Bill Moyers

I just read this transcript of Bill Moyers talking about the NOW show he used to host on PBS before retiring. Living in Sweden as I do, I’ve never seen the show (except for short clips here and there), but I have read transcripts now and then, and have great respect for Bill Moyers as a journalist.

So I was curious what the deal was when I read that PBS leadership had been pressed by right wingers in the administration into trying to make PBS more “balanced” (i.e. make them tow the party line). Fortunately Bill Moyers has come forward to talk about these events and share some opinions. Here are some good bits.

On his detractors:

Who are they? I mean the people obsessed with control using the government to threaten and intimidate; I mean the people who are hollowing out middle class security even as they enlist the sons and daughters of the working class to make sure Ahmad Chalabi winds up controlling Iraq’s oil; I mean the people who turn faith-based initiatives into Karl Rove’s slush fund; who encourage the pious to look heavenward and pray so as not to see the long arm of privilege and power picking their pockets; I mean the people who squelch free speech in an effort to obliterate dissent and consolidate their orthodoxy into the official view of reality from which any deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy. That’s who I mean. And if that’s editorializing, so be it. A free press is one where it’s okay to state the conclusion you’re led to by the evidence.

And here’s a good bit:

Hear me: an unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.

You the man, Bill.