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June 30, 2000

Can You Fight City Hall…If You Are City Hall?

Stories of a typically American kind of hero: The person who decides to fight city hall, who stands up alone for what's right, and damn the consequences. We hear the story of two idealists who work in government, two centuries after another set of idealists created the American government. Both of the modern idealists suffer and sacrifice because of their ideals; both lose their jobs.

Prologue

Monica Childs joined the Detroit police force because she hated cops, and wanted to change the system from the inside. She wanted to be an honest cop. Which she was able to do as she rose through the ranks—until one day in 1996, when it suddenly wasn't so easy any more. (5 minutes)
Act Two

Money Versus Man

A small-town mayor tries to keep a developer from building in his town...and it results in the kind of snowballing fiasco by the end of which the town literally doesn't exist anymore. Alix Spiegel tells that story, which she produced with funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (34 minutes)