Ralph Nader Radio Hour Episode 118 Transcript Phil Donahue, James Cullen Steve Skrovan: Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour. My name is Steve Skrovan along with the man of the hour Ralph Nader. Hello, Ralph. How are you today? Ralph Nader: Good. We have a wonderful show today. Steve Skrovan: Yes. I’m very excited about the show today. In the second half of the show, we will be talking to James Cullen, editor of the Progressive Populist Magazine which as it’s title might suggest is one of the leading voices in the progressive movement. Ralph has sung the magazine’s praises frequently in this program. As always, we will check in with the corporate crime reporter Russell Mokhiber, the Stephanie Plum of the corporate crime beat. But, first, we’re going to talk about war and the media with a man who is a legend of the television industry. Our first guest, Phil Donahue, literally invented the modern daytime talk show. “The Phil Donahue Show” had a nearly thirty year run on American television that along the way garnered him twenty Emmy awards. The show touched on the serous social and political issues of the day and was the first to include audience participation. And, if I’m not mistaken, our very own Ralph Nader holds the record for the most appearances on the “Donahue” program. A few years after that run ended, Mr. Donahue hosted a similar show in MSNBC and was abruptly terminated shortly before the launch of the Iraq war. An internal MSNBC memo was leaked to the press stating that Donahue should be fired, because he opposed the eminent invasion and that he would be “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.” Over the years, Mr. Donahue has produced and hosted many TV specials and co­directed along with Ellen Spiro the feature documentary film “Body of War” which tells the story of Tomas Young, a disabled Iraq War veteran. The film effectively connects the politicians who voted for the war with the tragic human consequences of that decision. Welcome to the Ralph Nader Radio Hour, Phil Donahue. Phil Donahue: Thank you very much. Thank you, Steve. Ralph Nader: Super welcome from me, Phil. I just want to add to what Steve says as you’ve heard before. I think you were the greatest enabler of the First Amendment right of free speech by all people in the 20th century. Nobody reached more people in your 6,000 shows to give first expression and repeated expression to womens’ rights, advocate civil rights, advocate to consumer, labor and war champions, environmental champions, the rights of a press monitories and the centers of a whole variety of causes. You did it in the framework of an entertainment show, which is a real demonstration of skill that your lesser successors today on daytime television haven’t yet mastered. Dissent is the mother of all assent. If we look back in our history, the dissenters, when they finally prevailed, became normal. And the blasphemy of yesterday becomes the normal standard of today. Particular pleasure to invite you, especially on one of your great interests, which is the life of Tomas Young, a five day soldier in Iraq before he was shot and paralyzed and came back to Walter Reade Army Hospital. You spent a long time doing this documentary, “Body of War” just about what happens when people like Tomas Young come back. You wrote the foreword to the new book called Tomas Young’s War by Mark Wilkerson, who spent eight years in the Army Infantry and Airborne Divisions and decided he wanted to bring this story of Tomas Young to print as you brought it to your documentary film, Body of War. And in your foreword, you said the following about the book Tomas Young’s War: “Brilliantly rendered. Amid the unpleasant realities of urinary tract infections, hollow bedsores, leaking urine bags, failed erections, a collapsing marriage and blinding loneliness, Wilkerson finds a story of love, hope and fierce loyalty. Before another Commander in Chief swaggers before the news cameras and declares ‘Bring it on’ I want him to read this book.” That’s from your foreword, Phil. Can you start describing how you came upon Tomas Young and how you were drawn in to the necessity of sharply personalizing the agonies of veterans returning from war and what they remember they were forced to do overseas? Phil Donahue: Well, first things first, Ralph, it should be said that I never would have met Tomas Young had it not been for you. Tomas Young’s mother told you ­ this is not a woman who knew you, she only knew of you like everybody else in the world. She wanted you to come and meet her son. I think she was very concerned about the treatment he was receiving, how much attention he was getting and so on. Those bedsores by the way, I think are the result of the absence of attention. Those were sores that Tomas’s inert body sustained as he lie motionless on the couch for example at Landstuhl Hospital in Germany and then on the airplane all the way to Washington and Walter Reade. I happened to be in conversation with you not long after that. You said to me, “A mother at Walter Reade wants to see me. Do you want to go?” And I thought, “Well, yes. I had never been to Walter Reade. So, off we went and there he was lying as I said, motionless on the bed, very whacked out on morphine. And as I stood next to the bed, his mother explained his injury to me. Tomas sustained an AK­47 round that had come down from a rooftop as he drove in the back of an open topped truck down main street Sadr City. And the bullet entered his clavicle or shoulder area and exited T­4 on his spine. Anatomists know where that is. It’s between the shoulder blades. So, Tomas immediately was paralyzed from the nipples down. This wasn’t from his belt down. It was from his chest. I don’t know, somehow one of the other Army guys in the back of the truck slung him over his shoulder and somehow got him to triage and stopped the bleeding. And Tomas miraculously survived. Tomas was left unable to cough. If you think about it, you have to have control of your abdominal muscles to cough, to expel air from your upper respiratory system. He couldn’t do that. Of course, he couldn’t walk. He did have his arms, and he had ­ he could use his fingers … Ralph Nader: And he could read. Phil Donahue: Oh, yes. He could read. And he could watch television. Twenty­four year old, prime of life male, impotent, totally impotent. And I just couldn’t get over this devastating result of this injury. I had brought to this encounter a bewilderment as to how in the “land of the free” this could have been such a sanitized war. I mean, less than 5% of us made personal sacrifices to the so­called Iraq War. We’d never really had any awareness of the enormity of some of these injuries. We had women with their faces blown off. IEDs, you know Tomas used watch those wounded warrior shows where they played basketball and other things and walked with prostheses. That was not possible for him. I thought to myself, “Well, if you’re going to send America’s young men and women to war, show the pain, show the sacrifice. Don’t sanitize the war. And of course, Bush said, “You can’t take pictures of the flag­draped coffins.” And the whole press core said, “Okay.” Then one thing led to another, and I found myself in Kansas City at Tomas Young’s home where Marlo and I went and met him, she of course, meeting him for the first time. And I was just determined to do a movie about this. I figured while been I’ve been in TV all my life, why don’t I do something with the pictures here? And I called a woman in Texas whose name had been given to me by another progressive type. And I told them my story. I said, “I’m Phil Donahue.” And she said, “No, you’re not.” And I thought, “Well, great. She at least she recognizes me.” We met at the Kansas City airport and off we go meet Tomas. And I didn’t know what Tomas’ politics were. But when I walked in, I noticed on this coffee table were bumper stickers, one of which said, “Draft Republicans.” And I thought, “Well, now, what have we here?” And sure enough this is a warrior turned anti­warrior. I said, “Tomas, I want to do a story on what this euphemism means: ‘harm in harm’s way.’ What does that really mean? I think you are personification of that delicately worded – the language that we use to soften the pain of what we’ve sent young men and women to do. And I want to show ‘em what it really means, but I can’t do it without your permission.” He said, “I want to show that, too.” I said, “Okay, let’s go.” And off we went on what had become then an odyssey, really, a spiritual experience. Everybody who worked on that program, I had never ­ none of us had ever been this close to a catastrophic injury before.