Bill Moyers' "Special Letter to the President"

[humanmachinery]

This is a reprinted transcript of an address Bill Moyers read on PBS, and all I can say is "dayum." This speech is a fierce critique of both Obama, the news business, and American politics as a whole. I never imagined I'd read someone from PBS giving our politicians the Jon Stewart treatment.

Good for him.


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The editors of the Economist magazine say America's healthcare debate has become a touch delirious, with people accusing each other of being evil-mongers, dealers in death, and un-American.

Well, that's charitable.

I would say it's more deranged than delirious, and definitely not un-American.

Those crackpots on the right praying for Obama to die and be sent to hell -- they're the warp and woof of home-grown nuttiness. So is the creature from the Second Amendment who showed up at the President's rally armed to the teeth. He's certainly one of us. Red, white and blue kooks are as American as apple pie and conspiracy theories.

Bill Maher asked me on his show last week if America is still a great nation. I should have said it's the greatest show on earth. Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio.

Speaking of which: We've posted on our Web site an essay by the media scholar Henry Giroux. He describes the growing domination of hate radio as one of the crucial elements in a "culture of cruelty" increasingly marked by overt racism, hostility and disdain for others, coupled with a simmering threat of mob violence toward any political figure who believes healthcare reform is the most vital of safety nets, especially now that the central issue of life and politics is no longer about working to get ahead, but struggling simply to survive.

So here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction. Governed -- if you listen to the rabble rousers -- by a black nationalist from Kenya smuggled into the United States to kill Sarah Palin's baby. And yes, I could almost buy their belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only I think he shipped them to Washington, where they've been recycled as lobbyists and trained in the alchemy of money laundering, which turns an old-fashioned bribe into a First Amendment right.

Only in a fantasy capital like Washington could Sunday morning talk shows become the high church of conventional wisdom, with partisan shills treated as holy men whose gospel of prosperity always seems to boil down to lower taxes for the rich.

Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him.

No one's ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying "pretty please" to the guys trying to cut your throat.

Let's get on with it, Mr. President. We're up the proverbial creek with spaghetti as our paddle. This healthcare thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution -- the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as Gen. Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory "Made in the USA." We could have said to the world, "Look what we did!" And we could have turned to each other and said, "Thank you."

As it is, we're about to get healthcare reform that measures human beings only in corporate terms of a cost-benefit analysis. I mean, this is topsy-turvy -- we should be treating health as a condition, not a commodity.

As we speak, Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, has been fined a record $2.3 billion as a civil and criminal -- yes, that's criminal, as in fraud -- penalty for promoting prescription drugs with the subtlety of the Russian mafia. It's the fourth time in a decade Pfizer's been called on the carpet. And these are the people into whose tender mercies Congress and the White House would deliver us?

Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government-run insurance plan alongside private insurance -- mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors whose only interest is a company's share price and profits.

Here's a suggestion, Mr. President: Ask Josh Marshall to draft your speech. Josh is the founder of the Web site TalkingPointsMemo.com. He's a journalist and historian, not a politician. He doesn't split things down the middle and call it a victory for the masses. He's offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan -- one that essentially asks people: Would you like the option -- the voluntary option -- of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President.

This healthcare thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.

[rb336]

right on bill.

the best point -- the Pfizer comment

[elganned]

Hear, hear!

[Lorax]

Bill Moyers has always been my hero- certainly the conscience of the fourth estate.

The Pfizer comment really brings it home. We are dealing with a system of class warfare, the billion dollar corporations agains the people.

Remember the 8 years of the Tush Administration when our TV's were inundated with a new "drug of the week" for everything from "restless leg syndrome" to "peripheral artery disease"?

The repackaging of old diseases with new, untested drugs that kill people was the order of the day with a defunded FDA under Bush.

I wouldn't take a prescription anything unless absolutely necessary under the current circumstances.

More to the point, Obama needs to come out swinging against this phony outrage/racism from the Reich.

If he doesn't, and health care doesn't have a public option as a bare minimum, then reform will be a failure. Just another give-away to corporate greed.

Kudos, Bill Moyers, keep the good fight in your heart. You represent the best of your field, and have for decades.

[humanmachinery]

the best point -- the Pfizer comment

Agreed, they are an evil fucking company. I've known several people who used to work for Parke-Davis or Upjohn.

Pfizer bought those businesses, shitcanned all the employees, and took the patents. I hear that's how they've operated for decades.

They also ran a lobbying campaign that held the State of Michigan hostage, with demands for immunity from lawsuits. Pfizer said if they didn't get the bill passed, they'd be forced to pack up and leave.

The bill passed, and all Pfizer jobs promptly left the state.

[elganned]

Guess "torte reform" wasn't enough to keep them happy.

[Pam]

I hope the Pres. is listening. I'm going to be pissed if he signs anything that doesn't have the public option.

[ccbatson]

He is screaming for a dictatorship in the US, as if the constitution never existed.

[humanmachinery]

Yeah, because a President and a Congress elected by the majority of voters [[and who advocated public health care as a key plank of their platform) would just be insufferably tyrannical if they acted upon their campaign promises.

My only consolation to free market fetishists is to repeat the words I often read when George W. Bush started a war on false pretenses, illegally spied on American citizens, held people without warrants and tortured them, ginned up phony terror warnings for political gain, pissed on the Geneva Conventions and led the known universe in signing statements…

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard."
-H. L. Mencken

[elganned]

He is screaming for a dictatorship in the US, as if the constitution never existed.

"Obama delenda est!"

Who is screaming for a dictatorship? Bill Moyers? I don't see anything in the letter that can be construed to that end.

[Lorax]

He is screaming for a dictatorship in the US, as if the constitution never existed.

Here's what the Reich's screaming looks like:

[ccbatson]

Yes Moyer, he is begging for big government to get more aggressive...a dictatorship.

[elganned]

What a complete distortion, unsupported by any rational reading of the document in question.

He is begging for his president to stop being a wimp and get up and fight for his program. That is leagues away from calling for a dictatorship.

Your willingness to deliberately--and cynically--misrepresent seemingly knows no bounds.

[rb336]

"Obama delenda est!"

Who is screaming for a dictatorship? Bill Moyers? I don't see anything in the letter that can be construed to that end.

Anything and everything that is against bats' tiny little absurdist dogma must be pro-dictatorship. Of course, little things like allowing the govt to intercept, sans warrant, our private phone calls, our emails, or allowing them to monitor, again sans warrant, our reading habits by forcing librarians to become informants, or by getting rid of such pesky things as the writ of habeus corpus so they can imprison anyone without charges or presenting the evidence against us, are clearly OK with him and his ilk, because they were being done by the right wingers

[Lorax]

Anything and everything that is against bats' tiny little absurdist dogma must be pro-dictatorship. Of course, little things like allowing the govt to intercept, sans warrant, our private phone calls, our emails, or allowing them to monitor, again sans warrant, our reading habits by forcing librarians to become informants, or by getting rid of such pesky things as the writ of habeus corpus so they can imprison anyone without charges or presenting the evidence against us, are clearly OK with him and his ilk, because they were being done by the right wingers

Exactly what happened, and is the dictionary definition of fascism, which Batts supports.

[oladub]

Anything and everything that is against bats' tiny little absurdist dogma must be pro-dictatorship. Of course, little things like allowing the govt to intercept, sans warrant, our private phone calls, our emails, or allowing them to monitor, again sans warrant, our reading habits by forcing librarians to become informants, or by getting rid of such pesky things as the writ of habeus corpus so they can imprison anyone without charges or presenting the evidence against us, are clearly OK with him and his ilk, because they were being done by the right wingers

They 'were' being done by right wingers. They are now being done by the other crowd in office. I haven't heard anything about librarians lately but all the rest is still in place and the wiretapping powers have been expanded.

[rb336]

They 'were' being done by right wingers. They are now being done by the other crowd in office. I haven't heard anything about librarians lately but all the rest is still in place and the wiretapping powers have been expanded.

which, frankly, proves that those in office are still right-wingers. they are still to the right of Dwight D Eisenhower, regardless of what the wing nuts here say

[ccbatson]

Illogical conclusion Rb...the real answer is that both parties are largely Statists but of different flavors. The Republicans can be saved and reformed in my opinion, Democrats are too far gone.

[humanmachinery]

Trying to discuss the benefits of public service with an anarco-capitalist is like trying to talk about scientific facts and rational empiricism with a religious fundamentalist.

You'll be smacking your head against the wall after a couple of minutes.

[Jimaz]

Anarcho-capitalism is radical rather than conservative.

[humanmachinery]

That only applies if you believe business interests aren't a form of traditional authority.

Of course, this fits into a similar category as Marx's claim that anarcho-communism would result in a "withering of the state" and "dictatorship of the proletariat."

Funny how the opposite always happens. Power vacuums are filled by the most ruthless and corrupt elements, because they're best equipped to capitalize on an elimination of checks and balances.

You need an organized hierarchy if anything is going to get done. A civilized society requires a system that imposes rules of fair play and promotes the public interest.

[Detroitej72]

which, frankly, proves that those in office are still right-wingers. they are still to the right of Dwight D Eisenhower, regardless of what the wing nuts here say

Or answer solely to the Trilateral Commission, Bilderburg Group, which is pretty right wing.

But you'll never hear that on the ditto head show, or Fox News, since they appear to be on the TC's payroll.

[humanmachinery]

There are explanations for the continued surveillance programs and deference to Goldman Sachs that do not require tinfoil hats or black helicopters.

I realize the temptation to believe in overarching and implausible conspiracy theories, given the crappy nature of the news business in this country, but there are far more rational explanations.

Large sections of our government are run by vested corporate and pressure group interests, who are much more powerful than any one politician or committee. They are not secret organizations bent on global domination, but rather contracting corporations and lobbying firms. These are forces that spend billions and billions of dollars to make the government do whatever the fuck they want it to.

And their money and power speaks a hell of a lot louder than you or I ever will.

[Mikeg]

Bill Moyers has always been my hero- certainly the conscience of the fourth estate.

Some "hero" . According to a 2009 article in the Washington Post, as special assistant to President Johnson in 1964, Moyers directed the FBI to investigate Johnson administration figures who were "suspected as having homosexual tendencies." When asked for comment by the Post, he claims his memory is unclear. But that wasn't what he said back in 1975.

According to Lawrence Silberman, who back then was acting Attorney General, a memo in the late J. Edgar Hoover's personal files indicated that Moyers also asked him in 1964 to do an investigation of Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater's staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity.

When the press reported that Mr. Moyers' memo to the FBI was in one of the files, Silberman received a call from an outraged Moyers, who claimed that this was another example of the Bureau salting its files with phony CIA memos. Silberman offered to conduct an investigation, which if Moyer's contention was correct, would publicly exonerate him. There was a pause on the line and then Moyers said, "I was very young. How will I explain this to my children?"

Moyers is "the conscience of the fourth estate"? I don't think so.

[Gannon]

You poor fella, going through life thinking that nobody is capable of learning and growing.

How's that working out for you?


IF he spends the rest of his life in an effort to appease those early poor decisions, and knows the potential of misguided hearts and minds...then yes, he CAN be a hero today.