Bill Moyers on Recovering Democracy

Most Americans still have little idea how much our democracy is under threat by right wing Republicans and a class of wealthy people who have little interest in the rest of us.

The current era began with Ronald Reagan. Now Reagan was not a deep man, though one can loosely argue that there was a decent core to him even if his policies were not particularly compassionate. He was at one time a Democrat but became a Republican later in life.

It seems Reagan's political perspective began to change during World War Two when taxes went sky high as our nation fought all out war on two fronts with two very aggressive and capable nations, Nazi Germany and a militarized, fascist Japan. It was a tall order and the consequences of failure were grim. Sacrifices were required of everyone, even those on the home front.

At the time, Ronald Reagan was one of the highest paid actors in Hollywood for a series of largely forgettable pictures. His income put him in the highest income bracket and he didn't like the tax rate. Keep in mind that he was of military age and Americans older than him were dying in the Pacific, North Africa and Europe. But he didn't like the tax rate and was offended. There have been worse right wingers than Ronald Reagan but he shares with many of them the tendency they have of putting themselves at the center of the universe at the exclusion of others, except perhaps those who are like-minded. Reagan's tax rate was very high during the 1940s, but he was still living very comfortably. Apparently, not comfortably enough.

There are any number of images from recent years that carry the clear message that there is trouble in the Republican Party and that it has lost its way. But two stick in my mind. The first image is of Ronald Reagan trying to look like an aristocrat with his long black boots, tails, and riding crop while sitting on a horse like a 19th century gentleman. When I saw that image, I went uh-oh....we have a powerful man trying to resurrect the aristocracy. Keep in mind that Ronald Reagan is now something of a political moderate compared to some of the right wingers now in our government.

The second powerful image of what's wrong with the Republican Party is George W. Bush strutting on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln in his flight suit; here I thought was a man who loves illusions, one-upmanship and the trappings of power. In other words, an authoritarian and a fraud. Our nation indeed has a problem.

Bill Moyers has been writing a series of brilliants speeches about the state of our nation and our democracy for some time now. Here's his latest by way of Truthout:

I've been spending time with Woodrow Wilson and others of his era because my colleagues and I are producing a documentary series on the momentous struggles that gripped America a century or so years ago at the birth of modern politics. Woodrow Wilson clearly understood the nature of power. In his now-forgotten political testament called The New Freedom, Wilson described his reformism in plain English no one could fail to understand: "The laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the week." He wrote: "Don't deceive yourselves for a moment as to the power of great interests which now dominate our development... There are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States. They are going to own it if they can." And he warned: "There is no salvation in the pitiful condescensions of industrial masters... prosperity guaranteed by trustees has no prospect of endurance."

Now Wilson took his stand at the center of power - the presidency itself - and from his stand came progressive income taxation, the federal estate tax, tariff reform, the challenge to great monopolies and trusts, and, most important, a resolute spirit "to deal with the new and subtle tyrannies according to their deserts."

How we need that spirit today! When Woodrow Wilson spoke of democracy releasing the energies of every human being, he was declaring that we cannot leave our destiny to politicians, elites, and experts; either we take democracy into our own hands, or others will take democracy from us.

(snip)

In one way or another, this is the oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether "We, the People" is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality - one nation, indivisible - or merely a charade masquerading as piety and manipulated by the powerful and privileged to sustain their own way of life at the expense of others.

We seem to be holding our breath today, trying to decide what kind of country we want to be. But in this state of suspension, powerful interests are making off with the booty. They remind me of the card shark in Texas who said to his competitor in the poker game: "Now play the cards fairly Reuben. I know what I dealt you."

(snip)

"Things have reached such a state of affairs," the journalist George Orwell once wrote, "that the first duty of every intelligent person is to pay attention to the obvious." The editors of The Economist have done just that. The pro-business magazine considered by many to be the most influential defender of capitalism on the newsstand, produced a sobering analysis of what is happening to the old notion that any American child can get to the top. A growing body of evidence - some of it I have already cited - led the editors to conclude that with "income inequality growing to levels not seen since the Gilded Age and social mobility falling behind, the United States risks calcifying into a European-style class-based society." The editors point to an "education system increasingly stratified by social class" in which poor children "attend schools with fewer resources than those of their richer contemporaries" and great universities that are "increasingly reinforcing rather than reducing these educational inequalities." They conclude that America's great companies have made it harder than ever "for people to start at the bottom and rise up the company hierarchies by dint of hard work and self-improvement."

(snip)

...let me say: I have been a journalist too long to look at the world through rose-colored glasses. I believe the only way to be in the world is to see it as it really is and then to take it on despite the frightening things you see. The Italian philosopher Gramschi spoke of the "the pessimism of the intellect and the optimism of the will." With this philosophy your generation can bring about the Third American Revolution. The first won independence from the Crown. The second won equal rights for women and for the sons and daughters of slavery. This third - the revolution of the 21st Century - will bring about a democracy that leaves no one out....

It's a long speech and my excerpts hardly do it justice. Give it a read. I don't know if an age of reform is coming or not, but there is a powerful need for reform. The winds are shifting and we'll soon know whether Americans can take back their democracy....or not.