A Few Reads for Today

 I was just thinking about Bill Moyers the other day and about how long it was that I had heard or seen him.  He was just great on PBS and other venues, always worth listening to his analysis of politics.  Today it was reported that Moyers, 91, had died in Manhattan after a bout with prostate cancer.

He was one person with a background in politics--he was LBJ's press secretary--who went on to have a long and great career in journalism.  This death hurts because voices like his are needed in depressing times like we are living in.

As noted in the article, Moyers won an Emmy Award today--the day his death was disclosed--over his documentary about two American families.

Snip:

Accepting the award, filmmaker Tom Casciato said, “I know Bill would want me to mention one thing that we’re not going to lose, that we don’t plan to lose, and that we want to thank. And that’s the only film and television entity in this country that would support a film like this over three decades — and that’s PBS.”

Moyers’ documentaries with FRONTLINE in the 1990s investigated issues including global exports of toxic waste, pesticides and chemicals in America’s food, and the Iran-Contra scandal. The 1990s was also when Moyers, Casciato and filmmaker Kathleen Hughes first began chronicling the lives of two families in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — one Black, the Stanleys, and one white, the Neumanns — fighting to stay afloat in a changing U.S. economy.

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The Roberts/Leo court continues on its insane quest to screw women over.

May the exodus of women from red states increase.

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Bill Moyers With Diane Ravitch

on the attempted destruction of public education by private interests:




link

We Have People Who HATE Our System of Government

and want to drown the whole goddamned thing in a bathtub, to use Grover Norquist's infamous phrase, but without the "goddamned":



link

Etc.

Obit: Longtime CBS foreign reporter Bruce Dunning, 73, died after a fall.

A much longer obituary is at CBS News.

Make sure to watch his famous and hair-raising report from Da Nang at the CBS link.

Dunning retired in 2005 and lived in New Jersey.
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"I've got mine, and to hell with you" is the name of the game.

Of course these people are self-centered jerks.

Actually, They ARE Evil

They made "their" money not through talent or merit but through gaming the system and outright theft, and they want a bigger share of the financial pie.

I am not sure I would want to buy this book if the author really thinks the ultra-rich aren't evil as a group.

Although short of solutions, Freeland highlights the danger when a small, self-serving and self-satisfied group dominate public discourse, then seek a system tilted even more in their favour. "I think the ultra-wealthy actually have an insufficient influence," says one billionaire Republican donor. Another says taxes should be virtually abolished, arguing that the government should pay the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for their contributions to society. "It's that top 1% that probably contributes more to making the world a better place than the 99%," he concludes outrageously.

Of course, it is the 99 percent who make the one percent possible, not the other way around. Labor creates wealth.

Here is an interview of the author and Matt Taibbi with Bill Moyers from a couple of weeks ago:



She does sound pretty good, though, in this interview. Taibbi always is good.

Etc.

Teaching was already hard work before the privatizers weaved their dubious magic on the educational system, but now the work has become almost intolerable with the ever-increasing demands.
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The far-right American Legislative Exchange Council gets a close examination from Bill Moyers.
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It is just outrageous what is going on with education in Louisiana.

The person clearly has some competence issues:

The director of Louisiana’s controversial new system to evaluate public school teachers had her own teaching certificate lapse.

“My teaching certificate is not active right now,” said Molly Horstman, who oversees the new review setup that state officials call Compass, Thursday.

Horstman, who spent two years in a New Orleans classroom, said the lack of a teaching certificate has nothing to do with her current post, which pays $77,000 per year.

This birdbrain is only 27 years old, hardly qualified for anything.

Bill Moyers

has a show about big money and its influence:

Miscellaneous Articles

I really hate this: Bill Moyers is retiring from weekly television.

He's one of the best thinkers out there discussing the issues that need to be discussed.
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If One Wants to Look at the Condition of Our Democracy,

all one has to do is look at what has become of our media now that there is no Fairness Doctrine, fewer owners of more media, and consequently little independent media.

Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered.

Corporate ownership of everything is inherently anti-democratic. But it continues unabated.

For Those Masochists

out there, here is the complete transcript of the Moyers-Wright interview which aired last night on PBS.

Courtesy of PBS via YouTube,

here are some clips of Bill Moyer's interview with Jeremiah Wright:

Clip 1:



Clip 2:



Clip 3:



Clip 4:





Jeremiah Wright needs to go back to the attic.