Bill Moyers signing off from `Now' and TV journalism after three decades

[bapcathluth]

Originally Posted by Lance

I guess that means if we don't like him you think we are a bunch of Neanderthals. Thanks. I don't consider myself to be Mensa class but I have managed to make a very nice living and raise a family, spend about 3 times as much time reading as I do watching TV and I don't care for him.

You said that, not me, Lance. How many times have you watched Bill Moyers?

I think Pat Robertson is very intelligent but he isn't my cup of tea. This doesn't give me an inferiority complex so that I read a personal insult into those who enjoy him.

[bapcathluth]

Originally Posted by gilliam

If I remember correctly, Bill Moyers treated Amazing Grace the same way a narc agent would treat heroin addiction, with puzzelment of why people would find anything in it. But with awe at it's power to influence people. I wouldn't call that pro-Christian either.

You don't remember correctly. He was very respectful and he didn't act puzzled. He was interested and engaged, and the people were not portrayed as a narc agent would treat heroin addicts. They were portrayed as a wide variety of people from many different cultures who all had been touched deeply by this song and the idea of grace.

On the other hand, your inability to admit that some people may want to have guests on who look at religion as myth doesn't mean they are anti-religion. It just means there are intellectuals out there who do have this view and it is interesting as well.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by bapcathluth

You said that, not me, Lance. How many times have you watched Bill Moyers?

I think Pat Robertson is very intelligent but he isn't my cup of tea. This doesn't give me an inferiority complex so that I read a personal insult into those who enjoy him.

You said " Intellectual people also need a place to call home on the TV dial." Implying that those of us who would rather watch something else or do something else are not 'intellectual'.

[bapcathluth]

Originally Posted by Lance

You said " Intellectual people also need a place to call home on the TV dial." Implying that those of us who would rather watch something else or do something else are not 'intellectual'.

Yes, I think intellectuals do need a place on the TV dial and Moyers was one show that catered to thinking people. Your not liking him doesn't necessarily mean you are Neanderthal.

I would say that people who watch Fear Factor and the Swan are obviously not interested in developing their intellectual side. Unfortunately, most of the networks cater to the lowest common denominator.

I also don't claim to be Einstein, but I enjoy hearing about many ideas. This is one reason I come here to CAF. I certainly don't agree with most of the posters here, but it is enlightening to know how other people think.

[MrS]

Originally Posted by bapcathluth

. I certainly don't agree with most of the posters here, but it is enlightening to know how other people think.

If you were truly being "enlightened" don't you think your views would change? I am glad you enjoy being here, I do too. However it would seem that "entertained" is more appropriate.

And that could apply to Moyers too. Entertainment, not enlightenment.

[Lance]

Originally Posted by bapcathluth

Yes, I think intellectuals do need a place on the TV dial and Moyers was one show that catered to thinking people. Your not liking him doesn't necessarily mean you are Neanderthal.

I would say that people who watch Fear Factor and the Swan are obviously not interested in developing their intellectual side. Unfortunately, most of the networks cater to the lowest common denominator.

I also don't claim to be Einstein, but I enjoy hearing about many ideas. This is one reason I come here to CAF. I certainly don't agree with most of the posters here, but it is enlightening to know how other people think.

I think we found some common ground. I like 'Fear Factor' even less than I liked Moyers, don't know what Swan is, so I can assume I would not care for the show. CAF does make all of us think.

[bapcathluth]

Originally Posted by MrS

If you were truly being "enlightened" don't you think your views would change? I am glad you enjoy being here, I do too. However it would seem that "entertained" is more appropriate.

And that could apply to Moyers too. Entertainment, not enlightenment.

Does enlighten mean that I must change my views to mirror yours? That is a rather narrow definition of enlightenment.

[gilliam]

Originally Posted by bapcathluth

On the other hand, your inability to admit that some people may want to have guests on who look at religion as myth doesn't mean they are anti-religion. It just means there are intellectuals out there who do have this view and it is interesting as well.

The point is Moyers looked as religion as myth and he prostelitized that idea whenever he could. Don't blaim me for telling the truth, review his record, it is pretty clear if you open your eyes and objectively review his work.

He has a right as an American to not like Catholics and think we are all superstitious myth believers, but when he prostelitizes a view that Catholics are believers in myth, that makes him anti-Catholic, which was my point to begin with.

[HagiaSophia]

Originally Posted by gilliam

The point is Moyers looked as religion as myth and he prostelitized that idea whenever he could. Don't blaim me for telling the truth, review his record, it is pretty clear if you open your eyes and objectively review his work.

He has a right as an American to not like Catholics and think we are all superstitious myth believers, but when he prostelitizes a view that Catholics are believers in myth, that makes him anti-Catholic, which was my point to begin with.

Let's face it - never has a man with so little talent made so much out of it on the boob tube.I mean trying to make him out as some kind of intellectual - shows how short of intellectuals we really are in tv land.

[bapcathluth]

Originally Posted by HagiaSophia

Let's face it - never has a man with so little talent made so much out of it on the boob tube.I mean trying to make him out as some kind of intellectual - shows how short of intellectuals we really are in tv land.

Let's not exaggerate. Have you forgotten Chuck Barris of The Gong Show? : )

[HagiaSophia]

Originally Posted by bapcathluth

Let's not exaggerate. Have you forgotten Chuck Barris of The Gong Show? : )

I've never heard anyone accuse Barris of having a major talent, nor of being "intellectual".

[HagiaSophia]

Lowell Ponte takes a good look at Mr. Moyers:

"...Bill Moyers is retiring this week. After a third of a century on television, appearing so pervasively on PBS that many have called public broadcasting the “Moyers Broadcasting Service,” this sweater-wearing pundit who delivered socialist and neo-Marxist propaganda with a soft Texas accent is leaving television.


The bad news is that the corrosive Great Society programs Bill Moyers helped shape as the left-hand man to President Lyndon Johnson during the 1960s have siphoned more than $6 trillion from productive Americans to the unproductive, and will continue. So, too, will the toxic politics Moyers played a major role in creating.


Bill Moyers’ face henceforth will appear only irregularly on television, except during fund-raising drives at PBS, but his puppeteer hand will continue to manipulate American politics from behind the scenes. This will continue via the millions he disperses tax-exempt to left-wing media and activist groups from the $90 million endowment of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy (formerly the Florence and John Schumann Foundation), where, as a longtime Daddy Warbucks of the left, Moyers will remain president.


Who is Bill Moyers, and how did he come to occupy these lofty positions of power and influence in American culture?

"....But as an increasingly left-wing ideologue, he found it more and more difficult to go before the press to defend the president’s war policies in Vietnam.


In 1967 Moyers and President Johnson had a personal falling out. They never spoke to one another again. With his political background, left ideology and media contacts Moyers found it easy to switch sides and join the media. He was named publisher of the suburban New York City newspaper on Long Island, Newsday. Moving the newspaper farther left, he turned it into a literary salon that invited writers such as Saul Bellow to be its correspondents. ..."Moyers pockets the proceeds from tape and DVD sales, sales of the related book and other subsidiary products from hundreds of hours of his programs. Moyers has refused to make any public disclosure of his income...."

"...Moyers has always been more propagandist than journalist, more bent on changing the world than reporting facts with fairness or objectivity. Even his programs dealing with religion and culture seem designed to undermine traditional values and beliefs. His guests over the years have been disproportionately from the left, including radicals such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Ehrenreich, Carlos Fuentes and Cornel West...."

"...As many as 30 PBS affiliates had ceased airing Moyers’ partisan show “Now” during pledge drives, apparently in part because its blatant bias alienated many potential contributors. “Now” had also become an ethical embarrassment because Moyers as of 2003 had used his taxpayer-subsidized PBS show to promote guests from at least 16 left organizations that had gotten at least $4.8 million in grants from the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. ..."

"Moyers says he is going to write a book about his years with Lyndon Johnson. “It isn’t because I feel old,” he told Moore. “It’s because I feel compelled to do something else now, that only I can do – which is that book.”


Moyers long ago rejected a publisher's request for such a book about President Johnson. “That would make me a thief of his confidences,” said Moyers. “Johnson spent hours and hours with me in unguarded moments. He could not have done so had he ever thought I would write what he was saying.” But with the kind of integrity that has always been Moyers’ opportunistic hallmark, he now has changed his mind.

http://newsmax.com/archives/articles...3/171656.shtml

[Galieo]

Originally Posted by bapcathluth

Bill Moyers is an intelligent, erudite man whose many shows covered a whole range of topics including shows which were very pro-Christian as I mentioned in my earlier post. Obviously his shows are not meant to be those of a preacher standing in the pulpit. His are shows that explore an array of ideas.

This doesn't mean he is anti-traditional family. Thank God for some decent programming. At least it isn't mindless reality shows, stupid sit-coms. etc. Intellectual people also need a place to call home on the TV dial.

Do you recall the hissy-fit that he threw after the Gore v. Bush decision was handed down? It was very unbecoming and for me, shot whatever claim he might make to objectivity, at least in political matters.

I think the quality of his work has slipped significantly in the last several years.

[HagiaSophia]

Originally Posted by Galieo

Do you recall the hissy-fit that he threw after the Gore v. Bush decision was handed down? It was very unbecoming and for me, shot whatever claim he might make to objectivity, at least in political matters.

I think the quality of his work has slipped significantly in the last several years.

You are far more charitable than I - I never saw any "quality" to his work.

[buffalo]

They are dropping like flies and with them go their propaganda.
They have become irrelevant.