Bill Moyers's Blog, page 4

Michael Winship: The Pulpit of Bullies

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by Public Affairs Television senior writer Michael Winship.

The Pulpit of Bullies

By Michael Winship

One of the most memorable moments in television coverage of American politics came during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968. Out on the streets, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations were attacked viciously by law enforcement officials in what later was described in an official report as "a police riot."

Inside the convention hall, tightly controlled by the political machine of the city's notorious Mayor Richard J. Daley, CBS correspondent Dan Rather was attempting to interview a delegate from Georgia who was being removed from the floor by men in suits without ID badges. One of them slugged Rather in the stomach, knocking him to the ground. As the reporter struggled to get his breath back, from the anchor booth, Walter Cronkite exclaimed, "I think we've got a bunch of thugs here, Dan!"

It was an uncharacteristic outburst from America's Most Respected Newsman, indicative of just how terrible the violence was both inside and out and how shocking it was for a journalist to be so blatantly attacked while on the air by operatives acting on behalf of politicians.

As appalling as that 1968 assault was, thuggery is nothing new in politics; it transcends time, ideology and party. But what's even more disturbing in 2010 is how much of the public, especially many of those who count themselves among the conservative adherents of the Tea Party, is willing to ignore bullying behavior - and even applaud it - as long as the candidate in question hews to their point of view.

Here in New York State, of course, we have Republican gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino, who combines the boyish charm of J. Edgar Hoover with the sunny quirkiness of Pol Pot. So extreme are Paladino's views, so volatile his temper, that even Rupert Murdoch's right wing New York Post has endorsed Democrat Andrew Cuomo, which is a bit like the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano dissing the Pope and singing the praises of Lutherans.

Doubtless this is in part because Crazy Carl, as he is affectionately known to many, almost came to blows with the Post's state political editor, the redoubtable Fred Dicker, shouting "I'll take you out, buddy!" at Dicker after the journalist asked Paladino for evidence to back up allegations the candidate was making against Cuomo and Paladino claimed the paper was harassing his out-of-wedlock daughter.

The Post had to admit that Paladino is "long on anger and short on answers... undisciplined, unfocused and untrustworthy -- that is, fundamentally unqualified for the office he seeks."

Okay, Paladino will lose, but in other parts of the country, Tea Party-supported candidates with a similar bullying, threatening attitude, or who seem to surround themselves with such people, are more likely to win. Republican Allen West, endorsed by Sarah Palin and John Boehner, is leading in his race against incumbent Democratic Representative Ron Klein in South Florida's 22nd Congressional District.

A retired Army lieutenant colonel, West resigned from the military, according to the progressive website ThinkProgress.org, "while facing a court martial over the brutal interrogation of an Iraqi man: according to his own testimony during a military hearing, West watched four of his men beat the suspect, and West said he personally threatened to kill the man. According to military prosecutors, West followed up on his threat by taking the man outside and firing a 9mm pistol near his head, in order to make the man believe he would be shot."

You can't make this stuff up: Last week, NBC News reported that West has been communing with a notorious Florida motorcycle gang, the Outlaws, which the Justice Department alleges has criminal ties to arson, prostitution, drug running, murder and robbery. And on Monday, West could be heard at a rally urging some bikers - also with Outlaw connections -- to "escort" out a Klein staffer who was video recording the event. "Threats can be heard on the videotape," said a reporter from NBC's Miami affiliate. "West supporters forced him to get back into his car."

The West campaign responded that "the latest attacks aimed at associating... Allen West with a criminal and racist gang are completely baseless and nothing short of a hatchet job." So what's with the photograph of him glad-handing bikers who according to NBC brag about their association with the Outlaws? And why did West tell a supporter to back off when concern was expressed about "criminal organization members in leather" appearing at West's campaign rallies?

Which brings us to Joe Miller, the Republican and Tea Party candidate for the United States Senate from Alaska. On Sunday, at a Miller town hall, private security guards hired by the campaign - two of whom were moonlighting, active duty military -- took it upon themselves to detain a reporter pursuing Miller with questions, placed him under citizen's arrest and handcuffed him - then threatened to detain two other reporters who were taking pictures and asking what was going on.

The plainclothes rent-a-cops, complete with Secret Service-type earpieces and Men in Black-style neckties and business suits, come from an Anchorage-based outfit called DropZone Security, which also runs a bail bond service and an Army-Navy surplus store - with one of those anti-Obama "Joker" posters pasted to its window. One-stop shopping for the vigilante militiaman in your life - kind of like that joke about the combination veterinarian-taxidermist: either way you get your dog back.

All of this would be funnier if not for the fact that this kind of hooliganism and casual trampling of First Amendment rights from people who claim to embrace the Constitution as holy writ is symptomatic of a deeper problem.

The anger of the electorate is understandable: politicians and politics as usual have given voters much about which to be mad; furious, in fact. But bullying is different. It comes from insecurity and fear, and lashes out with tactics of intimidation. To dismiss it as merely a secondary concern and say "I'll take my chances" as long as the candidates in question agree with you is dangerous. Scuffling with the press and others may seem minor, but it's just the beginning. In states where there is early balloting, already there are allegations of voter harassment, primarily in minority neighborhoods.

The only way to fight back against bullies and thugs is to stand up and tell them to go to hell. To do otherwise is to give an inch and prepare to be taken for the proverbial mile. That way lies madness. And worse.



Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

Michael Winship: Making Ends Meet in Coin-Operated Washington

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by Public Affairs Television senior writer Michael Winship.

Making Ends Meet in Coin-Operated Washington

By Michael Winship

(with apologies to the late, great Damon Runyon)

So I am in Washington, DC, our nation's capitol, admiring the buildings and the fine monuments and so forth, when I run into my very dear friend Gorilla Bagsley, whom I have not had the pleasure of seeing for many a year.

We shake hands with joy indeed and Gorilla says to me, come and have a drink for old time's sake. I have not imbibed in a very long time, I tell him, and fear that such a thing will give me gas, but he persuades me to come into an establishment he knows and to bend an elbow with a pint of something pale and weak while he imbibes a beverage of a more muscular variety.

I have not been with Gorilla since he and I were young and flimflamming the tourists around New York Harbor, telling them that the Statue of Liberty is green on account of it was a gift from the generous people of Mars. Now here he is in Washington, which to me is passing strange. For if Boston is the home of the bean and the cod, as the poet once said, then surely Washington is the home of the scheme and the fraud, and so I ask Gorilla, who I thought had gone the route of the straight and narrow, what he is doing in such a place.

"Oh," he says. "This is a wonderful place."

"Why?" I ask, and Gorilla replies, "Because, dear pal of mine, it is coin-operated."

"Crime does not pay," I point out to Gorilla. "At least as I recall, not the way you do it."

"That is a point upon which I must concur with you," he says. "Certainly my attempt to hold up a financial institution with a staple gun was not my finest hour. In fact, I have learned during my brief time in this burg that I should have applied for bailout money instead. But I assure you that I have changed. This is the land of opportunity. And coin-operated, as I have said."

"Coin-operated indeed," I reply. "Look at what is in the newspaper here. According to The Washington Post, and I quote: 'Interest groups are spending five times as much on the 2010 congressional elections as they did on the last midterms, and they are more secretive than ever about where that money is coming from. The $80 million spent so far by groups outside the Democratic and Republican parties dwarfs the $16 million spent at this point for the 2006 midterms.'

"And get this," I continue, "It says, 'The trends amount to a spending frenzy conducted largely in the shadows.' Frankly, Gorilla, it is my belief that this is a far too dangerous place for one who has a curriculum vitae such as yours. I do not want your parole officer should be disappointed in you."

"I appreciate your concern," says Gorilla. "Truly I do. But trust me, everything is jake. I am in no danger of reapprehension."

"How can that be?" I respond. "Leave us face it, there is an awful lot of lettuce rolling loose in this fair city and I fear it is far too great a temptation for one as light-fingered as yourself. The Democratic National Committee raised more than $16 million last month even though they are supposed to be losing. The Center for Responsive Politics, an organization filled with honest types who I take to be very much on the level, says big oil and gas have spent more than $17 million on federal elections this year - so far. News Corp, the people who own Fox News, although they call themselves fair and balanced, has given a million bucks to the Republican Governors Association and another million to the US Chamber of Commerce which freely throws around money on pro-business candidates like a guy who is out of his mind about a doll."

Gorilla gets impatient with me and swats the air with his enormous mitt as if he is sending a fly into the next solar system. "You are not telling me anything I do not know," says he. "But I have found a legal way to benefit from this corporate largesse without threatening my always tentative freedom."

"And that is?" I query.

"Catering," Gorilla says. "All of these high rollers must eat when they are here, and all of these candidates have fundraisers here in the capital at which food is served -- even the ones who say Washington is a place in which they would not be caught dead, unless they are elected. I provide the edibles - pizza, doughnuts, little hot dogs wrapped in dough, fish eggs and sour cream on tiny slivers of toast or half a baby red potato - you name it. Here, taste."

He reaches into a bag and hands me a buttery croissant. With my mouth full, I ask, "And from this you are making a living commensurate with the income once earned from your past nefarious activities?"

"Better," Gorilla says, and pulls a piece of paper from his inside pocket. "Feast your eyes upon this. According to the website known as Politico.com, in just the last two weeks before the House adjourned so its members could go campaigning, more than 400 fundraisers were held in Washington for congressional candidates -- wine and bourbon tastings, beer blasts, barbecues, swanky cocktail parties, dinners and luncheons. Thousands of people, hungry for my finger food and pastries. After all these years, I am making it hand over fist."

"Well, good for you, Gorilla," I conclude, "and I certainly do not begrudge you your industriousness and good fortune, but I do not care what the Supreme Court says about limitless contributions. There has to be a new law so that these corporations cannot buy elections."

"That is a good and noble idea," he agrees, and brushes a trace of baking flour from his neatly tailored, plaid lapel. "But bad for business."

"This is important!" I yell, and then look up at the television above the bar. Fox News is reporting that the Statue of Liberty is green on account of it is a gift from the people of Mars. Protesters are at the scene, demanding the statue's destruction because it was donated by aliens and is much too close to Ground Zero.

I sigh and think maybe I will stay here with Gorilla Bagsley. He makes a very good croissant.



Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

Moyers Digital Archive: Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has announced his retirement on the occasion of his 79th birthday. Archbishop Tutu has been a tireless voice for justice and racial reconciliation. In 1984, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the struggle against apartheid. In 1999 Archbishop Tutu sat down with Bill Moyers, discussing the draining process of facing his country's past as he chaired the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. You'll find an excerpt of that conversation below and links to watch the full hour broadcast beneath the video window.





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Watch the full interview.

Michael Winship: The Celtic Tiger, Declawed and Defanged

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by Public Affairs Television senior writer Michael Winship.

The Celtic Tiger, Declawed and Defanged

By Michael Winship

DUBLIN -- The last time I was here in Ireland, eight years ago, the Celtic Tiger was still roaring. The country had zoomed from poverty to wealth, enjoying an unprecedented economic boom, with unemployment down to 4.5 percent and consumer spending and average wages at all-time highs.

But now? I stood on board a restaurant ship docked along a bank of the River Liffey with my friend and colleague David Kavanagh, executive director of the Irish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild. His hand swept along the shore as he used the panorama of the city skyline to describe what has happened to the country's economy in just two short years.

To the left, he pointed out the beautiful new Samuel Beckett Bridge, opened in December, shaped like an Irish harp placed on its side, and designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava. (In this city that reveres writers there are bridges named after Beckett, Sean O'Casey and James Joyce - a Calatrava design as well. He's also the imagination behind the new World Trade Center Transportation Hub, under construction at Ground Zero in Manhattan.)

The Beckett Bridge cost 60 million euros to erect - about $80 million US (and no Waiting for Godot -like jokes about a bridge to nowhere, please). Near it stands Dublin's brand new national convention center, built for 380 million euros - that's almost half a billion dollars. Both structures epitomize the spending spree that once characterized Ireland's booming prosperity.

Torn down to make way for the convention center were red brick Victorian warehouses where trains delivered goods for transfer to the cargo ships that once docked here. A handful of them still stand. But next door, rising jagged like a broken tooth, is the unfinished building that was meant to be the new headquarters of the Anglo Irish Bank.

When all seemed flush, and foreign capital was rolling in, the Anglo Irish Bank lent billions of euros to property developers, including the builders of the convention center. The building boom went bust, exacerbated by the burst of the global housing bubble, and the bank has gone belly up, nationalized by the Irish government, a bailout that according to an analyst at Standard and Poor's may wind up costing Irish taxpayers more than $47 billion American.

In January 2009, The Irish Times editorialized. "We have gone from the Celtic Tiger to an era of financial fear with the suddenness of a Titanic-style shipwreck, thrown from comfort, even luxury, into a cold sea of uncertainty... the future now is not just uncertain but has suddenly become a threatening place."

Last year, when I spoke with David Kavanagh, the running joke was that the difference between Ireland and Iceland was one letter and six weeks.

In 2009, the economy sank 7.1 percent. Emigration levels are at their highest in more than twenty years, with a 50 percent increase in Irish nationals leaving the country.

Ireland now has close to 14 percent unemployment and the biggest deficit in Europe -- proportionately higher than that of Greece. It could reach around 20-25 percent of its gross domestic product, but the country has not yet gone to the International Monetary Fund and the European Union for a financial rescue, as the Greeks have.

But despite government denials, that may be unavoidable. And Wall Street hedge funds aren't helping. According to Ireland's Sunday Independent newspaper, "The International Monetary Fund estimated that up to [about $4 billion US] of Ireland's debt was being targeted by speculators through the use of derivatives. This practice is likely to have increased in recent weeks over growing fears that Ireland may default on some of [the Anglo Irish Bank] debt." As one newspaper columnist wrote, "It's contempt for how badly we do things allied to a gleeful determination to make easy money out of it."

As in the United States, citizen anger has been vehement and vocal, with Anglo Irish and other financial institutions the regular target of raucous demonstrations, hurled tomatoes and rotten eggs. Rage, too, has been directed at the country's politicians, the papers filled with constant reports of oversized salaries and expensive perks ( nearly $30,000 spent by a government delegation for one night's stay at an expensive Italian hotel during Pope John Paul II's funeral; trips to the Cannes Film Festival and a St. Patrick's Day celebration in Los Angeles; more than a million dollars of termination fees and pension payments to four members of the legislature who have decided not to stand for reelection).

The days of Brian Cowen, Ireland's beleaguered prime minister - or Taoiseach, as they say here - are probably numbered, too, although he appears to have survived a mini-scandal after a somewhat befuddled and slurred interview on Irish radio that seemed hangover-induced. His already waning popularity nosedived even further but seemed to boomerang back after an apology and his appearance at that most Irish of events, the National Ploughing Championships.

But curiously, despite the financial calamity and public indignation, there has been less here of the unfocused and often ill-informed fury typified by the Tea Party movement in America; in fact, most Irish with whom I spoke were perplexed by what's happening in the United States. "America is going through an age of misinformation," Irish journalist Una Mullally theorized in her column this past Sunday. "Fox News is sublime at creating an Orwellian arena of doublethink, but false information is being spread everywhere... The US is becoming increasingly polarized: politics, religion, money... But the biggest polarization is that of the truth."

In a Dublin museum, I saw on one wall the words of a great truthteller, the sublime Dr. Jonathan Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, and long ago dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral here. When he died in 1745, he left the bulk of his estate for the founding of a psychiatric hospital. He wrote these lines for his native Ireland, but I couldn't help thinking they apply to us, too:

He gave the little wealth he had,

to build a house for fools and mad:

And showed by one satiric touch,

No Nation wanted it so much.



Michael Winship is senior writer at Public Affairs Television in New York City.

The JOURNAL's Emmy Nominees

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And, if you're in New York City you can view THE GOOD SOLIDER at the Quad Cinema, from September 24 through Sep...

Michael Winship: Where's Ed Newman When You Need Him?

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by Public Affairs Television senior writer Michael Winship.

Where's Ed Newman When You Need Him?

By Michael Winship

I was in London last week when news came of the death of the great NBC newsman Edwin Newman, 91 years old. Turns out he and his wife had been living in England since 2007 to be close to their daughter, but I suspect part of him chose to be there for the same reason the late American humorist S.J. Perelman migrated to the UK back in...

Michael Winship: Escaping Tolerance

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by Public Affairs Television senior writer Michael Winship.

Escaping Tolerance

By Michael Winship

Gentlemen, start your defibrillators. To baby boomers like me it's gives the heart a bit of jolt to realize that 2010 marks the 50th anniversary of the presidential campaign between John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon.

I visited the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum out on Columbia Point in Boston late last week for the first time since...

Michael Winship: 9/11: The Rest Should Be Silence

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by Public Affairs Television senior writer Michael Winship.

9/11: The Rest Should Be Silence

By Michael Winship

This past Sunday was beautiful, bright and warm, not unlike the sky blue day when those two airliners hit the World Trade Center in 2001, just a mile or so from where I live. That day, a Tuesday, was a bit hotter, a bit more humid, yet just as sunny and promising.

But this Sunday morning's silence was broken by the sound of a bell and a...

Michael Winship: The Awful Price for Teaching Less than We Know

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by Public Affairs Television senior writer Michael Winship.

The Awful Price for Teaching Less than We Know

By Michael Winship

Watching Glenn Beck's performance Saturday at his "Restoring Honor" rally in Washington, DC, I thought of the novelist Sinclair Lewis' Elmer Gantry, the charlatan evangelist who seduces most of those around him with his hearty backslapping and false piety.

Then I realized it wasn't Gantry of whom I was reminded so much as...

Remembering The Real Labor Day

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In this video player you can find BILL MOYERS JOURNAL's complete coverage of the issues facing America's workers: stories of communities facing hardship, profiles of organizers and in-depth analysis of the effect of politics and policy on families and associated pages that contain a wealth of resou...