MetaFilter posts tagged with billmoyers

Moyer and Campbell's "Power of Myth" documentary now online for free

ajr — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 16:51:29 -0800

Joseph Campbell was well-known for his exploration of the monomyth, or the hero's journey, which posits that worldwide myths that have survived for thousands of years all share a fundamental structure. Campbell's work inspired George Lucas to create the first Star Wars trilogy. In the mid-1980s, Bill Moyers spent many hours interviewing Campbell at Skywalker Ranch. The result was a now famous documentary called "The Power of Myth." The series has been available on DVD since 2001, but Moyers has just made the full series available for streaming and download on his site.

"The nature of the photographic process - it is about failure."

Lorin — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 11:31:15 -0800

"The fact that photographs — they’re mute, they don’t have any narrative ability at all. You know what something looks like, but you don’t know what’s happening, you don’t know whether the hat’s being held or is it being put on her head or taken off her head. From the photograph, you don’t know that. A piece of time and space is well described. But not what is happening."

Legendary street photographer Garry Winogrand with Bill Moyers, 1982 While he was undoubtedly most at home shooting on the street, Winogrand also occasionally played the reluctant photography instructor with a gift for witticisms about the nature of photography. [Audio w/ transcript]

Hiding In Plain Sight

troll — Sat, 06 Oct 2012 11:44:16 -0800

Moyers & Company presents “United States of ALEC,” a report on the most influential corporate-funded political force most of America has never heard of — ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council. A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge. [previously]

To PBS With (Tough) Love

hippybear — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 10:50:13 -0800

But this season, PBS chose to move Independent Lens and P.O.V. to a new time slot -- 10 pm, ET, on Thursday nights. This may not seem like such a big deal at first, until you know that on Thursday nights stations can broadcast any program they like in prime time, whether it's part of the PBS schedule or not. Many take the opportunity to offers viewers locally produced programs, British sitcoms or reruns of Antiques Roadshow. As a result, episodes of the independent documentary series can now be run anywhere local stations choose to fit them in (here in New York, WNET airs the films at 11 p.m. on Sundays) or maybe not at all.

Bill Moyers writes an open letter to PBS about scheduling changes which have ruined PBS as Tuesday night destination for documentary television.

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis

AElfwine Evenstar — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 05:23:25 -0800

Bill Moyers' scathing 1987 special report on our secret government.(SLYT)(via)(trigger warning: pictures and video of dead bodies) It includes an in-depth look at the Iran-Contra Affair and much, much more. Note: sound cuts out for a couple of minutes during the intro because of copyrighted song. Sound returns around 3:20.

The Return Of The Journalist Jedi

hippybear — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:31:19 -0800

Bill Moyers has returned to broadcasting. His new weekly show, Moyers & Company, aired its first episode on many PBS stations last night with a half-hour interview with Jacob Hackler and Paul Pierson, authors of Winner-Take-All Politics, and a second half-hour examining Occupy Wall Street. The episode, and other video not included in the weekly episodes, will be available on his new website.

Welcome To The Plutocracy

hippybear — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 12:53:04 -0800

Bill Moyers delivers the first Howard Zinn Memorial Lecture at Boston University, from Oct 29, 2010. (video runs 2 hours, transcript of speech)

Socrates said to understand a thing, you must first name it. The name for what’s happening to our political system is corruption – a deep, systemic corruption. I urge you to seek out the recent edition of Harper’s Magazine. The former editor Roger D. Hodge brilliantly dissects how democracy has gone on sale in America. Ideally, he writes, our ballots purport to be expressions of political will, which we hope and pray will be translated into legislative and executive action by our pretended representatives. But voting is the beginning of civil virtue, not its end, and the focus of real power is elsewhere. Voters still “matter” of course, but only as raw material to be shaped by the actual form of political influence – money.

Lecture begins approx 7 minutes into video, after introductory remarks.

Bill Moyers interviews Barry Lopez

cirripede — Mon, 03 May 2010 08:55:59 -0800

This that you call Ursus maritimus, this polar bear. This is a being who came from somewhere and is going somewhere. It's not locked in time. And that—the great resistance to Darwin is, I think, he told us that it's all moving. And it's headed in no particular place. And then particular physics comes along. And quantum mechanics come along. And these physicists tell us the same thing. "It's really fuzzy out there."

A few days ago, without much notice, PBS broadcast the final episode of the Bill Moyers Journal. Moyers devoted his final segment to an interview with essayist Barry Lopez—whose writing, Moyers said, has "set the gold standard for all of us whose work it is to explain those things we don't understand." (Transcript.) In a recent blog post on the Journal website, Moyers explained his decision to retire after the final show on April 30th:

I'm leaving for one reason alone: It's time to go. I'll be 76 in a few weeks, and while I don't consider myself old (my father lived into his 80s, my mother into her 90s) there are some things left to do that the deadlines and demands of a weekly broadcast don't permit. At 76, it's now or never. I actually informed my friends at PBS of my decision over a year ago, and planned to leave at the end of last December. But they asked me to continue another four more months while they prepare a new series for Friday night broadcast. I agreed, but said at the time—April 30 and not a week longer. It wasn't easy deciding to close the Journal. I like what I do, I cherish my colleagues, and my viewers remain loyal and engaged. I will miss the virtual community that has grown up around the broadcast - kindred spirits across the country whose unseen but felt presence reminds me of why I have kept at this work so long. But it has indeed been a long time (almost 40 years since I launched the original Journal in 1971), and that's why I can assure you that my departure is entirely voluntary. "Time brings everything," an ancient wise man said. Including new beginnings.

Here are some recent interviews and essays from the Bill Moyers Journal that you might have missed: - An essay: Deepening the American Dream - An interview with novelist Louise Erdrich - An interview with Michelle Alexander and Bryan Stevenson on American inequality and King's legacy - An interview with Jane Goodall

This Lousy World

escabeche — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:24:01 -0800

"'I am going to get rid of everything, including mosquitoes, that bothers me, anywhere in the world, and then I will be a very happy, content person.' We're laughing, but it's what we all do." SLYT: A wry two-minute teaching about avoiding pain by Buddhist nun Pema Chodron, based on these writings of the 8th century scholar Shantideva. For those who don't like video, here's a transcript (scroll down.) For those who really like video, here's 55 minutes of Chodron with Bill Moyers. (This too has a partial transcript.)

The Potential Power of Organized People

HP LaserJet P10006 — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 18:30:29 -0800

Amid the financial headlines (about new banking reforms, more bank failures, the need for more lending by the fat-cats, the question of whether a European-style bonus-tax might be possible here, and the shrinking of the middle class), on PBS yesterday Bill Moyers wondered, in an in-depth segment (with organizers from here and here), whether a new wave of populist economic activism is perhaps, despite all odds, beginning to make a dent after all.

"We know what happened because he said 'yes'"

IvoShandor — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:57:38 -0800

Last week on Bill Moyers Journal LBJ tapes were presented detailing Lyndon Johnson's decision to escalate American involvement in Vietnam. Moyers connected these tapes with the current U.S. administration's quest for a solution in the Afghan War.

Moyers: Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone. Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent. And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart. And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision. We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes. ("A Tale of Two Quagmires" - Transcript)

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum began releasing the LBJ tapes in 1993. Today, 100s of hours of President Johnson's phone conversations are available to the public. The library sells copies of the tapes to the public for six dollars each and CDs for eight dollars apiece. The LBJ library is not the only place to find these recordings. The conversations run the gamut and reveal much about Johnson, his policies and the process he used to arrive at his decisions. Some of the topics discussed include the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, civil rights, frustration over Vietnam, social security, and Nixon. C-SPAN has a nice searchable collection of many LBJ tapes, compiled from those recordings which aired on C-SPAN Radio. The University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs has a large collection as well (I read it was all of them but am unsure if it actually is). (Prev-iously)

"But what I saw were doctors who were set up to provide care in animal stalls ... It was almost-- what country am I in? I just it just didn't seem to be a possibility that I was in the United States."

delmoi — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:20:00 -0800

Bill Moyers Interviews Former Cigna PR Chief Wendell Potter Cigna's former head of Corporate Communications discusses about how Insurance companies have fought against public health care in the U.S, How wallstreet's demands drive up profits, how they do it, and why he quit. transcript

Contracting War

ornate insect — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:59:56 -0800

Jeremy Scahill talked with Bill Moyers recently about the continued role and increasing centrality of private military contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq, the use of military drones, and other issues related to these two ongoing wars. According to Jeremy Scahill, newly released Pentagon statistics show that in both Iraq and Afghanistan the number of armed contractors is rising, and that contractors (armed and unarmed)* now make up approximately 50% [of the total force]. Yet, since these numbers relate explicitly to DoD security contractors, [and since] companies like Blackwater and its successor Triple Canopy (more on them here) work on State Department contracts...it is unclear if these contractors are included in the over-all statistics. In other words, the numbers could be higher. Questions of statistics aside, the larger questions--of whether the increasingly privatized US military could even function without contractors, and the degree to which the systematic reliance on contractors has become business as usual--remain. The "complex" is alive and well. (*I'm not sure the significance of this distinction, since presumably even contractors not engaged in combat or security are also armed.)

it's good to be a banksta

kliuless — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:19:06 -0800

Simon Johnson on Bill Moyers [1] (and, prolifically, making the public media rounds on npr [2]) tackling the bailout of the American Oligarchs, a.k.a. banksters... BONUS LISTENING :P Economic Contagion - "Listen to this interview with former Goldman banker John Talbott for some refreshing straight talk (Leonard Lopate Show)." and peripherally related... clay shirky on, essentially, 'change.gov' (42 mb; approx 92 minutes) and bill moyers with nikki giovanni, which was (and whois) also awesome! --- also recently related moyers on the blue 1 2

Moyers, Greenwald and Rosen on politics and the media

homunculus — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 12:23:30 -0800

Politics, the Press, and the Public. Bill Moyers speaks with Glenn Greenwald and Jay Rosen about the role of the establishment press in America’s dysfunctional political system.

Stand By Me

Sailormom — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 09:09:05 -0800

Playing for Change - Peace Through Music (flash) is a documentary film by Mark Johnson. He traveled the world and recorded various musicians playing the song Stand By Me. Each musician was charged with layering a single song over the previous artist thus building upon it. Over thirty musicians globally participated in this project and not one artist knew the other or came in contact initially. Bill Moyers talks with Mark Johnson, the producer of a remarkable documentary about the simple but transformative power of music.

Lawless Lands: Justice Denied to Native Communities

fourcheesemac — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 17:11:50 -0800

"Lawless Lands": Michael Riley, writing in the Denver Post, investigates the dysfunctional state of law enforcement on Native American reservations, and the shocking consequences for crime victims. Bill Moyer's Journal has followed up with an excellent documentary expose entitled "Broken Justice." Amnesty International reports on a particularly heinous aspect of the problem -- one in three Native women will be raped in her lifetime, and the perpetrators are rarely punished. N. Bruce Duthu's Op-Ed on the subject from the NY Times, 8/10.08.

"...market fundamentalism for the last 25 or so years. And now that world is collapsing... "

[expletive deleted] — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:24:00 -0800

Bill Moyers interviews George Soros on the financial crisis. Soros discusses market fundamentalism and the causes of the current crisis, as well as what can be done, and how this meltdown will change the global economy. (via The Big Picture) It begins with Moyers violating the behavioral norms of modern journalism:

In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I served three years on the board of George Soros' foundation, the Open Society Institute, dealing with such issues as a free press, the rule of law, and human rights. But I've had no involvement in his political activities and nothing to do, with his business interests unfortunately.

Bill Moyers Vs. Fox News

Optamystic — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:43:39 -0800

Bill Moyers Vs. Fox News The Fox News stooge was unaware that he was messin' with a Jedi. Joseph Campbell would be proud.

Bill Moyers interviewed Jon Stewart

McGuillicuddy — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:04:12 -0800

Bill Moyers interviewed Jon Stewart on April 27. The video is on the Moyers' soon-to-be great new site.

Bill Moyers speech at West Point

russilwvong — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 12:03:07 -0800

Bill Moyers speech at West Point on "The Meaning of Freedom." I repeat: These are not palatable topics for soldiers about to go to war; I would like to speak of sweeter things. But freedom means we must face reality: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Free enough, surely, to think for yourselves about these breaches of contract that crudely undercut the traditions of an army of free men and women who have bound themselves voluntarily to serve the nation even unto death. Previously on MetaFilter: after 9/11, inequality, religion and democracy, the environment, right-wing media, public broadcasting. Wikipedia.

Imagine a Bill Moyers and Kenneth Tomlinson showdown at high noon

john — Mon, 16 May 2005 20:27:28 -0800

Sunday the National Conference on Media Reform featured the first public speech by Bill Moyers since he left PBS. "I always knew Nixon would be back, again and again. I just didn’t know that this time he would ask to be Chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."

Media

semmi — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:36:55 -0800

Don't miss tonight on PBS the final NOW with Bill Moyers. "Bill Moyers looks inside the right-wing media machine that the conservative NEW YORK TIMES columnist David Brooks called a "dazzlingly efficient ideology delivery system." The program examines how a vast echo chamber that is admittedly partisan and powerfully successful delivers information — and misinformation — with more regard for propaganda than fact. Founding father to the conservative movement, Richard Viguerie tells Moyers, 'That’s what journalism is, Bill. It’s all just opinion. Just opinion.'”

That's not the rapture, it's the space people harvesting you for meat

jimray — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 21:32:18 -0800

Republican environmental politics as usual? While the president's policies seem to be standard for his party, Bill Moyers thinks there's more than meets the eye. On receiving Harvard medical school's Global Environment Citizen Award, Moyers posits that destruction of the environment isn't just good for big business, it's a self fulfilling prophecy of the apocalypse. Not just any old apocalypse, it's The Rapture, complete with plagues for the non-believers and immmediate ascension to the right hand of God Himself for the righteous.

Two days after Moyer's speech, Science magazine looks at the scientific consensus on global warming. If you're having a hard time explaining all this to your kids, don't worry, your tax dollars are hard at work.

Bill Moyers on democracy excrutiate.

fold_and_mutilate — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 14:03:36 -0800

"How do we nurture the healing side of religion over the killing side? How do we protect the soul of democracy against bad theology in service of an imperial state? OVER THE PAST few years, as the poor got poorer, the health care crisis worsened, wealth and media became more and more concentrated, and our political system was bought out from under us, prophetic Christianity lost its voice. The Religious Right drowned everyone else out. And they hijacked Jesus. The very Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed, 'The Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.' The very Jesus who told 5,000 hungry people that all of you will be fed, not just some of you. The very Jesus who challenged the religious orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who raised the status of women and treated even the tax collector like a child of God. The very Jesus who drove the money changers from the temple. This Jesus has been hijacked and turned into a guardian of privilege instead of a champion of the dispossessed. Hijacked, he was made over into a militarist, hedonist, and lobbyist, sent prowling the halls of Congress in Guccis, seeking tax breaks and loopholes for the powerful, costly new weapon systems that don't work, and punitive public policies."
Bill Moyers on democracy excruciate.