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 VII
Audience member: Yeah, I have a question. What are your thoughts on our friend Greg Mortenson and his work in Aghanistan and Pakistan?
BM: I was deeply disappointed as I am when anyone I respect falls. I had him on my show. Now he's not in the book. But I had him on the show and I was impressed with his altruism, with his seemingly effectiveness, with his compassion and it just proves again that, as Garrison knows so well having been carried in that church at such an early age, that all men and some women are fallen. (laughter) And its always a disappointment, its always a disappointment when someone you admire proves to be what you might have been in weaker moments.
Audience member: Its a privilege thank you. Hopefully this isn't an entirely self-serving question but I would appreciate either of your responses but it seems to me one of the roles of the president is to set out ideals almost dreamlike potential. And you know we can go to the moon so to speak. My question is really about what's the difference, where rests the ideas of idealism and the idealist thinking and realistic or realism. Maybe you can just offer any thoughts. Its an issue that well having awoken from a coma a couple of years ago, I'm learning about the world in a different sense. And I think idealist can be really extremely important especially in public policy. Setting the up highest sites possible instead of what's realistic, seems a bit lower. Ok, maybe its only realistic to achieve so much, maybe we can achieve more. Thank you.
BM: Garrison why don't you deal with that one?
GK: No this is your question sir. (laughter)
BM: Well, I said to a friend of mine on Wall Street, I told this story earlier. I asked him are you optimistic about the market he said "Yes I'm optimistic." "Why then do you look so worried?" And he said " I'm not sure my optimism is justified." (laughter) I'm not either and that's comes from a long life in politic and journalism. I have for sometime, I was greatly influenced by the writings of an Italian political scientist named Gramsci. Some of you probably already know about him. He was a Marxist, but a pre-Stalinist Marxist. Which means his analysis of reality was sometimes closer than romantic capitalist like Ayn Rand. He said " I practice the pessimism of the mind". That is I see the world as it is without rose colored glasses that's what we journalist are suppose to do., "I practice the pessimism of the mind but the optimism of the will " What did he mean by that? I think he meant. I can't imagine being in this world without imaging a more confident future. And then getting up tomorrow and doing something within my reach to help bring that future about. That's the conflict between the idealism I had as a young man and the perceptions I have embraced since I became a journalist. You can't see what I've seen or what you all have seen in your own lifetime. Without knowing we are as our religion taught us, fallen. But at the same time you can't be reminded about the culture that produced the Klu Klux Klan and Abu Ghraib , also produced the Peace Corp., Martin Luther King and the University of Minnesota. No I'm serious about that. So you can't give up on our culture. You can't give up on the various sides of human experience that reach. Well there is a terrific interview in here Barry Lopez who is one of my favorite writers. I don't know if you've ever had him on your show. Barry Lopez is truly one of the finest writers of our time. And he talks about going, talks just about this question, he talks about going to Auschwitz and suddenly being brought up short and feeling the dark clouds descend and the sulfurous fumes rise in his spirits. So, and he said he couldn't live in a world that knew there was a Buchenwald without also living in a world knowing that there is a Beethoven and a Bach. And he says, and this may I pay a compliment, is what you do so well (looking at GK) Barry Lopez said storytelling, and there's no better storytelling than Garrison Keillor (applause) Barry Lopez said "Storytelling is our only protection against forgetting the spiritual interior of our lives." And that's why stories are far more powerful than any other form of articulation. And so when I am feeling myself slipping I listen to Prairie Home Companion (laughter) , pick up my book or I do something I'll close like this Garrison with your indulgence. Robert Bly is here today. One of my favorite Minnesotans. One of the great voices of our time. (applause) I've done many conversations over the years with Robert not because I wanted to be hostile to him, or challenge him (laughter) But because I wanted him to read poems to me. And here's one he read on my show some years ago. He wrote it soon after 9/11 when all the talk was bubbling up about invading Iraq. He wrote this which is called, which is Judith's favorite by the way. She insisted that it be in the book, but she didn't have to work at it. Its called Call and Answer. And I will end my part of the program with this. Where are you Robert, right there, right in the front row of the balcony.
"Tell me why it is we don't lift our voices these days and cry over what is happening.
Have you noticed the plans are made for Iraq and the ice cap is melting
I say to myself Go on cry. What's the sense of being adult and having no voice. Cry out!
See who will answer. This is call an answer. (You know what that is.)
We will have to call out especially loud to reach our angels who hard of hearing.
They are hiding in the jugs of silence filled during our wars.
(He was thinking of Grenada. Everybody had forgotten Grenada 1983.
Why did we do that, no one remembers.)
Have we agreed to so many wars that we can't escape from silence.
If we don't lift our voices we allow others who are ourselves to rob the house.
How come we listen to the great criers Neruda, Akhmatove Thoreau. Frederick Douglas.
And now we are silent as sparrows in the little bushes.
(And then Robert pauses and says its a very bad pun but I left it in. We're silent as sparrows in the little Bushes).
(And finally)
Some masters say our lives only last seven days. Where are we in the week?
Is it Thursday yet. Hurry, cry now ! Soon Sunday night will come."
BM: Thank you Robert.
GK: Thank you Bill Moyers.
Applause