E-mail a friendBill Moyers
original airdate May 13, 2008
In '07, Emmy- and Peabody-winning journalist Bill Moyers returned to PBS with Bill Moyers' Journal—reinvented for the 21st century. He retired as host of NOW with Bill Moyers in '04 and went on to produce many groundbreaking series. He began his career as a cub reporter and has a résumé that boasts Baptist minister, press secretary to President Johnson and newspaper publisher. In '86, he co-founded the indie production company, Public Affairs Television. The best-selling author's latest book is Moyers on Democracy.
Television host discusses his interview with Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (4:20)
Bill Moyers
Tavis: I am always pleased to welcome Bill Moyers to this program. The iconic journalist and bestselling author is, of course, the host of "Bill Moyers' Journal," which continues its award-winning run here on PBS. He began his career in politics working for Lyndon Johnson and also the Peace Corps. His numerous awards include a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Television.
The new book by Moyers is called "Moyers on Democracy." He joins us tonight from New York City. Bill Moyers, as always, a delight to talk to you, sir.
Bill Moyers: Can't imagine being anywhere else right now.
Tavis: Glad to have you on the program. Let me start, before I get into "Moyers on Democracy," talking about democracy with your reflections on this side of your conversation with Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the story that just doesn't seem to die.
Moyers: No, but I think Obama has put it behind him, and I think that's one of the more tragic scenes we've seen play out in politics for a long time. We're used to the politics of personal destruction, but never in our political have we seen a pastor have to break or a parishioner have to break with his pastor the way we've just seen.
It was tragic, unfortunate, but apparently inevitable, and I think they've put it behind them now. My hunch is that Jeremiah Wright is back where he wanted to be, leading a quiet life, and Obama's moved on, and we saw a great thing in this country in which in Indiana and North Carolina people actually realized that the man who sat in the pew running for president was not the man in the pulpit who was preaching the sermons.
And they've made a judgment that refuted the argument of guilt by association, and the country has moved on.
Tavis: You been around a long time, Bill Moyers, back to your LBJ days. You know, you have to know that this is going to come up again in the general election.
Moyers: Oh, I know the swiftboaters will use this to go after Obama if he's the nominee, and I suspect he will be the nominee. I had Jeremiah Wright on. I'd never met him, Tavis, although our paths had crossed 40 years ago and neither one of us know it. But I'd never met him. But when all of this happened, I don't believe in assassination by sound bite, and I wanted to know who is this man that we're seeing in these endlessly looped news clips, the same thing over and over again?
It turns out that he and 36 years of preaching at that church had - in the 11:00 service, preached 205,711 minutes, and he was being judged, his life, his church, and his ministry were being judged by 15 to 20 seconds of sound bites that were being replayed over and over again.
That's why I had him on the air, to see who he is, what was his church about, what's his ministry been?
Tavis: One quick question about that and we'll move on to "Moyers on Democracy," the new text from Bill Moyers. There are those - I don't know if you have a thought on this, but I want to ask it anyway. There are those who think that the high water mark, the high mark of his weekend of interviews and media exposure, started and ended with Bill Moyers.
There are those who thought and think that he did as good a job as he could have done talking to you, but then went downhill when he went to Detroit, really downhill when he got to the National Press Club.
Moyers: People have written me, Tavis, called me, stopped me on the street just today to say, "How do you explain that a man who could be so reasonable on Friday night could be so angry on Monday morning at the National Press Club?" Friday night he was on my show, Monday morning he was on the National Press club.
Well, all of us are many different people, and all of us have different moods and emotions. I know he was angry. He was angry at having his whole life and ministry reduced to 15 to 20 seconds of sound bites taken out of context. He was angry at the prospect that he might be the one who severely wounded a man he cared about, Barack Obama. He was angry that he couldn't be seen in context as so many of these sound bites had been taken out of context.
Now he said some absurd things, he knows that. He inflicted many of the wounds on himself, he recognizes that. Keep in mind, though, Tavis, that here's a man who 36 years ago could have gone to teach at any of the great universities. He chose instead to go to a small church on the south side of Chicago with 87 members in his congregation, and he grew that church to over 6,000 members.
He had never sought the national stage, he didn't organize the Christian Coalition, he didn't organize the Moral Majority, he didn't organize Focus on the Family. He stayed and preached and administered to that congregation. And suddenly, because of an historic coincidence of his parishioner being a viable candidate for president, the first African American viable candidate for president, he is suddenly thrust onto the stage for which he wasn't prepared, about which he was often misquoted.
And I can understand his anger, even though I don't agree with all the things that Jeremiah Wright says any more than you're going to agree with all the things I say.
Tavis: Now, speaking of things that you say, to "Moyers on Democracy." Isn't this Jeremiah Wright scenario just another example, just more proof that our democracy is dysfunctional, given how we handled it? We have a dysfunctional democracy.
Moyers: That's right. We cannot get serious ideas discussed in public anymore because of the state of our media, quite honestly. There was a great Swiss historian, the late Jacob Burckhardt, who said, "Beware the terrible simplifiers." We can't get the media to talk in depth about some of these great issues, like race. We were about to have a really engaging conversation on race after Barack Obama's speech in Philadelphia, but the Jeremiah Wright fracas cut that off and the way it was sliced up into various segments on the media.
We can't get the media to talk about the basic structural problem in which we have a great American wealth machine but increasingly, it serves the people at the top and not the people at the bottom. Ten percent of the people in this country own 60 percent of the wealth, and 70 percent of this country have no net worth assets at all.
I believe in capitalism, but the tension between capitalism and democracy is that capitalism breeds inequality while democracy aims for more equality. And right now, capitalism is essentially serving the people at the top, and we can't get an honest discourse about that in the media.
Tavis: Tell me how that problem gets any better with media now down to two or three conglomerates, if you will.
Moyers: Yeah, as we've seen - it's not that we don't have really intelligent and competent journalists, but they don't own the instruments they play. They're played increasingly by - these instruments are owned increasingly by a handful of big corporations whose sole interest is in the bottom line.
The answer, Tavis, is alternative press. The Internet's a great hope for us all because it means more voices can be heard. We're going to turn to the independent magazines that don't depend upon conglomerate organization or conglomerate profits. We've got to build up an alternative democratic press in this country so there can be a countervailing and alternative view of life and the issues that we face.
Tavis: How would you respond if I said to you, Bill Moyers, that we are witnessing the fall of the American empire? You are a student of history. You know that every empire eventually falls. And what if I said to you that our democracy is so dysfunctional that it is irreparable, and that what you and I are witnessing, sad to say, is the fall of the American empire?
Moyers: This is exactly what I write about in "Moyers on America." It's why I wanted Doubleday to bring out this book, because my - we don't fall. Empires fail, but people go on. After the Roman Empire failed, the lives of people went on. And it's probably a good thing that our empire has reached the extent of it - has extended itself so far that it's beginning to have to have some second thoughts about it.
Our politics can start a war, but can't end it. Happened in Vietnam, happens now. In fact, the problem, Tavis, is that our politics start too many problems, create too many problems that our politics can't solve, because there are too many powerful vested interests, as I say in the book, that have a stake in a dysfunctional democracy.
Take the healthcare industry. Two trillion dollars a year spent on healthcare. Too many people make profit, make a big profit from that for the players to fix it. That's why ultimately, the answer is to break the monopoly that money holds over our political system.
Tavis: Somebody once said, Bill, that - speaking of democracy - that people should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of its people. I sense that we are in many respects, we the people, that is, are afraid of our government, afraid of this behemoth, and don't really know where to begin, with all due respect to Mr. Obama and his notion of hope, don't really know where to begin to change things.
Moyers: And the answer is to cast your vote the way your conscience leads you to in November, but don't stop there. You've got to get involved in ongoing political organization with like-minded people who live nearest you. Franklin Roosevelt said, "A government by money is just as much to be feared as a government by mob."
And the only way to - the only antidote to the power of organized money is the power of organized people. Democracy was never guaranteed to be easy, and we've had very difficult moments in our life. I say in the book that democracy is a story of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck. Because we always presume that the present - we always believe in progress.
Our presumption is progress. We believe the present is better than the past, and the future will be better than the present. Well, we're not so sure anymore. We always said after Watergate, after Vietnam, after Richard Nixon and all of the problems we've faced in my lifetime, we've always said, "the system works."
Yes, it does, but when the system becomes, as you said earlier, as dysfunctional as it is today - it can't solve problems of debt, can't end the war in Iraq, can't deal with our rotting highways and bridges and infrastructure, our water and sewer, when it can't provide a way for all of our children to have an education, a good education, then we're facing - and this great divide between rich and poor, the greatest gap since 1929 and the time of the great stock market crash.
These are issues that have to be grappled with, and we must grapple with them democratically. We can't turn them over to the experts, can't turn them over to our representatives. We've got to be involved, and that requires a long-term commitment to being organized at the local level to do what you can do with kindred spirits to seek the ideals of democracy.
Tavis: So finally, then, Bill Moyers, if we have a democracy here in the States that is dysfunctional, how do you think we look to other folks trying to export democracy around the globe?
Moyers: Well, I think that's part of the problem of today, is that there've been so many reasons for the war in Iraq, and none of them turned out. Weapons of mass destruction, connections to al Qaeda, planting democracy in a place where they have no experience in it.
What we need to do is put our house in order. What the world needs right now is a strong and prosperous and generous United States, and a United States that shows the way in its own internal affairs that self-government is still the idea. Let's put our house in order, and then I think we'll be able to deal effectively with the rest of the world.
Tavis: I think every television network ought to be judged by the best they've been able to produce, and Bill Moyers is the best here on PBS, and we are honored to have him here. His new book is "Moyers on Democracy." Bill Moyers, as always, a delight to have you on, as I said earlier, and I'll talk to you soon.
Moyers: Thank you.
Tavis: Take care.
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