Terrifying Confirmation

Let the legendary journalist say it. 

Legendary broadcaster and one-time Baptist preacher Bill Moyers says for the first time in his 85 years he fears for America.

Asked on the eve of impeachment hearings if he fears for the country, Moyers told CNN’s Brian Stelter: “For the first time in my long life – and I was born in the Depression, lived through World War II, have been a part of politics and government for all these years – yes, for the first time, because a democracy can die of too many lies, and we’re getting close to that terminal moment unless we reverse the obsession with lies that are being fed around the country.” . . . 

Haven't I been saying this for the past couple of decades? 

“All presidents lie. It’s a defense they use,” he said. “But not all presidents lie systemically. Not all presidents lie constantly.”

“But what we have now is a culture of lying, not only from within politics, but from within media that is determined only to protect and save the president of the United States, Donald Trump, and they lie” about things big and small.

“You don’t know what to believe anymore,” Moyers said. “I still believe that facts matter, but they’re trying to change the facts on us. And that’s where a few journalists and a few media outlets have a real role to play. It’s to always put on the table the evidence against the lies that are being told by the people who have a vested interest in lying.”

I will go farther than Moyers did and say that the legal regime that permits the media to lie will destroy democracy and I see absolutely no liklihood that even those who are being lied about most constantly realize that there is absolutely no reason for that to be the rule.  We are so totally suckered by the line of "free speech - free press" absolutism that was invented in the 20th century out of the carelessly chosen words of the first Congress that it is one of those thought crimes which I am ready to commit to even acknowledge that is happening all around us.   The lies told by the Republican-fascists, the billionaires and their hirelings are too sophisticated in their marketing to allow.   They will destroy equality, they will destroy democracy and as long as some pantomime of voting by those who buy their well crafted lies poeple will call American fascism "democracy".   That didn't start with Trump, it started with the Supreme Court "liberals" in 1964 and the New York Times and it was called "The First Amendment,"  "Freedom of the press,"  Freedom of speech."   And it's destroying democracy lie by lie by lie . . .