Bill Moyers: In The Kindom Of The Half-Blind

"This is the prepared text of the address delivered on December 9, 2005, by Bill Moyers for the 20th anniversary of the National Security Archive, a non-governmental research institute and library at The George Washington University, in Washington D.C. The Archive collects and publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Collaborating with him on this speech was Michael Winship. They have been colleagues in public broadcasting for over thirty years, including, most recently, on the PBS weekly broadcast NOW with Bill Moyers. Moyers, who retired from the NOW broadcast last December, is the President of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy."

As always, Bill Moyers has no trouble seeing and speaking the truth. In this speech, he talks about the history of the Freedom of Information Act, his time spent as Lyndon Johnsons' White House press secretary, political dirty deeds, and of course, the story of how the Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting conspired to get him pushed out of PBSs' NOW program.

I'm as much troubled by the state of modern journalism as Moyers is, but what troubles me even more is the apparent apathy of the public towards it's main sources of information regarding what's happening in our lives. While there has always been varying degrees of collusion between government and the media, what's been happening lately is truely unconscionable.

What bothers me is that these issues don't raise much fuss in the public. It says to me that people really don't care about how or why they're manipulated into forming whatever opinions are designed for them to have. I do understand though, that most people are simply too busy dealing with their daily lives to follow most of the underreported stories that should raise public outcry. With so many dealing with their marriages, families, maintaining or aquiring jobs in an unstable job market, the economy, personal debt, education, health care, the lastest fashion trends, reality TV, Jessica Simpson, etc, there's little time, if any, to keep an eye on the various influences working behind the scenes that are the root causes of their problems. Because of so much competition for their time, it's easy for them to miss the little tidbits which when taken together, expose a system of corruption that can only be addressed by their undivided attention, and activism. But the powers that be, know that all they have to do is keep up the appearence of legitimacy, and an inattentive public will take them at their word, because they have no time left to do otherwise.

So much is so wrong, but the system's not going to fix itself. It will require the public to stand up, go to the window, and shout; "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymone!!".