The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight, Ian Williams of Independent Television News updates the East Timor story. Chris Patten of the European union talks about East Timor- like operations in Europe and elsewhere. Terence Smith looks at a new report on movie and television violence. Mark Shields and Paul Gigot analyze the political week; and Fred de Sam Lazaro reports on a form of political affirmative action in India. It all follows our summary of the news this Friday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Foreign troops cracked down on anti-independence militias today in East Timor. They arrested a senior leader and conducted house-to-house searches for other militiamen blamed for weeks of violence. In Geneva, the U.N. Human Rights Commission held an emergency session to consider a war crimes investigation in East Timor. We'll have more on East Timor right after this News Summary. The Indonesian government suspended a new security law today. It had sparked two days of violent protests. Parliament passed the bill yesterday, giving the armed forces wide-ranging emergency power. Thousands of university students rampaged in response. They said it threatened the country's move toward democracy. At least four people were killed -- 115 injured. Back in this country, Republicans in Congress went right to work on a tax bill today. They did so despite President Clinton's veto of their nearly $800 billion tax cut yesterday. The House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill that renews $23 billion in tax credits. It was passed on a party-line vote. A Treasury official said President Clinton would likely veto them as well, unless there is a deal to use federal surpluses on Social Security and Medicare. On Wall Street today, stocks were off slightly after yesterday's big drop. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 39 points at 10,279. The NASDAQ was down nine points at 2740. The Dow declined 524 points this week. It's off 9 percent from its all-time high last month. An Oregon teenager pleaded guilty today to murdering his parents and two students in a 1998 high school shooting rampage. 17-Year-old Kip Kinkel gave up an insanity defense and entered the plea in a Eugene court. He was charged with four counts of murder --26 counts of attempted murder. His trial had been set to begin next week. In Taiwan today, a miraculous rescue from the earthquake ruins. We have more from Katherine Bonner of Associated Press Television News.

KATHERINE BONNER: Rescuers tried to shield the boy who they wrapped in a blanket, from the huge media peck which had gathered during the hours it took to pull him from the rubble. It was 87 hours after the massive earthquake struck Taiwan before six-year-old Chan Chen Hung was freed. He had been trapped with his parents and two sisters in the wreckage of this apartment building in Dali in Central Taiwan. When he found him he asked for water and asked why he was there and where were his parents. The rescue teams used their bare hands to remove concrete and debris fearing that machinery might unleash a torrent of concrete and other rubble, further endangering the young survivor. The rescue team's rescue leader explained how they'd got the boy out alive.

RESCUE WORKER: We have been working about nine hours.

KATHERINE BONNER: He said they had to dig for three meters before finding him.

JIM LEHRER: North Korea announced today it will suspend long-range missile tests. It said it will do so as long as talks continue with the United States. Negotiations on security have been underway in Berlin. Last week, the U.S. said it would ease its longtime ban on trade and investment with North Korea. Russian jets fired rockets on the capital of Chechnya today. It was the second day of air strikes. Witnesses said five people were killed and at least 21 injured. Thousands have fled. Apartment buildings and houses were among the targets hit. Russia said it was attempting to crush Muslim Chechen rebels who have twice invaded neighboring Dagestan. The attacks were the first on Chechnya since the 1994-1996 war. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to an East Timor update; Chris Patten of the European Union; movie and television violence; Shields and Gigot; and affirmative action in India.

UPDATE - PEACEKEEPING

JIM LEHRER: Our East Timor update is from Ian Williams of Independent Television News.

IAN WILLIAMS: It started as an act of defiance towards this ship full of departing militia, but it soon became a party as pro- independence supporters overcame their fear and spilled onto the street beside Dili's port. It was the first outpouring of emotion since the violence which followed the vote on independence. Suddenly, though, columns of Indonesian soldiers appeared, heading for the port, pulling out of East Timor. There was a moment of tension and uncertainty, the crowd parted, and through them marched the men blamed for much of the destruction of recent days. But the soldiers seemed resigned. They managed to hide any anger or humiliation and they prepared to board the ship to Jakarta. It's part of a big troop withdrawal which will remove the majority of Indonesian soldiers and police from East Timor. When the ship arrived an hour earlier, the mood had been very different. Australian troops were jeered at by soldiers and militiamen who'd arrived on the ship from other cities in East Timor. Australian helicopters buzzed overhead. It's not yet clear what damage these militias have done elsewhere in the territory, though the U.N. got its first inkling today when it sent a helicopter on a reconnaissance mission over towns in the western part of East Timor.

NICK BIRNBACK, U.N. Mission Spokesman: Large portions of the housing stock have been destroyed. There were fires still burning. Two houses were seen being on fire. In Maliana and Sui, up to 80 percent of the housing stock was actually destroyed. No vehicle traffic practically at all; very few people to be seen; and just basically scenes of pretty instances devastation.

IAN WILLIAMS: Earlier, Australian peacekeepers had mounted a massive show of force in Dili. Hundreds of soldiers backed by heavy armor and helicopters had closed down the eastern part of the city, searching from house to house. They showed little respect for the Indonesian soldiers looking on. The peacekeepers were taking control and this was designed to show it.

MAJOR NICK HERMAN: We have the entire area sealed off and if people were to escape the immediate location, they will get caught on the extremities.

IAN WILLIAMS: Three suspected militia members were found, dozens of others have already been arrested, including the one of the leaders of Dili's most notorious militia. The peacekeepers will make their prize captives available to any U.N. inquiry into the atrocities and today, they were talking tough.

MAJOR CHIP HENRISS ANDERSON: I think the message it sends to anybody is that you cannot run. You cannot hide. Justice is here.

IAN WILLIAMS: But they haven't yet stopped the burning which continues in Dili, and the commander of the peacekeepers warned that it may be some time before he's in a position to mount such an operation elsewhere in the territory.

MAJ. GEN. PETER COSGROVE: The troops are being deployed at a very rapid rate. However, this is not to say that this is overcoming the security problem in the wider part of the country. We always knew this was going to take weeks. We have been here a matter of a multiple of hours and days. That's all. This is going to be a protracted peacekeeping operation.

IAN WILLIAMS: Today, troops from the Philippines arrived to join the peacekeepers. General Cosgrove still insists, an 8,000 strong force will be enough, but it's a measure of the pressure he's under that he's

urging contributing countries to speed up their deployment.

NEWSMAKER

JIM LEHRER: Now, Europe's view of East Timor and other humanitarian disasters and to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: The European Union, made up of 15 countries from Finland in the North to Greece in the South is primarily an economic and trading block, but it is also trying to develop its own foreign and security policies, and in the wake of Kosovo, its own military capabilities. The EU's Commissioner for External Relations is Christopher Patten. He's a former member of the British Parliament and is Britain's last governor in Hong Kong.

Thanks for being with us, Commissioner Patten.

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Nice to be here.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Among the troops we just saw in East Timor on their way are member states of the European Union soldiers, British, Italian, French, and Portuguese soldiers, and European soldiers are in Kosovo too. Why? Why are member states risking the lives of their soldiers in these places?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Well, there are two general reasons: First of all, where there is intolerable abuse of people's human rights, I think particularly when it's within our own or on the borders of our own community, it's right for us to want to intervene, and that's what our publics want. Secondly, where we can do that effectively, it's right for us to do it. Now, there are particular arguments involving East Timor. For years, the rest of the world, Europe, North America, have pressed the Indonesian government to give the people of East Timor the right of self determination. We underpinned the U.N. mission when they were doing that, and when it led -- because they'd voted for independence -- to appalling violence, I think there was a real moral importance for us in getting involved in East Timor, and that's what we've done.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Mr. Patten, in your job, you have the lead responsibility for human rights policy, do you not?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Yes, I do.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Does this mean that you will be helping to develop the policies for when and where to intervene?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Yes, it does. Sometimes I think it's fairly clear cut, and I don't think anybody seriously believes that we belong to try to intervene and to intervene successfully in Kosovo, as we've intervened previously in the Balkans, which is, as it were in our backyard; it's part of our moral community in Europe. Talking about intervening beyond that, well, it depends a certain amount on how effectively we can do it and what our historical obligations and commercial and social obligations, historical obligations are to a place. And East Timor obviously has very strong connections with one of the member states of the European Union. But it's worth remembering that Europe is the biggest trading block in the world, the biggest single market; it runs the biggest development and humanitarian playground, and I think it's important that we have a voice in foreign affairs and are able to make that voice into something more than just rhetoric from time to time.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Is that why you want your own military capability for the European Union?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Well, we've had our capability as part of NATO, and we don't want to do anything we shouldn't, other than under the NATO umbrella. It's very important to get that clear, but we do think that Europe should be prepared to do more in the context of NATO to stand up for our own interest, and we also think that there are particular areas where Europe can make a contribution in conflict prevention, in peacekeeping operations, and so on. But we've obviously got some difficult issues to resolve on this matter because some of the members of the European Union aren't members of NATO, and there are some members of NATO, like Turkey, which aren't members of the European Union, so we've got to do this sensibly, taking account of individual countries' interests, but, above all, the message is a clear one -- that Europe has to be prepared to punch its weight. The United States has been pressing us, rightly, to do that for years and now we've got the chance to show that we're listening to the message.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: What kind of military capability are you talking about?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Well, one of the things that was -- I think -- pretty clear during the Balkans crisis was despite the fact that we spend a lot of money on defending ourselves, we don't actually have the technological ability to sustain overseas operations for the length of time and with the effectiveness that the United States enjoys, so it raises serious questions about the way we spend money, about the amount we spend, and about how much value we get for our spending. I think that's a serious question which the new NATO secretary general, George Robertson, was raising in a speech in Ottawa the other day or in Canada.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And do you think Europeans are willing to pay for this? This is going to be expensive, right, because haven't the European military, as a whole, been drawn down significantly since the Cold War?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Well, I think everybody's made some adjustment in their military spending since the end of the Cold War. It isn't necessarily always a matter of spending more. It's a matter of spending money effectively. George Robertson, who I referred to a moment or two ago, was saying recently that it had taken us a great deal of time and effort to put -- to get 2 percent of our forces into Kosovo. And it raised questions about how effectively we were using the other 98 percent. And that's a question which all of us have to address. But for Europe, it's not just a question of being able to deploy military capacity; it's also a question of effective development assistance, of helping with reconstruction, of helping, which will be a problem in East Timor, as it is in Kosovo, in helping establish civil administration, because there isn't any in East Timor, just as there wasn't any in Kosovo.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Commissioner Patten, as you know, this week, the President, President Clinton, and also Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the U.N., addressed the question of when and where and why to intervene when there are mass humanitarian violations. You touched on this a little bit. How are you going to make those decisions?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Well, I think that the speeches of Kofi Annan and President Clinton opened up an extremely important and interesting debate. And there were some responses to that. The Chinese foreign minister, for example, seemed to imply that the nation state was absolutely sacrosanct and you could never do anything which involved interfering in somebody else's country, whatever that government was doing. Now, it's a neat reversal, because, of course, it used to be the Marxist notion that national governments didn't matter, that the revolutionary working class should dominate and run everything. Now, what we're saying and what a lot of countries are saying is look, there are issues which arouse the conscience of the world, and you can't limit what countries do, according to one country's ability to veto things in the Security Council. And you have to find some basis for operating where you can be effective and where it is clearly justified by the scale of the atrocities being perpetrated. I spent some years as a development minister for my own country. And what was terribly frustrating was we became much more successful, much more professional at being able to deliver assistance, to help people who were the -- who were the victims of political failure. We were much less effective in preventing the political failure in the first place. And that's something we've got to address.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you think we're in the midst of a historic redefinition of state sovereignty?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Well, I think state sovereignty is being redefined by a lot of things. It's being redefined by information technology. One reason why people have been so concerned about what happened in East Timor, not just people in Australia, not far away, but people in Europe and people in North America, because they can see what happened on the television, and it's undoubtedly the case that communications today focus international anxiety far more on humanitarian issues. Now, we have to be very careful; we have to be very careful that we don't just behave in a given way internationally because one television crew has been on the spot. There are lots of places where humanitarian abuses are committed where there aren't any television crews on the spot. But, nevertheless, I think we have to face the fact that there are consequences to the conduct of foreign policy of that globalization, globalization which has had such spectacular economic effect and globalization, which has helped to shape and educate opinion in individual national countries.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And Commissioner Patten, how long will it take before the European Union has its own military capability of the sort that you're talking about now?

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Well, what we're starting to do is to consider what needs to be done to enhance the capability, which we already have under the umbrella of NATO. And I repeat nothing is going to be done which in any way undermines NATO because NATO has done a fantastic job and will continue to do a terrific job. So everything we're doing is under the NATO umbrella. But I think an area where we can... where we can be innovative and imaginative is in the area I mentioned earlier, of conflict prevention, of managing crises, of developing peacekeeping in a more effective and flexible way. And I think we... I hope we'll be starting to do that fairly rapidly. It's what's called in the European jargon, the Petersburg task, the task we identified as one of the main focuses for our development of a common foreign and security policy but the NATO link is absolutely sacrosanct and it's very important that the spokesman for European foreign ministers who will be starting work in a few weeks' time is Javier Solana, who is, of course, the Secretary-General of NATO.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right. Thank you very much for being with us.

CHRISTOPHER PATTEN: Thanks very much indeed

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, media violence, Shields and Gigot, and changes in India.

FOCUS - MEDIA AND VIOLENCE

JIM LEHRER: New criticism of violence on television and in the movies; Media Correspondent Terence Smith has the story.

TERENCE SMITH: In the past year, the nation's airwaves have been filled with scenes of horrific violence, from Columbine High School to offices in Atlanta, Georgia, to a church in Fort Worth, Texas just last week.

SPOKESPERSON: She got shot!

TERENCE SMITH: In the wake of these incidents, Americans have been questioning themselves about whether the violence on our streets has any relationship to the violence on our screens. Hollywood immediately found itself on the defensive. Two violent episodes of ongoing television series were pulled, and a handful of others reworked. Now comes an ambitious new study out this week that asserts that the volume of violence on television and movie screens continues at very high levels.

ROBERT LICHTER, Center for Media & Public Affairs: Hollywood is selling and glamorizing violence, and it may, in the process, be making American kids more violent.

TERENCE SMITH: Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, billed the study as the most comprehensive look at a broad range of media to date. The study found that, on average, television and movie viewers encounter an act of serious violence once every four minutes, serious violence being defined as murder, rape, kidnapping, and assault with a deadly weapon. The study also analyzes how violence is portrayed in the media.

ROBERT LICHTER: It's remarkable the degree to which violence in entertainment is presented as relatively harmless, necessary, and even laudable way of solving problems. We found that good guys commit violence almost as often as bad guys in both television and movies.

TERENCE SMITH: Among the top ten most violent TV series cited by the study: CBS' long-running and highly rated "Walker, Texas Ranger," HBO's "Oz," an award- winning series about life behind bars. And the syndicated show, "Mortal Kombat," which was spawned by a controversial video game. Among the top ten most violent movies, Warner Brothers' "Lethal Weapon 4," "The Mask of Zorro," and topping the list, the Oscar- winning "Saving Private Ryan."

ROBERT LICHTER: You don't want to get rid of the "Private Ryans." You don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. But that bath water is getting pretty toxic at this point. If we don't get rid of some of it, it's going to start to harm the baby.

TERENCE SMITH: Shortly after the Columbine incident, Jack Valenti, head of the Motion Picture Association of America, urged the entertainment industry to use restraint and to excise any gratuitous violence. This week, his organization criticized the Lichter study, saying it fails to reflect the more recent self-policing actions of the industry. Attending the press conference in support of the study was Kansas Senator Sam Brownback.

SEN. SAM BROWNBACK, [R] Kansas: This is something we need to examine and discuss, not legislate. I think it's very important that we do this in an atmosphere where we're saying to people, "we're not trying to pass any laws or trying to censor anybody, but we are trying to examine the totality of the impacts of where the American culture has gone."

TERENCE SMITH: Nonetheless, Senator Brownback has introduced legislation that would create a Senate task force to address what he called the country's cultural crisis.

TERENCE SMITH: Joining us now for a discussion on violence in mass media are Robert Lichter, an author of the study whom you saw on tape few moments ago; E.J. Dionne, a "Washington Post" columnist and scholar of government at the Brookings Institution; and Rupert Wainwright, the director of "Stigmata," which debuted as the number-one grossing film two weeks ago. He has also directed advertisements and award-winning music videos. Welcome to you all. Mr. Wainwright, let me ask you, the study essentially argues that the entertainment industry is filling its products with more and more gratuitous violence. Is it true?

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: I think that violence is inherently attractive. And I think that we live in a very violent society. And I think that there's been violence in entertainment from the Iliad, through the Bible, through Shakespeare. I don't think violence in entertainment is going away. And I think from my own point of view, I'm much more concerned with the access that people have to the tools of violence, than I am about them seeing violence on the screen. I'm much, much more concerned about government protecting individuals by gun laws than I am protecting individuals from watching what goes on the screen.

TERENCE SMITH: Robert Lichter, what is the evidence that violence on the screen engenders violence in life?

ROBERT LICHTER: Well, this is the sort of thing that is consensus now in the scientific community. Everybody from the Surgeon General to the American Academy of Pediatrics has concluded after looking at all the research that violence in the media does contribute to violent behavior among kids, also makes people become desensitized to violence -- in the case of some kids, scares kids. But I'm always struck when Hollywood people say it's not us; it's the guns out there. Yet you look at the product and what the product does is to glamorize good guys who use guns. So we may need gun control laws, maybe Hollywood needs to control the way that it glamorizes the use of guns.

TERENCE SMITH: E.J. Dionne... I'm sorry, Rupert.

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: Yes. I was going to ask you a question. Obviously I'm sensitive to the points you make here, but the entertainment that Hollywood makes... by the way I'm not here to defend Hollywood ...but the entertainment that Hollywood makes goes to all over the world. And if you look, for example, at the violence in Canada or England or Australia or New Zealand and see substantially the same programming, you see very radically different rates of violence, especially lethal violence, than you do in the United States of America.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, that actually touches on a point that E.J. Dionne raised in a column earlier this week. You raise the question, is there a link between the gun culture in this country and the violence that we see on our entertainment?

E. J. DIONNE: Yes. I think the problem with the argument we've had since Columbine and through all these other dreadful events is that each side throws up the issue of culture or guns as a shield against the part of the argument they don't like. If you want to defend violence on television, you say the problem lies entirely with guns. In the meantime, gun control opponents keep saying no, no, no, it's not guns, it's the culture. I think the fact is it's both and they may be intertwined. Doing something more serious about gun control ought not to block you from asking Hollywood, asking film producers to be more socially responsible. When you look at what the entertainment industry has done toward attitudes about race, about gender, about gays and lesbians, they have tried to engender a more tolerant atmosphere in our country. And that's good. If they can do that about prejudice, certainly they can think about the impact of what they put on our screens and televisions, especially on kids, and think about doing something about that. It's not censorship; it's corporate responsibility.

TERENCE SMITH: Is there a sentiment to do that, Mr. Wainwright in Hollywood, in the community that you're familiar with?

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: Well, I'm very familiar with my own personal sense of responsibility in terms of what I want to show in films. I would say that a lot of people share that awareness but at the same time you have to remember Hollywood is not an organization. Hollywood is a town with a lot of competing corporate entities that are all trying to get a larger market share. And essentially what you've got is a capitalist system that is putting up entertainment, not even that it particularly cares for but is just trying to get viewers. I'm sad to say that time and time and time again, that the people who own those corporations make more money when they put out violent programming than they do when they put out family fare that everybody asks for the whole time. Yet very few people go and watch.

TERENCE SMITH: Yes. I think that's a point. Robert Lichter, let me ask you this. You mentioned in the study the effective ratings and there are ratings on television and in film. Are they effective? Do they work?

ROBERT LICHTER: This is something that really struck me that we did not expect to find. We just matched up our ten most violent TV shows and ten most violent movies against the ratings. And found that a majority of both had ratings that said these are fit for kids. The majority of the top ten violent movies were PG-13. "Private Ryan" is an "R" but a kid can see "Rush Hour," "Private Marshals." And the TV shows were TV-PG. So, in theory, even if we say, look, this is a price we pay for a free society, for a capitalist society, in which anything there's a market for goes, there is supposed to be a mechanism to help parents protect their kids from this stuff. That's not working.

TERENCE SMITH: Go ahead.

E. J. DIONNE: What I wanted to say to what Mr. Wainwright said earlier is first of all I agree with rates of lethal violence in America being worse because of our gun laws. So, we are not arguing about gun control here. I think what people are asking of the capitalist institutions in Hollywood is that they exercise some corporate responsibility like others do. There was an appeal issued earlier this year signed not only by conservatives like Bill Bennett or Sen. Brownback, but by Jimmy Carter, Mario Cuomo, Gerald Ford. And they said, look, we don't want censorship; we do think we should back to some standards in the movies, it ought to be possible to reduce the overall level of violence, especially the level of violence at times of day on television when kids are going to see it. It ought to be possible to ask the industry not to market these films to people who aren't adults. I think one of our conflicts as a country is we respect the right of adults to see whatever they want. Yet people are also parents as well as being just simply adults and they want to protect their kids. What we're trying to do, and I don't think we've found it, is to find a reasonable balance that will protect the rights of artists but also say we do have a problem in the country and, yes, part of it is a cultural problem.

TERENCE SMITH: Rupert Wainwright, you told us today that voluntarily you changed a scene in the film "Stigmata" even after it had been approved and gotten its rating. Tell us about that and why you did it. Were you feeling some pressure to do that?

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: No pressure whatsoever, actually. Not from the ratings board not from the studio, not from anybody.

TERENCE SMITH: Or from the climate at large?

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: You know what? What I did feel was that I didn't want the movie to be focusing on the most violent moment in the movie and the explicit showing of that. I didn't want people to focus entirely on that rather than the movie as a whole. It's not a very violent film as it happens but there was one very violent incident in it. And I didn't want that to become the only important point in the movie, so I trimmed it down so that people could, you know, imagine it happening, rather than see it more explicitly. And to be honest, it was a very cynical point of view. I didn't want people, you know, attacking the film for a totally irrelevant aspect. Coming back to the point about how individual producers and directors and writers and actors feel in Hollywood, a lot of them are parents. I, myself, am a parent. And I think that if you ask them, are you interested in helping increase a higher sense of responsibility in the arts, every single one of them would say yes, we absolutely are. I don't think there is any resistance in Hollywood towards an increased sense of responsibility in films and in television. I think there is a welcoming for that.

TERENCE SMITH: Well, there may be but Robert Lichter did, you find any of that?

ROBERT LICHTER: If the welcome mat is out, I don't see anybody crossing over it. When we found that on all different genres, music videos, cable TV, broadcast TV, movies and theaters, you get similar rates of serious violence, say about one every four minutes, and a lot of that violence is in the top ten in any category. It's clear violence has become a commodity like widgets.

TERENCE SMITH: So violence is popular.

ROBERT LICHTER: Yeah. It's being sold as pure sensational -- I think Mr. Wainwright is getting to something here. He excised a scene because he had a sense of narrative and moral responsibility and gratuitous violence means you are selling the sensation instead of advancing a narrative.

TERENCE SMITH: You were trying to say?

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: You know, I completely forgot what I was going to say. Coming back to that, let me just ask something here. One of the points you make when you're talking about me exercising responsibility about narrative and graphic and "Private Ryan" is sort of good violence and other programs are not necessarily good violence, I personally completely agree with you about that. I'm working on a film now that the approach to violence is similar to that of "Saving Private Ryan." What I'm worried about is some kind of, you know, some kind of group of big brothers who go, good violence, bad violence. Good violence yes, bad violence no -- not because I'm worried about... not because I think there isn't a distinction, but I'm just not sure I want anybody telling me or other people what that is.

TERENCE SMITH: Especially anyone from the government which, let me ask you is there a constructive role for government to play in this?

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: Yes. It smacks of Russian censorship.

TERENCE SMITH: Which, let me ask you, E.J. Dionne, I mean, is there a constructive role for government to play in this?

E. J. DIONNE: I think there is a narrow role in terms of giving parents some tools. I think the V-chip is a reasonable alternative to censorship. I agree with Mr. Wainwright, I don't want censorship; I don't want the government setting up people sitting there in Hollywood. I think V-chips and things like that where parents have control over the television to make sure, they might keep certain things away from kids are useful. Mr. Wainwright, first of all good for him for cutting the scene. But secondly what he is showing is that in fact this movement to pressure Hollywood, it's not big brothers sort of ramming them with the hammer. It's a lot of people in the country saying look, you guys make all this entertainment. You guys make a lot of money out of it. You ought to think twice about certain things you might put in the movie that may well be gratuitous and in fact not artistically very interesting or creative either. I think he responded to that and it suggests that there is change happening without the big brother of government setting up shop in Hollywood.

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: May I say something?

TERENCE SMITH: Yes.

RUPERT WAINWRIGHT: Three times, four, five times about all aspects of violence -- personally I'm very, very strongly agree that violence without the result of violence is basically pornography. I am shocked and horrified by it. But I really don't want... I don't want to be the person who decides what pornography is and what's erotic literature, you know. So at the same time I don't want to be the person, nor do I want anybody else telling me good violence, bad violence.

TERENCE SMITH: All right. Just a few seconds left, Robert Lichter. Isn't the ultimate weapon of the consumer, the box office? Too violent. Don't go see it.

ROBERT LICHTER: Well, as a civilized society there have been social prohibitions in which people don't go and those prohibitions are being moved rapidly. The other point is it's not big brother. There is an industry board, Jack Valenti sits on, made up of parents but these ratings are not eliminating the violent shows from kids.

TERENCE SMITH: Okay. Thank you all very much. We're out of time. I appreciate it.

FOCUS - POLITICAL WRAP

JIM LEHRER: Now to Shields and Gigot-- syndicated columnist Mark Shields and "Wall Street Journal" columnist Paul Gigot. Tax cuts, the President vetoed it yesterday. There's talk today, Mark, that there might still be some hope for a compromise. But it's over, isn't it?

MARK SHIELDS: It is over, Jim. There will be a tax bill. A tax bill to extend tax breaks that would expire this year and there will be small business...

JIM LEHRER: That came out of the Ways and Means Committee today.

MARK SHIELDS: That's right.

JIM LEHRER: But the White House said the President is going to veto that, too.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, think the problem is they haven't paid for it or figured out how to pay for it. If they do, and it gets popular enough, and I think there will be some tax relief on the minimum wage. I see a compromise between increasing the minimum wage and putting some small business, especially restaurant relief or tax breaks in that one.

JIM LEHRER: So, Paul, all of this commotion we've been talking about it here every Friday night here for weeks now and the end result is nothing.

PAUL GIGOT: No, I don't agree with that, Jim. The end result -

JIM LEHRER: It was a question.

PAUL GIGOT: Policy.

JIM LEHRER: It was a question.

PAUL GIGOT: The end result on policy for now is nothing. But it's setting things up for a debate over the size of government, a philosophical debate in the election of 2000 about whether you want to keep the surplus in Washington or whether you want tax cuts. It is a big debate. It ought to take place in an election.

JIM LEHRER: It's something...it's legitimate -- a legitimate division between Democrats and Republicans. That's what you're saying?

PAUL GIGOT: Sure. I think the President, in his statement, said something interesting. He said I'll sign a bill if it's small enough. He'd love on behalf of Vice President Gore, to get the Republicans to come in and agree to a negotiation to get some kind of a tax cut that is small enough that it really kept... it really didn't take too much money out of Washington but allowed him and the Vice President to neutralize the tax issue for use in 2000. I don't think the Republicans are going to fall for that.

MARK SHIELDS: Just one quick thing, Jim. It's the only arrow sadly left in the quiver of conservatives. Crime is gone as an issue. Cold war is gone. This is it. It doesn't tell. It didn't sell in 1999. The economy is good. They have money in their pockets and the lure and the appeal of a tax cut was not there. The Republicans found it when they went home. Every poll has showed American people are not committed to it.

JIM LEHRER: John King on CNN yesterday made that very point -- that isn't it unusual for a President of the United States to make a big to do with a ceremony at the White House about vetoing a bill that would cut everybody's taxes?

MARK SHIELDS: He did.

PAUL GIGOT: He didn't say "I won't sign on one." Lee doesn't want to be positioned of being against tax cuts. Neither does Al Gore. It would be a mistake for the republicans to say that's the only issue we'll run on. But as an arrow in the quiver, it is more powerful than Mark thinks.

MARK SHIELDS: Well, we'll see. It just... I'll say it, that dog did not hunt. That dog food was not eaten in 1999. I think if the economy went south, you know, and there was unemployment up and inflation... I think there would be a popular appeal for a tax cut.

MARK SHIELDS: Okay. The Pat Buchanan story. People are screaming at him and he's screaming back and going back and forth. What's going on, Paul?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, I think that as he's become a Reform candidate, he's becoming... he's taken more seriously. He has this book out where he is hoping to make a statement about American foreign policy. Instead he's got himself wrapped up in a debate about what he thought about World War II and whether or not Hitler was a real threat if he had been able to consolidate Europe. Pat Buchanan argues no, he was more worried about Russia so Europe and England and France really shouldn't have attacked. Well, there are some settled issues in American politics and World War II is one of them. And I don't think that as a presidential candidate, he really wanted to bring that up. He is finding himself very much on the defensive and I think increasingly marginalizing himself as a major figure in the Republican Party certainly.

JIM LEHRER: And just in the last couple of days, John McCain came out with a strong statement criticizing him and then Elizabeth Dole and then today Forbes' campaign manager did which is, at the early part of the controversy, Republicans were saying don't go, Pat. Now they are saying good-bye, Pat. That's a big reversal, is it not?

MARK SHIELDS: Yes. I think, Jim, there are a couple of things at work here. First of all, Pat Buchanan who is a very smart and able guy shot himself in the foot. This is a self-inflicted, self-indulgent controversy he created. You do not introduce hypothetical complex historical arguments in the heat of a political campaign especially on a subject where you're vulnerable to charges of anti-Semitism. That's what Pat Buchanan did not need to be. I mean, he hurt himself and his followers by doing that. That's the first thing. Once the blood was in the water, you'll see Forbes and McCain...

JIM LEHRER: McCain was first.

MARK SHIELDS: McCain was first and Mrs. Dole, you'll see a whole parade of them, and conservative columnists and editorial pages attacking Pat. Why? Because Pat as the Reform candidate...they want to disable him so the Reform Party doesn't take him. And they say Pat takes -- for every three votes Pat takes, two of them come right out of the Republicans. That's a concern.

JIM LEHRER: You think it's that cynical?

PAUL GIGOT: No, I don't. I was going to say there may actually be some principled divisions here. I think what's interesting is Pat is waving the red flag and saying charge conservatives to a new movement. And activists and journalists are saying, sorry, Pat, you're in no way a conservative anymore. I mean here's a man who savages Republicans for not showing enough fealty to social issues. And he's willing to join a party, the Reform Party, which doesn't care a lick about social issues. He is increasingly statused in his free market -- abandoning free markets especially on trade. And on foreign policy, an element of conservatism has been a muscular foreign policy that's willing to intervene abroad and he is repudiating that. So in a sense he is really not a conservative anymore.

JIM LEHRER: Speaking of cynicism, Orville Swindel, you know, who was a POW and who helped found the Reform Party with Ross Perot, made a statement today. He said, "There is a possibility this has all been stirred up by Pat to get all of the publicity. When you're not in the spotlight, you're bleeding to death" - meaning that Buchanan as a Republican was doing very poorly and only chance he had was to run as a Reform candidate.

MARK SHIELDS: I don't think there is in I question that Pat was not doing nearly as well as he did -- in 1992 he was the only challenge. He was the conservative alternative to George Bush, the President. In 1996, he was the leader and the carrier of the conservative banner. He beat Bob Dole, the establishment candidate, in the New Hampshire primary. And at that point the establishment of the party trained its guns on Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan self-inflicted wounds. No question about it. Was this an opportunity for them to jump on Pat, absolutely. Did he give them the gun and hold it out there, yes, he did. But, make no mistake about it -- these same folks who are saying Pat is not a good fit with the Reform Party, they are saying what about Jesse Ventura. He is for legalization of prostitution; legalization of marijuana. Nobody is talking about this being a fit anywhere. Nobody is talking about Donald Trump and his position of national... American nationalism or economic nationalism. You know, it's kind of a double standard at work, it strikes me.

JIM LEHRER: That's an unusual thing in politics, isn't it?

PAUL GIGOT: Well, you have got $13 million, that because of our campaign finance law somebody is going to get. If you are a Republican, who would you rather have it, Donald Trump who people really won't take too seriously, or Pat Buchanan, who might get up there and savage your candidate?

JIM LEHRER: You are not suggesting, are you, Mark, that Pat Buchanan would care a lick about the Reform Party if it didn't have $13 million?

MARK SHIELDS: Not at all. I'd also say that with George W. Bush, and Steve Forbes having basically unlimited funds, unlimited funds, it changes the whole dynamic of the nominating process. I mean, Bob Dole could not compete under this nominating arrangement when you have got two candidates with that kind of money who are not held to the same spending. They can go in and spend $10 million to $12 million in Iowa and New Hampshire. That changes the dynamic. Buchanan is interested in the Reform Party because it is $13 million, because it is a chance for him to get his ideas out and probably be shot down as loony as well. But make no mistake about this, Jim: If, in fact, it looks like Pat Buchanan is going to get the nomination, and Paul is right, Donald Trump is a landlord from New York who is a casino owner, is not going to get 5 percent, Jesse Ventura wants to run in 2004. In order to do so, he has to get 5 percent this time. He will get into the race himself. Don't you agree?

JIM LEHRER: Do you see it that way?

PAUL GIGOT: I do. The problem though, the Reform Party isn't a political party. It's a Halloween party. I mean, you've got Ross Perot who comes from in and out of touch with reality. You've got Lenora Fulani, who is an important figure. She thought Michael Dukakis was some kind of white supremacist. Pat Buchanan is going to have lunch with her to talk about whether or not... she doesn't agree with anything he does except they all agree they need to get 5 percent of the vote with that $13 million.

JIM LEHRER: Back to a point you made a while ago, both of you made, is this flap about Pat Buchanan going to make him too much for the Reform Party?

PAUL GIGOT: I don't know because it is such an amalgam of disparate voices. It's hard to tell if there is a Reform Party there. So if he gets enough money from Ross Perot, who is his big ally now -

JIM LEHRER: There was a report today that Perot is putting out signals yeah, I want you, Pat.

PAUL GIGOT: He may be able to buy, in essence, the nomination with enough ballots and Internet votes because the process is not like a normal convention. So he may be able to win the nomination anyway.

MARK SHIELDS: I think Pat is on the edge, the cusp of becoming radioactive politically that. And that would do him in for winning the Reform Party or any other party's nomination.

JIM LEHRER: All right. We'll see what happens. Thank you both.

FINALLY - RESERVING A PLACE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, a story about India. More than 600 million Indians have been voting this month for a new national government. The results will be announced in October. Whatever the outcome, there have been some big changes at the local level. Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KCTA, Minneapolis/St. Paul, reports on India's efforts to give more political power to the poor and to women.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In the north Indian village of Kanwra, the slow, arduous way of life has not changed for centuries, it seems, for people like Ramwaiti. In India's rigidly laddered rural society, Ramwaiti sits on the bottom rung, a caste of cleaners, whose job is to sweep and pick up garbage in homes where they aren't even allowed indoors. However, two years ago, Ramwaiti, a woman of few words and no formal education, was elected president of the village council, essentially the mayor. "A group of people came to me and asked me to run," she says, "so I did." Ramwaiti's election is the result of a controversial 1993 amendment to India's constitution. It brought affirmative action or reservations to local government at two levels: Caste and sex. The act mandates that on a rotating basis, one-third of India's half million villages must be led by women, a set percentage of them from lower castes. Throughout the subcontinent, politics have been a male and upper-caste domain. Village councils set priorities, like roads, schools and sanitation. Council presidents are supposed to then work with regional bureaucracies to obtain the grants to fund them.

RAMWAITI: [speaking through interpreter] We should do all the development work. We need roads and water pumps. We need new rooms for our school. I have worked to bring grants to the village.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: In Kanwra, Ramwaiti talks about the village needs, but few believe she could do much without Mr. Satya Dev, an upper- caste political ally and veteran of village politics. Dev himself takes credit for bringing water pumps, for creating a road around the village, and in helping keep the village books, which register things like land transactions and tax collections.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: This is your signature and this is the thumb print of the mayor?

SATVA DEV: Yes.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: However, critics say it is Dev, not Ramwaiti, who really pulls the strings in the village. Chedda Madl is a high caste farmer and retired village chief himself.

CHEDDA MADL: [speaking through interpreter] This mayor, she's illiterate. She's from the weaker sections of the society. She cannot be expected to put up any resistance. She is completely in the hands of Mr. Satya Dev. All the projects are for his personal benefit.

RAMWAITI: [speaking through interpreter] No, not at all.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Ramwaiti insists she is not influenced by Dev, and he denies getting any personal gain. But even though they're allies now, Dev opposes the affirmative action system that put Ramwaiti in the mayor's job. He likely won't support her in the next election when the mayoral seat will no longer be reserved for a lower caste woman.

SATYA DEV: [speaking through interpreter] They should educate these people before letting them into positions of power. There should be a minimal level of, maybe tenth grade.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Although most political parties in India say they approve some form of set-asides, Vinod Mehta, editor of the news magazine "Outlook," says at ground level, it's met with resistance.

VINOD MEHTA, Outlook: You're taking on 2,000 years of the way the village has been run and now you're saying it must change. I think there will be lots of resistance, there will be lots of attempts to sabotage it, but I don't see actual violence, too much actual violence. But I see institutionalized efforts to sabotage it, yes.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: But Mehta says there are places where the reforms have taken hold. Kerala, the lush coastal state in the south, is one. At the village hall in Mattathur, the council president is also a low-caste woman. But Mani Kuttapan confidently calls to order this meeting to discuss the problem of alcoholism.

MANI KUTTAPAN: [speaking through interpreter] We have to all work together. It is my job as panchayat president to bring the whole community together on this issue.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Kuttapan took over the job earlier this year, assuming the second half of a six-year term she won in a power-sharing pact with Vasantha Kumari, an upper-caste woman. Kuttapan says her priority is to get information to lower-caste communities, officially called scheduled castes.

MANI KUTTAPAN: [speaking through interpreter] Scheduled caste people have long been looked down upon, so the government has put in place a number of schemes to help them. But people need to be made aware of these things that can help them.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Both Kuttapan and her upper-caste political partner belong to the state's long-ruling communist party, which prides itself on bringing nearly 100 percent literacy to Kerala. Even in this lower-caste section of the village, children can be seen with books, catching the day's last light in front of their unelectrified homes. Village President Kuttapan herself has a high school education. However, the State of Kerala has relatively low private investment and high unemployment, a problem especially for women according to Vasantha Kumari.

VASANTHA KUMARI: [speaking through interpreter] Women are treated like second-class citizens, because they are not earning. So our objective is to include employment as part of the council plan, to organize self- help groups so women can borrow from each other, instead of from money lenders, who they are forced to go to.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Among the small cottage industries that have been developed to help women are basket weaving, using the abundant palm fiber and chips made from the native jack fruit, which are sold in larger cities in South India. Yet even in relatively progressive Kerala, the playing field is far from even between the sexes. In this chip factory, for instance, men are paid about 25 percent more for than their female work mates, a common practice throughout India.

VASANTHA KUMARI: [speaking through interpreter] This is the first time a woman has become village president. This has been ruled by men, this has been dominated by men, so it is not easy to change the situation in three years. It can only be changed over a longer period of time.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: And even though her lower-caste partner says she feels supported as the village president, Vasantha Kumari says it will be a long time before lower-caste people gain widespread acceptance.

VASANTHA KUMARI: [speaking through interpreter] There need to be reservations for women and also for scheduled castes. Political parties are not interested in fielding women candidates and scheduled castes unless there are reservations. So reservations are a must.

FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Even though the pace of change may seem slow, many experts predict women like Vasantha Kumari and Mani Kuttapan, will grow as a political force on the national scene. Set-asides or reservations, like programs to help women in general, have the support in principle of most political parties and in practice of many non-governmental organizations.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Friday: Foreign troops cracked down on anti-independence militias in East Timor, arresting a senior leader and searching house-to-house for others. And back in this country on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 40 points closing the week down a total of 524 points. We'll see you on-line, and again here Monday evening. Have a nice weekend. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.