Bill Moyers Journal

Faith, Justice, and Society

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:33:38 -0500

(Photos by Robin Holland)

This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with academics Gary Dorrien, Serene Jones, and Cornel West about what faith traditions can tell us about building a more just society. The trio recently taught a class together, “Christianity and the U.S. Crisis,” at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Gary Dorrien explained his view that democracy is intrinsic to a just society:

“I think that economic democracy is essentially an attempt to serve as a kind of brake on human greed and will to power, which are virtually universal, so I’m not talking about anything that requires some kind of idealistic idea about human nature or what we’re capable of. My main argument is the same that Reinhold Niebuhr had about democracy – that the human capacity for greed makes democracy possible, but it’s precisely the human capacity for evil that makes democracy necessary.”

Serene Jones suggested that communities can help overcome any single individual’s shortcomings:

“Sin, for me, describes the fact that we are born thrown into this world and we are, no matter how hard we try, because of the complexity of how we’re put together, destined to make massive mistakes. The best we can hope for is that we’re in a community of people that continually remind us that, in fact, we don’t understand everything and we are not the center of the universe. That’s sin, the inevitability of that. I think it’s central to democracy – we have checks and balances.”

Cornel West argued that people’s commitment to their faith is best demonstrated in service to others:

“We don’t want to get too obscure in our discourse and not really just put on the table something that’s very simple: how deep is your love? What is the quality of your service to others? Are you concerned about those on the margins, or do we define a catastrophe only when it relates to investment bankers and Wall Street Bankers as opposed to the precious children in chocolate cities or white children in Appalachia or red children in Navajo reservations?... What costs are we willing to actually undergo? You can’t be a Christian if you’re not willing to pick up your cross and, in the end, be crucified on it. That’s the bottom line.”

What do you think?

How does your faith or moral code inform your views about politics and society?

Michael Winship: My State Legislature's Crazier than Yours. Oh Yeah?

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:11:56 -0500

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by JOURNAL senior writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.

''My State Legislature's Crazier than Yours. Oh Yeah?''
By Michael Winship

California should just be done with it and rename the entire state “Neverland Ranch.”

This serves several useful purposes. It would be the ultimate tribute to Michael Jackson, pleasing his most ardent and bereft fans. Further validate the state’s Cloud Cuckoo, fairy tale reputation, thus probably promoting additional, revenue-generating tourism. Stand as an accurate metaphor for the state government’s airheaded inability to cope with its current financial disaster.

On Wednesday, Governor Schwarzenegger announced that California’s deficit has grown to $26.3 billion and proposed billions of additional cuts to education. He declared a fiscal emergency, triggering an automatic 45-day deadline for the state legislature to come up with a plan to cover the shortfall and balance the budget. If that fails, they’re banned from considering any other legislation until they come up with a solution.

Arnold also signed an executive order forcing the state’s 220,000 employees to take a third, unpaid furlough day every month. This, after weeks of failed proposals, threatened vetoes, political contortionism, suspended social programs – a fiscal train wreck of such proportions that on Thursday the state planned on starting to pay its bills with IOU’s instead of cash.

It’s “an institutional breakdown,” according to State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a Democrat. Lockyer has called for professional mediation to unjam talks between legislators and Governor Terminator, and even a two-tiered budget system that would raise taxes and allot resources differently for different parts of the state.

That may sound crazy, but this is California. Besides, we in New York State are in no position to cast stones. Our State Senate has degenerated into a slaphappy free-for-all that resembles a drunken demolition derby more than anything remotely like a deliberative body.

The Arts, Politics, and Political Art

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:22:20 -0500

(Photo by Robin Holland)

This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with poet W.S. Merwin, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize.

During the taping of the interview, Merwin argued that political poetry rarely makes for good art. He explained:

“Because you start by knowing too much. You have your mind made up, and you know that you’re right. And I think that always the moment you’re right, you’re wrong. Political poetry starts with the assumption, “This is the way it is, and I’m going to persuade you that this is the way it is.” You end up almost always writing propaganda. During the Vietnam war, many poets wrote poetry of protest against the war and poetry of anguish about the war. Most of it was just terrible... I think that poetry and the most valuable things in our life come out of what we don’t know.”

Some have argued that art must be political if it is to be honest. In 1964, Irwin Silber of the liberal folk music magazine SING OUT! wrote an open letter to Bob Dylan criticizing his transition from political songs to more ambiguous subject matter:

“You seem to be in a different kind of bag now, Bob -- and I'm worried about it... You said you weren't a writer of "protest" songs -- or any other category, for that matter -- but you just wrote songs. Well, okay, call it anything you want. But any songwriter who tries to deal honestly with reality in this world is bound to write "protest" songs. How can he help himself? Your new songs seem to be all inner-directed now, innerprobing, self- conscious -- maybe even a little maudlin or a little cruel on occasion... You seem to be relating to a handful of cronies behind the scenes now -- rather than to the rest of us out front. Now, that's all okay -- if that's the way you want it, Bob. But then you're a different Bob Dylan from the one we knew. The old one never wasted our precious time.”

What do you think?

Do you agree more with Merwin that political art is “almost always... propaganda,” or with Silber that any artist who “tries to deal honestly with reality in this world” is bound to be political? Why?

Can you name some examples illustrating either Merwin’s or Silber’s arguments?

Michael Winship: I Can See Tehran from My House!

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:45:58 -0500

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by JOURNAL senior writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.

''I Can See Tehran from My House!'
By Michael Winship

Being a total history geek, I confess that there’s almost nothing as entertaining to me as a good historic house tour. It’s a great way to get a feel for how someone from the past lived his or her life. I realize that this nerdish interest would seem to indicate that conversely, I have no life of my own, but bear with me.

An hour or two spent at Teddy Roosevelt’s Sagamore Hill home on Long Island, or Mark Twain’s rambling riverboat of a house in Hartford, Connecticut, or even Chartwell, Winston Churchill’s home in the Kentish countryside of England, is an ideal portal into the mind of an historic personage and the times in which they lived.

A large part of a recent weekend in Chicago was spent visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and office in nearby Oak Park, Illinois, and the mansion of a 19th century industrial tycoon whose daughter made miniature dollhouse recreations of homicide scenes, published in a collection titled, “The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death.” You can’t make this stuff up.

Luckily, my girlfriend Pat and my sister Patricia are as nerd-like as I am, so on a beautiful spring Saturday last month, while visiting my sister upstate, we drove over to the home of William Henry Seward in Auburn, NY.

Seward served as Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of state – and Andrew Johnson’s, too, that hapless Tennessean who succeeded Lincoln after the assassination and came within a whisker of being convicted in the Senate after impeachment by the House of Representatives.

On the evening of Lincoln’s murder, Seward also was attacked, targeted for death by one of John Wilkes Booth’s accomplices. He survived a vicious stabbing and lived for another seven and a half years. On display in the Seward House is a tiny scrap of bloodstained bedsheet from the night of the assault.

Creating Change from the Grassroots

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:37:36 -0500

(Photos by Robin Holland)

This week, the JOURNAL examined the inspiring story of Leymah Gbowee and the extraordinary Liberian women’s movement chronicled in the documentary PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL.

The film documents how Gbowee courageously and organized the women of Liberia to demand a peaceful resolution to the bloody civil war that for years had torn the country asunder. Risking rape and outright slaughter to protest non-violently, the women became a key force that helped to achieve a tentative peace, the exile of the brutal President Charles Taylor, and the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected female president of an African country.

Reflecting on the women’s movement that helped transform Liberia, Leymah Gbowee said:

“With these women, one of the things I realized was the untapped power that they had. These were the people who knew when the fighters were going to attack. These were the people who just knew, by sitting at their market tables, strange movements, and they would go to people they trust and say, “Pack your things and leave because danger is imminent.” These are the people that could talk to the fighters. Then again, on the negative front, these were the women who were moving weapons from one community to the other in their bundles, so they knew when the war was coming, they knew how it was going to be, and they knew the fighters. They could stop whatever was happening in the different communities, [but] no one – not the UN, not all of the consulates and the analysts – none of them ever figured that this group of people had what it took.”

Film producer Abigail Disney said that the story of Gbowee and the Liberian women is consistent with historical non-violent movements and a potent inspiration for those seeking change today.

“It is really, in effect, a classic example of non-violent resistance in the vein of everything that Gandhi and Martin Luther King ever planned... All they were asking for was something that was essentially kind of conservative, which was “let’s just make these systems work, let’s just hold these systems accountable to the promises they made.” They were just asking people to do their jobs... This classic Gandhi non-violence, where the power equation is flipped in a moment, is so extraordinary, and we’ve seen it in so many places. The more we see it, the more often we’ll see it – making it visible [and] making it available to people will bring it out in places we can’t even begin to imagine.”

What do you think?

What lessons can American grassroots movements take from the Liberian women’s movement documented in the film PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL?

Why Have The Rich Been Getting Richer?

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:46:15 -0500

(Photo by Robin Holland)

This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich about the power of Washington lobbyists and his vision for reforms to make America more prosperous and equitable.

Reich lamented that the middle class has not shared the benefits of our nation’s economic expansion over the past few decades:

“The fact of the matter is that, as late as 1980, the top 1 percent by income in the United States had about nine percent of total national income. But since then, you’ve had increasing concentration of income and wealth to the point that by 2007 the top 1 percent was taking home 21 percent of total national income. Now, when they’re taking home that much, the middle class doesn’t have enough purchasing power to keep the economy growing. That was hidden by the fact that they were borrowing so much on their homes, they kept on consuming because of their borrowing. But once that housing bubble exploded, it exposed the fact that the middle class in this country has really not participated in the growth of the economy, and over the long term we’re not gonna have a recovery until the middle class has the purchasing power it needs to buy again.”

Economist Dieter Braeuninger of Deutsche Bank Research notes that, during the period Reich describes, many developed countries experienced similar increases in income inequality. Braeuninger suggests that technological advances and a surplus of unskilled labor are responsible for this trend:

“Income inequality has risen in the industrialized world with skilled workers’ incomes rising faster than compensation for low-skilled labor... [Economists] identify the strong pace in technological progress and, in particular, the revolution in [information technology] as the engine of change. The triumphant advance of the microchip, the PC, and the internet kick-started a wave of automation, as well as a transition to flexible and accelerated production processes. This not only boosted productivity, but also resulted in a shift from labor-intensive to capital-intensive production methods. The winners are hence both owners of capital goods as well as the highly qualified labor force... The new technologies allow the replacement of less qualified labor through physical capital, such as machines and computers... The global labor force has risen fourfold since the early 1980s. The supply of basic labor has increased enormously... As long as less-skilled workers cannot shift to more productive tasks, increasing income inequality remains a threat.”

What do you think?

In your view, what are the key reasons for the increasing income inequality in the United States?

How does income inequality affect the country?

If you think that income inequality should be reduced, how do you suggest doing so? Explain.

The Spirit of Thomas Paine, Today

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:43:40 -0500

(Photos by Robin Holland)

In this week’s JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with historians Harvey J. Kaye and Richard Brookhiser about the complex legacy of Thomas Paine, perhaps the most controversial of America’s founding revolutionaries. (For more about Paine, author of COMMON SENSE, please visit our resources page here.)

Kaye argued that Paine imbued America with a fundamentally progressive “democratic impulse” that continues in today’s liberal politics:

“Here’s this guy, essentially off the boat, who picks up on the spirit of America quickly, and he takes that pen of his and figures out how he’s gonna grab hold of that American spirit and turn it in a radical, democratic direction to make a new nation... he took what he recognized in American life, and he inscribes it into the meaning of America, that the democratic impulse would be a model to the world... In terms of the democratic impulse – which never ceased in America – [is that] in every generation progressive movements, from radical to liberal, reached back to the American Revolution... The words they reclaimed were Thomas Paine’s... He did very much look ahead to the idea of economic opportunity, but in a social democratic way, I think.”

Brookhiser suggested that Paine’s positions on various issues of his time were often impractical, and that his core priorities do not hew to any single political philosophy.

“[Paine] saw a lot of things that came to be, and he also saw some things that didn’t come to be, and maybe never could come to be... As we see in Paine’s own life, there are problems on this path. In the second revolution he’s involved in, I think he misunderstands what’s going on on the ground in France... Jefferson stuck with the revolution until Napoleon appeared. But then Paine stuck with it after Napoleon appeared... Paine’s visionary quality is both intoxicating and, Paine hopes, transformative... [If Paine were around today and asked about his priorities] I think he would say liberty. I think he would say opportunity and economic opportunity. I think those are the things he would hammer at.”

What do you think?

In your view, what is the significance of Tom Paine for today?

Bill Moyers & Michael Winship: Why Have We Stopped Talking About Guns?

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:40:39 -0500

You know by now that in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, an elderly white supremacist and anti-Semite named James W. von Brunn allegedly walked into the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum with a .22-caliber rifle and killed security guard Stephen T. Johns before being brought down himself. He’s 88 years old, with a long record of hatred and paranoid fantasies about the Illuminati and a Global Zionist state. How bitter the bile that has curdled for so many decades.

You will know, too, of the recent killing, while ushering at his local church, of Dr. George Tiller, one of the few doctors in the country still performing late term abortions. Sadly, this case was proof that fatal violence works. His family has announced that his Wichita, Kansas, clinic will not be reopened.

You may be less familiar with the June 1st shootings in an army recruiting office in Little Rock that killed one soldier and wounded another. The suspect in question is an African-American Muslim convert who says he acted in retaliation for US military activity in the Middle East.

Soon, however, these terrible deeds will be forgotten, as are already the three policemen killed by an assault weapon in Pittsburgh; the four policemen killed in Oakland, California; the 13 people gunned down in Binghamton, New York; the 10 in an Alabama shooting spree; five in Santa Clara, California; the eight dead in a North Carolina, nursing home. All during this year alone.

There is much talk about hate talk; hate crimes against blacks, whites, immigrants, Muslims, Jews; about violence committed in the name of bigotry or religion. But why don’t we talk about guns?

Desanitizing Modern Warfare

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:40:09 -0500

(Photo by Robin Holland)

In this week’s JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill about the role played by hi-tech weaponry and private military contractors in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Scahill argued that most American citizens have become so removed from the harsh realities of war that further conflicts are becoming increasingly likely:

“I think that this is sick, where you turn war essentially into a videogame that can be waged by people half a world away... It sanitizes war. It means that we increase the number of people that don’t have to see that war is hell on the ground, and it means that wars are gonna be easier in the future because it’s not as tough of a sell... The United States has created a new system for waging war where you no longer have to rely on your own citizens to sign up for the military and say ‘I believe in this war, so I’m willing to sign up and risk my life for it.’ You turn the entire world into your recruiting ground.”

What do you think?

Do you agree with Scahill that private military contractors and hi-tech weaponry will make it easier for Washington to wage war in the future? Why or why not?

If so, how can the true human, financial, and environmental costs of war be brought home to American citizens?

POLL: Regarding Iraq and Afghanistan, Is Obama "Old Wine in a New Bottle?"

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:38:00 -0500

In his conversation with Bill Moyers, investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill was critical of President Obama’s use of private military contractors and his war policies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I think what we’re seeing, under President Barack Obama, is sort of old wine in a new bottle. Obama is sending one message to the world, but the reality on the ground, particularly when it comes to private military contractors, is that the status quo remains from the Bush era... There’s no question that Obama inherited an absolute mess from President Bush, but the reality is that Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan right now and is maintaining the occupation of Iraq... You have hundreds of people held without charges. You have people that are being denied access to the Red Cross in violation of international law. And you have an ongoing position by the Obama administration, formed under Bush, that these prisoners don't have a right to habeas corpus... The fact is that this man is governing over a policy that is killing a tremendous number of civilians.”

We invite you to take our poll and share your thoughts in the space below.

Making News Better?

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:35:26 -0500

(Photos by Robin Holland)

This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with media commentators Jay Rosen and Brooke Gladstone about how America’s sensationalistic news media has been covering important issues of our time.

Jay Rosen said that today’s mainstream journalists often present a narrative that doesn't represent the true range of debate and fail to responsibly referee the arguments that make it through the filter:

“One of the subtler things that journalists do in our public life is they set the terms of what a legitimate debate is. They marginalize certain people as not a part of it. And they include other people, who perhaps ought to be marginalized, as a central part of it. It's very hard for us to hold them accountable for those decisions, because they are subtler than we sometimes recognize... We don't have a press that's willing to say, 'This is not a legitimate argument this person is making.' We don't have a press that's willing to say, 'This, he said it, but it's completely out of bounds,' or 'it's completely baseless,' or, 'it has no grounding in reality.' We just don't have a group of political interpreters who are willing to say that.”

Brooke Gladstone pointed to the increasing importance of Internet journalism and suggested that it may lead to better news coverage in the future:

“We have to be careful in not regarding the media as solely the mainstream media, as solely the mainstream television news outlets, or even the big daily papers. There is a huge, raucous, wide-ranging discussion going out there, and even though it is not the dominant media in this country yet, it will be a far more democratic discussion as we move forward. I am talking about the Internet, I’m talking about all the different conversations – local, national, and global – that are going on outside the realm of these filters.”

What do you think?

In your experience, what does the mainstream media do well, and what should it be doing better?

Do you think the Internet will provide better news to a mass audience than is currently available on television and in major newspapers? Why or why not?

Is the American mass public interested in thoughtful, in-depth journalism? Explain.

Michael Winship: The Privatization of Obama's War

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:30:57 -0500

(Photo by Robin Holland)

Below is an article by JOURNAL senior writer Michael Winship. We welcome your comments below.

''The Privatization of Obama's War''
By Michael Winship

The sudden reappearance of former Vice President Dick Cheney over the last few months – seeming to emerge from his famous undisclosed location more frequently now than he ever did when he was in office – does not mean six more weeks of winter. But it does bring to mind that classic country and western song, “How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?”

Or, maybe, “If You Won’t Leave Me, I’ll Find Someone Who Will.”

In his self-appointed role as voice of the opposition, Mr. Cheney has been playing Nostradamus, gloomily predicting doom if the Obama White House continues to set aside Bush administration policy, setting the stage for recrimination and finger-pointing should there be another terrorist attack on America.

Cheney’s grouchy legacy is the gift that keeps on giving. Just this week, THE WASHINGTON POST reported for the first time that while vice president, Cheney oversaw “at least” four of those briefings given to senior members of Congress about enhanced interrogation techniques; “part of a secretive and forceful defense he mounted throughout 2005 in an effort to maintain support for the harsh techniques used on detainees…

“An official who witnessed one of Cheney’s briefing sessions with lawmakers said the vice president’s presence appeared to be calculated to give additional heft to the CIA’s case for maintaining the program.”

And remember Halliburton, the international energy services company of which Cheney used to be the CEO? After the fall of Baghdad, Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR were the happy recipients of billions of dollars in outside contracts to take care of the military and rebuild Iraq’s petroleum industry. Waste, shoddy workmanship (like faulty wiring that caused fatal electric shocks) and corruption ran wild, Pentagon investigators allege, even as Vice President Cheney was still receiving deferred compensation and stock options.

Bill Moyers Rewind: Tiger Temple (2008)

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:08:55 -0500

This week marked the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, one of the key moments in the struggle for democracy and human rights in the People's Republic of China. Last year, the JOURNAL's Jessica Wang produced this report on state control of speech in China and the story of Chinese blogger Tiger Temple.

Update Required

Sorry in order to watch this video clip you need the latest version of the free flash plug in. CLICK HERE to download it and then refresh this page.

Two Administrations, Torture, and National Security

Fri, 29 May 2009 12:06:29 -0500

This week, the JOURNAL presented portions of TORTURING DEMOCRACY, a documentary film tracing the decisions of the Bush Administration leading to the ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques that many have called torture.

Last week, President Obama and former Vice President Cheney delivered speeches about ‘enhanced interrogation’ and national security that were widely seen as an indirect debate between the two men.

Obama said that he ended ‘enhanced interrogation’ methods because they undermine America’s national security objectives and standing in the world:

“Time and again, our values have been our best national security asset – in war and peace, in times of ease and in eras of upheaval... Where terrorists offer only the injustice of disorder and destruction, America must demonstrate that our values and our institutions are more resilient than a hateful ideology... I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America. I know some have argued that brutal methods like waterboarding were necessary to keep this country safe. And I categorically reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.”

Cheney said that the events of 9/11 necessitated extreme actions to keep America safe and that interrogation methods were legal and effective:

“In the years after 9/11, our government also understood that the safety of the country required collecting information known only to the worst of the terrorists. And in a few cases, that information could be gained only through tough interrogations... The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed. They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do... Personnel were carefully chosen from within the CIA and were especially prepared to apply techniques within the boundaries of their training and the limits of the law. Torture was never permitted. And the methods were given careful legal review before they were approved. Interrogators had authoritative guidance on the line between toughness and torture... To call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What’s more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness and would make the American people less safe.”

What do you think?

Is torture -- what some prefer to call ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques -- ever morally justified? Explain.

Do you think torture has helped keep America safe? Why or why not?

In the event of another terrorist attack, do you think Obama would suffer politically for his decision to end ‘enhanced interrogation?’

Bill Moyers & Michael Winship: Everyone Should See TORTURING DEMOCRACY

Fri, 29 May 2009 11:44:44 -0500

In all the recent debate over torture, many of our Beltway pundits and politicians have twisted themselves into verbal contortions to avoid using the word at all.

During his speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute last week – immediately on the heels of President Obama’s address at the National Archives – former Vice President Dick Cheney used the euphemism "enhanced interrogation" a full dozen times.

Smothering the reality of torture in euphemism of course has a political value, enabling its defenders to diminish the horror and possible illegality. It also gives partisans the opening they need to divert our attention by turning the future of the prison at Guantanamo Bay into a “wedge issue,” as noted on the front page of Sunday’s NEW YORK TIMES.

According to the TIMES, “Armed with polling data that show a narrow majority of support for keeping the prison open and deep fear about the detainees, Republicans in Congress started laying plans even before the inauguration to make the debate over Guantanamo Bay a question of local community safety instead of one about national character and principles.“

No political party would dare make torture a cornerstone of its rejuvenation if people really understood what it is. And lest we forget, we’re not just talking about waterboarding, itself a trivializing euphemism for drowning.

If we want to know what torture is, and what it does to human beings, we have to look at it squarely, without flinching. That’s just what a powerful and important film, seen by far too few Americans, does. TORTURING DEMOCRACY was written and produced by one of America’s outstanding documentary reporters, Sherry Jones.