Journalist Bill Moyers retires from PBS and his weekly show, the Bill Moyers Journal, on Friday. In honor of the public broadcasting legend, Fresh Air is rebroadcasting segments from several Moyers appearances over the years, including conversations about his time in the Johnson administration and his thoughts on religion, war and the future of journalism.  http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126386358

This is kind of a sad day for me. Imagine, over 40 years in journalism and almost 40 years in TV journalism.

There is a yin/yang principle, supposedly applicable to everything from religion to business to politics. Here was one man who spoke for my side of things all these years. I grew up watching Mr. Moyers when he was in the Johnson Administration. And I grew old watching him render my views over the airways better than anyone.

We need people like Bill Moyers on our airways. They are our airways by the by. He can get mad without obscenity and, at the same time, expose the real obscenities in our Government, in our financial structure.

Supposedly there is some ideal out there that a good journalist is somehow neutral which to me means neutered. There are two sides to everything we are sometimes told.

By the time I reached old age it became apparent to me that there is no such thing as neutrality. And I came to realize that there are not two sides to every issue--there are sometimes twenty sides to an issue.

How does the good Mr. Moyers view artificial neutrality?

BILL MOYERS: You've no doubt figured out my bias by now. I've hardly kept it a secret. In this regard, I take my cue from the late Edward R. Murrow, the Moses of broadcast news.

Ed Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don't try to hide it. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don't mix. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy.

Plutocracy is not an American word but it's become an American phenomenon. Back in the fall of 2005, the Wall Street giant Citigroup even coined a variation on it, plutonomy, an economic system where the privileged few make sure the rich get richer with government on their side. By the next spring, Citigroup decided the time had come to publicly "bang the drum on plutonomy."

And bang they did, with an "equity strategy" for their investors, entitled, "Revisiting Plutonomy: The Rich Getting Richer." Here are some excerpts:

"Asset booms, a rising profit share and favorable treatment by market-friendly governments have allowed the rich to prosper...[and] take an increasing share of income and wealth over the last 20 years..."

"...the top 10%, particularly the top 1% of the US-- the plutonomists in our parlance-- have benefited disproportionately from the recent productivity surge in the US...[and] from globalization and the productivity boom, at the relative expense of labor."

"...[and they] are likely to get even wealthier in the coming years. [Because] the dynamics of plutonomy are still intact."   http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/node/36758

I kind of like this concept of a plutonomy better than oligarchy I should think.

You see, Bill Moyers has staked out a position on his view of life in this closing of a phase in my life. And I wish to stand and cheer him as I hear this mantra.

Mr. Moyers' nemesis would be rush of course. Even Bill would admit this much. The yang to his yin.

I picked out these gems from the great spewer of sewage over the airways from a blog I did over a year ago:

    * On February 13, Limbaugh stated: "I want the stimulus package to fail, 'cause if this thing for the first time ever does what it never has done before, we're even worse trouble. If it becomes established that the federal government and the federal government alone can manage the economy and take over the private sector, then forget it, folks -- I'm looking for property in New Zealand, and I'm gonna put my money in Singapore."
   
    * As Burns noted, on March 18, Limbaugh claimed that "everyone in the White House" is "perfectly timed, perfectly programmed, perfectly educated to destroy capitalism ... and they're in the process of doing it."       

    * Limbaugh also stated on March 18 that "the big point about this AIG business" is to "poison as many minds in this country as possible to capitalism and to corporate America. This is exactly the kind of thing Barack Obama and his team love: everybody hating corporate America, hating Wall Street, hating CEOs, hating executives."

    * On March 20, ...He later said that Obama "wants everyone in finance ... to be hated. He wants people in that business to be hated. He wants people in that business to be suspects," and asked, "You don't think this guy has a bug up his dress ... chip on his shoulder about wealthy people?" 


    * On March 24, Limbaugh declared of the Obama administration: "They are focused on the destruction of the private sector. They -- this is an all-out assault on capitalism."


    * On March 25, while referring to the "tyrannical mob" that purportedly fomented the AIG bonus outrage, Limbaugh stated to a caller whose husband works for AIG: "You've got the president of the United States lined up against your family. That's what you have to realize. The president of the United States has seen to it that busloads of protestors -- if they find out where your husband and you live -- will show up on a bus tour to protest you."


" That's what Obama's gonna do. He's gonna equalize things. He's gonna level the playing field.   http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/dikkday48yahoocom/2009/04/rush-limbaugh-a-new-voice-of-h.php#comments

When you think about it, where is the real disagreement between Moyers and Limbaugh? What do they really disagree about?

Yes Limbaugh is saying, there is an oligarchy there is a plutonomy.

And rush looked at this plutonomy and said:

IT'S ALL GOOD!!!

Whereas Moyers does not see any good in it at all.

I will miss Bill Moyers. Even though I know he will not be silenced completely.

On the other hand, if some burglar happened to pummel ole rush to death with a baseball bat tomorrow I certainly would feel:

IT'S ALL GOOD!!!