Moyers on Democracy | 
| Author: Bill Moyers
Publisher: Random House Audio
Category: Book
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Sales Rank: 56694
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 5
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Dimensions (in): 6 x 5.1 x 1.2
ISBN: 0739357964
Dewey Decimal Number: 320.973
EAN: 9780739357965
ASIN: 0739357964
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
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Product Description
Bill Moyers on America today:
“Here in the first decade of the twenty-first century the story that becomes America’s dominant narrative will shape our collective imagination and our politics for a long time to come. In the searching of our souls demanded by this challenge . . . kindred spirits across the nation must confront the most fundamental liberal failure of the current era: the failure to embrace 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.
“Although our sojourn in life is brief, we are on a great journey. For those who came before us and for those who follow, our moral, political, and religious duty to make sure that this nation, which was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all are equal under the law, is in good hands on our watch.”
—from “For America’s Sake” People know Bill Moyers mostly from his many years ofpath-breaking journalism on television. But he is also one of America’s most sought-after public speakers. His appearances drawsell-out crowds across the country and are among the most reproduced on the Web. “And one reason,” writes noted journalist Bill McKibben, “is that Moyers pulls no punches. His understanding of America’s history is at least as deep as his understanding of Christian tradition, which is an integral part of his background . . . With his feet firmly planted in the deepest American traditions, Bill Moyers is helping to keep alive an oratorical tradition that is fading after two centuries. Trained by his career in broadcasting, he writes for the ear, his cadences and his repetitions timed to bring an audience to full realization of its role and its power.”
And that is the message of this book. Moyers on Democracy collects many of Bill Moyers’smost moving statements to connect the dots on what is happening to our country—the twinned growth of private wealth and public squalor, the assault on our Constitution, the undermining of the electoral process, the accelerating class war against ordinary (and vulnerable) Americans inherent in the growth of economic inequality, the dangers of an imperial executive, the attackon the independence of the press, the despoiling of the earth we share as our common gift—and to rekindle the reader’s conviction that “the gravediggers of democracy will not have the last word.” Richly insightful and alive with a fierce, abiding love for our country, Moyers on Democracy is essential reading in this fateful presidential year.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 MOYERS ON DEMOCRACY July 12, 2008
Bill Moyers has a clear insight to many of our countries urgent problems and the causes of them. This book is a fantastic read. Worth the money! I bought a second copy to pass around.
Bill Moyers, our National Treasure July 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
TitleMoyers on Democracy
Author
Bill Moyers
Rating*****
Tagsdemocracy, politics, religion, civil rights, speeches
This is a collection of Moyer's speeches over many years that touch on the subject of democracy. If I could, I'd give a copy to everyone in the world to read. Forget Nicholas Cage movies, Bill Moyers is THE National Treasure.
Mr. Moyers probably doesn't believe in reincarnation - though he would respect my right to do so - but I think in one of his previous lives he must have been a bard, and in another one of those court jesters who was the only person to tell the king the truth. For he has both the journalistic integrity to be dedicated to finding the truth and to sharing it with the public. The speech he gave on Hubert Humphrey is one of the best pieces of writing, fiction or non-fiction, I've ever read in my life, and many of the other pieces are of similar quality.
It is hard to give a sense of the book, because it wanders many places in talking about democracy. There are obituaries here, to such people as Barbara Jordan, William Sloane Coffin, and Fred Friendly. There is a commencement address. Issues of media, politics, and religion are discussed. And always, Moyers gives us history, often history of the relatively unknown and their struggles to be free. It is an inspirational book, one that sets the mind alight to preserve and restore freedom and its handmaiden, responsibility.
PublicationDoubleday (2008), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 416 pages
Publication date2008
ISBN0385523807 / 9780385523806
 A Mistitled Book July 2, 2008
3 out of 10 found this review helpful
Bill Moyers new book, like Mr. Moyers entire career, illustrates what's wrong with modern liberalism: there is nothing wrong with the goals or the sentiment, but the arrogance of the mindset leads to an inability to understand any objections to their agenda and a lack of the foresight needed to consider the ramifications of it. This is a perfect illustration of what Talleyrand said about the Ancien Regime: "They forget nothing and they learn nothing."
Perhaps it is too harsh to attach much significance to what is, after all, a repackaging of ephemeral writings, designed to make a few bucks for Mr. Moyers and to throw some red meat to the less thoughtful of his fans, but my own particular run in with Mr. Moyers is illustrative.
A few years ago, The Wall Street Journal ran an account by a federal judge of J. Edgar Hoover's secret files, among which the judge found a request by Mr. Moyers shortly before the 1964 election, requesting the FBI to provide him with a list of homosexual Republicans which he could use in a smear campaign. This was worse than anything that went on at Watergate, since the nation was not at war and Moyer's targets were not public officials capable of defending themselves but average citizens who weren't.
Shortly after that, a cultural institution, of which I was a member, announced that it was awarding a lifetime acheivement award to Mr. Moyers. Angry at the timing, I resigned from the institution and sent a letter explaining my reasons to the Board of Trustees, a copy of which was quite properly sent to Mr. Moyers. Mr. Moyers sent me a letter of justification and asked me to forward it to the Board, which I did. His letter was contradictory: he smeared the judge, then, admitting the charges claimed that it was old news and finally offered a totally implausible excuse for what he did. But here's the kicker: he had one of his minions investigate me, as was clear in references to my background in his letter.
It takes an unusual kind of arrogance to defend yourself against spying by spying on your accuser. Mr. Moyers originally studied for the ministry before he found the attractions of mammon more to his liking. Rigid belief in doctrine and blind true believer faith in one's creed are virtues in a man of the cloth, but when you turn to the things Jesus told us to render unto Caesar, those virtues become character flaws.
 Heartfelt take on the excesses and shortcomings of American democracy (3.5*s) June 26, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
In this collection of 28 speeches given at conferences, award dinners, anniversaries of various organizations or events, eulogies, etc, Moyers comments on the state of American democracy, or the ability of ordinary citizens to participate, to be empowered. His standard for comparison is largely the concept of democracy formalized in the Constitution and his take on the broad equality of colonial times, ignoring of course that political participation was confined to propertied white men - a distinct minority. He does note that some of us were regarded as 3/5 of a person for apportioning representation.
In these series of lectures, Moyers repeats such themes as growing income and wealth disparities and the subsequent disproportionate influence in government, lack of health care for millions, lack of access to education and the consequent ignorance of our past, the unwillingness of the mass media to report forthrightly and fully on current realities, and more broadly the lack of community interaction and the idea of a shared destiny. He is most assuredly correct to note that shopping has replaced democracy in America.
The problem with these types of anthologies is the repetition and the lack of elaboration and development of a broader critique and understanding. For example, the very idea of democracy is highly nebulous. Does the colonial society of rural, subsistence farmers have a lot of relevance to an integrated, industrial urban society? The labor movement, Populists, and the socialists starting fighting big-money interests at least 125 years ago with only marginal successes along the way. The lack of democracy, whatever that may be, seems to be inherent in the American system.
Beyond a lament for a vague notion of democracy that has probably never existed, there are no real proposals for defining and/or establishing a democracy in our world. The biggest concern seems to be getting private money out of the political process, but that leaves so many questions and problems. Are mega-corporations compatible with democracy? What happens to empowerment when a person steps through a corporate door in the morning? Does he propose works councils in businesses? Or employee ownership? Does he propose a wholesale revamping of election processes - perhaps even random selection, like juries? Moyer is completely disingenuous when it comes to a free press. He acknowledges that profits trump reporting, but conveniently ignores the major function of corporate-run media to continually defend the economic and social status quo, which of course requires the suppression of radical employees and their work. It goes without saying that media companies won't fully and truthfully report on any social or economic issue that may infringe on the prerogatives of the rich.
Moyers is a good guy. His is a welcome voice in the midst of corporate and right-wing ideologues. He is best when commenting on excesses and shortcomings of those in power - of which there are many examples. But his ideas are not really transforming. He is not an advocate of radicalism, which the implementation of democracy most definitely would be.
An Essential Voice May 22, 2008
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I enthusiastically nominate "Moyers On Democracy" as an outstanding book for 2008. This book laid a hasty hand on my cynicism about government in the introduction when he wrote that books like this one are viewed with suspicion by media moguls. They have "decided that uncovering the inner workings of public and private power is boring and will drive viewers and readers away to greener pastures of pablum." You've got me, Bill! So I began to read. And he didn't disappoint. If there is any book that will focus a fierce searchlight on the deals related to all the political battles and scandals that are engaging us in this present time then this is one.
Each of his essays and speeches begins with insightful musings and personal reflections from his years growing up in Texas with a father who was a devotee of FDR, continue with his flirtations with ministry, describe his time with Lyndon Johnson as senator and president, include his forage into the Peace Corps, embrace his years as publisher and news analyst and crown his career as producer of public television's groundbreaking series such as "The Power of Myth" with Joseph Campbell.
Here we have potent examples of both the breadth of his interest and the depth of his probing analysis of the issues of democracy. For example, no other journalist, to my knowledge, has had the audacious courage (or maybe foolhardiness!) to give a lecture at the United States Military Academy that quotes James Madison's words, "In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found, than in the clause which confides the question of war and peace to the legislature, and not to the executive department," then goes on to say, "Twice in forty years we have now gone to war paying only lip service to those warnings; the first war was lost, the second is a bloody debacle, and both rank among the great blunders in our history. It is impossible for soldiers to sustain in the field what cannot be justified in the Constitution; asking them to do so puts America at war with itself. So when the vice president of the United States says it doesn't matter what the people think, he and the president intend to prosecute the war anyway, he is committing heresy against the fundamental tenets of the American political order." Yet, even then, he concludes by saying to the graduating class, "I salute your dedication to America and I wish all of you good luck."
His eulogies for Lady Bird Johnson, Bill Coffin, Barbara Jordan and Fred Friendly provide a rare glimpse into his heart and reveal the genuine compassion of a sensitive and thoughtful human being. I was moved by simply reading them.
Still, for me, I have found his lectures on "Money and Politics" and "The Fight For Public Broadcasting" representative of the best journalism being practiced today. With the rare skill honed by his years of investigative prowess he describes Bush's Washington. Jack Abramoff's ties to Karl Rove and bribery and the scandals of Tom Delay's money laundering are described with honesty as well as the finesse of this seasoned journalist. Yet, his speech to the National Conference for Media Reform in which he recounts the saga of the attempted coup of public broadcasting by Bush's administration is the most gripping and convincing of anything else in this book. The speech is spiced with the tale of those who want "to squelch and punish journalists who tell the stories that make princes and priests uncomfortable." He asserts, "They are the apologists for the people in power. I mean the people who are hollowing out middle-class security even as they enlist the sons and daughters of the working class in a war started under false pretenses. I mean the people who turn faith-based initiatives into a slush fund and encourage the pious to look heavenward and pray so as not to see the long arm of privilege and power picking their pockets. I mean the people who would discredit dissent and present their ideology as the official view of reality from which any deviation becomes unpatriotic heresy." He sets his scathing words down again for an administration that has refused to listen. Bush has bragged that he doesn't read newspapers. I doubt that he will read this book but he would profit from it if he would read and heed. Read this book. "Moyers On Democracy" is a must!!!
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