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 MOYERSLyndon 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.
More Bill Moyers Quotes
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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.
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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.
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Professionals give advice; pilgrims share wisdom.
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Conservatism is less a set of ideas than it is a pathological distemper, a militant anger over the fact that the universe is not closed and life is not static.
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…there is no more effective public interest watchdog in Washington, D.C.
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News is what people want to keep hidden and everything else is publicity.
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Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy.
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I really believe that coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.
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America’s corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they’re privatizing democracy. All the benefits – the tax cuts, policies and rewards flow in one direction: up.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I can’t speak for a war that I believe is immoral.
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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.
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Rockefeller was born to it, and he has made the most of it. But what some critics see as a vast international conspiracy, he considers a circumstance of life and just another day’s work… In the world of David Rockefeller it’s hard to tell where business ends and politics begins
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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.
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Witness the coupling of news and entertainment. See everyday people cast overboard as the pirates and predators of Wall Street seized the ship of state. I didn’t drift; I moved left just by standing still.
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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.
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How can those of us who are parents help our children recognize their bliss?
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Television is a medium. It is neither rare nor well done.
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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.
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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.
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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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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.
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The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.
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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