That he has returned to public television after retiring, with his quiet, gracious, and informative interviews is the new thing I am most appreciative of, second only to my joy and continuing delight in the intellect of the person I love.
I am nerdy enough to be a huge fan of one of Moyers' recurring guests over the years, Professor Bill Black, UMKC (from his university bio).
"Professor Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement."Other people have sports heroes, or embrace figures in the entertainment industry. I find people like Bill Black far more heroic, far more worthy of applause. (No surprise I suppose with this being my idea of someone to admire rather than overpaid airheads that I hit it off with Laci here.)
Moyers first interview is worth sharing here:
Jacob Hacker & Paul Pierson on Winner Take All Politics from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
And the teaching session at occupy wall street led by the inestimable Prof. Bill Black:
Bill Moyers on Occupy Wall Street from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
The all too brief transcript section from Bill Black's teach in:
WILLIAM K. BLACK: (During a teach-in) The one percent have dominant political power over both parties.BILL MOYERS: Organizers invited Bill Black to lead a teach-in at “the people’s microphone.”WILLIAM K. BLACK: (During a teach-in) How many think they stole from all of us?BILL MOYERS: A senior federal regulator in the 1980s, Black cracked down on banks during the savings and loan crisis. He now teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City.WILLIAM K. BLACK: What we have is recurrent, intensifying financial crises driven by elite fraud and now it's done with almost absolute impunity. So the whole idea of noblesse oblige and such and that the rich were supposed to have special responsibilities, that's all gone, right? They have a God-given right to the lowest conceivable taxes.When you put anti-regulators in charge of the agencies who believe that regulation is bad and completely unnecessary and they destroy it, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy that produces massive fraud at the most elite levels.But, worse, it all feeds into politics. So, once you get a group that completely dominates the economy, they're going to completely dominate politics, as well.WILLIAM K. BLACK: (During a teach-in) There is no excuse for not prosecuting. It is an obscenity. It’s surrender to crony capitalism.WILLIAM K. BLACK: What's distressed me, and I think is one of the major reasons we get recurrent intensifying crises, is we seem to have lost our capacity for outrage. And it's only people getting outraged that produces really positive social change.
The gun nuts natter on and on about how their freedom is dependent on their having their fetish objects, their guns. They foolishly define freedom around having lethal weapons and a culture where they themselves are choosing to emphasize and exalt violence, rather than break the vicious circle of it.
Real issues of freedom and slavery are far more genuinely being decided over these rights, and with economic equality and freedom of opportunity. Those of you who believe the tea party crap about the wealthy few individuals and corporations needing more tax breaks and less regulation to be 'job creators', or the rest of the right wing bullshit, while fondling your fetish objects are misdirected.
Guns don't make you free. Guns don't make you safe. Guns don't make you powerful or smart or good looking or good in bed or financially secure or politically significant. They are a misdirection by people who don't want you looking at the man behind the curtain, the power behind the smoke and mirrors.
When you rely on guns to be free, for your definition of free, you've already lost. You've lost by failing to correctly define the concept, the conflict, the reality. You are fighting the wrong battle, with the wrong weapon. You are babies handed candy, a jingling rattle, nothing more.
You are fools.
These are the grown ups, people like Black, Hacker and Pierson, etc. These are the real issues of freedom and slavery.
