Bill Moyers- If You Like God in Gov.-- Then Get Ready for the Rapture

Drudge via PBS.org ^ | Bill Moyers

[Dallas]

Way back in the 1950's when I first tasted politics and journalism, Republicans briefly controlled the White House and Congress. With the exception of Joseph McCarthy and his vicious ilk, they were a reasonable lot, presided over by that giant war hero, Dwight Eisenhower, who was conservative by temperament and moderate in the use of power.

That brand of Republican is gone. And for the first time in the memory of anyone alive, the entire federal government — the Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary — is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate.

That mandate includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives.

It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich.

It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable.

And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine. Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you liked the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will swoon over what's coming.

And if you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture. These folks don't even mind you referring to the GOP as the party of God. Why else would the new House Majority Leader say that the Almighty is using him to promote 'a Biblical worldview' in American politics?

So it is a heady time in Washington — a heady time for piety, profits, and military power, all joined at the hip by ideology and money.

Don't forget the money. It came pouring into this election, to both parties, from corporate America and others who expect the payback. Republicans outraised democrats by $184 million dollars. And came up with the big prize — monopoly control of the American government, and the power of the state to turn their ideology into the law of the land. Quite a bargain at any price.

That's it for this week.

For NOW, I'm Bill Moyers.

[caa26]

It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich.

Hmmm, that swine Moyers would probably consider my father one of the "evil rich." I should ask my dad when he expects to get his first check from the "working class" people now that the Republicans control the gov't. lol

What a jack*ss. Just wondering if actually believes the crap he spews.

[Nick Danger]

I had lost track of Bill Moyers over the years, but I recall a time when this individual was some sort of respected journalist.

This column isn't liberal bias... this is kookburger stuff. If Moyers actually believes any of this, he is so far left of the average citizen that he's off the planet.

I don't doubt that there are people who listen to NPR on a regular basis who buy into this sort of thing, and to them this column might sound like received wisdom. But it reminds me of nothing so much as those posts we get here from time to time, from folks who "just heard on the short wave" that the UN troops are on their way in helicopters to capture Dallas.

I know there are people who think we should de-fund NPR... it really is irksome to think that my tax dollars are helping to support insanity like this. But I think we might want to step back and ask whether -- like many liberal spending programs -- NPR does not have unintended consequences that make it end up achieving the opposite of what liberals wanted.

By siphoning whatever liberal audience might be out there to the non-commercial, left end of the radio dial, NPR has made it difficult for liberals to compete with conservatives for air time on commercial radio stations. A few make it, but it is widely accepted that conservatives rule Talk Radio, and I suspect that NPR is a big part of the reason why.

It is sort of like what happens when they gerrymander a Congressional district to carve out a "black" district. They guarantee one black Congressman a seat, but there aren't enough blacks outside the district to make them a factor in any other election. This is what NPR has become: a gerrymandered radio district that isolates all the liberals in one place, but with the consequence that they are uncompetitive everywhere else.

De-funding NPR could have the undesireable (for us) consequence of dumping millions of liberal listeners into the pool that is available to commercial broadcasters. Right now they can't compete for liberal listeners... who would not choose "no commercials" over "We'll be right back after a few words from our sponsor." Maybe we should leave it that way, and let Moyers and his ilk have their fun with their liberal True Believers, while we dominate the air waves.

[pariah]

For NOW, I'm Bill Moyers.

And I'm NOT, thank God!

[San Jacinto]

Everyone who wants to keep spending TAX DOLLARS on Bill Moyers' endless stream of crap, Raise Your Hand!

Ahem, uh, Dan, I said raise your hand...not just one finger.

[CyberCowboy777]

I hate bill "the whine" moyers

Such a whiney, alarmist, bias SOB

[governsleastgovernsbest]

using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich

Let's consider what Moyers is saying here. We know that the top 1/2 taxpayers pay 96% of the federal income tax. So he can't literally mean that the tax system is being used to take money from the poor and give it to the rich.

It can only mean that in Moyer's view, even the highly progressive (in the technical fiscal sense) federal income tax is not progressive enough. Beyond that, it reflects his view that all money really belongs to the government, not to the people that earn it.

So to the extent money is left in the hands of the "rich", it is being "taken" from the poor, since the government could always exercise its power to distribute income in accordance with its diktat.

I always knew that Moyers was a liberal, but until reading this, I had no idea what a vicious, ignorant angry liberal he is. I'm outraged that this bitter partisan is allowed to clog our airwaves at taxpayer expense!

[Godel]

I was flipping through the channels the other night and I saw this despicable man spouting off. He also had two ivory tower intellectuals, one with a british accent, bashing the "American Empire" and talking about how we are the brutal slavemasters of the entire world and the greatest threat to freedom.

Liberalism = Anti-American. Average Americans need to realize this.

[Jim Robinson]

"That brand of Republican is gone. And for the first time in the memory of anyone alive, the entire federal government — the Congress, the Executive, the Judiciary — is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate."

Not gone. Back and madder 'n hell. Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition!

[San Jacinto]

I saw exactly what you are talking about, but only caught a couple of minutes. It was enough for a mild guffaw, though. I even posted something here about how "balanced" it was -- he had one guest who thought America was awful, but as a counter-point his second guest thought America was much, much worse than that.

[lavaroise]

Good morning liberal racist stereotypes of the "right" in America, as if the world was divided between rich and poor and not jurisdictions.

As for MONEY $$$$$ , socialism is fake currency, so I will sleep tonight happy that dollars are still in use and not socialist nonsense fake currency.

[Servant of the Nine]

BILL MOYERS
The Jimmey Swaggert of Politics

For a guy who was Lyndon Johnsons' dirty tricks master, and liason to J. Edgar Hoover for illegal wiretaps and black bag jobs, ol Bill has gotten a touch righteous. The Statute of Limitations is the only thing that keeps him from spending time in the Federal Slam like any other crooked preacher.

So9

[Thebaddog]

If you have sources for the history on Moyers, it would be fun to circulate it.

[Semi Civil Servant]

Moyers turned his back on his faith and his honest upbringing for the glitter, power, and money of big time Democrat politics. As he gets old, and faces his own mortality, the socialist Utopia for which he traded his soul and intellect is being undone and discredited. How can Moyers view this as anything else but apocalyptic?

Socialism is a RELIGION to the true left wingers.

The liberals just lost their Holy Trinity: House & Senate, White House, and Supreme Court.

Get used to seeing plenty of melt downs like this one. These people have become drunk on power, and now they're being sentenced to mandatory detoxification.

This is an example of left wing delirium tremens. We'll be seeing a lot of it.

[Michael2001]

Well Moyers: Sucks for you

[Sen Jack S. Fogbound]

Bill Moyer is way out of line with this commentary! There is no question who is he is favoring but that's all right! That is his right! But he shouldn't be using the PBS as his soapbox to peddle his anti-Republicanism and anti-Bush to the public!

[beckett]

Bill Moyers, if ever there was a stereotype of a limousine liberal, he is it.

Fast fact: In his 1970 book Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers, Tom Wolfe came up with the term "limousine liberal" to describe then NYC Philharmonic Conductor Leonard Bernstein after Bernstein threw a party for the Black Panthers at his home.

So Bernstein is the prototypical limousine liberal, and, as you very rightly point out, Moyers is a stereotypical example of the species as it exists today.

[sauropod]

I've got a bridge over on Martha's Vineyard that says he has
Tom DeLay in the back seat!

[sauropod]

The People's Broadcasting System...

[carpio]

— a heady time for piety, profits, and military power

The confusing part to me is that he seems to feel that this is a Bad thing!!

[MissAmericanPie]

"That mandate includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives."

Bogus, hopefully it will remove from their power the control over anothers life or death. They can do anything they want to, to themselves, they can agree to lay on a gurney while a doctor dismembers them sans anesthesia then sucks them down a vacuum hose if they so choose, but they should no longer be able to choose that for someone else who merely shares the use of their body for a short time.

"It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich."

ROFL, uh huh, it also includes expecting them to pay for what the wealthy produces rather than get it for free through some government program to rob the ingenious.

"It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable"

Hopefully it will also include getting the EPA off of people's private property, their noses out of private business, and an inability to throw thousands of people out of work via bogus, misleading, junk science advanced by activist hacks.

"And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine. Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you liked the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will swoon over what's coming."

As opposed to liberal/communist judges with an agenda that is anti-Constitution.

Yes it's a sad day in Hooville for socialists, we can hope it is anyway. The Republicans have gone so far left we may not be able to decern a difference, but we can hope.