Studs Terkel: "We are not the Fortress America"

How was World War II different from the current campaign against terrorism and the Taliban?

It was a war against Hitler, of course, against fascism, against all there was. It subsequently had to be fought, but you can't compare the two. There is no one country involved now. Not Afghanistan. We know they're warlords, knocking each other off. They're purchasable too and so you can't compare them. There's confusion, there's bewilderment. So at this moment, we're at a crossroads. Will we learn? You see, you always come back to Einstein again. We have to think anew. It's not just Them, a Third World, distant. It's one, whether we like it or not.

Has George W. Bush proven himself as president of the United States?

Oh, no. No. Whom is he helping domestically with the tax cuts? You know very well who tax cuts help. The big CEOs are being rewarded, while thousands are being laid off.

If not George W. Bush, then who?

When it comes to the military and the Pentagon, Gore was as fervent for expanding the military budget as Bush is. So I don't think it would have changed much with Gore, as far as the bombings are concerned. Possibly it might have been different as far as the domestic program is concerned. That might have been the difference. Oh God, I don't know. Would FDR have been the guy? Well, he's my favorite president of course. At the same time we know what he did in the Executive Order 9066 -- Japanese Americans' internment. And that was a big blot, a horrendous blot. But nonetheless, he would have been the closest to it. We need a statesman, a new kind of statesman, and I don't see any on the horizon.

By launching a protracted bombing campaign, have we responded appropriately to the Sept. 11 attacks?

No, no. No bombing campaign. Bombing is the one thing bin Laden was for. He loves the idea of being bombed. It makes him a hero, a martyr among the great many in that whole region of the world.

We are the richest country in the world and everybody, I think, is capable of change. I don't care who they are, everyone is capable of change. I'm not saying bin Laden, who is as nutty as a fruitcake and is an example of fundamentalism -- in this case Islamic -- that's gone crazy. I'm not talking about him. I'm talking about the fact that everyone in the world, generally, is capable of change. I found that out. My greatest interview, I think, was with an ex-Klansman, a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan, and [about] his redemption and change. I feel we're the richest country in the world. We know there's more food that we need to feed every man, woman and child.

Now, if in our largesse we said: "This is what we'll do, all over the world, everywhere." Suppose we bomb them all over the world with food, clothing and shelter. I think it would alter us considerably. I know this sounds altruistic, it sounds goofy, it sounds idealistic in a comic way. Yet, it's the way. We'd be the most beloved nation in this epoch. So there you have it. As I say, this guy's a goof, who's talking to you now, an idealist. But on the contrary, that ideal is a reality, that ideal is being realistic. That's the ticket. You got an earful.

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