Bill Moyers' Message to Obama: Study History or Repeat its Mistakes by Danny Schechter

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sent by Sparrows since 78 days 22 hours 10 minutes, published about 78 days 4 hours 24 minutes
Elders are considered wisdom keepers in most of the world's cultures, perhaps just not our own. They are repositories of important lessons, keepers of the collective memory, and as such, usually revered. In our own midst, in our own time, one man deserves all praises due for the role he's chosen to play as the sage of the electronic stage, as our educator in chief, as the voice of the national conscience, as the best journalist on television. His name is Bill Moyers and he proved again on Friday night why he is such a giant and national treasure. He aired this report on this weekend of the anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination to remind us what happened to the leader who replaced that generation's young prince. I am talking about Lyndon Baines Johnson, the master of the Senate, who succeeded John F Kennedy on that terrible day in Dallas. LBJ came to office with many heavy burdens, including a war raging in South East Asia. His Presidency would be defined by how he handled it, or failed to handle it. As fate would have it, a 30 year old Bill Moyers was one of Johnson's aides and an eyewitness to the tragedy that followed that original sin.---
tags: bill moyers, history lesson, obama, lbj, vtn
6 commentscategory: Barack Obama karma: 145

comments

  1. #1    And so slowly-as we saw, or rather hear, Johnson escalated, stage by stage, often on the basis of false "intelligence" as in the Tonkin Gulf incident that wasn't. Step by step, the third option was abandoned and the military option was embraced. One infusion of troops was followed by another as the war worsened with tens of thousands of US deaths and casualties and millions of Asian victims.

    Trapped by his own limited logic, and cautiously pragmatic style. LBJ gave up his principles, compromised on his convictions, and his "Great Society" and Presidency became a disaster. He later quit politics, a broken man.

    Will it happen again?

    Moyers clear point in the poorly watched PBS Public Affairs Friday Night Ghetto was clear-it is about to happen again.

    "We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson said no," he concluded. "We do know what happened because he said yes."
    written by Sparrows since 78 days 22 hours 9 minutesSparrows
  2. #2    If you don't see this on PBS online, then it comes on PBS Sunday nite (tonite) check your local listings. The part that Moyers left out was that LBJ sold his soul to become prez. And it broke him.
    written by Sparrows since 78 days 22 hours 8 minutesSparrows
  3. #3    Another take on Moyers' views (this post is cross-referenced there, too):

    http://www.buzzflash.net/story.php?id=1050689
    written by kladner since 78 days 21 hours 52 minuteskladner
  4. #4    Here's the transcript of Moyers' show:
    http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/transcript1.html

    "Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone...We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes."
    written by nasrudin since 77 days 22 hours 58 minutesnasrudin
  5. #5    The taped phone conversations reveal
    LBJ agonizing over escalating the war.
    Somehow I just can't picture W nor Five Deferment
    Cheney to this day agonizing over their lying all those dead and maimed soldiers into their wars of choice for profit and glory...
    written by Buzzard-Breath since 77 days 15 hours 55 minutesBuzzard-Breath
  6. #6    Agonize schmagonize -- what matters are the actions: millions dead and maimed, an environment toxic for generations, billions in profits for "defense" contractors. For useless wars based on lies and the inevitable results of Wilsonian imperial ambitions.
    written by nasrudin since 77 days 15 minutesnasrudin
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