Bill Moyers & Thomas Frank interview transcript

[Torvald Von Mansee]

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/01...anscript4.html

Discuss!!

[SteamWake]

How is it that the people who are responsible for the mess that Obama inherited are getting away with demonizing him when he's only had less than a year to clean it up.

I quit reading right there.

[August]

The liberals in my country have blinders on and what happened here in Massachusetts last night is going to continue in November.

[CaptainHaplo]

Torvald - I havent been able to read the whole thing - but a couple of things I would discuss.

First - I totally agree with one quote:

THOMAS FRANK: Government is-- yeah, government is a perversion. And to believe that the federal government can be operated, you know, with all of its programs, can be operated well and do things that are good for the people, is, as you say, is a perversion.

Now the fact is that this was in response to Bill Moyers - saying that "That government is a perversion" (that being the Bush administration). This response was not what Moyer was getting at - but as it is stated on its own - it is very clear and accurate.

Second I will address this one:

THOMAS FRANK: I'll give you an example what I mean. So, I was on a radio show the other day with a tea party leader, you know, one of these protest leaders. And he seemed like a good guy. But what he did say that struck me was he said he was really against monopoly, you know? And we're laboring under all these monopolies, all these concentrated powers here in America. And what we need to do is get back to free markets. And then we can do away with that. And it was mind-blowing.

Because if you look back any further than the Obama Administration, since, I mean, 1980 in this country, we have been in the grip of, you know, of this pursuit of ever-purer free markets. That's what American politics has been about. That's what has delivered this, you know, the awful circumstances that we find ourselves in today.

This is a total misunderstanding of what free markets are. What the economic powers became since really the 1990's - from Bush, to Clinton, and back to another Bush, has NOT been a free market. It has been a CONGLOMERATED market. By that I mean you have COMPANIES that are paying to affect legislation that gives them the upper hand over rivals. In essence- a pay to play system. BOTH republicans and democrats are guilty of allowing this over the last 2 decades. This is why the "TEA BAG" movement is so resonant - its about stopping the money means power in politics. If GM is broke - it needs to go broke. Same way with AIG or Bank of America. Same with Freddie and Fannie. But what we have had over the last few years - from both sides, has been corporate interests of one sort or the other gaining the handout from the government.

A free market means you are falling, you can land on your face. Its not the government or the taxpayers to either bail you out, or legislatively prop you up in any way. This is why conservatives have walked away from the republican party - because the republicans walked away from the VALUES that the people hold.