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A people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.

Bill Moyers

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

Believe Speak War
Our children are being raised by appliances.
BILL MOYERS

Appliances Children Raised
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
How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state?
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Political Soul
Hyperbole was to Lyndon Johnson what oxygen is to life.
BILL MOYERS

Country Hyperbole Johnson Oxygen
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
We have to face the unpleasant as well as the affirmative side of the human story, including our own story as a nation, our own stories of our peoples.
BILL MOYERS

Reality Thinking Views
In uniform patriotism can salute one flag only, embrace but the first circle of life – one’s own land and tribe. In war that is necessary, in peace it is not enough.
BILL MOYERS

Circles Enough Land Tribe War
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
Yet 91 percent think it’s “not likely” that its influence will be lessened. Think about that: People know what’s right to do yet don’t think it can or will be done.
BILL MOYERS

Done Lessened Right Think
Television can stir emotions, but it doesn’t invite reflection as much as the printed page.
BILL MOYERS

Pages Reflection Television
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
Having lost faith in all else, zealots have nothing left but a holy cause to please a warrior God. They win if we become holy warriors, too; if we kill the innocent as they do; strike first at those who had not struck us.
BILL MOYERS

Thinking Warrior Winning
News is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity.
BILL MOYERS

News People Want
Jon Stewart is a remarkable satirist and parodist in the vein of Mark Twain, because Jon Stewart understands what Mark Twain knew, which is that the truth goes down more easily in a democracy when it’s marinated in humor.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Mark Veins
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

A people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.

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Popular Authors

A people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bill Moyers Quotes