The Right Questions

[Lightning Rod]

here is the latest edition of The Poet's Eye.

http://www.studioeight.tv/LR/Poetseye121304.html

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We are asking the wrong questions. How can we expect to get the right answers?

In the mean time the world of American journalism is losing one its most resonant voices. Bill Moyers is retiring. I met Bill Moyers once, when he was a youngster and I was even more of a youngster. He was Lyndon Johnson's press secretary at the time. I was a high-school journalism student attending a contest/conference in Ft. Worth. The guest speakers were Dan Rather and Bill Moyers, because they were both rising stars in journalism and native Texans. I fear I'm dating myself here.

As a young journalist, I was impressed by both men. Rather was the more passionate of the two and he was an early inspiration to me, but Moyers was more intriguing because he seemed to want to penetrate more than merely report. He was already moving from reportage to analysis.

In his post White House journalistic career he built one of the finest documents of American life that exists. He tackled every issue with a thoughtful and religiously journalistic approach. He is an ordained Baptist minister, after all, but he has scrupulously kept his beliefs out of his journalism. His classic series with Joseph Campbell is evidence of this. He searches below the surface. That is the duty of the journalist, and Bill Moyers always fulfilled his duty. A journalist is first a writer, and a writer is first a thinker. Moyers wrote and thought with the best of them. I respect him immensely. I also respect his words as he announced his retirement:

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee."

Moyers was a rare journalist because he owned himself. He wasn't kissing the ass of Viacom or Disney or Time-Warner or Clear Channel.

In 1986 he and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, formed Public Affairs Television, an independent shop that has not only produced documentaries such as "A Walk Through the 20th Century," "Healing and the Mind" and "A Gathering of Men with Robert Bly," but also paid for them through its own fund-raising efforts.


"I've just been doing the kind of journalism that ought to be done, IF you had the opportunity to do it."

Moyers has been in the business for awhile. He knows the ins and outs. When he says that the mainstream media is being controlled by the powers that be, I have to take his word for it. Not that it isn't an obvious fact. Every time I hear the flippant talk about the "Liberal Press" I have to laugh. Just look at the process of consolidation going on in our mass media. Five media conglomerates dominate the communication industry (Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner, News Corp., and NBC/GE.) Between them they control 70 percent of the prime time television market share, most cable stations, majority holdings in radio, publishing, movie studios, music, Internet, and other sectors.

It's the difference between a democracy and an oligarchy. What has become the Republican creed, through 'deregulation' and the dismantling of the welfare system and imperial wars, is that government is for the benefit of the few, not the many. But their public relations department is great. They can make you believe that they are doing the nation's work when they are really only lining their pockets.

Now, back to the wrong questions. The question of whether our soldiers have enough armor on their Humvees is the wrong question. The more pertinent question is: Why are our young servicemen being fired upon in the first place? We were supposed to walk into Baghdad on a carpet of rose petals, and now our soldiers are having to tape tin cans on their vehicles to avoid civil assassination. What is wrong with this picture? It's a question Bill Moyers might have asked.

The Poet's Eye notices that since it is political heresy these days to mention that we are in Iraq for illegitimate reasons, it is no surprise that the right-wing media that Moyers mentions is trying to focus attention on the more trivial questions like whether or not some soldier's mom back in Georgia has to buy her son a flack jacket for Christmas. Her son shouldn't be there in the first place.


"I asked the right questions."

[Zlatko Waterman]

LR:


And all these achievements of Bill Moyers' are in spite ( or because of?) his extensive background as a Southern Baptist pastor and a person quite involved with the Christian religion.


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Bill Moyers's National Bible Study

This Southern Baptist preacher-turned-journalist wants to get America talking about the stories of Genesis.

-by David Neff


Evangelicals like their sermons tidy and their Bible studies messy. The typical evangelical sermon takes a text and tells the congregation what to believe and how to live.

But Bible studies, those family-room gatherings with six to eight people discussing a passage from an assortment of translations, are untidy times when authorial intent rarely intrudes and free association reigns supreme. That's not the way it's supposed to be, perhaps, but that's the way it is.

Bill Moyers, journalist and former Southern Baptist pastor, has now dressed up that untidy Bible study group for public television. This month, pbs stations across the nation have begun broadcasting a ten-part series of discussions of the stories of Genesis, discussions that could happen in any living room if you had access to the nation's most respected (and notorious) religion scholars, theologians, and novelists.

Moyers invited evangelicals, liberal Christians, Muslims, Jews, and even a few nonbelievers to engage the meaning of the stories of Cain and Abel, Noah and the Ark, the Call of Abraham, Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, and so forth. He had hoped to include some fundamentalists, he told ct, but the ones he talked to seemed so eager to defend their doctrine of Scripture that they couldn't focus on the meaning of the stories.

Those whom Moyers rated as evangelicals, however, were able to pitch right into the discussions. Three of them had Fuller Theological Seminary connections (ethicist Lew Smedes, New Testament professor Marianne Meye Thompson, ...


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I'd be interested in your comments on that aspect of the man and the "mind." You do mention it briefly in your well-written article.

I admire many of the things Bill Moyers has written and circulated. I have not seen any of his television shows.


--Z

[Lightning Rod]

Z,

I think Moyer's achievements are due to his integrity as a journalist. I think, as I said in the above article, that he faithfully separated Church and journalism.

I saw several episodes of his Genesis series and it was in keeping with his high standards.

[stilltrucking]

Professor Zlatco

I'd be interested in your comments on that aspect of the man and the "mind." You do mention it briefly in your well-written article.

I admire many of the things Bill Moyers has written and circulated. I have not seen any of his television shows.

If you have not seen Bill Moyers and Joe Campbell's TV show The Power of Myth or read the book, you have missed something wonderful

LR I met Dan at the Virginian truck stop in toms brook about mid seventies. He was doing a show about truckers. He looked good, had on the blue jeans and denim shirt, even had his name hand tooled on the back of his belt, I had hair down to my ass and a great beard like stupid bob, I think they shot around me. He seemed like he was having a good time. Moyers is special, I will miss him very much, that dude replacing him is good, I have listened to him for years on NPR's bussiness report.

YOU have me wondering exactly when the statue of our liberty turned into the statue of our limitations.

[STUPID BOB]

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee."

I'm so glad he wants to go here. I really meant it when I talked to you about this months ago, LR - this is the real story of the decade. The type of story you tell your kids in order to scare 'em straight. Nothing scares this Reverend more than this. I hope you're right that the BCo group has no further need, but I think you're being shortsighted.

[mtmynd]

I read sometime back that the Republicans had come to PBS with 'demands' that Bill Moyers be side-saddled with a spokesman from the right. Bill didn't take kindly to the suggestion and apparently began his exit from his show, Now. But no seeing anything on that since my first read... I really don't know how much truth there is to the story.

Bill has also been outspoken on the business of journalism versus journalists being mouths for a political side. A good Texan, a great man... I'll miss his words.

Nice Eye, L'Rod... kudos, bud!

[STUPID BOB]

It doesn't stop with Bill's best efforts. Try this on for size and you'll see that it just gets deeper:

The FCC has filed a remarkable brief in the broadcast flag challenge pending before the DC Circuit. (Public Knowledge is leading the plaintiffs in this matter.)

Some background: Back in November 2003, the FCC issued an order (the broadcast flag rule) saying that all devices capable of receiving a digital TV signal (or storing DTV files) would have to comply by July 2005 with a set of technical mandates.

The broadcast flag rule, distilled to its essence, is a mandate that all consumer electronics manufacturers and information technology companies ensure that any device that touches digital television content encrypt that content and protect it against unauthorized onward distribution.

In order to make this happen, the FCC has established a new and extraordinarily broadregulatory regime that mandates the use of "authorized" content protection technologies by virtually every consumer electronics product and computer product -- including digital television sets, digital cable set-top boxes, direct broadcast satellite receivers, personal video recorders (PVRs), DVD recorders, D-VHS recorders, and computers with tuner cards.

In the context of both the flag rule and the IP-enabled services proceeding that was the subject of Bellhead/Nethead earlier this fall, the FCC has said that it has "ancillary" jurisdiction to act. Translation: "Congress hasn't said that we DON'T have the power to do this, so we're going to go ahead on the assumption that we do."

The FCC's brief, filed in response to PK's challenge to FCC's jurisdiction in the flag matter, is breathtaking. FCC's position is that its Act gives it regulatory power over all instrumentalities, facilities, and apparatus "associated with the overall circuit of messages sent and received" via all interstate radio and wire communication. That's quite a claim.

FCC believes that it has simply been restraining itself up until now. Since 1934 (or 1927, depending on how you count), FCC has had power over all equipment used in connection with radio and wire transmissions. When the need arises, it can exercise its authority -- including its authority over PCs, PVRs, and any new gizmo that has something to do with a communication of some sort.

As the FCC said in the November 2003 order,

"[E]ven though this may be the first time the Commission exercises its ancillary jurisdiction over equipment manufacturers in this manner, the nation now stands at a juncture where such exercise of authority is necessary." In other words, the FCC is willing to do whatever it takes to make the DTV transition happens; it believes the flag is necessary to this transition, and not having explicit jurisdiction to act isn't enough of a reason not to act.

FCC can't deny that every single time it has made a rule affecting consumer electronics devices it has had explicit authority from Congress to do so. But its brief argues that none of these statutes "demonstrate[] a congressional understanding that the FCC lacks general rulemaking authority over television receiving equipment." ("Congress didn't tell us we couldn't act.")

The thing is, this rule doesn't merely affect TV receiving equipment. It affects everything that RECEIVES digital files from TV receiving equipment as well -- every device inside any home network. It affects the open-platform PC. It's a sweeping rule. And now FCC's jurisdiction to enact this rule is being argued in sweeping terms.

Why should we care about all of this? We should care because if the FCC has the power to act on anything that has something to do with communication, we have only the FCC's self-restraint to rely on when it comes to all internet communications. We should care because we want open platforms and open communications to continue. We should care because the future of the internet is at stake -- the FCC will use its "ancillary jurisdiction" to impose "social policies" on any services that use the internet protocol, and will point to its broadcast flag action as support for its jurisdictional claims.

I'm wondering if the White House knows what is going on at the FCC.

Naw, course they don't . . .right?? I mean, F A R Right.

[STUPID BOB]

And furthermore:


The Patriot Act Now Applies To Blogs Too

Ominous indeed - are blogs really under Patriot Act FBI powers?

An article in the Village Voice highlights a win for American values and liberty as a particularly heinous part of the Patriot Act has been struck down by a Federal District Judge. But it is also offers a chilling reminder of just how far reaching and anti-American this act really is.

"The provision we challenged [that the judge struck down]," says Jaffer, "allows the FBI to issue NSLs against 'wire or electronic service communication providers.' Telephone companies and Internet service providers [are included.]"

Federal District Judge Victor Marrero, who made possible an historical legal victory against the Bush Governement just recently, when on September 28, 2004, a decision he personally took in New York in John Doe, American Civil Liberties Union v. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Judge Marrero struck down as unconstitutional on Fourth and First Amendment grounds section 505 of the Patriot Act that had greatly increased the government's capacity to secretly get large amounts of personal information by sending out National Security Letters, which do not require a judge's approval.

Source: Village Voice

He also noted that the FBI could also use an NSL "to discern the identity of someone whose anonymous web log, or 'blog,' is critical of the Government."

According to the Village article what is even more disturbing is the fact that each and everyone of these NSLs (National Security Letters) come with a full gag order.

The recipients of the NSLs are in fact prohibited from ever disclosing that the FBI has demanded information from them, and they cannot even inform their lawyers of such requests. According to judge Marrero all such gag orders are issued in perpetuity, and "with no vehicle for the ban to ever be lifted from the recipient."

Please notice also that NSLs are sent out without the requirement of a judge previous approval.

Read that again.

This an issue affecting directly all bloggers, and not just the ones that deal with political issues. If you believe that the right for bloggers to maintain full freedom of speech and to manifest their ideas without fearing censorship is vital don't sit back after reading this.

If you are a blogger make a post about it.

If you are not, place a comment on your favourite blogs and please suggest your favourite writers to raise everyone awareness on such issues.

Or are you going to let this one go to?

In essence, S8 is a BLOG and each respondent is a BLOGGER. Feel better now?