black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it – as if the cause depends on you, because it does.
BILL MOYERS

Causes Doe Fighting
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
If the watchdog doesn’t bark, how do you know there’s a burglar in the basement? And the press is supposed to be a watchdog.
BILL MOYERS

Bark Basements Supposed
Those rules divide the world into Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, and allow journalists to pretend they have done their job if instead of reporting the truth behind the news, they merely give each side an opportunity to spin the news.
BILL MOYERS

Done Journalist Reporting Truth
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 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
Here is the crisis of the times as I see it: We talk about problems, issues, policies, but we don’t talk about what democracy means – what it bestows on us.
BILL MOYERS

Issues Mean Revolutionary Ideas
Although I was brought up in a culturally and religious conservative culture, as a Baptist I was taught that no one has the right to subpoena your conscience.
BILL MOYERS

Baptists Culture Religious
This “degenerate and unlovely age,” as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove the reputed brain of George W. Bush as the seminal age of inspiration for politics and governance of America today.
BILL MOYERS

Degenerate Governance Politics Seminal
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
I hear an almost inaudible but pervasive discontent with the price we pay for our current materialism. And I hear a fluttering of hope that there might be more to life than bread and circuses.
BILL MOYERS

might Pay Strength
We see more and more of our Presidents and know less and less about what they do.
BILL MOYERS

Knows More President
We seem to prefer a comfortable lie to the uncomfortable truth. We punish those who point out reality, and reward those who provide us with the comfort of illusion. Reality is fearsome .. but experience tells us that more fearsome yet is evading it.
BILL MOYERS

Comfort Lying Reality
I can’t speak for a war that I believe is immoral.
BILL MOYERS

Believe Speak War
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
But what it meant in politics a century later, and still means today, is the freedom to accumulate wealth without social or democratic responsibilities and license to buy the political system right out from everyone else.
BILL MOYERS

Democratic Freedom Mean Political Social System Today

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bill Moyers Quotes