Here are the links:
Cspan video: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/...
Transcription of Cspan video: http://solutionsearch-tbug.blogspot.com/
Bill Moyer's Journal: http://www.pbs.org/...
Books:
Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues
Moyers on Democracy
Bill Moyers conversation with Garrison Keillor on Cspan part VI
Audience member: First off, I want to enforce what she said. You are important person and thank God for you and thanks for being here. And the other thing is.. In your book and when I heard you speak at Media Matters and before Obama was elected, you were echoing Zinn and a few other people saying that there would be no movement unless the people ask for. You said that FDR for example, didn't move on some social issues until he was pushed by some public. So I went to a couple of rallies this winter . In support of Wisconsin. (applause) And I remember that it was people for the American way or whatever it was, that it was that the people need an organizer, the people need a person of passion that will stand up there and say things that they believe. And someone that will help them to move in a direction because otherwise its like going to a meeting where everyone feels good about being there but nothing happens. Your a man saying all the things that we agree. I remember I asked you why you don't run for president and you said you are too old. And I said what about McCain and you said well "He's too old too." (laughter) But we need someone to lead us. The spirit is here and we just need to unite around somebody who can organize us and I guess what I'm saying is, What do we do? I know the movement has to come from the people, but the spirit is here. What do we do?
BM: Yes, Rosa Parks who sat down in the bus and said her feet were too tired to go to the back of the bus, needed Martin Luther King. But first there had to be a Rosa Parks. I wish I had a romantic response to that. But I learned over a long life and a lot of reading and a lot of talking to people like this that Howard Zinn was right when he said in his book on my show that "governments never do anything that they are not forced to by peoples' movements. And that movements don't come, in our country from the top down." They come form the uniting of spirit and hearts like those in Wisconsin. Who didn't have a leader. They needed one later who could carry it on, we can come back to that at another time. But they didn't need, nobody pushed a button or lit a fire or took a bullhorn. It just happened from people who found each other. That's the story of real reform. The abolishment movement, the women's suffrage . Look at the people that were arrested opposing the abolishment or persecuted. Women who went to jail before they caught the public's attention. Look at the Civil Rights Movement, before there was a Martin Luther King, there were young black men and women who were putting themselves on the line in the south. And beaten for it and burned for it, and hounded out of the cities for it. I don't know where, when the combustion happens but it never happens until the kindling has been lighted by people's sense of offended indignation that says I can't go home at 5 o'clock. I never had that sense. I wish I had. In fact, I sometimes reflect back on the period in the early sixties and I was helping organize the Peace Corp. to show there was a moral alternative to the war fought and not down on the freedom rides in the South. I don't know what skewed perception made me think that was more important. But I did. So there's nothing eloquent to say about this. There's only antidote to organized money is organized people. The whole history of this country, the spirit of the declaration the of life liberty and pursuit of happiness for everyone. And yet the constitution that said well yes, but not for slaves, not for women, not for workers, not for immigrants, and not for Native Americans who the declaration calls savages. And our whole history has been this seesaw. And the change has been when ordinary people for whatever grievance and whatever altruism or whatever motivation got together and kept at it and kept at it. I wish I had a better answer. I wish I did.
same Audience member: Just one more thing then, If you had a site, website or organization that you think that is possibly an organization that will start moving people collectively in a positive direction. To change this horrible mess we are in. Do you know, do you have the name of one?
BM: Oh I know many. I know, in fact there is so many before I came here, I'm sorry to be taking so much time here, you can edit this all out but, before I came here, I stopped at a benefit for the instant runoff movement in this town. (applause) The rank voting. Its one way, and I said to them, I applauded the volunteers there for first getting the instant runoff approved here in St. Paul and now they are going to try to move it to the legislature, because as I said to them, my understanding is that its been two decades since Minnesota had a governor who was elected by majority vote. What instant runoff will do is to move us past the nonpartisan primaries where only a small turnout appears and all of you participate fully in a more representative election in November. Its very important. Buts it only one piece of the puzzle we have to put together reform in this country. We need, public campaign is a wonderful organization fighting on the premise that if anybody is going to own the politicians, we should. And therefore public funding of elections. After a certain threshold has been passed. Citizens United, passed by five conservative members of the court that gave us George W Bush as president. Five conservative members that invested major corporations with the right to lavish money on a campaign that in the last few days of a election, without public disclosure. There's a wonderful organization called FreeSpeechforPeople.org, that's trying to reverse that decision. Freepress.org is an organization fighting as effective as any organization can against concentration of media in this country. There's an organization called USUncut, started by a 23 year old, Mississippian graduate of Moore College. Had to work four jobs to try to pay his rent, who started this organization of sitting in lobbys of banks who pay no taxes. He's not against banks, he is just simply saying, if you have the right of a person under the first amendment to raise money, you have the obligation of a citizen, you have the obligation to pay your fair share of taxes. Go online, look at UKUncut. There are a lot of organizations. Maybe I will work on trying to compile a list, cause I've seen these as a journalist, As a journalist I've been out reporting on it. One of the distinct features of Bill Moyers' Journal was of course these conversations. But we were the only broadcast on the air, reporting on people organizing at the local level. Fighting for the foreclosures in Boston. Fighting discrimination in Los Angeles. Fighting for public funding in Oregon. There all over the country. Mainstream media provides them no attention and this is a travesty. We've got to find an alternative form of the media that lets us know we're not alone. We're not alone. Last word. You know I miss my audience on Friday nights. It was time for me to retire, (applause) but I couldn't see you, but I knew you were there. You were felt presence, as if I could imagine people coming out of the darkness around a campfire. This happens with Prairie Home Companion, far more than it happened to me. (laughter), But of the sense of people coming and gathering around a campfire, so that they wouldn't feel so alone anymore. And our separation whether by technology, or geography, or class, or race, or religion or whatever is the greatest reality that the other side, the forces of corporate power, the forces of right wing ideology exploit. And somehow you have got to answer the question you asked me. (applause)
Audience member: I wanted to ask you if you could please comment about Judith Davidson and your partnership and your collaboration, the influence she's had on your career.
BM: I meet her before school opened at college in 1952. I came last, my friend from Texas and I came last to the English placement test. We took the last two seats in that big auditorium. And sitting in front of me, was a woman I couldn't see except for her hair. Beautiful hair. Absolutely an aura around her. And I turned to Don Reeves, my friend, and I said I'm gonna marry that girl. Well she finished the test obviously faster than I did, left. I never saw her face. Went to English placements. We both placed high in the English placement test. Went to English, and low and behold I was sitting behind her in the class. And when class was over, she finished the essay, writing the introductory essay faster than I did and she left. She left a book under her desk and I took up to Mary Osbourne our teacher and said " Ms Osbourne, Miss Davidson has left this book. What should I do? " Why don't you take it to her dorm?" And I did, then we rang her and she came down from the third floor and when she turned those stairs. You know the troubadours of the Mideval Age talked about (laughter) No, I'm serious. They talked about the eyes are scouts to the heart, well I fell in love and I've never fallen out of love. And we've been married 57 years. (applause) Not that the Mississippi doesn't rise and become tumultuous, Its not been smooth sailing all the time. But she was a journalist in her own right. She was superior to me in college. We sat by each other in economics class. She passed, I didn't . The man had sympathy for me because he thought I was her brother since we had the same last name. She's smart, good journalist in her own right. Great intuition. Great management skills. And she runs our production company. She was an educator. She was on the board of the state university's New York 17 years. 12 years as vice chair. She was on several corporate boards. This is true of my team. If you pull the camera back, you would see me standing on the shoulders of some marvelously talented professional people. I'm the one that gets the visibility, but led by my wife Judith. We have produced good journalism together. Because, I quoted from some poet who said "it was not our intention to be coupled in an ordinary way." And that's the story of our marriage and our professional relationship. I would not be here, seriously, I would not be here. Had she not been steady, resilient and generous as she is. Its a team. (applause)
Audience member (inaudible question)
BM: Well one of the architects of the libertarian conservative movement is Grover Norquist. And Grover Norquist, graduate of Harvard, libertarian, who believes no government is good government. Said many years ago, and I've had him on my show by the way, Said many years ago that he would like to starve the government until it shrinks to a size it can be drown in a bathtub. That's on the record. You've heard versions of it. That's what they are trying to do. On principle they don't believe in government unless it serves their economic interests. Then they are all gun ho for it. Or their religious interest, abortion, gay marriage and issues like that, that come out of issues like that that Garrison was talking about earlier. They really do. This has been the story of the last 150 years beginning with the first Gilded Age. They just don't believe. That they think people will take care of themselves. Its a view divorced from life. Divorced from reality. But it is their ideology. Theology embraces truths that don't need to be proven. Ideology embrace a view of the world that is contrary to all of the existing evidence. And they are ideologs because they hold to this vision, even though constantly refuted by experience. (applause)