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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMOYERS: "The next time you say the Pledge of Allegiance – remember: it’s a lie. A whopper of a lie."
The Hypocrisy of "Justice for All"
Monday, 01 April 2013 13:44
By Bill Moyers, Moyers & Company | Video
BILL MOYERS:
.................
Justice for all is a line item in the budget sequestered now by the Paul Ryans of Congress and the Fix the Debt gang of plutocratic CEOs who, with a wink-wink from our president, claim, Oh, we cant afford that!
Of the $100 billion spent annually on criminal justice in this country, only two to three percent goes to defend the poor. Of 97 countries, we rank 68th in access to and affordability of civil legal service.
No, we cant afford it, but just a decade ago we started shelling out $2.2 trillion for a war in Iraq born of fraud.
We cant afford it, while Dick Cheneys old outfit Halliburton raked in $40 billion worth of contracts because of that war.
...................................
VIDEO & the rest:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/15460-bill-moyers-essay-the-hypocrisy-of-justice-for-all
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)the walrus said, to completely wake-up from the cloud of conditioning we have been living in.
The propaganda of the past does not serve our best interests if we want to refer to ourselves as "a people", rather than merely consumers who are viewed as statistical market-shares as a result of intensive and precise manipulation.
The propaganda of the present prevails and partly so because it rests on the foundation laid before it. That foundation, when investigated, is purely symbolic and yet, an internalized aspect of our world view. When that foundation is seen for what it is and begins to crumble, the expertise and techniques that are flooding our experience each day by way of media, advertising and entertainment, will begin to loosen and become less effect.
That's when change can emerge on a personal level in a way that has a gradual impact on the situation-at-large. All the talking heads and convincing symbols in the world can't readily influence those who see into what conceptualization is, how it is used to control and manipulate and just how vacuous and abstract it turns out to be in essence.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Time to step outside the propaganda Matrix.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)But for a lot of people that is a scary thing...and the PTB know that and use the shit out of it to scare the people with.
It really is an uphill battle change things.
tex-wyo-dem
(3,190 posts)And written post, Newest Reality. Spot on!
Newest Reality
(12,712 posts)Glad some folks are open. That's very encouraging.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)kenfrequed
(7,865 posts)He has been a great service to the public in journalism and in helping document history and ideas. I love his show on PBS and I enjoyed his interviews with Joseph Campbell back in the day.
lastlib
(22,981 posts)sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)progressoid
(49,827 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)International Space Station!
malaise
(267,824 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)KansDem
(28,498 posts)He started his journalism career at sixteen as a cub reporter at the Marshall News Messenger in Marshall, Texas. In college, he studied journalism at the North Texas State College in Denton, Texas. In 1954, then-U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson employed him as a summer intern and eventually promoted him to manage Johnson's personal mail. Soon after, Moyers transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, where he wrote for The Daily Texan newspaper. In 1956, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. While in Austin, Moyers served as assistant news editor for KTBC radio and television stations owned by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of then-Senator Johnson. During the academic year 19561957, he studied issues of church and state at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland as a Rotary International Fellow. In 1959, he completed a Master of Divinity degree at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.[1] Moyers served as Director of Information while attending SWBTS. He was also a Baptist pastor in Weir, Texas.
Moyers was ordained in 1954. Moyers planned to enter a doctor of philosophy program in American Studies at the University of Texas. During Senator Johnson's unsuccessful bid for the 1960 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, Moyers served as a top aide, and in the general campaign he acted as liaison between Democratic vice-presidential candidate Johnson and the Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Moyers
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)and it just sounds ridiculous to me now.
fasttense
(17,301 posts)It hit me so hard, I had difficulty getting out of bed for a week. I was so depressed. I kept saying that the highest court in the land would never rule in favor of NOT COUNTING OUR VOTES. I was patriotic up until that point. I gave the military 20 years of my life thinking I was defending the rights of all people in America. What a fool I was.
I realized America had no justice except for the few well connected and rich.
I weep for the loss of my illusions but I would never go back to believing a lie.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)I was profoundly disappointed and expected more of a backlash. When Gore gave up, I figured I would just have to suffer through 4 years of ridiculousness. Never did I guess how bad it would get.
The lies and the war to steal oil horrified me and still do.
Edited to add: And the 4th of July used to be one of my favorite holidays. Now it just makes me cringe. Very sad.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)LuckyLib
(6,814 posts)byeya
(2,842 posts)democrank
(11,052 posts)Thanks for posting this, kpete.
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)there`s a point where it just a lie to say this so called pledge
abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)O wait....
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)He just does not get it. We Costco-loving, Thank God it Passed, Part time is just fine work loving, we know what is best for you HC "reform", bankers can save us Democrats are poised for a new future. A bright shiny, pay as you go future where every fucking nickel is squeezed out of every victim.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)not in a creepy internet stalker kinda way though
ReRe
(10,597 posts)...short rant that I've seen in a while! You have a gift, Safetykitten! And I totally concur.
midnight
(26,624 posts)I pledge no credence to the bag
Of lies Fox tells to America
And to the injustice, for which it stands,
One station, shunned by God,
With Hannity, disgusting for all.
Response to kpete (Original post)
alfredo This message was self-deleted by its author.
alfredo
(60,065 posts)wedge issue pushed by Eisenhower and other McCarthy era Republicans. The Knights of Columbus bankrolled the pro theocratic wording.
The pledge was written for a commercial event designed to increase sale of flags.
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." -
Francis Bellamy
History tells a story. Cheers!
alfredo
(60,065 posts)Into reciting the pledge.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." ~~ Voltaire, 1694-1778
alfredo
(60,065 posts)defacto7
(13,485 posts)Myrina
(12,296 posts).... tick tock, tick tock ...
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)Wonder why we have a deficit?
DhhD
(4,695 posts)This DVD is available through other sources also.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Bill Moyers, you made my day.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
It's about time someone in the national spotlight said this.
Justice for all is a joke.
Think foreclosures. Think bank bail-outs.
Think public schools being taken over by charter corporations. Think private schools funded by wealthy grandmothers.
Think underfunded community hospitals (if they still exist anywhere in the US).
Think plastic surgery for the wealthy.
There is no justice in the justice system.
More important, not only is there no JUSTICE in our economy (as there was when we opened up new lands to homesteaders and subsidized the building of the railroads to connect the homesteaders to the outside world), but, if the Republicans have their way, there will be no CHARITY.
In its place will be only "gifts" that cost more to the recipients in terms of loss of dignity and self-respect than they are worth.
Gregorian
(23,867 posts)Jello Biafra didn't do the pledge when he was a child.
byeya
(2,842 posts)I stood and mumbled
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)abstract as "the country for which it stands." I gave up the practice when I graduated from high school.
"Patriotism is the most foolish of passions and the passion of fools." Schopenhauer
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)we are a plutocracy with a Potemkin village called DC
ReRe
(10,597 posts)It was his last statement on his show last week. I almost wept to hear Truth coming out of my TV. If this was the GWB years, they would have thrown him off the air again. We hear so much garbage on TV,
but thank goodness we still have Bill Moyers speaking truth to power.
xxqqqzme
(14,887 posts)Moyers manages to get to the heart of an issue; finds the words of power and tell it. I try not to miss his program.
I stopped reciting the pledge years ago - How many times do I have to 'pledge allegiance' before it sticks?
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... I talk, I cheer, but most times I scream and add the missing info that they seem to let slip right over their shoulders. Have come darn near crashing it, but I never do it.
Yeah, I have often found it a double standard how TPTB ridicule other nations for indoctrinating their children, when we have been doing it since I was a kid, and that was a long time ago. And I swear, I don't EVER remember saying a prayer in school. Maybe at special dinners or banquets, but nothing more than that. Back when I was in school, school was school and church was church. And there was always the Pledge and a flag at the front of the room.
Anyway, yes, we need to run over to PBS and use their archives of programs to listen to Bill Moyers. There's allot of different places you can find him giving speeches about the corrupt MSN, etc. DemocracyNow has quite a few, probably FreeSpeech TV, too.
xxqqqzme
(14,887 posts)was my high school home room teacher. Right after the 'tardy bell' she would start the pledge and then she recited the Lord's Prayer w/ her eyes tightly shut. Then she would take attendance. On more than one occasion, kids would silently slip into the room during the prayer so they wouldn't be marked absent or tardy (which awarded you points toward detention).
Amonester
(11,541 posts)Bill Moyers 4 President!
Or Elizabeth Warren, or many others who will not cater to the psychotic plutocrats.
mwooldri
(10,291 posts)I stand and be respectful at events where the pledge is said. At the end I say "God save the Queen". There is no English or British pledge of allegiance as such, except public officials and members of the armed forces do pledge allegiance to the monarchy. IMO it is a simpler "pledge" and quite truthful, if you are a believer in a God. "Long live the Queen" would be acceptable too. This simple "pledge" is why members of Sinn Fein who are elected to Westminster do not take their seats.
Liberty and justice for all in the USA? With one of the worlds largest incarceration rate, and in some places people end up going from school to prison for their entire lives - their "crime" is a poor upbringing, horrible schools, or simply one single bad decision puts them in a youth detention centre and because the way that place is run it leads to more crime. Also there isn't a concept of a "spent" criminal record in which after x years that minor crime is removed from your record. The silly mistake made at age 18 can come to haunt you at 50. The crime was done and the punishment was served. Shouldn't this minor issue be removed from the record at some point?
Although I live and work in the USA with my wife and two sons, it is my conscience that bars me from going for American citizenship. That and the $1,000 fee... Though a green card at present is $500 to renewal or replace.
America is a country with so much promise. There are freedoms but when we have a large number of elected officials who state that the country was founded on Christian principles and don't appear to understand Jesus the way I do... they don't know the hymn that I used to song at school (remember church and state are not totally separate in England) called "When I needed a neighbour, were you there... were you there? ...and the creed and the color and the name don't matter were you there?" And it goes on like that .... it makes me think that the powers that be are too me, me, me... when we need we, we, we. I want to make a difference in this adopted country of mine but when I am in this state of health it is hard to do anything. I am reduced to the status of a keyboard warrior.
Sorry for rambling on but I needed to get this off my chest and DU is about a safe a place I can do it for now.
Mark.
benld74
(9,889 posts)CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)that part about liberty and justice for all was one great big steaming crock.
The Wizard
(12,482 posts)that pledging loyalty to a piece of cloth every day as part of the curriculum is a form of pagan idolatry or brain washing propaganda. But what the hell do I know?
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)cadence, and made the thing "exclusive" (not in the jazzy sense of the word, in the "you are not welcome" sense of the word) with their "additions."
I also always looked at is as an "Aspirational/Inspirational" thing, to remind reciters of what we are striving for, not where we're at in this moment of our history.
When politicians started using a schoolchild's civics verse as a political football, it let us all know who the children were--and they weren't the kids sitting in the classroom!
markpkessinger
(8,381 posts). . . the glaring hypocrisy of the words "justice for all" remains.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Surely you don't want there to NOT be "Justice for all?"
Don't you think making a pledge to offer such a thing to everyone, along with liberty, is a positive affirmation of a potential state of being?
It's all how you look at it--you can call it hypocritical, I can call it hopeful.
I don't disagree with Moyers, in that the pledge does not reflect the present situation, but if one approaches it as aspirational, as opposed to a didactic recitation of the way things are, it has a different vibe.
In short, my glass is half full. I'll continue to hope for liberty and justice for all.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)I think that this country has tremendous potential, but it clearly hasn't reached it.
I haven't been in a situation in some time when I've been asked to say the Pledge, but if I were, I'd say it to what the country could be, and to the progress, albeit slow, that we have made.
I understand what Mr. Moyers is saying, and I can't disagree with a lot of what he says we need to do, as usual.
However, I'm with you here, MADem.
MADem
(135,425 posts)amandabeech
(9,893 posts)HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)hamstringing what they could do.
demosincebirth
(12,518 posts)amuse bouche
(3,657 posts)that's a lie. I detest the 'one nation under God' indoctrination even more
What a load of bullshit. How dare they
Rex
(65,616 posts)with my own patriotism. We could feed the worlds poor easily with what the .1% in this world have in holdings times a million.
SleeplessinSoCal
(8,998 posts)Flying Squirrel
(3,041 posts)And I also refuse to put my hand over my heart or any such nonsense during the National Anthem.
Land of the free, my ass. Home of the brave? LOL.
defacto7
(13,485 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)SHRED
(28,136 posts)...okay...more than that.
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)The 'Justice For All" line is laughable and has been laughable for about the whole of this nation's existence - and it's getting less true daily.
The question is how long it will be till enough people actually think, put 2 and 2 together, and act enough to change things.
I really think we have to break the two party monopoly for any real and lasting positive change. We need people and parties for which we can say more than they're not as bad as the other party's people.
Wake Up America!
pacalo
(24,721 posts)Does anyone else remember when Dubya was granted a military war budget that, in keeping with Dubya's request, did not require the expenses to be itemized & accounted for? I googled & found nothing to substantiate this, but I remember how shocked I was that congress would be so careless with hard-earned taxpayer money.
It was thereafter that $9 billion strangely "went missing" in Iraq.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/
UtahLib
(3,179 posts)But then, $9 billion is nothing to DC unless they're cutting that and more from social programs. We can't afford the money to support those in need or who have actually earned it through Social Security, etc. How much hypocrisy and greed must our reps exhibit before people wake up and demand true "liberty and justice for all"?
pacalo
(24,721 posts)The fact that history is being wiped from the internet due to the implication of government impropriety only reinforces distrust.
After the flagrant spending on the military, I believe our government can well afford to help with the most vulnerable.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)When I say it, I mean it. That liberty and justice for all has not been achieved does not mean that it is not what the nation stands for. It means that it has not been achieved. My pledge is to work to achieve it.
I do leave out the "under God" business, though, since I am an atheist.
alp227
(31,962 posts)Unfortunately, across America (ESPECIALLY Moyers's childhood hometown) the right wingers' brains exploded.