****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Moyers, Bill, Moyers on America. New York: The New Press, 2004. Subtitled, "A Journalist and His Times," the book consists of a series of TV columns and speeches worked into essay form. All of it is worth reading, but the parts I liked best were the fiery defense of the Constitution, the unmasking of reactionary politicians as inhumane and proudly mean-spirited--"they narrowly defined membership in democracy to include only people like them"--and the comparison of today's politics with the struggles of the Progressives in the 1900-1920 era, after which FDR denounced "economic royalists" for what they were. Moyers' point is that the rich have no right to buy democracy. The politicians of terror "win only if we let them, only if we become like them: vengeful, imperious, intolerant, paranoid, invoking a God of wrath." "Mencken got it right when he said, "Whenever you hear a man speak of his love for his country, it is a sign that he expects to be paid for it." He denounces the consolidation of the media into a handful of plutocratic oligarchies. A statement that has stayed with me, because he repeated it during a book-signing in June 2004, was "No man is fit to be a master." "The fight between the human scale and the giant scale--between the master and the governed--left unresolved by the Progressive Era, is returning for some kind of epic confrontation." Today our liberties are threatened by the punishment of criticism and the distaste for variety or dissent. Our government is a study in bribery, conflicts of interest, corruption, and is awash in money from private interest groups. The media has turned to celebrity journalism, speed over accuracy, opinion over reporting, and this in turn is the result of concentrated ownership. (A panel of anchormen at the Democratic 2004 Convention admitted that they hadn't asked enough questions before validating the Bush move for war against Iraq.) "The job of telling the truth about people whose job it is to hide the truth is almost as complicated and difficult as trying to hide it in the first place." A "deep and pervasive corruption has settled upon the republic." Moyers calls this a "cynical age." The rest of the book relates episodes from Moyers' youth, a tribute to cultural literacy, liberal arts education, and contemplations about religion (he is an ordained minister). In sum, the book is an eloquent denunciation of the imperial state now in the hands of those with the Top Secret stamp all over government actions. It also includes a tribute to I.F. Stone, and a tip of the hat to poetry, which formed the basis for one of Moyers' PBS series. Describing an auto trip he made with his elderly father, he writes, "A later afternoon sun the size of a prospector's imagination was hanging in the sky as we drove out to their old farm." A nice postscript.
