What We Can Learn from Lincoln
Like many of us, Bill Moyers has taken inspiration from the film Lincoln, and what the movie about the late President can teach us about democracy and compromise. Moyers talked with Lincoln screenwriter Tony Kushner this week, and they talked about a process that can produce progress instead of stalemates and gridlock. Both find hope in the film, which brings history forward and has obvious parallels to the brinksmanship going on right now around tax rates. “The job of the president is both to make the compromises necessary to have things happen in a democracy,” Kushner tells Moyers. “At the same time he has to keep telling us where we’re going, what we’re trying to arrive at...reminding us that government is a good thing, and that we share responsibility for one another because without that shared responsibility our own lives are destroyed.” –EG