Monday, January 26, 2015
Bill Moyers: Fighting for FDR's Four Freedoms
If you believe America desperately needs a great surge of democracy in the face of fierce opposition from reactionary and corporate forces, then remembering and reviving the spirit of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died 69 years ago this week, is in order.
In January 1941, FDR’s State of the Union address made it clear that a fight was inevitable, a fight to preserve, protect and defend four essential freedoms: freedom from fear and want and freedom of speech and religion.
This week, Bill speaks with historian Harvey J. Kaye, author of the new book, The Fight for the Four Freedoms: What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation Truly Great, about how FDR’s speech was a rallying cry to build the kind of progressive society that Roosevelt hoped for but did not live to see at war’s end.
Kaye says the president was able to mobilize Americans who created “the strongest and most prosperous country in human history.” How did they do it? By working toward the Four Freedoms and making America “freer, more equal and more democratic.”
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Nine things people should understand about Lyndon Johnson
17 January 2015
For decades, Lyndon Johnson was reviled as one of the worst presidents in American history, the person who brought the nation into the disastrous war in Vietnam. More recently, there has been a revival of interest in Johnson's legendary ability to make Washington work.
During his presidency, Congress passed a huge agenda of domestic legislation — which he called the Great Society — that included Medicare and Medicaid, civil rights and voting rights, a War on Poverty, food stamps, immigration reform, federal aid to elementary and secondary schools, higher education funding, environmental regulations, and much more.
Americans have learned a great deal about the president through the wonderful work of writers such as Robert Dallek, Robert Caro, and Randall Woods. The White House presidential recordings, which are now available to the public online, have provided people with a seat inside the inner sanctum of the Oval Office to hear LBJ interacting with his friends and foes. Last year a Tony Award-winning play starring Bryan Cranston, 'All The Way', brought LBJ's frenetic energy to Broadway. Johnson is currently in the news as a result of a vigorous debate over how he is depicted in the film 'Selma'.
But much of our understanding about Johnson is still based on misunderstandings about who he was and how he got things done. My new book, 'The Fierce Urgency of Now', provides a narrative history of the Great Society that challenges some of the popular myths about LBJ. While writing the book, I learned a great deal from the archives about Lyndon Johnson.
Here are nine things I wish people knew about the 36th president.
NINE THINGS HERE:
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Tuesday, January 06, 2015
Elizabeth Warren on fighting back against Wall St. giants | Bill Moyers
September 5, 2014
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and her brothers grew up in “an America that invested in kids like us and helped build a future where we could flourish.” But, as she writes in her memoir, A Fighting Chance, “Today the game is rigged – rigged to work for those who have money and power… The optimism that defines us as a people has been beaten and bruised. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and her brothers grew up in “an America that invested in kids like us and helped build a future where we could flourish.” But, as she writes in her memoir, A Fighting Chance, “Today the game is rigged – rigged to work for those who have money and power… The optimism that defines us as a people has been beaten and bruised. It doesn’t have to be this way.”
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