The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MR. MAC NEIL: And I'm Robert MacNeil in New York. After tonight's News Summary, we have an update on the situation in Bosnia, then we discuss the attacks by Sen. Dole and others on sex and violence in rap music and movies, next, a report on new efforts by anti- abortion protesters, and we close with a Richard Rodriguez essay about the birth of democracy in Mexico. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Hurricane Allison hit the Florida panhandle this morning. At least 65 houses and three hotels were flooded, but there were no injuries reported. Several thousand people were evacuated from a resort area about 70 miles southwest of Tallahassee. It was the first hurricane of the season, with winds gusting up to 75 miles per hour, water surging up to eight feet high. It was downgraded to a tropical storm after a few hours as winds slowed eventually to 40 miles per hour. Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Two New York City subway trains collided on a bridge linking Manhattan and Brooklyn today. The motor man on one of the trains was killed and fifty-four others were injured in the early morning crash. Only one of the injuries was described as serious. About 200 people were aboard the trains. Authorities are investigating the cause of the crash.

MR. LEHRER: IBM went after one of the nation's largest software companies today. It made an unsolicited offer to buy the Lotus Development Corporation for $3.3 billion. A statement from Lotus called the offer particularly surprising. Lotus is the third largest maker of software for personal computers. IBM is the world's biggest computer maker. President Clinton announced a new home ownership plan today that requires no new laws or funds. The goal is to create 8 million new home buyers by the year 2000. It would streamline mortgage procedures and reduce closing costs, among other things. Mr. Clinton spoke about it in the White House East Room.

PRESIDENT CLINTON: Our home ownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation. It will not add more federal programs or grow federal bureaucracy. It's a hundred specific actions that address the practical needs of people who are trying to build their own personal version of the American dream, to help moderate income families who pay high rents but haven't been able to save enough for a down payment, to help lower income working families who are ready to assume the responsibilities of home ownership but held back by mortgage costs that are just out of reach, to help families who have historically been excluded from home ownership. Today all across the country I say to millions of young working couples who are just starting out, by the time your children are ready to start the first grade we want you to be able to own your own home.

MR. LEHRER: Federal authorities moved today against a major cocaine smuggling ring. A former Justice Department official and two former federal prosecutors were among the 60 persons charged with various crimes linked to helping the Cali drug cartel of Colombia.

MR. MAC NEIL: The fate of a U.S. pilot shot down over Bosnia on Friday remains unknown. Defense Sec. Perry said there's no evidence he ejected before the crash. But late today, the wire reports quoted a Pentagon official as saying electronic signals have been received that could be from the downed pilot. The Serbs took another three UN peacekeepers hostage today. They also shelled UN- designated safe havens throughout Bosnia. At least two people were wounded in Sarajevo. Eight were killed yesterday. Meanwhile, the UN defied a Serb blockade and brought badly needed supplies into the capital this weekend. The Serbs had threatened to fire on any traffic on the road. We'll have more on Bosnia after the News Summary. A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier collided with a support ship today in the Persian Gulf. The accident occurred while fuel and supplies were being transferred between the carrier Abraham Lincoln and the Sacramento. The smaller ship was damaged and one crew member was slightly injured.

MR. LEHRER: The death toll in the Russian earthquake has risen to more than 1200. The deadly quake hit the Eastern Island of Sakhalin more than a week ago. Rescue crews continue to search for survivors. Officials believe as many as another 500 people, dead or alive, remain buried in the debris. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to a Bosnia update, the new big culture clash, abortion protesting, and a Richard Rodriguez essay. UPDATE - QUAGMIRE

MR. LEHRER: The situation in Bosnia is our lead story again tonight. We have two reports. First, Independent Television News Correspondent Nik Gowing reports from Sarajevo.

NIK GOWING, ITN: This rough track across Mount Igman is the only road for food and supplies to reach Sarajevo. While the hostage issue is on "hold" at least in public, the issue of food for the Bosnian capital is now equally pressing. Everyone takes a risk for personal survival or financial gain. The UN and other agencies have managed to ensure delivery of only 50 percent of their target, risking Serb guns along whatever road they dare to take.

MARK CUTTS, UNHCR Spokesman: We are discussing with UNPROFOR ways of bringing humanitarian aid into Sarajevo City, but at the moment, nothing is able to come into the city from our main warehouse in Mekavic.

MR. GOWING: So the United Nations is upping the stakes. The UN Commander General Rupert Smith ordered this test run by UN trucks through Serb territory without their explicit permission. Escorted by French armored vehicles, the convoy reached Sarajevo unchallenged, transporting urgently needed flour, American food aid for the depleted granaries and bakeries of Sarajevo, along with fresh foodstuffs; merely a token success, though, given the needs of a 380,000 population, but it highlights a new potential conflict between the Bosnian Serbs and the UN. After four months of cease- fire and a certain uncomfortable level of coexistence in and around Sarajevo, Serb forces have now tightened their strangulation of the city. They've closed the airport, refusing access to the UN Secretary General's special envoy today. Road routes in from Central Bosnia are virtually impassable because of the Serb armed threat, and the Serbs have also cut all water, gas, and electricity. The Bosnian government still uses a supply tunnel under the airport despite recent Serb shelling. So the moral pressure on the UN is to open these two roads in particular through Serb-held territory towards UN supply positions in Central Bosnia. In the current new assertive UN mode, it may mean significant UN military force to keep these corridors open, an immediate possible role for the rapid reaction units on the assumption the Serbs will be furious at the undermining of their control there, so the potential for armed confrontation and a serious military escalation will be great. Perhaps the continued buildup of British UN forces for the multinational rapid response force -- here, more equipment arriving in Split today -- will give the Bosnian Serbs pause for thought, realizing the dangers of forcing escalation with the likelihood of a much more robust UN military response. For the moment, though, their leader, Dr. Karadzic has said rite of passage will be decided by Serbs alone, not General Smith or these troops. Russia's position is still not clear but she seems unlikely to veto the UN's new task force, Alpha.

ANDREI KOZYREV, Foreign Minister, Russia: I very much doubt that there is any realistic offensive or punitive role.

MR. GOWING: But almost by the hour, the parameters change, Sarajevo on more edge than usual, Bosnian police on heightened alert after the Serbs have stolen several dozen UN vehicles along with weapons and equipment. Now, Bosnians are not sure who is UN and who is Serb.

MR. LEHRER: Now Alex Thompson of Independent Television News reports from Tuzla, a United Nations protected safe haven now surrounded by Bosnia Serb forces.

ALEX THOMPSON, ITN: In Tuzla, the power stations and refineries are virtually idol. The streets of what was a principal industrial city are half empty. Surrounded by Bosnian Serb artillery on three sides, the only safe road into Tuzla for aid, arms, and for any rapid reaction force would be this rough mountain track. And all around the front line areas, UN observation posts, remote, vulnerable to Bosnian Serb shelling, if anybody needs the added protection of a rapid reaction force, it's the soldiers in their lonely wooden lookouts. Down in Tuzla's UN base, the sense of impending crisis, here they say protecting the outlying lookout posts is a top priority, but the more they put tanks and armored vehicles into the field to protect observation posts, the more the Bosnian Serbs attack.

TORBEN JENSEN, UN Information Officer: Well, they start shelling on us, and if we are close to civilian people, they hit the civilian also.

MR. THOMPSON: So the fact that it's a UN vehicle, a UN tank or armored personnel carrier, that doesn't matter, they still attack?

TORBEN JENSEN: They still shell us, and especially if it's the armed vehicle. Soft skin haven't been a problem but armed vehicles, they're shelling us.

MR. THOMPSON: Proof of that next door at the Norwegian field hospital, where they had two recent casualties this weekend. Dutch soldiers evacuated after their armored car was hit by a tank grenade.

DR. PER MALMSTROM, UN Medical Officer: Very serious injuries, both soldiers.

MR. THOMPSON: About what kind of injuries?

DR. PER MALMSTROM: Head injuries, neck injuries, one serious arm injury, and so on.

MR. THOMPSON: Privately, senior UN officers will say this operation's untenable unless it's mandate is changed. Ask the commanding officer for the Tuzla area what use of reaction force would be, and he talks about withdrawal.

COL. GORAN ARLEFALK, Regional UN Commander, Tuzla: If there should be a very critical situation, one, for example, a withdrawal of the UN troops here would be necessary. Of course, it's needed, someone to support the battalions.

MR. THOMPSON: But it's not just Bosnian Serbs creating problems, for the UN says Bosnian government troops are blocking its attempts to monitor the fighting. And the UN has long since lost the support of people in towns like Tuzla, where a Bosnian Serb artillery attack recently left 73 dead. Many lie in a new cemetery above the town. Most were teenagers or in their twenties, the worst such incident of the entire war. And where the shells struck the crowded streets, open anger from people who accuse the UN of failing to protect this so-called safe area.

WOMAN ON STREET: [speaking through interpreter] You know what? They allow the Serbs to take UN tanks, uniforms to massacre them, tying them up and strangling them. Our people don't do that, but they should. Sometimes I want to get a grenade and throw it at the UN transporters, no matter what the consequences.

MAN ON STREET: [speaking through interpreter] After this, they should have destroyed the Serbs' artillery, or give us the means to do it, and we will do it.

SECOND MAN ON STREET: [speaking through interpreter] There are people in England who want justice, and this is injustice, to kill like this. You've seen what happened in Tuzla. It's like this in every city. Where is the conscience of these people?

MR. THOMPSON: In his parlor, Tuzla's mayor says the Bosnian army will create its own safe area. The UN hasn't, he says, and his windows have the bullet holes to prove it.

MAYOR SELIM BESLAGIC, Tuzla: [speaking through interpreter] So we've got to form troops to protect UN troops who were sent here to protect us. Well, thanks for that kind of protection. I think this is nonsense.

MR. THOMPSON: Blocked by the Bosnian army, shelled by the Bosnian Serbs, into this, the British-dominated rapid reaction force is arriving. The weekend saw 105 millimeter guns carefully hidden in containers going into their base in Gorni Baku. As fighting continues among the warring factions in the ruins of Bosnia and now threatens the UN, the British believe their reinforcements will give them the necessary threat of force to deliver humanitarian aid.

LT. COL. JEFF COOK, Commanding Officer, British Regiment: I would see them being used in support of convoys who are delivering humanitarian aid but for some reason are either subjected to direct fire or indirect hindrance from other guns. They could then be used, as I say, to nullify that threat.

MR. THOMPSON: But the mandate's not changing as yet, and the UN can't open fire first so they hope the Bosnian Serb army won't open fire on them if they know the rapid reaction force is in the area.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the new culture debate, abortion protesting, and a Richard Rodriguez essay. FOCUS - CULTURE CLASH

MR. MAC NEIL: Next, the attacks against the entertainment industry at the outset of the presidential political season. Do media giants in Hollywood studios deserve blame for glamorizing violence, or are they just easy targets in presidential politics? Violent movies and rap lyrics are the focus of new Republican attacks, and Senate Majority Leader and presidential hopeful Bob Dole is leading the charge. In a speech last week, Dole targeted media giant Time-Warner, among others.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Majority Leader: [last week] One of the companies on the leading edge of coarseness and violence is Time- Warner. It is a symbol of how much we have lost. In the 1930's, its corporate predecessor, Warner Brothers, made a series of movies, including "G Men," for the purpose of restoring dignity and public confidence in the police. It made movies to help the war effort in the early 40's. Its company slogan put on a billboard across the city was: "Combining good citizenship with good picture making." Today, Time-Warner owns a company called Interscope Records, which columnist John Leo called "the cultural equivalent of owning half the world's mustard gas factories." Ice-T of "Cop Killer" fame is one of Time-Warner's stars. And I've got the lyrics, but I can't bring myself to repeat the lyrics of some of the "music" Time- Warner promotes. But our children do. And this is a point I want to make. Our children do. Oh, we can read the lyrics, it wouldn't have any impact, but it has an impact on our children. And there is a difference between the description of evil through art and the marketing of evil through commerce. And I would ask the executives of Time-Warner a question: Is this what you intend to accomplish with your careers? Must you debase our nation and threaten our children for the sake of corporate profits? The corporate executives, who dismiss criticism, should not misunderstand. I'm not objecting to some little tiny groups of zealots or an ideological fringe. From inner city mothers to suburban mothers, to families in rural America, parents are afraid and parents are growing angry. There once was a time when parents felt the community of adults was on their side. Now they feel surrounded by forces assaulting their children, their code of values. Let me add also that this is not a partisan matter. I'm a conservative Republican, but I'm joined in this fight by moderates, independents, and liberal Democrats.

MR. MAC NEIL: We're joined now by four people with views on violence, sex, and the entertainment industry. Larry Robinson is the president of Avatar Records, which produces a number of rap musicians. He joins us from Los Angeles. Michael Eric Dyson is director of the Institute for Afro-American Research at the University of North Carolina. He's author of the upcoming book Between God and Gangster Rap, Bearing Witness to Black Culture. He's in Raleigh, North Carolina. Delores Tucker is the president of the National Political Congress of Black Women, and John Leo, just quoted by Bob Dole, is a columnist for U.S. News & World Report. Mr. Leo, Sen. Dole says he wants to shame producers like Time-Warner into making records and movies less offensive because he believes they are corrupting popular culture, they're debasing the nation. You apparently agree with him. Tell us how they are corrupting and how they are debasing.

JOHN LEO, U.S. News & World Report: There's no doubt we have a more seriously degraded popular culture than we had 10 years ago. I mean, when I was young, we danced to things like "Moon in June." Now they dance to "Rape, Kill, Dismember." A popular culture like that depends partly on consumer choice but also on corporations willing to put out products that are anti-social. I think Time has a lot to answer for, and in the current issue of Time Magazine, the criticisms that I made in my column and that Bill Bennett and Delores Tucker made are now in Time Magazine. In the current issue, they basically admit they've, they've put out some pretty sleazy, scuzzy stuff that other companies wouldn't touch, and they're being called on it.

MR. MAC NEIL: To be corrupting or depraving, the content of these materials would presumably have to affect behavior, and do you believe it does? Do you agree with that, and do you believe it does?

MR. LEO: If you're a young male and you're growing up with all kinds of conflicts, and you go to a dance or listen to a song that says it's okay to act on your aggressive impulse, it's okay to treat women poorly, to damage them during sex, like a Two Live Crew rap song says, or to, or to torture, dismember, and slit their throats, as the Ghetto Boys did, I think that looses inhibitions. Criminal behavior doesn't come just from the art but it comes from a whole constellation of things, including what the culture says is all right to react to, and the culture says, this is all right, and it's not.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Robinson, how do you feel about that? Are these rap records and movies actually influencing behavior, depraving people and corrupting the country?

LARRY ROBINSON, President, Avatar Records: [Los Angeles] No. I really think that these records are not influencing youth to do these things. These records are merely reflective of the realities that youth in America are growing up with. I mean, when Snoop Doggy Dog talks about drive-by shootings or Ice Cube talks about gang warfare or things like that, they're not creating these images and creating these songs in a vacuum. They are merely reflecting what is reality in their communities, therefore, I think a more important dialogue, instead of talking about banning these records, is what can we do to change their realities, so that kids aren't dealing with talking about drugs in the community, unemployment, and things like this. I think that's the issue that we should be dealing with.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Tucker, what do you say to Mr. Robinson, who says these are just reflecting what's going on?

C. DELORES TUCKER, National Political Congress of Black Women: Children are very young and very impressionable, and we're concerned about children. The National Political Congress of Black Women declared war against this gangster rap in December 1993. And this was brought to us by women in the entertainment industry, young women who were artists and who were also executives that said they were tired of having our young black boys being exploited to carry a message of misogyny, that they should "kill the ho," they were tired of having their young sons and their young brothers calling them whores, bitches, and sluts, and they understood that no other group on the face of God's earth would have their young people exploited by any industry to call their mothers, their grandmothers, and their sisters whores, bitches, and sluts, and to "kill the ho," and Time-Warner was singled out, and that's why I went to the annual meeting, bought stock, so I could address the chairman of the board and address the board members and the stockholders to let them know that children emulate these role models that they place before them. The greatest role models to black children are Snoop Doggy Dog, Tupac Shakur, and all of the other stars that are telling them to be cool, to go to jail, and to make you understand how true it is, here's a young boy in this article who is 11 years old that killed his three-year-old sister. He shot his five-year-old sister. And when he went down to the police station -- had never been in trouble -- the detective asked him, why, and he said, "I was imitating Snoop Doggy Dog and doing all that stuff to my girls." And in the art work that comes with every Snoop Doggy Dog album, it has a gun, it has explicit sex, and it says, "Kill the ho," in the art work. Now, that is proof positive, as well as letters we have from prisoners, who are saying that I put myself in the video because I wanted to be somebody, and I did everything the video told me to do.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Dyson, where do you come down on this? Are these role models for young, particularly black, youth, or is it just reflecting, as Mr. Robinson says, the reality on the streets?

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, University of North Carolina: [Raleigh] Well, I think it's both. I think the sharp juxtaposition in gangster rap between the vulgar and the redemptive invites easy opposition and sometimes unprincipled attacks. I think the gangster rap does, indeed, reflect the larger social realities that young black men have to confront, and young Latino men and women as well. The problem becomes: Is this the most expedient way to deal with the political moral problem, or is it a more powerful way available? I think a more powerful way is available. If Bob Dole really wants to do something about violence in American culture, perhaps he should reverse his desire to repeal the ban on assault weapons that he wants right now. Violence is created by political choices, by public policies in American culture, that somehow undermine and degrade African-American youth. There is no doubting, and I am in sympathy with C. DeLores Tucker about the degree to which gangster rap incites some of the most lethal and heinous passions toward women called misogyny.

MR. MAC NEIL: You think it really does incite?

MR. DYSON: I think it --

MR. MAC NEIL: Not just rhetorically but literally incites, do you believe?

MR. DYSON: Well, I think it can rhetorically reflect the conditions of the larger American culture. My point is, though, is gangster rap the most powerful form of expressing misogyny in American culture? I would argue, no. The most visible form of misogyny certainly happens to be gangster rap. But the attack upon young, vulnerable black men as the most powerful exemplars of misogyny in American culture contradicts what we know to be the truth. What we know to be the truth is that misogyny and sexism are tried and true American social and political ideals and traditions that have to be challenged. They not only have to be challenged in gangster rap, they've got to be challenged in the Senate, they've got to be challenged in the Congress, in the synagogue, in the temple, in the church, and the nuclear family. Misogyny and sexism are spread out in our culture. To pretend that Snoop Doggy Dog is the most powerful exemplar of this tradition is to deny history. And let me add this -- that Snoop Doggy Dog is not simply talking about bitches and whores. He said, "Woked up, jumped out my bed. I'm in a two-man cell with my homey, Little Half Dead. Murder was the case that they gave me. Dear God, I wonder, can you save me?" There is a cry for redemption from what Max Vaber and theologians would call "theodosy," i.e., forms of evil. These young men are crying about the economic misery that we would rather sweep under the carpet of our conscience than deal with it as they do, in-your- face, up front --

MR. MAC NEIL: John Leo, how do you respond to that?

MR. LEO: Well, I think he's right. I don't think it's mutually exclusive. I think we do have to do something about guns and social conditions, but if you want to talk about, about songs right now, I think it's fair to say this is not a left-right issue, it's not a black or white issue. In my column and C. Delores Tucker and Bill Bennett's presentation to Time-Warner, they talked about Nine Inch Nails and other white acts. I think we can all get together and say that misogyny and this murder stuff has to get out of the, of the culture. And I think Time-Warner has asked for this. I want to respond to Larry Robinson's point about banning. I have heard no one talk about banning anybody yet. We're talking about shame and moral pressure and consumer boycott. We want Time to act responsibly, as a corporation ought to.

MR. MAC NEIL: Well, M. Robinson, suppose under this political barrage, the rap lyrics that Time-Warner said, okay, you've shamed us, Sen. Dole, and we're only going to promote or produce rap lyrics that are gentler, and they and other groups, movies that have less gratuitous violence, would that not -- would that be positive for the culture?

MR. ROBINSON: Well, I think we walk a very fine line.

MR. MAC NEIL: In other words, if there was stuff we all liked more --

MR. ROBINSON: Exactly. Exactly. I think it's very easy for us to say I think that's a very fine line that we walk. It's important to, I think, let artists express themselves, and what Mr. Dyson said I think was very accurate. These artists are crying out. They are not recording these songs in a vacuum. These artists are talking about these issues because that is what real -- that is what's real to them. It's important to them that we deal with these issues. We -- we -- we make sure that we don't blame the wrong party here. These rap artists are trying to express what's near and dear to them, and I think I really don't want a bureaucrat or a politician or a -- a cultural policeman to determine what is right and what is good rap and what is wrong and what is bad rap or rock'n roll or whatever.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay, okay, but I'm just --

MR. ROBINSON: I'm very uncomfortable with that. I mean, you know, I think it's very important to hear what these young men are saying. I'm not one that supports misogyny in lyrics. I'm not one that supports and buys records that denigrate women. I am totally completely opposed to that. But what we should do is we should hear this and understand that these --

MR. MAC NEIL: But you as a producer would publish or produce a record which had hatred or violence towards women in the lyrics? You would not?

MR. ROBINSON: No.

MR. MAC NEIL: But what about Mr. Dole's point that Time-Warner could say no too?

MR. ROBINSON: I'm saying every record company makes choices. Certain record companies think that the choices that they make are to, to put out music that might reflect these, these positions. But what I'm saying is that --

MR. DYSON: Can I say something here?

MR. ROBINSON: If I can finish.

MR. MAC NEIL: Just let Mr. Robinson finish. Then I'll come back to you.

MS. TUCKER: I'd like to say something.

MR. ROBINSON: If I can just finish, one second, Ms. Tucker. What I'm saying, everybody makes choices, but I'm thinking that what should we do about this, this situation? I'm thinking that we should have artists and record companies figure out what works for them relative to these issues. I do not what a bureaucrat or a, or a cultural policeman, as it were, telling me how many profanities, instances of profanity I can have in a record.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay. Let me go to Ms. Tucker, who wanted to come in.

MS. TUCKER: I'm not concerned about these -- I think these young artists are being exploited. That's why I went to the source. I went to the culprit, the culprit cultural, cultural perpetrator of this garbage. I'm concerned about the children, and they're the ones that are promoting it, they're producing it, they're packaging it, they're telling kids in this lyric here that Tupac Shakur says, "I'd rather use my gun, 'cause I get my money quicker." Young people can't sort out all of this psychological and sociological - -

MR. MAC NEIL: Excuse me. What effect did your going to the producers have?

MS. TUCKER: Well, going not to the producers but going to the - -

MR. MAC NEIL: Executives.

MS. TUCKER: -- going to the stockholders meeting, it certainly got the attention of the chairman, because he addressed it in his remarks. He said that he was asking his music directors, who couldn't even -- wouldn't even read the lyrics when I asked them - - to look into this, and we also got support from some of the board members. In fact, the founder's son was one of those who was -- who supported my position. One third of the stockholders applauded, and we also had other board members coming to us and telling us that they agreed with me. So we got a lot of support, and we made this issue public to the board of directors, to the stockholders, and to the nation.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Dyson, Mr. Dyson, you wanted to come in.

MR. DYSON: Yes. I think that first of all we have to understand kids would not listen to this music if it did not move them aesthetically. The politics of pleasure is the level of listening to the music. We could be saying something positive or negative. If it doesn't pull them in, if it doesn't musically seduce them, that's true, they wouldn't be listening at all. So the first principle is the politics of pleasure. And beyond that, kids are listening not simply to the negative, they're also embracing the positive. We're acting as if these kids are in a vacuum, that they don't make --

MS. TUCKER: Mr. Dyson --

MR. DYSON: Let me finish -- that they don't make distinctions - -

MS. TUCKER: Dr. Dyson, you're a friend of mine.

MR. DYSON: Yes. Let me --

MR. MAC NEIL: Let him finish, Ms. Tucker.

MR. DYSON: I think that we have to give them more credit for being able to make moral distinctions between what was enabling and edifying and that which is destructive and grating. I'm not pretending that these young black kids mostly, and others, don't live in a culture that reinforces misogynistic impulses. I'm simply saying it would not have done Martin Luther King, Jr. any good to attack the birth of the nation, which was destructive and deleterious, than it was for him to go out and appeal to laws that would inscribe into American culture justice and equality.

MR. MAC NEIL: But Mr. Dyson, may I --

MR. DYSON: It's not that the birth of the nation wasn't problematic.

MR. MAC NEIL: May I interrupt you just for a moment?

MR. DYSON: Yes.

MR. MAC NEIL: Isn't it traditional in any society which wants to defend its values for what is appropriate to be sold to or seen by or read by children, to be, to be decided by people in some authority over them?

MR. DYSON: There's no question about that.

MR. MAC NEIL: It always has.

MR. DYSON: I don't deny that. What I'm saying is this. I'm saying before gangster rap came out in 1988, there was so-called politically conscious and nation conscious rap. My good friend, C. Delores Tucker, was not then -- along with others -- praising Public Enemy for criticizing prophetically forms of racism and economic misery in American culture. They were not standing around congratulating the positive rappers. They were also castigating them and casting aspersion against them. These are crocodile tears from the --

MS. TUCKER: You're incorrect on that.

MR. DYSON: -- corridors of power, when they're paved with bad faith. I think what we ought to do is put this in a larger perspective.

MR. MAC NEIL: Mr. Leo.

MR. LEO: Every corporation has a bottom line. Simon & Schuster would not publish American Psycho, the slice and dice novel about women, it said not on our watch, and Grant Tinker wouldn't take Howard Stern, he said, not on my watch, but almost anything goes on Time-Warner's watch. The Urban League had a protest last week about Time-Warner, another Time-Warner record which recommends sex without condoms to young males. Well, how do you defend that? I mean, these guys will do almost anything for a profit, and they're paying the price now. The public is now being heard. They want a better public culture. They want a corporate life that's more responsible.

MR. ROBINSON: And I think corporations respond, I think corporations response, just like you say, to profits. I think gangster rap is really starting to fall out of fashion, and kids are definitely choosing other forms of rap music to, to buy. And I'm saying very definitively, if rap music, gangster rap, as you say, is -- starts not selling, Time-Warner will stop making it.

MS. TUCKER: Time-Warner just invested 80 million more dollars in Interscope to produce this filthy pornographic smut which is --

MR. ROBINSON: Ms. Tucker, Ms. Tucker --

MS. TUCKER: -- primarily sold to our children, it's a profit center, and this is greed-driven, drug-driven, and race-driven. That's what gangster rap --

MR. ROBINSON: I'm not here to defend Time-Warner or Interscope Records.

MS. TUCKER: Well, I'm not here to talk about --

MR. ROBINSON: Could I finish?

MS. TUCKER: Well, I'm not here to talk about --

MR. MAC NEIL: Just let him finish, Ms. Tucker.

MR. ROBINSON: All I'm saying is that I think it's more productive --

MS. TUCKER: I'm here to talk about our children.

MR. ROBINSON: And I'm here to talk about the children too. I think it's a more productive discussion to talk about what can we do to change the conditions --

MS. TUCKER: Stop producing this stuff. That's all.

MR. ROBINSON: Yeah. I understand. What can we do --

MS. TUCKER: Stop producing it and selling it to children.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay. Let me -- ladies and gentlemen --

MR. DYSON: Have we talked to Snoop Doggy Dog, have we had discussions with Tupak Shakur? Have we had intense investigations of the reasons --

MS. TUCKER: We want to.

MR. DYSON: Let me finish -- the reasons that lead to them to express --

MS. TUCKER: But they're being exploited by Time-Warner.

MR. DYSON: Okay. But what I'm saying --

MS. TUCKER: They're being exploited by the record industry, and we're going to stop that.

MR. DYSON: But I'm saying, Dr. Tucker. But wait a minute, hold on. I'm saying --

MS. TUCKER: We talked to Quincy Jones about this.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay.

MR. DYSON: No, no, not Quincy Jones. Have we talked to Snoop Doggy Dog? Have we talked to Dr. Dread?

MS. TUCKER: I've asked him to set up a meeting. I've asked him to set up a meeting. I've talked to Mayo Angelou to go to jail with him.

MR. DYSON: Here's my point. My point is --

MS. TUCKER: We want to visit with him.

MR. DYSON: This is my point. We ought to have a dialogue and discussion with these young people to understand what it is --

MS. TUCKER: We understand what it is. They're our children. We have children, relatives. They are all a part of this.

MR. DYSON: Okay, but I'm saying, Dr. Tucker, right now, what I'm saying --

MS. TUCKER: My little six year old niece is calling her teacher, "f" the teacher, and doing everything that the records tell her to do. It's in my family. I don't need --

MR. MAC NEIL: Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. Hold it. I'll turn the sound off in a minute. I'd like to have a little dialogue --

MS. TUCKER: I don't need -- it's in my family.

MR. MAC NEIL: Yeah, Ms. Tucker, just a moment. I'd like to have a little dialogue and discussion here. Mr. Leo, I want to know how effective these attacks are. A few years ago, Dan Quayle when vice president was ridiculed for taking on Murphy Brown. Did that have no effect? I mean, I notice, without studying this industry, there are a lot more movies that could be said to be supportive of family values or old traditions like "Forrest Gump" and the new Brady movie and all these things, which apparently -- "The Lion King" -- which are doing good business. Did what Quayle came out with, did that have an effect, and will what Mr. Dole is doing have an effect?

MR. LEO: Well, within a year, Bill Clinton was agreeing with Dan Quayle, so his campaign had some effect. I think we see the effect around us right now. Bill Bennett and Delores Tucker have moved mountains here. Time-Warner is under great pressure and I predict in the next week or so they'll make a dramatic change. I think they have to change.

MR. MAC NEIL: I should have said this earlier. We asked them to appear tonight, and they didn't want to --

MR. LEO: They pulled all their speakers on all the programs. This is the way they meet objections.

MR. ROBINSON: Can I say something here?

MR. MAC NEIL: Yes. Excuse me. First Mr. Robinson, then Mr. Dyson.

MR. ROBINSON: One thing I think we should be really discussing is what alternatives do we -- do we offer these young men. I'm saying when they have -- they grow up in a community with no jobs, with no hope, they're going to try to do whatever they can. In addition, they communicate this alienation in the, in the lyrics of their songs. I'm not supportive of misogyny, I'm not supportive of violence towards women, but I'm saying we have to be realistic and figure out what we can do to change the underlying social conditions that are conducive to this. These guys -- somebody said, have you talked to Snoop Doggy Dog and Tupac -- these guys are making music that is real to them. There's an expression in rap music, "Keep it real." These guys are only doing what reflects their, their reality. Also --

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Tucker, you didn't respond to Ms. Tucker, who said they're just being exploited by the, by the record producers.

MR. ROBINSON: Well, I don't think, in fact, they are being exploited. I mean, some of these artists that you're talking about are multimillionaires. They're doing very well. They're very well paid --

MS. TUCKER: And in jail.

MR. ROBINSON: Well, some of them are in jail. I mean, that needs to be talked about also, some of the consequences of living this life, but what I'm saying is that we can -- this is a non-issue. We can go around and around talking about the effect that these records have --

MR. DYSON: Can I speak here? I think --

MS. TUCKER: If I may make a statement here --

MR. DYSON: I think I was next though.

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Tucker, will you just briefly make a statement, and then that's it.

MS. TUCKER: I just want to make a statement that in the Washington Post on Friday, Samuel -- I think his name is Danny Goldberg -- stated that in response to Nine Inch Nails, which is pornographic as it can be, is this something we want our children exposed to? This is what he said. He said that, why should a corporation listen to a bunch of middle-aged people who don't like the music, don't listen to it, and ignore the people who love and buy it. When you were a teenager, did 50 year old people like music you liked? Well, we never did have pornography and obscenity that anyone liked even then or his executives wouldn't --

MR. MAC NEIL: Ms. Tucker, sorry to interrupt --

MS. TUCKER: -- today -- and I'd call for the dismissal of Danny Goldberg as head of, of the record company, Warner Record Company.

MR. MAC NEIL: Okay. I have to -- this middle-aged person has to interrupt it here, Ms. Tucker, and I thank you all very much for joining us. FOCUS - ABORTION BATTLES

MR. LEHRER: Now, anti-abortion protests in residential areas. The Supreme Court ruled today in an Ohio case that anti-abortion demonstrations in front of a physician's home could not be prevented by municipal ordinance. Residential picketing is a tactic being used by a number of anti-abortion groups to discourage doctors from providing such services. Lee Hochberg of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports.

DEMONSTRATOR SINGING: The babies deserve --

LEE HOCHBERG: It's a stormy, unsettled morning in Kansas. Under cover of darkness, 20 pro-life pickets assemble outside the home of physician George Tiller.

[DEMONSTRATORS SINGING]

MR. HOCHBERG: Tiller provides women's health care, including abortion services, at his clinic in nearby Wichita. The anti- abortion picketers come here to his home to call him a butcher.

DEMONSTRATOR SINGING: They lay their plans, the butchers of mankind.

MR. HOCHBERG: Two years ago, Dr. Tiller was shot in both hands by an anti-abortion activist. He returned to his practice, but on 89 Saturday mornings since, picketers have converged on his home. They warn him that nowhere, not even in his rural neighborhood, before sunrise on a weekend morning, can he escape them.

DEMONSTRATOR: We don't think the abortionist should ever have a time to relax. He should have to face up to his deeds, no matter here, at work, any place else we meet him. He will be confronted with the fact that he kills innocent children.

MR. HOCHBERG: Protesters also gather outside Tiller's clinic every day. Though pro-choice demonstrators try to defend him, Tiller has been forced into the protective hands of a U.S. marshall and rides an armored car to and from work. He denies interviews, but his spokeswoman says he's under siege.

PEGGY JARMAN, Dr. Tiller's Spokeswoman: It is a kind of, of mental torture.

MR. HOCHBERG: Tiller is one of twelve physicians nationwide targeted for harassment by the American Coalition of Life Activists, a radical anti-abortion group. In the last decade, other anti-abortionists have murdered five doctors or clinic employees and bombed or set fire to one hundred fifty clinics. Now, this new group, the ACLA, is waging a campaign of harassment against doctors, hoping to intimidate them out of the abortion business.

PAUL DePARRIE, Anti-Abortionist: If you get an abortionist to quit doing abortions, there are going to be fewer abortions.

MR. HOCHBERG: The campaign is patterned after a Portland, Oregon, program, co-directed by this man, Paul DeParrie. DeParrie has led home pickets in Portland for several years. He is one of thirty anti-abortion leaders who signed this petition which calls murder of abortion doctors morally justified.

PAUL DePARRIE: Homicide is justifiable in the law, in the laws of all 50 states in the union and under federal law and under English common law and under Judeo Christian ethics for 4500 years, if you -- if it is reasonable force, if it was necessary to defend the life of another person. We think that unborn people are just as much human as born people.

MR. HOCHBERG: DeParrie publishes this magazine and advertises the book A Time to Kill. It advocates the use of force in defense of the unborn. DeParrie, himself, calls Paul Hill, the man who murdered a Florida abortion doctor last year, a hero and says copycat killers would also be heroes.

PAUL DePARRIE: What Paul Hill did was morally justified. When he stands before God, God will not condemn him for what he did. I don't think so.

MR. HOCHBERG: Portland obstetrician-gynecologist Liz Newhall is chilled by some talk. A mother of two, she's another of the twelve doctors the ACLA has targeted.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: You just wanted to know if I was really alive and well and here today?

WOMAN: Yeah. I think, where's my doctor, where's she? I said, if somebody shot her, I'm going to kill 'em.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: I'm just working, darling.

MR. HOCHBERG: Newhall is being targeted not only for her vocal advocacy of a woman's right to choose but because of her leading role in national research trials on the abortion pill, RU-486. Bullets came whizzing through her office window recently, and her clinic has turned into a bunker.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: Tonight, bullet-proof glass is going to be installed right here with a steel bottom. Our three doors to the reception area here from the, from the waiting area to the back room and the back door will all be 14-gauge steel to prevent bullet entry.

MR. HOCHBERG: Her patients, already facing a difficult medical decision, now face the added obstacle of buzzing in at the clinic door, so they can be screened on this video monitor.

WORKER: Do we have a chart on you?

WOMAN AT DOOR: Yes.

WORKER: And is the gentleman with you?

WOMAN AT DOOR: Mm-hmm.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: Do I rely upon the common decency that says you don't spray bullets in a hospital, which is where my practice is located, you know, how much do I trust them as humans, how much do I fear them as, you know, insane, crazed fools?

DR. JAMES NEWHALL: Terrorists.

MR. HOCHBERG: Newhall's husband, James, a family doctor, is also on the anti-abortionists' target list. Both have been forced into a complex game of evading possible hunters.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: And I alter my appearance so that when I arrive to and from work it's not obvious who I am. I park my car in a different place. I drive a different route.

MR. HOCHBERG: On the advice of the FBI, James Newhall has begun wearing a bullet-proof vest.

DR. JAMES NEWHALL: I've made a point of wearing it whenever I'm in my car. When I'm going to or from the car, I wear the vest, because, again, that's where I think the vulnerable spot is. I spent much more time with my eyes on the rear view mirror seeing who's coming up behind me. I drive with the car doors locked. I never used to do that. I'm usually a creature of habit, and of course, that's how assassins get you, and so I have to consciously stop doing things habitually. I have got to say, yesterday I parked in the South lot, today I got to park in the East lot, you know.

MR. HOCHBERG: In addition to picketing outside the Newhalls' Portland homes, anti-abortionists have leafleted the neighborhood, calling Liz Newhall a child killer.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: I say I've got a libel case. I have a libel case. They put fliers in my neighborhood saying I'm a child killer. I'm not. I'm simply not.

PAUL DePARRIE: Sticks and stones, man. If she doesn't like it, she too, get out of the kitchen, if she doesn't like it, quit. If she doesn't like being picketed, that's fine. She can stop it at any time. Tell her to give our office a call. We'll stop it the moment she decides to stop killing babies.

MR. HOCHBERG: DeParrie has become a leader of the national movement. In April, he spoke at this ACLA training session in Wichita on so-called covert activities, how to use license plate numbers, real estate records, even information found in abortion clinic garbage to track the movements of abortion doctors and their employees. The ACLA banned our camera from the session.

SPOKESMAN: He'll talk to you out here on the parking lot, but we've asked the media to leave the building.

MR. HOCHBERG: Why is that?

SPOKESMAN: That'sthe wishes of the people here, if you would please leave and come back later.

MR. HOCHBERG: You're not willing to tell the public what vehicles you're employing?

MICHAEL DODDS, Anti-Abortion Activist: That's right.

MR. HOCHBERG: It's a secret.

MICHAEL DODDS: Basically.

MR. HOCHBERG: ACLA's South Central region director, Michael Dodds.

MICHAEL DODDS: We basically want to rely on oversight or, you know, a lack of awareness on the individuals' parts of the -- they're vulnerable in this area, so we can gain that information.

MR. HOCHBERG: The information they gather, though, sometimes is inaccurate, putting innocent bystanders in their path. As we followed protesters to four picket sites in Oregon and Kansas, they twice picketed the wrong location. DeParrie rallied this Portland crowd of 30 outside what he thought was the home of Dr. Richard Kearl. In fact, it wasn't.

SPOKESMAN: The person that you're picketing moved out two years ago at least. You can pick another building to picket somewhere around here, but the person that you're looking for just doesn't live here.

MR. HOCHBERG: The ACLA's co-director in Portland, Andrew Burnett, said he was concerned about the mistake.

ANDREW BURNETT, Anti-Abortion Activist: I don't see that as a big problem. Whether this building was picketed today or not, I mean, that doesn't create any danger for the people that are here.

ESSIE HENRY: I thought it was the Ku Klux Klan coming to kill me. That's what I thought.

MR. HOCHBERG: Fifty-eight year old Essie Henry of Wichita awoke recently to 15 white anti-abortion picketers marching with a cross in her front yard. Henry, a grandmother of four, who lives alone with her dog, does not now and never has worked in an abortion clinic. The ACLA had confused her vehicle license plate with that of her niece, an abortion clinic nurse.

ESSIE HENRY: I mean, you're running outdoors to go to work, and here's a white cross in your yard and 15 peoples walking around with signs, and you don't have time to read 'em. That's what I thought -- well, they're here to get me this morning. And actually, it really scared me, because when I got to work, my ears was still ringing from the fright that I ran out on.

REP. RON WYDEN, [R] Oregon: When we have them seeking to threaten and to intimidate, that's when a peaceful protest, which is protected, goes too far, and the federal government ought to take action.

MR. HOCHBERG: Oregon Congressman Ron Wyden calls the campaign terrorism. He's asked the US Justice Department to use federal anti-racketeering statutes to end it. DeParrie says government attempts to squelch his protests will lead to violence. He says the ACLA only began harassing doctors when Congress banned the group's previous tactic, blockading abortion clinics.

PAUL DePARRIE: When the federal government closed off the avenues of free expression, they invited trouble. You close off legitimate protests and you will get violence. I can guarantee that it'll happen.

MR. HOCHBERG: The ACLA's Burnett says harassment is protected as free speech.

ANDREW BURNETT: The question is: Do we have the right in this country to dissent? Do we have the right to stay, we don't like what someone's doing, or we don't like what's happening? And the fact of the matter is we do.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: They are inciting people who believe homicide is justifiable to kill me. I mean, that's what they've done. And they're washing their hands of it, saying it's free speech. It isn't. It's inciting violent crime. It's inciting homicide.

MR. HOCHBERG: As the campaign against the 12 physicians continues, it appears to be frightening other abortion doctors as well. The Oregon Health Department says the number of abortion providers in Oregon has dropped from 59 to 48 since 1992.

BOB DERNEDDE, Oregon Medical Association: Fear is very strong. The physicians who continue to provide the service are terrified. Many of them will say that they're not, but, in fact, they are.

MR. HOCHBERG: Patients too are scared, like this patient of the Newhalls' who wanted to keep her face off camera.

WOMAN: It went through my mind today, coming here and buzzing the bell to get in and, is there someone on the other side of the hall that's going to, going to shoot me?

MR. HOCHBERG: Doctors are hoping increasing disruption in residential neighborhoods will prompt a backlash against the harassment. Already, some Portland residents are standing up for their physician neighbors.

PAUL DePARRIE: Honest people do not kill babies.

MAN: This woman, she's my neighbor. She's a woman of honor, a woman of goodwill. She has a different point of view on abortion than you do.

PAUL DePARRIE: There were some people who had different points of view about you a hundred years ago and would have thought that you should have been a slave and remained a slave.

MR. HOCHBERG: But doctors know their compassionate neighbors can do only so much.

DR. JAMES NEWHALL: Well, when does the risk stop? And I don't see any end point. I don't see it stopping.

DR. LIZ NEWHALL: Yeah. What are you going to do? Are you going to stand up and say, okay, guys, you win, I quit, call off your dogs? I don't think so.

MR. HOCHBERG: If there's no government crackdown on the intimidation, it appears it will fall to the doctors, themselves, to stand up for reproductive services. ESSAY - SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

MR. MAC NEIL: Finally tonight, essayist Richard Rodriguez has some thoughts on events in Mexico, where today peasants protesting their economic situation temporarily blockaded the country's stock market.

RICHARD RODRIGUEZ, Pacific News Service: For all the dire news coming from the South these days, it occurs to me that if something is dying in Mexico, something also is coming to life. Dare we all it democracy? Octavio Paz, the eminent poet-essayist of Mexico, remarked a few years ago that Mexico, like Russia, never had an 18th century. Mexico was sired by the Catholic counter reformation in Spain. Even after independence, Mexico inherited from royalist Spain notions of governance that were obsolete elsewhere in Europe. For most of this century, Mexico has been governed by a single political party, a strong man politics called the Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI. [crowd chanting] Suddenly, in 1994, Mexico seems to be entering the 18th century. There are noisy demonstrations in the street. Opposition parties are winning elections throughout the country. The ruling party, the PRI, is collapsing from decades of corruption. We in the United States see only the blood and dust. We forget how messy our own 18th century experiment with democracy was. We think now of the 18th century and we remember powdered wigs, but, in fact, it began in the bare aftermath of the Salem witch trials. There was slavery in 18th century America, and settlers and Indians slaughtered each other. Europe was in turmoil. The old order was dying most spectacularly by the end of the century in France. In the 18th century, England had a mad King George, the colonies were restless, ultimately in rebellion. In Mexico today, light is playing on closets and through government corridors where dry rot has reigned. In the hills of Chiapas, as on the streets of Mexico City, in newspaper offices and in millions of Mexican homes, there is disgust at government officials with bloated bank accounts. Recent decades in Mexico have seen an astonishing Americanization. After a long history of antagonism between the two countries, Mexico in the 1950's began turning to the United States as her inevitable neighbor. Today, the elite of Mexico send their children to Ivy League schools. Peasants in remote Indian villages know when farmers need laborers to pick crops in the Central Valley of California. The middle class of Mexico, meanwhile, drinks Coca-Cola and watches the Dallas Cowboys on cable TV. [commercial] At the same time, Americans are willfully oblivious of Mexico, or, more frequently, we are encouraged by our politicians to build a taller wall or a deeper ditch to keep Mexico at bay. We are afraid, ultimately, that Mexicans are going to take our jobs, or that Mexicans are going to take our welfare dollars. We are afraid of Mexico's youth. Mexico is a teenager, while the average age in the United States ascends toward middle age. By the end of our 18th century, we had our adolescent pride, the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin had written his autobiography, and Thomas Payne had declared the rights of man. For as long as there has been life, women have been telling men that life begins with pain. Childbirth is painful beyond words. It is also messy and bloody. Life begins with a scream. Something now is being born in Mexico. The process is as messy as childbirth. It is like our own birth in the 18th century, when we were young and unafraid of the future. I'm Richard Rodriguez. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major story of this Monday was Hurricane Allison. It hit the Florida panhandle this morning, forcing thousands of people to be evacuated; sixty-five homes, three hotels were flooded, but there were no injuries reported. Allison was downgraded to a tropical storm later in the day. Good night, Robin.

MR. MAC NEIL: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight, and we will see you again tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.