The Wire : Telling truth in fiction
Total Time: 60 mins w/ video
This is an incredibly blunt interview. We need more people like this guy.
My friend Darryl sent me this video, and as he says, you don’t need to be aware of the show to understand the context. I have not watched The Wire because I don’t own a TV or follow shows otherwise. It almost made me think that somehow something worthwhile had crawled out of the muck. These clips are from Bill Moyer’s Journal.
The show is written by a former crime reporter named David Simon who was frustrated that he couldn’t illuminate inner city issues with regular factual reporting. His answer was to write a fictional serious that would be able to express the truth in a more powerful way.
The gist is that since the U.S. doesn’t really make things anymore, and uneducated inner city inhabitants don’t have a role in a market society, they are poorly served by their government. The main reason is that there is no financial or political benefit to changing laws or policies that would greatly improve these lost parts of our society.
You can get a lot by just watching part I or even the first 15 minutes of it if you time or interest is short.
Is there a serious national figure in politics or academia who thinks the War on Drugs is anything but a disasterous failure?