A Time for Heresy [View All]

Bill Moyers

"Unless we choose to renew our commitment to America's deepest values, the day will come when we no longer recognize the country we love."

Editor's Note: This is the prepared text of Moyers' remarks delivered on March 14 upon the establishment by Marilyn and James Dunn, of the Wake Forest Divinity School, of a scholarship in religious freedom in the name of Judith and Bill Moyers.


EXCERPT:
There are no victimless crimes in politics. The cost of corruption is passed on to the people. When the government of the United States falls under the thumb of the powerful and privileged, regular folks get squashed. We are dealing here with a vision sharply at odds with the majority of Americans. These are people who want to arrange the world for the convenience of themselves and the multinational corporations that pay for their elections.

With their fundamentalist medicine men twirling the bullroarers in the woods, they would turn America into their petri dish -- a replica of the Marianas, many times magnified: A society "run by the powerful, oblivious to the weak, free of accountability, enjoying a cozy relationship with government, thriving on crony capitalism," in the words of Al Meyeroff, who led a class-action suit in behalf of the worker on the Marianas and learned what they were up against.

Let this, too, sink in: If the corporate, political, and religious right have their way, we will go back to the first Gilded Age, when privilege controlled politics, votes were purchased, legislatures were bribed, bills were bought, and laws flagrantly disregarded -- all as God's will.

So, my friends at Wake Forest, there is work to do. These charlatans and demagogues know that by controlling a society's most emotionally laden symbols, they can control America, too. They must be challenged.

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http://www.alternet.org/story/33958/