Walter Cronkite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Political activism
Walter Cronkite speaks at a NASA ceremony in February 2004
Cronkite wrote a
syndicated opinion column for
King Features Syndicate. In 2005 and 2006, he contributed to
The Huffington Post.
[58] Cronkite was the honorary chairman of
The Interfaith Alliance.
[59] In 2006, he presented the Walter Cronkite Faith and Freedom Award to actor and activist
George Clooney on behalf of his organization at its annual dinner in New York.
[60]
Cronkite was a vocal advocate for free airtime for political candidates.
[4] He worked with the Alliance for Better Campaigns
[4] and
Common Cause,
[6] for instance, on an unsuccessful lobbying effort to have an amendment added to the
McCain-Feingold-Shays-Meehan Campaign Finance Reform Act of 2001 that would have required TV broadcast companies to provide free airtime to candidates. Cronkite criticized the present system of campaign finance which allows elections to "be purchased" by special interests, and he noted that all the European democracies "provide their candidates with extensive free airtime."
[61] "In fact," Cronkite pointed out, "of all the major nations worldwide that profess to have democracies, only seven – just seven – do not offer free airtime"
[61] This put the United States on a list with Ecuador, Honduras, Malaysia, Taiwan, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago. Cronkite concluded that "The failure to give free airtime for our political campaigns endangers our democracy."
[61] During the elections held in 2000, the amount spent by candidates in the major TV markets approached $1 billion. "What our campaign asks is that the television industry yield just a tiny percentage of that windfall, less than 1 percent, to fund free airtime."
[61]
He was a member of the
Constitution Project's bipartisan Liberty and Security Committee.
[62] He also supported the nonprofit world hunger organization
Heifer International.
In 1998, he supported President
Bill Clinton during Clinton's
impeachment trial. He was also a proponent of limited
world government on the American federalist model, writing fund-raising letters for the World Federalist Association (now
Citizens for Global Solutions). In accepting the 1999 Norman Cousins Global Governance Award at the ceremony at the United Nations, Cronkite said:
"It seems to many of us that if we are to avoid the eventual catastrophic world conflict we must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a world government patterned after our own government with a legislature, executive and judiciary, and police to enforce its international laws and keep the peace. To do that, of course, we Americans will have to yield up some of our sovereignty. That would be a bitter pill. It would take a lot of courage, a lot of faith in the new order. But the American colonies did it once and brought forth one of the most nearly perfect unions the world has ever seen."[63][64][65] Cronkite contrasted his support for accountable global government with the opposition to it by politically active Christian fundamentalists in the United States:
"Even as with the American rejection of the League of Nations, our failure to live up to our obligations to the United Nations is led by a handful of willful senators who choose to pursue their narrow, selfish political objectives at the cost of our nation’s conscience. They pander to and are supported by the Christian Coalition and the rest of the religious right wing. Their leader, Pat Robertson, has written that we should have a world government but only when the messiah arrives. Any attempt to achieve world order before that time must be the work of the Devil! Well join me... I'm glad to sit here at the right hand of Satan."[63][64] In 2003, Cronkite, who owned property on
Martha's Vineyard, became involved in a long-running debate over his opposition to the construction of a
wind farm in that area. In his column, he repeatedly condemned President
George W. Bush and the
2003 invasion of Iraq. Cronkite appeared in the 2004
Robert Greenwald film
Outfoxed, where he offered commentary on what he said were unethical and overtly political practices at the
Fox News Channel. Cronkite remarked that when Fox News was founded by
Rupert Murdoch,
"it was intended to be a conservative organization – beyond that; a far-right-wing organization". In January 2006, during a press conference to promote the PBS documentary about his career, Cronkite said that he felt the same way about America's presence in Iraq as he had about their presence in Vietnam in 1968 and that he felt America should recall its troops.
[66]
Cronkite spoke out against the
War on Drugs in support of the
Drug Policy Alliance, writing a fundraising letter and appearing in advertisements on behalf of the DPA.
[67] In the letter, Cronkite wrote: "Today, our nation is fighting two wars: one abroad and one at home. While the war in Iraq is in the headlines, the other war is still being fought on our own streets. Its casualties are the wasted lives of our own citizens. I am speaking of the war on drugs. And I cannot help but wonder how many more lives, and how much more money, will be wasted before another Robert McNamara admits what is plain for all to see: the war on drugs is a failure."
[67]
I really like this one
He was also a proponent of limited
world government on the American federalist model,
