Bill Moyers announced his retirement from weekly journalism last week, and as part of a rather melancholy journey through what we'll be missing when he does retire, I found this archived show from this last October 30th. I had missed it when it aired, but I'm incredibly grateful that I have the chance to see it on the web. It's a tour de force of news variety; a great interview with James Galbraith, an interesting retrospective on William F. Buckley with Richard Brookheiser, and a great essay from Moyers himself about President Obama's (still upcoming) decision on whether or not to send more troops to Afghanistan. All three are well worth watching, but this quote about the sanitization of war and the way to make politicians and the public at large grasp the real costs of fighting struck me as Moyers at his best.
"Bring back the draft, and then watch them dive for cover on Capitol Hill, in the watering holes and think tanks of the Beltway, and in the quiet little offices where editorial writers spin clever phrases justifying other people's sacrifice. Let's insist our governing class show the courage to make this long and dirty war our war, or the guts to end it."
Amen.
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