Replay the Live Chat With Bill Moyers

Have a good day, everyone.

As some of you may know, the reason Bill wanted to do this chat is because we reached over 500,000 friends on Facebook, and he was very happy to see so many engaged, thoughtful viewers gathering there and on BillMoyers.com to talk about the critical issues of our day. Thanks to all of you for joining us today.

Thanks Bill.

Bill Moyers

And apologies for those whose questions I didn’t get to.

My best wishes to all of you.

We are continuing billmoyers.com because our team of talented journalists has won your respect and interest. There’s where you will find other kindred spirits who will be part of that “Network” of reformers, activists and advocates, writers and journalists who are committed to making democracy work in the public interest.

Meanwhile, a last word to everyone (and it goes back to the first question): The greatest challenge we face in America toda is to stop the buying and selling of our poltiicians and political process by corporations and the rich. You may have seen the story earlier this week: For the first time ever the Vatican rented out the Sistine Chapel to a corporation — Porsche — for guests who paid $8,000 a head to attend a concert there. For the first time a corporate donor determined who could be invited to that sacred place. That’s what has happened to democracy. Either we reverse Citizens United and insist democracy is about equal representation, or we might as well close up shop.

There are so many I couldn’t begin to single them out. For all the woes of newspapers and all the shallowness of television, there is world-class journalism happening today in every medium. “Search and ye shall find” those who move, inform, and inspire you. We’re experiencing a surge of long-form journalism in books, and I’ll post some of my favorites at billmoyers.com before my last broadcast on January 2.

My wife Judith who is also my partner calls what we do “a campfire” and I am always conscious that around it are people who for a brief spell experience a sense of that invisible community which forms out there across the country. As for yourniece, Dawn, tell her to seek out an organization that thrives on meetings, forums, connecting with others; study others good at this craft (Diane Rehm, Terry Gross, Charlie Rose, Brian Lehrer, and those locals I don’t know but would respect if I heard them–people who do what they do so that they can share instead of hoard it). And keep looking. As Shakespeare said, “Merit doth much, but Fortune more.” I was a very lucky fellow years ago — and still am.

Thank you, Sharron, for your generous words. I’ve done what I’ve done all these years because I knew there are people like you, and that knowledge has kept me going.

4l years and cannot remember a single guest who complained he or she was misrepresented, even when I am disagreeing.

or focused study. I read widely, keep notes, clip articles, and then from a thorough briefing book prepared by that team I mentioned, I try to outline what interests me and what might interest you (the viewer). That road map helps even when spontaneity seizes either the guest or me. We usually converse for an hour and what you see on the screen is our best effort to do justice to what the guest truly wanted to say. I’ve been at this for

Thanks. For me the key is editing. Anyone can go on at length in a conversation, but bringing a long conversation down to its essence without the guest feeling exploited requires a team of people devoted to that purpose, and I have that kind of team: researchers, producers, editors, colleagues. It also takes sustained preparation — either from life experiences

I’m not always optimistic. Sometimes I despair. But reading history helps (in fact, I strongly urge all of you to seek out and read Frank Rich’s stunning article on the cover of New York Magazine about the year 1964 — and so many of us fooled ourselves about the nature of progress. Pespective helps: I don’t think anything we are facing today, except for global warming, is more than my grandparents and my parents faced. Remember, they lived through the First Gilded Age or the Roaring Twenties that flamed out into Great Depression. World War II. The Holocaust. Sustained racism. The Korean War. Vietnam. And so on. So I take heart that if they tackled their generation’s challenges, we can, too. Furthermore, as the political scientist Gramsci said (and I may not have it exactly): Practice the pressimism of the mind — see the world as it is without rose colored glasses; but also practice the optimism of the will — do whatever you can, wherever you are, to make this a better world. We have to keep criticizing what’s wrong, but we are also oligated to act to change what it is we are criticizing.

Please get your questions and comments in now. We appreciate all the heartfelt comments and thoughtful questions.

Thanks to everyone for your patience. Bill is typing his response.

P.S. Don’t quit marching because the press doesn’t notice.

Corportate media largely ignored it — you are right. And then, three days after the March the U.S. started bombing in Syria and Iraq and stories about the March and climate change were driven from the news. Fortunately, we still have the Web to create alternative media to spread the word. So if you haven’t yet let the FCC hear from you on the importance of net neutraility, do so now. Check out billmoyers.com for how to do it.

Thanks for all your comments and questions! We’ll try and get to as many as we can…

I am not sure. For one thing, monitor how the curriculum standards for your local schools are determined and besiege those officials being lobbied and bullied by the anti-science crowd to undermine science. Oranize to challenge them. Start a local blog. Call your local editors to account. The LATimes, for example, has ceased to print letters from climate science deniers.

Yes. One that says: “Corporations are not people. Money is not speech.”

Join with someone else like-minded and keep adding others. For example, suppose two of you, six of you, 60 of you showed up at the next public event where your Member of Congress is asking for your vote, circulate printed records of who has contributed money to him/her, and start peppering him/her with questions. Then be at the next rally, or if it’s where you can’t get to, use your “Committee of Correspondence” to alert the one(s) near where he or she will nex appear.

You’re right, Joanie, they are not. And probably never will. Except in dire sraits the fate of society — especially democracy — depends upon the minority of people who care enough to engage and stay engaged. Start that conversation where you live — in your apartment complex, on your block, in your neighorhood. There is always at least one kindred spirit within reach with home to launch a conversation and even a conspiracy. Then build on those two. Launch a Committee of Correspondence and keep it. Robert LaFollette said democracy is a life, and requires constant struggle.

the people in charge have too great a stake in the status quo.

wants control of the Republican Party. The Left is too content just to rent space in the attic from the Democrats. Until that changes, the Republican Party is going to be too extreme and the Democrats too enfeebled. Neither will change voluntarily because

The two parties are too entrenched in the rule-making process that enables them to make their own ellimination impossible. Both parties have lost their footing, however, in the everyday experience of real people and they have to be challenged without remorse or retreat. Someone has said Left and Right have lost their footing, but the Right is more certain about what it wants. It

Even if it were time, it’s not going to happen.

1. We have to figure out how to have a morally-based conversation about politics and economics. If it’s all about money and return on investment and stock shares and all that, instead of what kind of society works best for those who don’t have such “goods”, we’re finished as a democracy, because some people will be able to buy anything they want and vast numbers of others will be unable to afford what they need. 2. The corruption of power and money is so pervasive and systemic that we have to take it on at every level, which requires that (3) There has to be a broad-based movement for democracy that mirrors and exceeds what Bill McKibben, 350.org and kindred spirits like Naomi Klein have built to reverse global warming.

While Bill is typing, we encourage you to send us your thoughts and questions by entering them in the submission box below.

t a photograph in real time to prove its me. You will just have to take my word for it, because I was told we journalists could do our work from now on in our pajamas!

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Hi Bill!

Bill is here with us, so I think we’ll get started.

Welcome to our chat! Bill will be ready to start in a few minutes. Those of you who are on social media, our hashtag for this event is #ChatWithBill.

Hi all, Bill won’t be here until 1 pm, but we encourage you to enter questions below beforehand and Bill will try to get to all your questions. Thanks!