Bill Moyers is BACK! He’ll present three special reports on PBS — there’s one TONIGHT called “Capital Crimes,” investigating the Abramoff and lobbying scandals. Set your technology to grab it … we don’t hear Truth very often.
In his first presentation, he indicts the whole kit and caboodle of moneychangers that inhabit our political system — Bu$hCo, we call it today, but whoever inherits it will have the same stilted problems with greed and graft until the country wakes up and demands the $$ be taken out of it of the process.
Moyers is one of the last remaining ethical investigative journalists … startling concept, eh? Tune in.
Jude
Lincoln Weeps
Bill Moyers
October 03, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/10/03/lincoln_weeps.php
Back in 1954, when I was a summer employee on Capitol Hill, I made my first visit to the Lincoln Memorial. I have returned many times since, most recently while I was in Washington filming for a documentary about how Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist, among others, turned the conservative revolution into a racket-the biggest political scandal since Watergate.
If democracy can be said to have temples, the Lincoln Memorial is our most sacred. You stand there silently contemplating the words that gave voice to Lincoln’s fierce determination to save the union-his resolve that “government of, by, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.” On this latest visit, I was overcome by a sense of melancholy.
Lincoln looks out now on a city where those words are daily mocked. This is no longer his city. And those people from all walks of life making their way up the steps to pay their respect to the martyred president-it’s not their city, either. Or their government. This is an occupied city, a company town, and government is a subservient subsidiary of richly endowed patrons.
Once upon a time the House of Representatives was known as “the people’s house.” No more. It belongs to K Street now. That’s the address of the lobbyists who swarm all over Capitol Hill. There are 65 lobbyists for every member of Congress. They spend $200 million per month wining, dining and seducing federal officials. Per month!
Of course they’re just doing their job. It’s impossible to commit bribery, legal or otherwise, unless someone’s on the take, and with campaign costs soaring, our politicians always have their hands out. One representative confessed that members of Congress are the only people in the world expected to take large amounts of money from strangers and then act as if it has no effect on their behavior. This explains why Democrats are having a hard time exploiting the culture of corruption
embodied in the scandalous behavior of DeLay and Abramoff. Democrats are themselves up to their necks in the sludge. Just the other day one of the most powerful Democrats in the House bragged to reporters about tapping “uncharted donor fields in the financial industry”-reminding them, not so subtlely, of the possibility that after November the majority leader just might be a Democrat.
When it comes to selling influence, both parties have defined deviancy up, and Tony Soprano himself couldn’t get away with some of the things that pass for business as usual in Washington. We have now learned that Jack Abramoff had almost 500 contacts with the Bush White House over the three years before his fall, and that Karl Rove and other presidential staff were treated to his favors and often intervened on his behalf. So brazen a pirate would have been forced to walk the plank long ago if Washington had not thrown its moral compass overboard.
Alas, despite all these disclosures, nothing is happening to clean up the place. Just as the Republicans in charge of the House kept secret those dirty emails sent to young pages by Rep. Mark Foley-a cover-up aimed at getting them past the election and holding his seat for the party-they are now trying to sweep the DeLay-Abramoff-Reed-and-Norquist scandals under the rug until after Nov. 7, hoping the public at large doesn’t notice that the House is being run by Tom DeLay’s team, minus DeLay. All the talk about reform is placebo.
The only way to counter the power of organized money is with organized and outraged people. Believe me, what members of Congress fear most is a grassroots movement that demands clean elections and an end to the buying and selling of influence-or else! If we leave it to the powers that be to clean up the mess that greed and chicanery have given us, we will wake up one day with a real Frankenstein of a system-a monster worse than the one created by Abramoff, DeLay and their cronies. By then it will be too late to save Lincoln’s hope for “government of, by, and
for the people.” ++
Bill Moyers is a veteran television journalist for PBS and the president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. “Capitol Crimes,” the first episode of Bill Moyers’ latest series of documentary specials , airs Wednesday on PBS. [Check local listings. Open link to listen to an audio version of this commentary.]
Lou Dobbs with Bill Moyers
10/3/06
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0610/03/ldt.01.html
DOBBS: Bill Moyers is certainly one of this country’s most respected journalists, one of its most distinguished, and he takes an in-depth look at Washington corruption in his new special on PBS, “Capitol Crimes.” It airs tomorrow 9 p.m. Eastern. I talked with Moyers earlier.
DOBBS: Let’s hear what one of the people you chronicle and hear from in the special says, R.G. Ratcliffe (ph), the “Houston Chronicle” reporter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
R.G. RATCLIFFE, “HOUSTON CHRONICLE”: Just the kinds and ways that dollars have flowed into the system in recent years have led to something of a form of institutional corruption. And the kind of thing that you want to watch for, it is not a very big step from a campaign contribution to a bribe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Not a very big step at all. And, obviously, Tom DeLay took that step in many respects. So did Jack Abramoff and some of his associates.
BILL MOYERS, HOST, “MOYERS ON AMERICA”: And Ralph Reed and others. Jeffrey Birnbaum, who’s is the very talented, experienced reporter,
follows the money for the “Washington Post,” used to do it for the “Wall Street Journal.” He says, let’s strip off the illusion.
This is not legal bribery. This is bribery in which campaign contributions, which are at the heart of this scandal, are given to a slush fund for incumbents who in turn do favors or the contributors. And you can trace it, the cause and effect right through this story.
DOBBS: In the same breath as we talk about Tom DeLay, let’s listen to what Tom DeLay had to say on the day he announced he would resign from Congress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TOM DELAY (R), FORMER TEXAS CONGRESSMAN: I am sustained by my lord and savior. When you go through this kind of adversity, I’ve got to tell you, if you know him and he’s on your side, there ain’t nothing but joy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOBBS: Nothing but joy.
MOYERS: You know, Lou, if you had invested in hypocrisy eight or nine years ago, you would have retired and given it away like Warren Buffett is doing. I have never seen such rank hypocrisy as I saw in reporting this documentary on the part of Tom DeLay, pious Christian; Ralph Reed, the right hand of god on the cover of “Time” magazine back in the 1980s; and Jack Abramoff, who, you know, talked about being a good Orthodox Jew, and used religion as the cloak for their plunder.
DOBBS: I’ve got a business friend of mine who says when a man tells you what a good Christian he is — talking about Christians in this case — it’s time to reach for you wallet. He’s talking about it in business terms, but as a nation, the influence of money and power in Washington, corporate power. But in this case, the corruption that has been seeded, it makes McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform look like child’s play.
MOYERS: It’s just a fig leaf. The fact of the matter is at the heart of this entire scandal is campaign contributions. It’s greed but it’s the way our system works in which campaign contributions have become an accepted form of bribery.
DOBBS: Last week, the House Government and Reform Committee released a report showing Jack Abramoff’s lobbying team had 485 contacts with White House officials, 80 of those were Karl Rove’s office. This from a White House that said that they — for awhile, didn’t even know who he was.
MOYERS: Yes, time and again the White House press secretary — then Scott McClellan — would say, oh, no, you know, we’ve looked at it. There’s nothing really going on there. But we’ll get to the bottom of it. They never got to the bottom of it.
No, it’s all — these are the fellows, by the way — Reed, Abramoff, Norquist, Rove. They came to Washington to run a revolution in the 1980s and they wound up running a racket, and they were all tied together. Now, Reed and Norquist have not been indicted for anything, not been accused of anything illegal. But that is, in fact, the heart of the scandal is that you can get away with it without actually committing a crime.
DOBBS: Well, on Capitol Hill, crimes and the — we know Bill Moyers will get to the bottom of it. The special is “Capitol Crimes.” We thank you for being here, Bill.
MOYERS: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
DOBBS: “Capitol Crimes,” 9:00 p.m. Eastern on PBS tomorrow evening. ++
Audio/Marc Ash Interviews Bill Moyers - Part 1
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100306Z.shtml
Recently I had the opportunity to sit down and chat with Bill Moyers about his surprising October documentaries, the state of American journalism, and what we can all do to make a difference. Interesting stuff. “Capitol Crimes,” part one of the series “Moyers on America,” follows the Abramoff money trail. If you want to know how Abramoff did it, what part DeLay played, who’s getting hurt and who profited - make sure you’re sitting down, and watch “Capitol Crimes,” airing October 4th on PBS. This documentary is sobering. Parts two and three of my interview will examine the second and third broadcasts in the series, “Is God Green?” airing October 11th, and “The Net at Risk,” airing October 18th. Stay tuned.
- Marc Ash
Bill Moyers: Capitol Crimes
Moyers on America
t r u t h o u t | Programming Note
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100306U.shtml
Airdate: Wednesday, October 4, 2006, at 9:00 p.m. on PBS.
(Check local listings at http://www.pbs.org/moyers.)
Bill Moyers investigates the Abramoff lobbying scandal.
The fall of Jack Abramoff has exposed a huge web of corruption that still remains vastly unreported by the broadcast media, even as prosecutors continue to chase down leads and quiz insiders and witnesses. “It’s a dizzying scope of perfidy and politics that boggles the imagination, and although Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay have been brought down, the system remains as vulnerable as ever,” says Bill Moyers. He and his colleagues untangle emails, reports, interviews and facts on the record to provide viewers with a coherent pattern of criminal and political chicanery. The documentary is followed by a discussion led by Moyers with leading thinkers about the possible solutions for America’s political system. ++
Join the MOYERS ON AMERICA Citizens Class!
Are you an informed and engaged citizen? In October, Bill Moyers returns to investigative journalism with MOYERS ON AMERICA, a series of three documentaries on issues affecting democracy - money in politics, the environment, and internet neutrality. You can connect, reflect, and respond to these hotly-debated topics by joining the MOYERS ON AMERICA Citizens Class. This national dialogue will take a hard look at some of today’s most pressing issues and ask: What do you think?
Timed to launch with the series, the MOYERS ON AMERICA Citizens Class will host an extensive, interactive curriculum designed to spark public discourse. The workshop offers multi-media discussion and reference material summarizing the key aspects of differing perspectives; posing questions for reflection, consideration and response; and stimulating a deep and thoughtful dialogue about the issues raised in the series.
Libraries across the country are gathering members to discuss the series - is your library one of them? If not, encourage them to take part in the Citizens Class. Check www.pbs.org/moyers/citizensclass.html for more information. ++
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it - as if the cause depends on you, because it does. Allow yourself that conceit - to believe that the flame of Democracy will never go out as long as there’s one candle in your hand.
~ Bill Moyers
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
October 4th, 2006