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Democracy doesn’t begin at the top; it begins at the bottom, when flesh-and-blood human beings fight to rekindle what Arlo Guthrie calls ‘The Patriot’s Dream.

Bill Moyers

You do it because there’s a story to be told. 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

Complicated Job People Told Truth Trying
I report the assault on nature evidenced in coal mining that tears the tops off mountains and dumps them into rivers, sacrificing the health and lives of those in the river valleys to short-term profit.
BILL MOYERS

Out Rivers Sacrifice Work
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.
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Democracy Economy Greed
The delusional is no longer marginal.
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Delusional Marginal People Person
It’s the people who are doing the nonviolent organizing at the grassroots that make me think there’s still hope.
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Grassroots People Thinking
Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality.
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Couple Reality Religion
I’m angry at what’s happening to America and angry with myself that I can’t do more. I would be miserable if I couldn’t bear witness.
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Angry Bears Country
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.
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Circles Enough Land Tribe War
People who don’t believe in government are likely to defy our government.
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Believe Government People
News is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity.
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News People Want
The President may not be listening, but the Senate is, and the public won this round. The House has a similar resolution under consideration.
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Consideration President Resolution Round
I’ll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one
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Believe Country People
What we instantly got was a freak show of political pornography: lies, distortions, and half-truths – half-truths being perhaps the blackest of all lies. They paraded before us as informed opinion.
BILL MOYERS

Informed Opinion Perhaps Political
I approach the end of my own long run believing more strongly than ever that the quality of journalism and the quality of democracy are inextricably joined … .
BILL MOYERS

Approach Joined Journalism Strong
Our great progressive struggles have been waged to make sure ordinary citizens, and not just the rich and privileged, share in the benefits of a free society.
BILL MOYERS

Citizen Ordinary Struggle
To the mind-set of Interpol tracking down master criminals through intense global cooperation among nations, or the FBI stalking the Mafia, or local police determined to quell street gangs without leveling the entire neighborhood in the process.
BILL MOYERS

Determine Embedded Moral Quiet Street
The struggle of ordinary people for a decent living, for security, is as old as the republic, but it’s taken on a new and urgent edge. Instead of shared prosperity our political system has now produced a winner-take-all economy.
BILL MOYERS

People Struggle Taken
An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias.
BILL MOYERS

Fighting Lying Media
I take “We, the People” seriously because I don’t know how we build a civilization without reciprocity.
BILL MOYERS

Civilization People Reciprocity
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
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
In tracking down and eliminating terrorists, we need to change our metaphor from a “war on terror” – exactly what, pray tell, is that?
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Mind Police Tracking War
Capitalism is out of control, thanks in no small part to Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision which said that a corporation is a person, even though it doesn’t eat, drink, make love, sing, raise children or take care of aging parents.
BILL MOYERS

Children Long People
Democracy doesn’t begin at the top; it begins at the bottom, when flesh-and-blood human beings fight to rekindle what Arlo Guthrie calls ‘The Patriot’s Dream.
BILL MOYERS

Blood Dream Fighting
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
We now know that a neo-conservative is an arsonist who sets the house on fire and six years later boasts that no one can put it out.
BILL MOYERS

Fire House Years
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

Democracy doesn’t begin at the top; it begins at the bottom, when flesh-and-blood human beings fight to rekindle what Arlo Guthrie calls ‘The Patriot’s Dream.

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Democracy doesn’t begin at the top; it begins at the bottom, when flesh-and-blood human beings fight to rekindle what Arlo Guthrie calls ‘The Patriot’s Dream.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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