BIll Moyers interviews "The Wire" creator David Simon

[paparush]

"The Wire is not a story about America. It's about the America that got left behind."

"The drug war is war on the underclass now. That’s all it is. It has no other meaning."

Bill Moyers: I did a documentary about the South Bronx called The Fire Next Door and what I learned very early is that the drug trade is an inverted form of capitalism.

David Simon: Absolutely. In some ways it’s the most destructive form of welfare that we’ve established, the illegal drug trade in these neighborhoods. It’s basically like opening up a Bethlehem Steel in the middle of the South Bronx or in West Baltimore and saying, “You guys are all steelworkers.” Just say no? That’s our answer to that? And by the way, if it was chewing up white folk, it wouldn’t have gone on for as long as it did.

Bill Moyers: Can fiction tell us something about inequality that journalism can’t?

David Simon: I’ve wondered about that, because I did a lot of journalism that I thought was pretty good. As a reporter, I was trying to explain how the drug war doesn’t work, and I would write these very careful and very well-researched pieces, and they would go into the ether and be gone. Whatever editorial writer was coming behind me would then write, “Let’s get tough on drugs,” as if I hadn’t said anything. Even my own newspaper. And I would think, “Man, it’s just such an uphill struggle to do this with facts.” When you tell a story with characters, people jump out of their seats, and part of that’s the delivery system of television.


http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/2530/simon_4_1_11/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Good on you for posting this.

I have seen all of David Simon's shows. They are terrific.

edited to add a great comment from Simon:"“America now jails more of its people than any country, including all totalitarian states. We pretend to a war against narcotics, but in truth, we are simply brutalizing and dehumanizing an urban underclass that we no longer need as a labor supply.”

[virgogal]

2. .

[Norrin Radd]

3. Glad to see Moyers isn't entirely retired.

[kwassa]

4. I think "The Wire" is the best television series ever made.

and mostly because Simon actually lived it, which makes it better than his other series.

I was at a family party in Baltimore. A distant family relation, who was now a drug counselor, had been involved in the drug trade years ago. He was a huge fan of the show, said it was all very realistically portrayed, and then pulled me across the park on Federal Hill to point out the condo tower where Stringer Bell lived in the show.

[BlueMTexpat]

6. I think so too. I have the whole series on DVD and

it's even better watching a second, third - or umpteenth - time. IMO, everything clicks - magnificent writing, outstanding cast of characters, timely topics and devastating depiction of the hideous hypocrisy that is the "War on Drugs."

I am especially proud of our current MD Gov., Martin O'Malley, who was Mayor of Baltimore at the time the series was filmed. Simon specifically requested carte blanche in his depiction of the city government and O'Malley went along with it.

[SydneyBristow]

5. The link should be required reading

Ah-freakin-mazing.
Kicking, hoping it gets to front page!

Syd