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Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.

Bill Moyers

Why is the country not having this conversation, the kind of conversation that requires the politicians who are responsible for the war to be specific to the concerns of the American people.
BILL MOYERS

Country People War
I believe democracy requires a ‘sacred contract’ between journalists and those who put their trust in us to tell them what we can about how the world really works.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Media Trust
The printed page conveys information and commitment, and requires active involvement. Television conveys emotion and experience, and it’s very limited in what it can do logically. It’s an existential experience – there and then gone.
BILL MOYERS

Commitment Gone Information
Barack Obama seemed to think he could win over his enemies. He certainly seemed to believe too much in his own powers of persuasion. One thing’s for sure – he misunderstood the nature of his adversaries.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Thinking Winning
The left wing would see to it that ordinary people were included in the bargain. Both would keep the great bird on course. But with two right wings or two left wings, it’s no longer an eagle and it’s going to crash.
BILL MOYERS

Bargain Ease Longer Ordinary People
For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington.
BILL MOYERS

First Firsts Monopoly Time
Barack Obama treated too lightly the people and forces determined to destroy him. They spat in his face and didn’t even get ticketed for a misdemeanor.
BILL MOYERS

Determined Faces People
When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.
BILL MOYERS

Always Blind Fact Ideology Politicians
…there is no more effective public interest watchdog in Washington, D.C.
BILL MOYERS

Integrity Interest Public Interest
War, except in self-defense, is a failure of moral imagination.
BILL MOYERS

Imagination Self War
Plutocracy too long tolerated leaves democracy on the auction block, subject to the highest bidder.
BILL MOYERS

Block Democracy Long
What we need is what the ancient Israelites called hochma – the science of the heart…the capacity to see, to feel, and then to act as if the future depended on you. Believe me, it does.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Heart Need People
America is the longest argument in the world.
BILL MOYERS

Argument Country World
They’re counting on your patriotism to distract you from their plunder. They’re counting on you to be standing at attention with your hand over your heart, pledging allegiance to the flag, while they pick your pocket!
BILL MOYERS

Hands Heart Over
How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Political Soul
There is a historic strain of dominion theology which says, taking its references from the Psalms, that man is made just a little lower than God, and that we are the crown of creation.
BILL MOYERS

Animal Ark Expensive God Interception Men
Standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.
BILL MOYERS

Country Government Mean
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.
BILL MOYERS

Jobs People Trying
Charity depends on the vicissitudes of whim and personal wealth; justice depends on commitment instead of circumstance. Faith-based charity provides crumbs from the table; faith-based justice offers a place at the table.
BILL MOYERS

Charity Commitment Justice
People who don’t believe in government are likely to defy our government.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Government People
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.
BILL MOYERS

Ignorance Party Political
Beauty is an expression of that rapture of being alive.
BILL MOYERS

Alive Beauty Expression
Lyndon Johnson believed the poor deserved a better life than the economy was providing them. He thought private power and greed had to be checked by a vibrant democracy.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Economy Greed
The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Media Quality
There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians – they stay bought.
BILL MOYERS

Honest Journalist Politician
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

Consideration President Resolution Round
The most encouraging sign is that 71 percent of the public believe the system is profoundly corrupted by the power of money. Ninety-six percent of the people believe it’s “important” that we reduce the influence of money.
BILL MOYERS

Believe People Thinking

Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.

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Our very lives depend on the ethics of strangers, and most of us are always strangers to other people.

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Popular Authors

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