Bill Moyers: For America's Sake - The Long Night Of the Junta Is Over...

[kpete]

For America's Sake
Bill Moyers


You could not have chosen a better time to gather. Voters have provided a respite from a right-wing radicalism predicated on the philosophy that extremism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice. It seems only yesterday that the Trojan horse of conservatism was hauled into Washington to disgorge Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist and their hearty band of ravenous predators masquerading as a political party of small government, fiscal restraint and moral piety and promising "to restore accountability to Congress... make us all proud again of the way free people govern themselves."

Well, the long night of the junta is over, and Democrats are ebullient as they prepare to take charge of the multitrillion-dollar influence racket that we used to call the US Congress. Let them rejoice while they can, as long as they remember that while they ran some good campaigns, they have arrived at this moment mainly because George W. Bush lost a war most people have come to believe should never have been fought in the first place. Let them remember, too, in this interim of sweet anticipation, that although they are reveling in the ruins of a Republican reign brought down by stupendous scandals, their own closet is stocked with skeletons from an era when they were routed from office following Abscam bribes and savings and loan swindles that plucked the pockets and purses of hard-working, tax-paying Americans.


As they rejoice, Democrats would be wise to be mindful of Shakespeare's counsel, "'Tis more by fortune...than by merit." For they were delivered from the wilderness not by their own goodness and purity but by the grace of K Street corruption, DeLay Inc.'s duplicity, the pitiless exploitation of Terri Schiavo, the disgrace of Mark Foley and a shameful partisan cover-up, the shamelessness of Jack Abramoff and a partisan conspiracy, and neocon arrogance and amorality (yes, amoral: Apparently there is no end to the number of bodies Bill Kristol and Richard Perle are prepared to watch pile up on behalf of illusions that can't stand the test of reality even one Beltway block from the think tanks where they are hatched). The Democrats couldn't have been more favored by the gods if they had actually believed in one!

..................

more at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070122/moyers

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

1. Moyers in great form as always -- I don't much care for...

...the term "national treasure" but he certainly is one. He sets the standard for what every serious journalist in this country should aspire to be.

[Uncle Joe]

4. I agree Mr Jefferson

"We too have a story of freedom to tell, and it too reaches back across the Great Depression, the Civil War and the American Revolution, all the way back to the Mayflower Compact. It's a story with clear and certain foundations, like Reagan's, but also a tumultuous and sometimes violent history of betrayal that he and other conservatives consistently and conveniently ignore.

Reagan's story of freedom superficially alludes to the Founding Fathers, but its substance comes from the Gilded Age, devised by apologists for the robber barons. It is posed abstractly as the freedom of the individual from government control--a Jeffersonian ideal at the root of our Bill of Rights, to be sure. But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and the license to buy the political system right out from under everyone else, so that democracy no longer has the ability to hold capitalism accountable for the good of the whole."

And thanks to kpete for this thread

Kicked and recommended

[brazos121200]

2. He is so right! Twelve years of the people's house in the hands

of the infidels was almost more than I could tolerate. Many things have gone the Democrat's way in the last few months to allow them to retake the House AND Senate. I hope they take the opportunity to do some real good for the people of the United States with the power they have won, after so many years of government of the rich, by the rich and for the rich. I have waited for this day for a long time, and can't wait for Madame Speaker Pelosi to take charge.

[renate]

3. k & r for Bill

I heart Bill Moyers so much!

[Wiley50]

5. "The Promise Of America Leaves No One Out"

Moyers is very inspiring.
If I only could get the ones who need most to read that,
to just read it.

But even those in my own family who have prospered through being fortunate in the free market
and who have let their preachers and Limbaugh convince them that
they deserve it because they are somehow better

They just will never focus long enough to read those four long pages.
Because their programming would be telling them all the way through
that it is a liberal trick, a brainwashing

And they are the very ones whose brain is long overdue for a good washing

[myrna minx]

6. K&R. n/t

[tblue37]

7. This line bothers me, though:

The Democrats couldn't have been more favored by the gods if they had actually believed in one!

Now, I am not religous myself, but I am all too aware that one of the most effective charges made by people like Ann Coulter and other wingnuts is that liberals and Democrats don't believe in God. As it happens, <i>most</i> [people in the US, <i>including liberals and Democrats,</i> do believe in God, so to say Dems don't just feeds into the perception, nourished by Republicans, that Democrats are godless. This undoubtedly costs them votes.

[Greeby]

8. Having worked under two Democratic administrations

I think we can let Bill get away with it :)

[tavalon]

9. Bill Moyer's gets the spirituality underlying the Democratic values

I think it was just a poor choice of words. He was trying to make sure we understood that the Republicans lost in November and that we were just the lucky beneficiaries because we don't articulate a vision that would make us deserve a win. We articulate a laundry list. A laundry list is not a vision.

I completely resonate with what Bill Moyers is talking about here. He's channeling Joseph Campbell into the political realm and it's high time. Americans don't give a damn about laundry lists, we want a visionary tale, a vision of a grand and magnificent journey during which we will slay dragons and save the fair damsels and we will strive for and achieve our very best selves. That's what Americans are longing for - we want to be heroes, not just consumers. The Republicans tell us stories of our lesser selves, our greedy, selfish selves and I for one am tired of it.

[Brewman_Jax]

10. Don't count out the neo-con republican freepers yet

they ran things for the past 12 years, got an idiot druggie draft-dodger installed as president, and have too many people that agree with them. This long night is not over. :scared:

[Armstead]

11. Yep -- It's too bad we don't have him on TV all the time

As usual Moyers goes beyond the inch-deep spin, and brings out the deeper truth.

The country would be a whole lot better off if folks like Moyers and Thom Hartman were more visible, and the shallow lap dogs like Chris Matthews and all the "reporters" that parade and prattle on the MSM were less visible.

[Blue State Blues]

12. My favorite line

". . . a moral vision of America based on the transcendent faith that human beings are more than the sum of their material appetites, our country is more than an economic machine, and freedom is not license but responsibility--the gift we have received and the legacy we must bequeath."

He phrases it in context as what progressives have failed to articulate in the past but just turn it around and it's the vision that needs to get out there. There is music in those words. And power. And determination. And hope.

Draft Bill Moyers '08!