Moyers on America

For any of you who have been, like me, languishing for his particular brand of civil civic discourse, his particularly intelligent and focused practice of journalism, I have good news. Bill Moyers is back. I mourned deeply when he retired from PBS, to work on his LBJ book, to relax into his waning years enjoying his private life. But, just as I suspected, it wasn't the way a man like Moyers could go gently into that good night, especially at a time when the agora is so temptingly full of all things corrupt, misleading, and just plain evil.

So a new PBS series, Moyers on America, begins tonight with the first installment: Capitol Crimes.

"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. "The scale of corruption still coming to light dwarfs anything since Watergate. In one sense it's the age-old tale of greed, but greed encouraged now by the way our system works. Deep in the plea agreements of Jack Abramoff and his cronies is the admission that they conspired to use campaign contributions to bribe politicians; campaign finance is at the core of the corruption. They took great pains to cover their tracks, and they might have pulled it off except for a handful of honest people, and the work of some enterprising print reporters, Senate investigators, and the ethics team at the department of justice. Following the money in this story leads through a bizarre maze of cocktail parties, golf courses, private jets, four-star restaurants, sweatshops - and the aura of chandeliered rooms frequented by the high and mighty of Washington."

It is devoutly to be hoped that this program will remind us that sexual scandal is not the only scandal to which we must attend, and that the less-titillating financial/campaign/power corruption that permeates our campaign and electoral system is far more damaging to our status as a moral nation. Once upon a time a scandal like Watergate and all that it brought into the light of day could occupy us, rivet our national attention, in the same way that now only tales of fellatio and pedophilia seem capable of doing.

The website for the programs is full of goodies for those who just can't get enough of this wonderful stuff. There is a Citizens Class, where there is yet more material on the subjects of the programs. There are blogs on the sorts of questions that political bloggers think about night and day...like: How would you reform the American political system? There is an extensive comment thread on this particular question, get on over there and become a part of the dialogue.

The other two parts of the series will be Is God Green? on October 11, and The Net at Risk, October 18. The former will be of intense interest to me, as an enviro who is certainly invested in following the struggle to get Evangelicals involved in the environmental movement, and the latter should be of intense interest to all of us who have found in the Internet a place to experience a global democracy and freedom that none of the other media outlets can provide.

So, let's start with tonight's journey into the seamy world of Capitol Crimes, and I'll be reminding you of the upcoming programs in the weeks ahead. Comments here on tonight's program will be very welcome.

Tags: abramoff, bill moyers, bloggers, capitol crime, journalism, pbs, scandal

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