No wonder scoundrels find refuge in patriotism; it offers them immunity from criticism. - Bill Moyers

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No wonder scoundrels find refuge in patriotism; it offers them immunity from criticism.

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About Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers (June 5, 1934 – June 26, 2025), born Billy Don Moyers, was an American journalist and political commentator. He served as the eleventh White House Press Secretary under the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1967 to 1974. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years. Moyers was extensively involved with public broadcasting, producing documentaries and news journal programs. He won numerous awards and honorary degrees for his investigative journalism and civic activities. He became well known as a trenchant critic of the corporately structured U.S. news media.

Also Known As

Birth Name: Billy Don Moyers
Alternative Names: Billy Moyers
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Additional quotes by Bill Moyers

Conservatives — or better, pro-corporate apologists — hijacked the vocabulary of Jeffersonian liberalism and turned words like "progress," "opportunity," and "individualism" into tools for making the plunder of America sound like divine right … This "degenerate and unlovely age," as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove — the reputed brain of George W. Bush — as the seminal age of inspiration for politics and governance of America today.

In tracking down and eliminating terrorists, we need to change our metaphor from a "war on terror" — exactly what, pray tell, is that? — to the mind-set of Interpol tracking down master criminals through intense global cooperation among nations, or the FBI stalking the Mafia, or local police determined to quell street gangs without leveling the entire neighborhood in the process.

Jesus would not be crucified today. The prophets would not be stoned. Socrates would not drink the hemlock. They would instead be banned from the Sunday talk shows and op-ed pages by the sentries of establishment thinking who guard against dissent with the one weapon of mass destruction most cleverly designed to obliterate democracy: the rubber stamp.

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