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President Bush, Whose Scorn For Journalists Is Balanced By A Soft Spot In His Heart For The Conglomerates They Work For, Threatens To Veto The Senate Action. Keep In Mind That When The Public Was Asked To Submit Comments To The Fcc About Consolidation, Only One Percent Approved It. The President May Not Be Listening, But The Senate Is, And The Public Won This Round. The House Has A Similar Resolution Under Consideration.

-Bill Moyers

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President Bush, Whose Scorn

Bill Moyers

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President Bush, Whose Scorn For Journalists Is Balanced By A Soft Spot In His Heart For The Conglomerates They Work For, Threatens To Veto The Senate Action. Keep In Mind That When The Public Was Asked To Submit Comments To The Fcc About Consolidation, Only One Percent Approved It. The President May Not Be Listening, But The Senate Is, And The Public Won This Round. The House Has A Similar Resolution Under Consideration.

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President Bush, Whose Scorn For Journalists Is Balanced By A Soft Spot In His Heart For The Conglomerates They Work For, Threatens To Veto The Senate Action. Keep In Mind That When The Public Was Asked To Submit Comments To The Fcc About Consolidation, Only One Percent Approved It. The President May Not Be Listening, But The Senate Is, And The Public Won This Round. The House Has A Similar Resolution Under Consideration.

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I Have Seen Hate Born Of Fear, Hate Speaking In The Name Of God And Truth, Hate Holding Up A Distorting Mirror To Fellow Human Beings.

Television Can Stir Emotions, But It Doesn't Invite Reflection As Much As The Printed Page.

We Don't Care Really About Children As A Society And Television Reflects That Indifference To Children As Human Beings.

These Are The Now-endangered Markers Of A Civilized Society: Legally Ordained Minimum Wages, Child Labor Laws, Workers Safety And Compensation Laws, Pure Foods And Safe Drugs, Social Security, Medicare And Rules That Promote Competitive Markets Over Monopolies And Cartels.

I Can Tell You That The Job Of Trying To Tell The Truth About People Whose Job It Is To Hide The Truth Is About As Complicated And Difficult As Trying To Hide It In The First Place.

Fox News And Rush Limbaugh Have Raised Ignorance To Ideology And Stupefied An Entire Political Party. No More Roguish And Rowdy Band Of Predators Ever Did More To Demean And Despoil The Democracy On Whose Carcass They Feed.

Empty Your Knapsack Of All Adjectives, Adverbs And Clauses That Slo Your Stride And Weaken Your Pace. Travel Light. Remember The Most Memorable Sentences In The English Language Are Also The Shortest: "the King Is Dead" And "jesus Wept."

I Report The Assault On Nature Evidenced In Coal Mining That Tears The Tops Off Mountains And Dumps Them Into Rivers, Sacrificing The Health And Lives Of Those In The River Valleys To Short-term Profit, And I See A Link Between That Process And The Stock-market Frenzy Which Scorns Long-term Investments-genuine Savings-in Favor Of Quick Turnovers And Speculative Bubbles Whose Inevitable Bursting Leaves Insiders With Stuffed Pockets And Millions Of Small Stockholders, Pensioners, And Employees Out Of Work, Out Of Luck, And Out Of Hope.

Creativity Is Piercing The Mundane To Find The Marvelous.

The Interfaith Alliance Has To Become An Ongoing Sustaining And Powerful Movement Whose Interest Is To Prove That Religion Has A Healing Side As Well As A Killing Side, And That Democracy Is The Consequence Of Conscience

Barack Obama Strikes Me As A Man Of Strong Principles And Weak Convictions - The Kind Of Guy Who Would Rather Teach Constitutional Law Than Practice It, Or Who'd Rather Watch The Match Alone On Tv Than Arm-wrestle His Opponents.

In Those Days [1955], Affirmative Action Was For Whites Only. I Might Still Be Working For The Grocery Store In The Small Texas Town Where I Grew Up Were It Not For Affirmative Action For Southern White Boys.

Our Great Progressive Struggles Have Been Waged To Make Sure Ordinary Citizens, And Not Just The Rich And Privileged, Share In The Benefits Of A Free Society.

I Can't Speak For A War That I Believe Is Immoral.

Television Is A Medium. It Is Neither Rare Nor Well Done.

The Quality Of Democracy And The Quality Of Journalism Are Deeply Entwined.

The Property Qualifications For Federal Office That The Framers Of The Constitution Expressly Chose To Exclude For Demonstrating An Unseemly "veneration Of Wealth " Are Now De Facto In Force And Higher Than The Founding Fathers Could Have Imagined.

The Delusional Is No Longer Marginal.

The Most Important Thing The Giant Philanthropies Could Do - Gates, Rockefeller, Ford, Open Society Institute, And New Ones Emerging - Would Be To Create A $2-to-$3 Billion Trust For Independent Journalism. They Wouldn't Miss The Money, And Democracy Would Still Have A Fighting Chance Because Of Their Investment.

Our Media And Political System Has Turned Into A Mutual Protection Racket.

It's The People Who Are Doing The Nonviolent Organizing At The Grassroots That Make Me Think There's Still Hope.

We Have Got To Nurture The Spirit Of Independent Journalism In This Country, Or We'll Not Save Capitalism From Its Own Excesses, And We'll Not Save Democracy From Its Own Inertia.

When A Library Is Open, No Matter Its Size Or Shape, Democracy Is Open, Too.

The Corporate Right And The Political Right Declared Class Warfare On Working People A Quarter Of A Century Ago And They've Won. Take The Paradox Of Rush Limbaugh, Ensconced In A Palm Beach Mansion Massaging The Resentments Across The Country Of White-knuckled Wage Earners, Who Are Barely Making Ends Meet In No Small Part Because Of The Corporate And Ideological Forces For Whom Rush Has Been A Hero.

I Own And Operate A Ferocious Ego.

Big Money And Big Business, Corporations And Commerce, Are Again The Undisputed Overlords Of Politics And Government. The White House, The Congress And, Increasingly, The Judiciary, Reflect Their Interests. We Appear To Have A Government Run By Remote Control From The U.s. Chamber Of Commerce, The National Association Of Manufacturers And The American Petroleum Institute. To Hell With Everyone Else.

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