went to work for jobs that don't pay as much, but were not as dangerous and don't wreck their health. you know, all of them said their work for nothing so that they could have insurance. so, you know, the town went on about its collective life, but that, no workers often wound up in jobs that justice not pay as well, so their standard of living fell. some got very lucky and went to work for honda to meno, went to work for some new plan around the state where they had to travel. the town went on about its life. but it really was as though the kind of blue-collar heart of the place as i call that in the book, the beating blue-collar are the place kind of one still. it is such an odd thing to get your hands around because when my brother lost his job i know that it killed him because for these people the work is the thing. people love to talk about seveners in cliches. you know, we lived for stock car racing and hunting and fishing and football. you know, we handle snakes and we issue a lot of tobacco. what we really, what my people are about his work. they talk about work. they talk about how many feet of wood flooring delayed that day. they talk about, you know, how much pulp would they cut. they talk about how many bricks delayed. what they are really about is work. and if you take the work away, if you take the machines away, and they did, they took the machines to south america, asia, if you take the work away and you take something out of them that cannot be put back. so while you hate the fact that it killed so many people, so many people died young and died gasping from byssinosis, brown long. you hate all of that, but you also hate to see that tool taken out of their hands. it ain't no perfect world, and there is no perfect solution. i just know that it is best, badly messed. >> what prompted you to write this book? >> i promised these folks that i would read it. a lot of the folks that i bump into in my hometown, i have written a newspaper story about it a long time ago when it shut down. i -- a lot of these folks in my home town, these older folks had helped me on previous books. i promised them that if i ever could i would write them their own book, one of fellow in particular, his name is homer bond well. homer went to work in the mill, and his mother and father worked themselves to death. he went to work in the know after world war ii. one day after walking all across he looked around him and all the carnage and the noise and the people trying to brief. he just walked out. he was always part of the mill village. he lives there now, and his mother and father, again, who gave their lives to the place, such a part of it. i thought all of those stores were worth telling, and i told them i would tell the story of his mother and father. i see him, high-school graduation are something. deeply ashamed not to have done the book already. finally we got a chance to do it and did it for pretty good reasons, i think. i'm glad is done to mind when it's on the shelf. i am very proud of it. >> al is this book different from the other is the rev.? >> it was similar in that it was , while it was not necessarily about family, do not dwell on my brother story. i told it in a handful of essays and others, but they are almost family. these people are friends, and their people that i know on the street. it is different in that it is -- the books on family have moments of, even though there was killing and dying and poverty and struggle and sacrifice, there are also moments where i hope people act out loud, moments or help this mild. this book was a little more grim , as little more braman said it did not -- and i'm glad it didn't. i hope that it hit people right in the stomach. it did not give me much of a chance to brief. >> that is going to be my next question, for people who don't live in jacksonville or even the state of alabama, when they pick up this book and read it, what do you want them to take away from it? >> that the country is changing. the country is. people love to see, well, we have a service economy. well, what do we serve? people work at -- this is not an original thought from with their work at walmart to eat at ruby tuesdays or eat at -- work to reduce this to shop walmart. there was a time when being able to pick up the tool meant that you could panda living. with that living came an incredible dignity, an incredible power of self, and a feeling of cable feeling. just can be a tool, and i will make something out of this life. well, we have taken the tools away. so the people are still here. those people are still here, and, you know, they are -- and, you know, they are in st. louis and oakland and they are laid off concrete finishers up in vermont, and they are -- they are -- they are everywhere. and this book is about them. it is for them. it just happens to be in my backyard, the microcosm, the council that we try to tell. and they don't have any champions. they are camino, "that have been forgotten. >> what is it due to a sense of self? so much in building and taking, what did to to the? >> one fellow went to work in a plan that made cat food. other guys had trouble finding work and all. a lot of the older folks just retired. they did not know a round going well, is me. they cut firewood. they found a way to make a living. they're very capable. there is a difference in getting by and making a living. they're getting by. and time again, a lot of them landed in jobs that pay the bills, just barely and give them insurance, which is, you know, the key to everything. but if you ask them if they are still millworkers, they will tell you, no. ish yes ken, are you still a mill and to me will say, no, of course not. but if you go in his closet and open it up, all of these jackets that he was awarded for perfect attendance for working without missing a day, they'll push out its you. if you opened one of the doors it is stacked with t-shirts from vast tournaments' and company picnics. he is aware that many more, but it is not for the malaise. i think there is incredible pride in these jobs, like there was in being a steelworker. building houses driving a tractor. i think there is incredible pride in these things. my brother sam said a beautiful thing. it's funny. i must be the one that is of words. he is best read on this table. he told me once, he said, rich, pretty soon the only thing we're going to make in this country will be money. he doesn't figure it takes a whole lot of people to do a job like that. so i think he has a good point. [inaudible conversations] >> the story of the civil rights movement can be told without burning in alabama, and this weekend book tv and american history tv look beyond the scenes of the history of literary life of the southern city. on book tv on c-span2, september september 15th 1952, a bomb rocked the baptist church killing four young girls. the story through the eyes of a survivor and friend, even under the hazardous working conditions people fought to work the cotton mill in jacksonville. pillage a prize winner on the day after the mill closed. and american history tv, a stanford university history professor on how martin luther king junior's letter from a birmingham jail set the tone for the civil rights movement. also, opened in 1881. produced by and for nearly 100 years. tune in sunday at 6:00 eastern as the curator continues with a discussion on birmingham during the great depression. this weekend on c-span2 and three. >> policy not to the steps the o film's that i am making well ani making them for all the obviousy reasons. w >> are you curreorntly working n one? >> maybe.just don >> i don't talk about it. it disappears when they appear.r ami, it is not in the best in te of trest of the film to give the heads of. yoth "sicko," before i made "sicko" u i made the mistake of saying how was making a film the about the health care industry. the health care industry just wed on high alert. and in fact, the pharmaceutical real companies when on real tyler. ad and even though the film wasn'tt going to really be about themthm healthe insurance industry, the pharmaceutical companies spend hund ofs of thousands of dollars preparing for me. i that would get all these internal memos sent to me f troe people that work to different from wizard of companies say, we had an interest today wheretheyd they're having -- they hired a e michael moore actor to commend p to role-playing. this is the u.s. opposed tod pfe handler them.el pfizer had a michael more headline.p if the show but one of the regional offices, call this number in new york.this numr they would just, an executive at cigna wrote this great book last year. when he was the vice-president he talked about the hundreds ofd thousands, millions of dollars of this bent hoping to discredit me, too, if necessary,y figuratively, not literally,alli push me off a cliff. so they, you know, so i learned my lesson there. not a good idea to give them advance notice what i am workinm on.otter on his >> and we interviewed.nt to if you like to see that you can go to booktv.org and use the botv.orgunction in the upper left-hand corner. coer. iranian american i am concerned about rumors that you may be planning a trip to a wrong.out the pro-government press has written more than once that you been invited to come and and accepted. they would consider that a coup if it happens. ift >> i have been invited for many years. i have be one of my films, it might have been "bowling for columbine" won the top prize at the teheran film festival a number of years ago. the pri tze was a beautiful pera road but i'm not going to the film festival. i don't know if it is really,re. you know, the thing is, i have been very active in the lastn year to. a i have had a couple off filmmakers that have essentially been under house arrest i have i been active with other film makers in this country tried to convince the iranian government irann governhem, leave them alone, let them make their films. those films, some of the their greatest filmmakers right now. if you have a chance to see, gae there are really, really good.ce to s soee there is definitely a couns that loves the movies.oves i think, you know, we sought to a year on movement here a year or two ago that there is a huge a huge sentiment in the countryt to be free of the dictates of those who would, you know, want to run the country. the you know, the democracy on a lertain level. they actually do have free elections.s, anyon anyone can run. and a couple of beckham entries about this that i have seen, incredible things. things and so, i try to avoid any sort of evil, axis of evil discussion because i know that there arethe people in our government, nowur that we have had our way with a, rock, they want to move on to rae next. and i and that seems to the edge. there are certain forces that want us to go to war or bomb or things like that to be so i try govement -- i don't want to be elseciated with my government attacking anyone on this planets again. so i think related to theo it ndanian people. to sta they have to stand at and getwa. the country they want, and i am hopeful for them.k, >> his most recent book, "heret" fe.es trouble," stories from my life.egon. john, you are on the air.hey, >> zillow. your i've seen a few of youre propaganda films over the yearse and i ndotice that you try to edit thing so that people thinke something happened with him and commend the wanted to specifically asked aboutpe you have "fahrenheit 9/11" send their ser kids. one root of getting congressman said he had two nephews in afghanistan. you edit it so that he just as k respond.s he no looks like he has no responseff. and walks off.anha that's not what happened to muscle i wanted to know why you did not include his actual ilude response beaded. you're supposed to be a documentarian. >> well, thank you for that question.tion. fiof all all, in that particular scene as to mothers this of a hm question. ast of every congressman and i ran into, republican and democrat, would you send yourso son, your son or daughter to wouldn iraq. quen and he would not answer the questio- and is said he tried -- and the, number of others did tomorrow, i have a nephew, get an uncle, i've got a cousin, i haveor... i somebody down the block that is their right now.ht and no, i don't think you d no understand my question. would you send your son or your daughter, not your sisters andd, her daughter, your son our orr daughter. he would answer the question.t r they don't answer that question because at that time when i made this film, "fahrenheit 9/11", there was only one member of congress who actually had a son or daughter in iraq.thght, w i thought, that is interesting.5 535 members of congress, the ma t theyty voted for this fourth, be wthat doesn't want to be willing to sacrifice some one from their own family.from thei send kids from the other families, send them from those o on the other side of the track.t they will do it. so that was the point of that, he was gas just giving me a politicians dodge answer saying that he and some relatives over there. er there qution.s my question. still think it's ifou arent question. if you're going to vote for war, be willing to send a summary of there.i i had not seen the world wari tomorrow until yesterday. i went over there. and when you walk again on the n very first round as you walked into a memorial it's as world war ii memorial, big letters. ig big letters right under it, george w. bush. and it really kind of shocked me onr a a second. sec oh, it is because he was president when it opened, but i'm thinking, i don't see thatde on the washington monument who was present when that opened, ueaq some blackguard the jeffersonyo memorial who was present when thathen opened. his what is his name specificallysp doing on world war two. here's a guy who supported the mean, atwar would go at least with clinton he does it too, but he was opposed to the work, so di't wana consistent position. like the war did not want to go. i get that. but bush, he was for the warck , back then and he thought other people should go, not him. so so post things and he is in the national guard.al g then his name is on the very first known as you entered the e ward war ii memorial. avoid that michael died in s icanrnia and 5,000 americans died and, and your name is on i' tis. it back to e qback to this cause question. know, ye yes, they're really good at supporting more, getting us intt war, but if