Bill Moyers on His Legendary Journalism Career: "Democracy Should Be a Brake on Unbridled Greed and Power"
Democracy Now
In a Democracy Now! special broadcast, we are joined by legendary journalist Bill Moyers, a founding organizer of the Peace Corps, press secretary for President Lyndon Johnson, a publisher of Newsday, and senior correspondent for CBS News. Public television is where he has made his home, producing many groundbreaking shows and winning more than 30 Emmy Awards. Moyers has just published a new book, "Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues," a collection of interviews from his popular PBS show that aired from 2007 to 2010. "The greatest change in politics in my time has been the transformation of democracy, America, from a citizens’ society, the moral agency of all those people in the civil rights movement who stood up against the weight of authority and against persecution and acted as agents of change—the change from a citizens’ society to a consumer society, where most of us are caught up on that treadmill, trying to get more," Moyers says. In a wide-ranging interview, he also discusses the state of the public media infrastructure he helped to establish as part of the Johnson administration. "Public broadcasting, which remains a place that treats you as a citizen and not a consumer, is also threatened. We must defend it. We must call it back to its heights. We must continue to support it, because without it, we’re at the mercy, totally, of corporate power."
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6 comments:
One of the more insidious turns we have been led to take is the idea that government is a business and that citizens are clients. That bullshit perpetuated by the Right poses, perhaps, the greatest threat to democracy. Throw in the pitiful education our children receive and,well, folks we have work to do. Critical thinking has become our other national deficit.
Just wanted to thank you again for this great place. So glad to know you are here.
Thanks Cletis -- I don't think we can just blame the right, liberals have much to answer for ..... going to be posting Adam Curtis' recent BBC documentary All Watched Over By Machines of Loving Grace tonight.... I think you will find it interesting in light of your comments on this post.
I think the problem is that our corporatocracy (see the Bruce Levine post) has worked to turn engaged citizens into passive consumers.
Solidarity
Chris Hedges does a great job of explaining the failings of the liberal class http://www.google.com/#sclient=psy&hl=en&source=hp&q=chris+hedges+death+of+the+liberal+class&aq=1&aqi=g5&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=55a60aabf7224a16&biw=1366&bih=628
Lets try that again Chris Hedges: Death of the Liberal Class
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