this week on "moyers & company" -- >> how do we afford this level of government if we want to keep it? do we want to keep it? how are we going to pay for it? if we're going to cut, where are we going to cut? those are key questions. and that's what this election should be about. >> and -- >> i'm looking for absolutes. i'm not interested in the neo-liberal agenda. i'm not interested in bipartisanship. i'm interested in social change that actually puts society back with the people. >> funding is provided by carnegie corporation of new york, celebrating 100 years of philanthropy. the coleburg foundation. the clements foundation. park foundation, dedicated to

heightening public awareness of critical issues. the herb albert foundation. supporting organizations whose mission is to promote passion and creativity in our society. the bernard and audrey rappaport foundation. the john d. and katherine t. mcarthur foundation. more information at macfound.org. and the bessie and jesse fink foundation. barbara g. flashman. and by our sole corporate sponsor, mutual of america, designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we're your retirement company. >> welcome. the presidential campaign is off and running -- off and running from one fundraiser to another. president obama has already set a record. "the financial times" reports almost 200 events at which he's rattled the tin cup, more than his 4 predecessors combined.

he's ahead overall with $104 million the last time papers were filed with the federal election commission. that's ten times more than what mitt romney's campaign had in the bank. but romney is the darling of the super pacs. pro-romney pacs have collected ten times as much from the friendly rich who prefer to give anonymously. and even when he's the draw, you don't see much of the candidate. at a new jersey fundraiser the other day, mitt romney vacuumed up $400,000 in one hour at a private home while the press was safely cordoned off by police. no peeking allowed. but while only a few people will actually see the candidates up close between now and november, we will be seeing the commercials that all that money is buying. they're coming at us now fast and furious. >> i balanced the budget every single year. >> you don't quit, and neither does he. >> job creation numbers fall for

the third straight month. >> but don't despair. you don't have to watch all of them. because we have kathleen hall jamieson for that. our master media decoder and her vigilant team at the university of pennsylvania's annenberg public policy center scarcely miss a bobble along the political beat. at the websites factcheck.org and the new flackcheck.org, their job is to critique, watch, analyze and share what they find out. kathleen hall jamieson, thank you for being with me. >> thank you. >> one of the big stories this week was the defeat in the republican primary of senator richard lugar after 36 years in the senate. and he attributes his defeat, in the statement he made after his concession, to the determination of conservatives and right wingers to bring him down. and he says it was because of his vote for the t.a.r.p. program, for government support of the auto industry, for the

s.t.a.r.t. treaty, and for the confirmation of two of obama's nominees to the supreme court, sotomayor and kagan. >> we have now lost an individual who was willing to do what he thought was right even when that meant working across the aisle. he's a conservative. he wasn't a moderate by most definitions. and as he notes in his statement, during the reagan period, he was the reliable reagan supporter. you'd call him a reagan conservative now, which tells you how far the party has moved. by losing him in the senate, what we've lost is a person who has dedicated much of his life to nuclear non-proliferation, to try to make sure that those dangerous weapons don't get in the wrong hands and that we have fewer of them overall. he worked with barack obama on that. and the obama campaign in 2008 featured that in ads. >> the single most important national security threat that we face is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists. what i did was reach out to senator dick lugar, a republican, to help lock down loose nuclear weapons. >> that fact was used against

senator lugar, the fact that he worked with someone across the aisle. >> so what does this mean for the polarization that already has caused such disaffection among the american people? what does it mean for solving -- resolving something like nuclear proliferation? >> it means that if you're going to get action, you're going to have to have both parts of congress and the presidency controlled by the same party because you're always under this set of assumptions, going to produce gridlock otherwise. and you're going to condemn anyone who tries to break that gridlock by reaching across the aisle in order to find a point of common ground. essentially, senator lugar was defeated because of his efforts to find principled common ground on issues that he thought were important. >> many people i respect, including you, say that this period between the election in november and the inauguration of either president obama again in january or president mitt romney is a very dangerous period because the bush tax cuts expire. the deficit has to be dealt

with. there are other issues that cannot wait any longer and that there's going to be a roadblock in that period of time unless, somehow, they do find the richard lugars. where are they going to come from? >> i don't know. but we're facing what some have characterized as a fiscal cliff. this country has got to find a way to grapple with these issues at a time in which our system has proven to be dysfunctional because of the driving force of polarization. >> so what do people watching, regular voters out there, ordinary citizens who don't have much time for politics, what do they -- what should they be doing between now and then? >> first, we have to do everything that we can as a journalistic and academic community to focus this election on things that matter and to focus on issue distinctions between candidates that can actually translate into governance. there is a piece that the obama campaign put up this last week that was called "life of julia" that projects from the age of

3 through 67 how julia would be affected by various government programs that are actually already in effect. >> frame julia for us. what julia are you talking about? >> julia is a two-dimensional figure created on a slideshow by the obama administration as a means of showing what government currently provides under the obama administration. and so julia at 3 has head start. and as she ages, she benefits from the fact that she gets to stay on her parents' insurance thanks to the patient protection and affordable care act. when julia faces potential pay discrimination, she's protected by the ledbetter act, the first act signed by president obama. >> which means? >> which means that she can file a discrimination suit if she is not getting comparable pay to a man who's doing the same kind of job. and she doesn't have an odd notification period requirement, meaning you could be discriminated against, not know it, and as a result lose your right to sue. when she reaches medicare and social security age, she's able

to retire. and so it's an attempt by the obama administration to say, "what does government currently do for you and with you?" and in the process, they're making some assumptions that are suspect assumptions. the republicans respond by saying that's the nanny state and that's the -- >> culture of dependence. >> culture of dependency. and they lay up their alternative about what they think would happen if the republican scenarios played out, better job growth, et cetera, et cetera. the libertarians come in and do something that's very interesting. they basically say both of you are part of the nanny state, you republicans and you democrats. and we marginalize libertarians a lot. the libertarian critique is actually an important critique. one of the things the libertarian take on julia says is her father is, you know, smoking marijuana. he gets arrested and put away. we're still fighting two wars we're not paying for. there basically is this other third critique out there that looks at the long term and says we can't sustain these things. that's what makes the julia narrative, for me, very valuable.

it casts the long term as our perspective, not the short term. and if you look literally at what the obama tracking of julia's life in the slideshow does, it says this is what government currently does. how much of it are you ready to give up if we can't afford to sustain it? that's my reading on julia. the obama people want me to read that and say, "vote for obama, you get to keep it." vote for obama, you don't get to keep some of it because its economic assumptions are not consistent with what we know the real world is. but i like the fact that we're asking the question, how do we afford this level of government if we want to keep it? do we want to keep it? how are we going to pay for it? if we're going to cut, where are we going to cut? those are key questions. and that's what this election should be about. >> but do you hear or see romney and obama addressing these tough choices -- >> no. >> -- in ways that reassure you? >> no. and if we have an election campaign in which they don't and they act responsibly, we're going to disconnect campaigning from governance.

and when we have a campaign in which they don't, it's less likely that they will. and as a result, we run the risk that we are actually going to hurt the country dramatically because the polarization is making it much, much more difficult for people to find the common ground that they need. when speaker boehner and president obama came as close as they did to a grand bargain, we were seeing the possibility that government could work. when on each side the people from the left and the right said, "no, you can't give that," "no, you can't give that," we saw the problems of polarization. the leadership impulses of the speaker and the president were the right impulses. how do we draw them forward in order to get the right decisions for the country in an environment in which we cannot continue to do what we're doing? >> i'm going to get a lot of e-mails from my viewers saying, "please don't have that woman again." >> i know. >> "she's making me think too much. she makes my head hurt." because these are tough choices. >> they're extremely tough choices. and we can't afford not to make them because if we don't make them the alternative is

unsustainable for the country. and the people who say, "well, we're going to find a way to cut," should be explaining why that's enough. and we've had an interesting moment in which the -- governor romney was caught on a microphone in which he said, "well, we'll cut housing. we'll cut education." well, i'd like to see him say that in public and explain why. i'd like to see both sides say, "with social security, here's what we should do." i'd like to see them debate simpson-bowles. >> that's the commission that recommended compromise on both spending and taxes. >> yes, and had distinguished individuals from both political parties. it is -- it makes tough recommendations. and i would like to see in the absence of the candidates having the courage to take the position, someone lay out the case for the simpson- bowles alternative so the public understands what it is so that we begin to build some consensus about what the trade-offs look like, what the costs are going

to be, and what we need to do to sustain this country for future generations. >> but how do we do that? >> i think we do it by having the media feature it intensely as an alternative and explain why it is important. that's what we need to do in the presidential debates. we're going to have them. when they don't answer the question, the next person up should forgo his or her question and ask the question again. and if the entire debate simply has to ask the question, then let's ask, "what about simpson-bowles don't you like, mr. president?" you know, "governor romney, what about it do you like? are you ready to advance -- to say that we should move the social security age to 70 in some kind of a phased-in structure? should we be doing means testing in some ways? what are your alternatives? when you say you're going to reform the tax code, is that an excuse for saying you're going to do nothing? how much money can you get out of the reforms that you were offering? and what are you going to eliminate and what are you going to cut?" right now we're playing this game. right now you've got the ryan budget proposal. >> paul ryan of wisconsin. >> uh-huh. and to his credit, there is a proposal there. the first thing the democrats did a response was to say, "ha, we're going to assume he's cutting everything across the

board." so they started pushing on the assumption that this good thing is going to be cut. this good thing, this good thing by "x" percent. congressman ryan responds, "no, i'm going to get rid of some things entirely, and i'm going to preserve some things entirely. and i'm going to cut some things." that's actually the beginning of a productive exchange. now the question is what for both sides? and let's get the public on board to accept that there's some things we take for granted now we're not going to have. there's some costs we're not now paying that we're going to have to pay. it's necessary to preserve our country. >> i understand that. but i don't know how realistically we make it happen unless there's perhaps a popular movement to require romney and obama to meet every week for six weeks before the election on debate terms, not of the parties' choosing, but of some independent group like we used to have with the league of women voters, that requires tests, probe, expects and demands that they answer these questions. >> i think the debate structure is the possible -- is the place

where we've got the possibility of the solution. i would like to see a proposal that harvard floated a number of years ago, that we devote sunday nights, from the beginning of the general election period through the election, to intensive discussions with presidential candidates about the serious issues of the day. i think you'd find an attentive audience for that. and i think the person who's elected would find that he was better able to govern if the public had had that opportunity. the public isn't stupid. the public actually is smart in some important ways. but it needs help in getting up to speed. >> are we close to delegitimizing the american political system? is it possible we could reach a point in our political system where it collapses of its own absurdity? >> we're close right now to having a campaign run on attack and irrelevant arguments that are highly deceptive and, as a result, make it extremely difficult to solve the problems facing the country, which is what all the concern about money and politics is well justified and why we ought to worry about

trying to vigilantly hold the super pacs and the third-party advertisers accountable. now, what are the consequences of high level of attack? you don't have a reason to vote for someone. you're only being told why to vote against. hence, no projection of what the alternatives are and no understanding of the trade-offs in government. and the danger is, with all of this unaccountable third-party money, that we're going to have high levels -- >> you mean super pac money, special interest money. >> political party money, special interest money as well as super pac money. we're going to have high level of attack. hence, no relevance to governance and votes against. and that we're going to have high level of deception. hence, people who feel betrayed once they see actual governance or who vote against a candidate they might otherwise support. we have got to worry about this as an issue. and as a result, trying to ensure that people understand the facts under the ad is critical. important that the ads not distract us from the central issues. all of this is a journalistic function. and important that, when there is deception, the candidate carries the burden. if you'll remember 2000, al gore

was hurt as a result of the way in which he campaigned against bill bradley. he made some claims that were considered illegitimate by those who were tracking the campaign. he carried that penalty forward. and the bush campaign capitalized on it, in some ways, illegitimately to attack him in the general election. what happens when a super pac deceives? the pro-romney super pac not only outspent the pro-santorum and pro- gingrich super pacs, it outspent them 20 to 1 in deceptive dollars. those are dollars spent on ads that were deceiving. so what happs when that super pac carries all that deception? dampens down the deceptn >>ince

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any on irinsor prosperity, funded in part by the super- richrede oma record on energy. thotr,hi il arit after, is an almost instant and it features someone most eoe veev sn,he deputy campaign manager for obama's reelection. and then we'll talk about them. >> washington omedo rete amebsweas stimulus. but that's not what happened. fact -- billions of taay dollars spent on green energy went to jobs in foreign the obama administration

admitted the truth that $2.3 billion of tax credits went overseas while millions of americans can't find a job. $1.2 billion to a solar company that's bg n x half a billion to an electric r mpy atrt hundreds of jobs in finland. mif dollars to build traffic lights in china. president obama wasted $34 billion on risky nvtmts the result -- failure. american taxpayers are paying to send their own jo tfoigcnte tell president obama american tax dollars should help american taxpayers. >> and now here is the almost e lmt stntebuttal. >> hi, i'm stephanie cutter. i'm the deputy campaign manager eratba f ari, d wanted to arm you with the facts about the latest attack from big oil. you may have heard of the koch brothers. they're secretive oil

billionaesanolng republican campaigns, and now they're backing mitt romney. pretty simple reason for this. predent omaou take away billions of dollars in unnecessaroitabrk mitt romney would protect them. so now they're spending $6 million on an ad that is so blatantly false "the washington pot"aith he sme let's get the facts out because it's important that you guys knothe truth. president obama has helped create hundreds of thousands o clean energy jobs, projects in all 50 states. and the way these oil bilonaires and their front group completely ignore the truth is breathtaking. let's take some crazexpls omher tack ad. they claim the administration gave money to build electric cars in finland. no, the department of engys fudi w scicay for u.s. jobs at u.s. facilities. sure enough, the company is employing 700 workers in california and they're planning to build a plant in delawar okay, another ridiculous claim -- they said we sent money to china to build traffic lights. that's wrong again. those traffic lights were asmbd rein this country, and helped expand our light manufacturing industry in this

country. they said we gave money to a company building solar plants in meco wrng again. our money is going to a solar plant here in america with american workers. the gs atever it takes to tear down the president. they will literally say anything. they oppose expanding clean energy. they oppose higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks. so we're going to call their b.s. when we see it. and we need your help to call them on it too and to set the record straight. so share this, tweet it, facebook it. i keep hearing about tumblr and whatever that is, please use that, too. and thank you for all of your help. >> two totally different kind of ads. one's slick, highly produced, all that music and sound bites and the drama of it. the other one just staitfrwdso yng woman talking into camera. how do you evaluate the techniques there? >> well, first, the second is a web video and it's consistent with the ways in which theba campaign talked to supporters in 2008. very straightforward. someone comes on camera and says, "here's the way we see the facts."

the produced, the highly visual, very evocative produced content is almost always more effective cae 'sormerae. the visuals, the music and the words underscore each other. under both of these, however, are problematic claims. ansof u y,i al like stephanie cutter, she seems really credible, i guess i'm going to believe her," or, "i really buy into all this fancy produced content in the thd-rtad you've made a mistake. what you need to ask in both is what are the patterns of deception and how can i detect them? t me give you some quick guides. the koch brothers aren't big oil. the koch brothers are little oil. they run all sorts of things, but the percent of their income that comes from oil, small compared to big oil. she's calling them big oil because you're afraid of big oil. igoiisegivy st and it's much easier to say bad thing, big oil and tie it to koch brothers than to say highly diversified, lots of things that th r, chroer so first move, when somebody uses a single scary something

anatck we should ask, is that right? and what does that mean? on the other side, when people make categorical claims, do you think it's really plausible? so no jobs cat y e stimulus? that's not plausible. everything about economic theory would say it must have done something. well, the cbo, coreiol budget office, says that the stimulus created or saved 1.2 to 3.3 million jobs. that's not a small number. so test the plausibility. when people make categorical claims, they're usually false. now, notice i didn't say always false becse thawod a caegorical claim. then when visuals pop up on the screen, as you see words or you hear wds, ask wth the visual is driving a false inference. you saw solyndra pop up on the screen. solyndra has failed. you heard 34 billion and the word "failure." now, you're not -- you're processing rapidly. it's going like this in the ad.

you're not likely to say 'cause, you know, solyndra was a failure. that was solyndra, 34 billion? was everything else 34 billion a failure? when you see a visual that's strong and you associate it with something that is accurate, ask whether the rest of what you're processing is coming along is misleading you. of the rest of that money, solyndra and a group, i think it's called beacon power, are the two that have failed. we may, as a country, get back some money from them in bankruptcy. but let's assume that we don't, we lose all of those loan guarantees. if we do, it's 2% of the money that's been spent. but that piece is not going to let you ask that because it's moving so rapidly. you've already processed the whole thing has failed because solyndra is svible and available. and we've heard about it in news. and it is legitimately a failure for the obama administration. and we tend to over-generalize. so what's the bottom line with this? and there's one more, by the way. whenever somebody says "jobs overseas," stop.

we're in a global economy. it's virtually impossible to spend a large amount of money on something major and not have something that's going overseas. we've got things that are plants in the united states that are owned by people overseas. we've got people in the united states who own things, but the plant is overseas. and in many of the big products that we assemble, automobiles, you've got parts coming from all over. so did the jobs all go overseas? or in a global economy, would some of it have gone overseas and some of it come here? now, once you make that inference, you can tell why the democratic response and the ad are both telling you a partial truth. some of that money did create jobs overseas, but some of that money created jobs here. the ad only tells you half. the democratic response only tells you half. but since you know the economy is global, you know there is some truth in both. >> it true, by the way, that

fact checkers forced mitt romney to back away from his claim that he had net -- net increased jobs by 100,000 while he was running bain capital? >> yes. and when people say fact checking doesn't matter, here's a case study. fact checking often hits a brick wall. that is, the campaigns believe that they can restate so often with evocative ads that they override it. but when it is persistent and when you have debates to personally hold a candidate accountable and when the other candidates are doing it as well, it can succeed. and that's how the process is supposed to work. >> kathleen hall jamieson, we'll be seeing how this plays out over the next coming months. thanks for joining me. >> you're welcome. >> given the astronomical amounts of money being spent on all those ads and the fog of lies with which they shroud our awareness, and despite the

unshakeable grip of the very rich and their mercenaries on both our political parties, i'm always amazed that there are people out across america who still fight back, who don't give up, no matter the odds. case in point, my next guest and the powerful union she heads will lead a march fighting back against economic inequality in chicago on may 18th. the chicago protest is part of a growing international movement in support of what's called the robin hood tax, named after the legendary english outlaw who took from the rich and gave to the poor back in the 13th century. the robin hood tax is a small government levy the financial sector would pay on commercial transactions like stocks and bonds. supporters say it's a tiny tax to clean up the mess the banks helped create. the money generated could be used for social programs and job creation. as the idea has spread around the world, it's been estimated

that a robin hood tax could raise as much as $77 billion in the european union countries and $350 billion a year here in the u.s. the movement has been embraced by germany's angela merkel, pope benedict, south african bishop desmond tutu and billionaire philanthropists bill gates and warren buffett. its momentum has been bolstered by a savvy media campaign that ranges from slapstick -- >> the bankers win! the bankers win! we've won again! >> to slickly produced videos. >> have you heard this idea about the robin hood bankers tax? >> yes, it's a sweet little idea taxing the banks to help the poor, but i don't think it would work. it's very complicated and would be very tough on the banking sector. >> which has just been given billions of pounds in taxpayer monies to keep it going? >> well, yeah, of course. >> a very minimum tax could amount to at least $350 billion dollars that could go back to our communities, that could go

back to jobs, that could go back to health care. >> here in the united states, leading the charge in support of the tax is roseann demoro and the organization she leads, national nurses united. it's the largest registered nurses union in u.s. history. and with nearly 170,000 members, it's one of the country's fastest growing unions. in recent years, the nurses staged some of the most organized and best- publicized campaigns for health care reform. now they're doing the same for the robin hood tax with a fight they call the main street campaign. events already have been held in washington and on wall street here in new york. the may 18th march in chicago originally was planned to coincide with the g8 summit of the world's most powerful nations. president obama then decided to move that meeting to camp david, so intentionally or not, he'll be dodging a confrontation with roseann demoro and her nurses. roseann, welcome. >> thank you, bill.

it's so nice to be here. >> when you went to your membership and said, "i want us to get involved in taking on wall street, i want us to fight for the financial transaction tax," did they scratch their head and say, "what the devil is that?" >> you know what, bill? it was the most fascinating thing. they got that in a heartbeat. the people who have billions of dollars, who could make a million dollars an hour, which is, you know, wall street, need to give a little bit back. it's very american. it's happened before. it's not anything novel. and the nurses know that they pay tax. so when we explained that, they completely got it. we did a lot of education around it. and then we fanned out into the capital. we had a thousand nurses in washington, d.c., last year. and we introduced the financial transaction tax. you know, there's some sophisticated things about the financial transaction tax, but frankly, all you need to know is that people in this economy are hurting. they're losing their homes.

they have no health care. they've lost their jobs. something's wrong and everyone knows it. and when you look around and you see the billions of dollars and the billionaires and the excessive wealth that's been taken out of the economy, everyone knows that. they don't necessarily know how to speak about derivatives or stocks or all of that, but they know that those people who have those things have the money. so when we went to the capitol -- two stories i'll relate very quickly. one of the young nurses goes into one of the legislator's offices and says, you know, "we want the financial transaction tax." and this male legislator says, "well, you nurses know a lot about financial transaction," like, you know, "what would a nurse know," or "what would a woman know?" "you nurses need to lower your expectations." and she said, "would you like me to say that to you when i'm prepping you for surgery?" and it says the story right there, right, though, because ultimately we're talking about the life and death of people. that's what the nurses see. they see life and death. and so it's that same body

that's presenting themselves to the nurse on that operating table. those nurses see those patients in droves every single day. and they see people without hope. and they see fundamental despair. another nurse told one of the legislators, "i don't know a lot about the financial transaction tax, but i know i pay tax on everything i buy as a working person, and they should, too." and that's it. they have been able to essentially -- the people in the financial industry have been able to ultimately take so much money out of the economy and not even have to pay a minimum sales tax on that money. not even a minimum. >> so how did these two congressmen respond? >> very cynically, very cynically. >> cynically? >> yeah, what happened was that then the nurses came back together, told the stories. and of course, that enraged everyone, because that's the same experience they had in all the offices, dismissive. our legislators have found that they can be dismissive because labor doesn't have anywhere to go. so we decided to take the campaign to establish a main street campaign to take it back to the communities and talk to real people who are losing their homes, jobs and health care.

and say, "there is an option. we can all get together. we can fight for a financial transaction tax, this tax." >> we used to have a financial transaction tax in this country. from 1914 to 1966. then, in 1987, at the time of another wall street crash, the first president bush and senator bob dole, a republican, and several other republicans called for restoring it. didn't happen. >> no, and there's even a financial transaction tax in the s.e.c. right now -- a small one. there's one in new york city, as well. i mean, so financial transaction tax, you know, has been here. >> there are many critics of the financial transaction tax. and they say, among other things, that the banks will simply pass the cost onto the consumer. they say that the banks, if they have fewer trades, will let people go. there'll be unemployment on wall street. they say that the banks will flee, they'll go abroad, they'll go somewhere else with their business, as happened once when sweden had a financial

transaction tax and lost a lot of trading activity. they say you're killing the goose that laid the golden egg. >> well, i'm waiting to see the golden egg. the truth of the matter is you can fix the fleeing with regulation and with policy. that's an easy fix. in terms of jobs, there's very few jobs actually that the financial sector hits. it's a computerized industry. nanosecond trading, and it's very concentrated. and that's part of their beauty, part of their scheme, right? it's basically they've created an economy onto themselves without people. and the problem is their lobbyists and the incredible amount of money they have buy and sell our legislature. they've got enormous amounts of money. but we can win this because we have the people with us. >> so is the campaign for financial transaction tax largely leverage you're seeking, just a means of getting the attention of the powers that be? or are you serious about getting this $350 billion from a 50 cent

tax on every $100 dollars of transacting? >> we're as serious as a heart attack. can i tell you that? >> you can tell me that. >> if you're going to fund social services -- we assume we need about, what, $500 billion to kind of jumpstart a jobs program. there aren't real jobs left in america. we need real jobs. and we need health care. i mean, all of the things that we should have as a society. >> but here's what you're up against. first of all, they're not going to take you seriously because you are nurses. what do nurses know about wall street? secondly, they're going to say that, you know, the banks will find a way to circumvent this tax, pass it on to the consumers. >> isn't that amazing? isn't it amazing how bad our thinking is in this country? that people who have billions of dollars, wall street, it shows

how far afield we've come as a country. because otherwise, what we're going to be is, you know, have this kind of industrial peasantry in this country. and i mean, that's where this could go if something doesn't change pretty dramatically. what i can't understand is why our legislators -- they know there's a problem. i don't know what they think, how they think we're going to solve the problem. you know, there's a deficit created by speculation. and all of a sudden working people are supposed to pay for the deficit. that's the rallying cry? like, a deficit that working people didn't cause, that that's the priority of this country to resolve a deficit caused by wall street rather than job creation? >> but, you know, i don't know anyone who understands the castle better from the battering ram side than you. you've been out there with a battering ram for a long time. trying to change washington is virtually an impossible task because of the entrenched, systemic corruption by which the town now runs. >> absolutely. the current way we practice politics, we are headed for devastation. i would agree with that. the only way we can do that is by changing ourselves.

i'm very tired of all of us being disappointed in democrats. i mean, okay, how many more democrats can we be disappointed in? i -- we have got to change ourselves. we have got to -- that's why i like the occupy movement. and hoping that it, you know, moves with structure and reform. and i'd say, you know, kind of non-reformist reforms. like the financial transaction tax, because what that does is it starts having a different view on speculation and what's a responsibility to society. but occupy is extremely important to us because it actually doesn't buy into the fact that we're all in this together. we have been in this "we're all in this together" bubble fantasy for so long. i mean, you know, things were supposed to trile down. and then all of a sudden, we were supposed to be part of some bubble up. and i mean, it's just everything's trickling, but it's trickling up. >> but suppose you get the $350 billion. what if it's spent on bombing iran? >> well, precisely. we're not earmarking the money.

we're not saying, "okay, we want $350 billion, and this part should go to health care and this part should go to education." what we're saying is that part of the process of obtaining the financial transaction tax is the movement itself. because if we can engage people to actually engage the legislators -- i mean, we have to continually hold them accountable. we can never give our power away. and we can never buy into the lies that have been told to us for so long. i mean, i don't even recognize, you know, liberals anymore. i don't even -- >> what do you mean? >> well, they will invariably be apologetic for anything that comes down. in health care reform, liberals, we want single payer. we absolutely want single payer. and then suddenly single payer was off the table. even the president said at one point in time he supported a single payer system. boy, you never hear those words anymore. then everyone said, "okay, well, we're drawing the line on the public option. we will never ever compromise off the public option."

all of a sudden, public option's gone. and then it came to an individual mandate. "we will never agree to tax, you know, workers benefits. we'll never agree to tax our health care benefits." and now, all of a sudden, liberals are rallying around taxing health care benefits. it's like, how low can you go? so i have, for myself and hopefully for a lot of other people, i'm looking at a stage now for absolutes. there's got to be -- >> absolutes?>> absolutes. there's going to be -- >> in politics, a game of compromise, you're looking for absolutes? >> you know, we've made the compromises. look where these compromises have got us. do i think that there's an absolute right for people to have health care in this country? absolutely. absolutely. do i think people are entitled to work and provide for themselves and their families? absolutely. that's an absolute. do i think that people should have a home to live in and to be able to care for the most vulnerable? absolutely. yes, i'm looking for absolutes. i'm not interested in the neo-liberal agenda. i'm not interested in bipartisanship.

i'm interested in social change that actually puts society back with the people. we have to start all over in terms of how we do politics. right now -- >> what do you mean? >> we have to engage people in their communities to actually elect the people and tell those people what we want and tell them we will un- elect them if they don't fulfill the needs of their community. >> now you're talking about a mass movement there. >> i'm talking about an absolute mass movement. >> because after the election, we both know that after the election, no matter how the voters have expressed themselves, it's the donors who decide what the -- >> absolutely. >> -- incumbents do when they get into office. we know that. >> invariably what happens is the groups are called into the white house. and they're told no. and then they come back and they tell the coalition no. and then everyone's cutting side deals. and there's no actual social movement. what i like about occupy is that a lot of groups tried to co-opt it, and it stayed its own course. and we've got to have occupy with a political -- you know, strategic decisions that are

actually going to push the agenda for the american people. revolt is a good one, because ultimately revolt gets a lot of attention. but we also have to be on the demand side. and we've got to be able to reach everyday people who are actually out there struggling and give them hope. >> the paradox, roseann, is that you're calling for more public action -- >> absolutely. >> -- for more public policy, for more government, at a time when there's a growing powerful conservative movement that says government is the problem. >> we want to have the corollary to that on the other side where we're actually inspiring people toward a better vision for society, for hope, for a social movement that they can engage in, that's not the politics of hatred, that's not the politics of fear, but the politics of hope. now, to do that, we are going to tap the anger, because people should be angry. so we want to validate the anger but not take it in a reactionary way. but a way that's actually life affirming.

>> have you had any indirect or direct response from the white house to your campaign for the financial transaction tax? >> we have from the white house precisely what -- i can't say from the white house, in all honesty. we have with the legislators precisely what happened to us in single payer. we had the financial transaction tax. we talked to the author of the bill, who'd done it twice before, in congress, and asked him to reintroduce it again and said that we were going to build a movement around it. he said, "great, you know, wonderful." and all of a sudden, they came up with this tiny transaction tax which is effectively not much for deficit reduction, earmarked for deficit reduction. and so we were just astounded. and so what they told us -- this is the same thing. this is the same speech of, "you nurses need to lower your expectations." well, we have to introduce the concept first. well, the concept, first of all, is there. it has been introduced in america. we've had it historically in america, as you pointed out. we have it in new york. we have it in the s.e.c. we don't need the concept.

we have the concept. what we need is the money to jumpstart this economy. but i think what they want to do is to make sure that they're assuring wall street that it won't actually hurt. the same thing is as what's happened in health care reform. >> i ask this next question knowing that within the world of labor leadership, you have your own politics. the afl-cio just recently endorsed barack obama for reelection. you're on the executive committee of the afl-cio. did you vote for endorsing obama? >> no, i didn't go to the meeting. >> why? >> we haven't taken a position on barack obama. our nurses worked so hard the last time on his campaign. they worked for months. i mean, people left their homes. they were excited. you know, they actually believed in his candidacy. they thought that he meant what he said when he actually supported single payer. and all we needed to do was get him there.

but we made a tremendous mistake. i mean, as a country, as the nurses, everyone. and that is he said, "you need to push me." well, no one pushed him, except for the right, and except for wall street. we didn't push barack obama. in fact, we had the liberal groups who were yelling at anyone who stepped out of line to get in line. so now we're in a situation that we, in part, helped create. that's the dilemma here. you can't solve the problem without changing the way you do your own work. and so this isn't about barack obama. we are in a process of figuring out if we're even going to endorse legislators this year, because it's so bad. >> but let me tell you what some of your liberal and progressive allies in washington are saying. "look me in the eye," they say, "and tell me that you're going to stand by with 170,000 powerful fighters out there for social justice and see romney replace barack obama." that's what they're saying. that's not -- >> of course they would say that. and that's a reality. that's the politics of today. and so for us, you know, whether

or not we endorse barack obama or whomever is pretty much irrelevant. i don't -- yes, it's true. we're an activist organization. we have a phenomenal amount of power. we have a disproportionate amount of power relative to where we are. because it's not just our members. we have, you know, we have millions of nurses who relate to us organizationally. >> it is. it's a tough union. >> oh, god. >> you, in fact -- i watched with incredulous eyes when you actually took on schwarzenegger, a very popular republican celebrity governor. >> i know. >> and you helped bring him down. >> we did. we did. actually, you know, his waterloo was when he said in front of a women's conference, "i kick nurse's butts." >> pay no attention to those voices over there, by the way. those are the special interests, if you know what i mean. he special interests just don't like me in sacramento because i'm always kicking their butt. that's why they don't like me. >> well, we put that shoe on the other foot. and we -- >> why did he say that?

>> because, well, first of all, because he's arnold schwarzenegger. he was above it all. but again, the way we practice politics. he became governor. everyone thought it was more important to get his autograph than to actually hold him accountable for the policy. and so, what happened was he decided to -- nurses have patient ratios in california, which is a phenomenal law. he decided to roll that back. and then he wanted to meet with us. and we said, "no, we're, you know, leave that legislation alone or we're not meeting with you." well, he attempted to roll it back. we set out on a campaign. and i'll tell you, we took his popularity from up here to down here. and he never regained his popularity again. he was so shocked and off of his game that he thought that, you know, he could just be dismissive of just about everyone. he was hollywood. he was the governor. he was above it all. and you know what? >> he was the terminator. >> i'll be back. >> he was the terminator. he was the terminator. but you know what? it shows you the power of these nurses. right there, right there, it tells you how much power they actually have. when a nurses speaks, the legislators know that a nurse

can be a very scary person. and for arnold schwarzenegger and the california legislators certainly know that. when arnold schwarzenegger decided to take on the nurses, i swear the legislators were like, "oh, my god." >> i don't want to put you on the spot, but, well, i do want to put you on the spot. why doesn't all of organized labor have that today? you know, i know that organized labor has been anemic. it's been under fire, of course, for 30 years. there's been a strong conservative business campaign to make them impotent in our society. and they've largely succeeded. but there's a pathology in the union movement that has contributed to its own anemic -- >> it has. >> what is it? what's happened? >> i think it's class shame. you know, in the last 30 years, everyone was supposed to be middle class. working class was a bad thing. to be from the working class was, you know, no one was from -- even labor uses that. you know, you working families. they don't say the working class, and they don't say working people.

everyone says middle class or working families, and you're supposed to have disdain for the working class. they bought into the paradigm to where they became vulnerable to middle class consultants who redefined what they were supposed to be. so i had one of the major labor leaders who has since left come to me one day 12 years ago or so and say, "we went through this consultant training and, oh, you could learn so much from it." and he said, "the thing that you could learn the most is non- confrontational language." and i thought, "well, why in the hell would i want to do that?" you know, i mean, not be confrontational? there are people out there who are trying to harm my members, working people, poor people, and i don't want to confront them? of course i want to confront them. what it told me was that fighting became actually defined as something that was pathological. and the labor movement bought in. and why in the world the labor movement would buy in, i don't know. >> assuming you will retire one

day, do you have a bucket list of what you'd like to accomplish before you retire? >> yes. and it has things that are fundamental and things that we've been working on all of our lives. and that is a just society, health care for all, taking money out of politics, of course. jobs. good paying jobs in america. pride in being an american. although i will say that we're working on the global scene and the opportunities to actually have one world and one people -- and even though that sounds pie in the sky -- are presenting itself in a way for the first time that i've seen in my life. because the financial transaction tax is seen by all of our allies internationally as a way of addressing the economy of the world. and that's why it's not the financial transaction tax in and of itself, it's the reconceptualization of what we should be as a society of people.

i am really sick of the people who are apologists for finance. from my perspective, and it may sound simplistic, but working people built this country. and you know what, bill? if we have to, we can build it again. >> i can see you're going to have to postpone your retirement for lord knows how long. >> well, you can be my role model for it. >> thank you, roseann demoro, for being with me. >> thank you so much. >> joining roseann demoro and the nurses at their chicago march and rally on may 18th will be the rock star activist tom morello who just happens to be my guest on next week's edition of "moyers & company." tom morello came to fame 20 years ago as the lead guitarist in rage against the machine. some of you will know rage as one of the most successful and political rock bands of the '90s.

and one of the most controversial. when the group disbanded, tom morello became a one-man revolution, a troubadour singing songs of protest across the land from the steps of the wisconsin state capitol -- ♪ this land is your land >> to occupy wall street. >> let's march and sing! >> wherever you look, he'll be there. >> my job is to steel the backbone of people on the frontlines of social justice struggles and to put wind in sails of those struggles and people who are fighting on a daily basis, at a grass roots level. >> that's next week's broadcast. on our website, billmoyers.com, you'll see a new feature called "what we're reading" -- news stories and analysis from the internet. and take a look at our campaign ad watch page. there's information, tools and links to help you in the fight to make campaign ads honest and the dark money behind them transparent. and remember, you're always welcome to become one of our facebook friends. that's it for now. see you next time.

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- that's a big stride. that's a big male bear. strieker: a spring snowstorm the night before has blanketed montana's swan valley, south of glacier national park. - were they fresh, the wolves? strieker: for expert wildlife tracker tom parker, conditions couldn't be better. before noon, his party finds prints left by grizzlies, wolves, elk, deer, and other wildlife. but their biggest find... - you can see there's one of the kittens walking. there's one actually bounding right there. strieker: five sets of tracks with what looks to be a healthy 90-pound adult mountain lion. it's the most offspring he's ever seen with one mother in more than 30 years of tracking lions. - this is an amazing little find, i have to tell you. strieker: for parker, a hunting guide who works with researchers and teaches tracking, all the evidence in the snow

shows just how rich this habitat is for wildlife and why he and others worked to keep this forest from being carved into real estate. [machinery clanking] beginning in the late 1990s, plum creek timber company, the largest private landowner in montana, started putting its timberland on the real estate market. - we knew that because we do have this extensive private land checkerboarded throughout our forested landscape, that that was a huge threat and that real estate values and real estate demand was just skyrocketing. strieker: community conservation groups soon found they were outpaced in their efforts to preserve wildlife habitat and other forest values, so the nature conservancy and trust for public land stepped in with the montana legacy project, negotiating a bulk purchase with help from congress and the state.

they agreed to buy more than 310,000 acres from plum creek, including 67,000 acres here. ringed by lderness areas, the swan valley provides rich low-elevation habitat for many sensitive species. the grizzly track marches through one of the purchased parcels that is now national forest, public land. - it was actually planned to be a development right there, and the more development you disperse out here, the higher the likelihood of conflict with these animals. strieker: if not for the buyout, he says, this bear's backyard would be someone else's home. for this american land, i'm gary strieker.