Bill Moyers Interviews Rita Dove on the Power of Poetry (Video)
Friday 17 February 2012
by: Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | Interview & Video

Bill welcomes former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, who this very week received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama. Dove served two terms as Poet Laureate, the youngest and the first African American to be named to that prestigious position. Through an intimate conversation and select readings, Moyers and Dove explore American history, language, culture, and ideas. They also talk about the responsibility – and controversy – that comes with editing a prestigious anthology, as Dove was recently tasked for The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry.

Moyers & Co. Programming Note:

Bill Moyers: Decoding the Campaigns
Friday 17 February 2012
by: Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | Programming Note

We're saturated with deceptive political advertising — aided and abetted now with spending by citizens, corporations and super PACs that seems to know no bounds.

But help is on the way. This weekend, Bill asks political communication expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson to decode the political misinformation campaigns of 2012 thus far.

The show then moves from politics to poetry as Bill welcomes former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, who this week received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama. Through an intimate conversation and select readings, Moyers and Dove explore American history, language, culture and ideas. Check for your local TV schedule here.

Bill Moyers Essay:

Bill Moyers: Freedom of and From Religion
Friday 17 February 2012
by: Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | Op-Ed and Video

The president did something agile and wise the other day. And something quite important to the health of our politics. He reached up and snuffed out what some folks wanted to make into a cosmic battle between good and evil. No, said the president, we’re not going to turn the argument over contraception into Armageddon, this is an honest difference between Americans, and I’ll not see it escalated into a holy war. So instead of the government requiring Catholic hospitals and other faith-based institutions to provide employees with health coverage involving contraceptives, the insurance companies will offer that coverage, and offer it free. Read more ...

To read more in the Bill Moyers essay series, click here.

Moyers: On Democracy

Money Throws Democracy Overboard
Tuesday 14 February 2012
by: Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Co. | Op-Ed

The obstacles facing the millennial generation didn’t just happen. Take an economy skewed to the top, low wages and missing jobs, predatory interest rates on college loans: these are politically engineered consequences of government of, by, and for the one percent. So, too, is our tax code the product of money and politics, influence and favoritism, lobbyists and the laws they draft for rented politicians to enact. Read more ...

For more articles by Bill Moyers and Michael Winship in the "On Democracy" series, click here.

Moyers: World of Ideas

Kathleen Hall Jamieson: Campaign Misinformation
Monday 20 February 2012
by: Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | Interview and Video

This weekend on Moyers & Company, Bill asks political communication expert Kathleen Hall Jamieson to analyze the misinformation campaigns of 2012 thus far. Jamieson runs the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, including the sites FactCheck.org and FlackCheck.org. Read more and watch the video ...

Bill Moyers: Where the Right Went Wrong
Sunday 12 February 2012
by: Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | Interview and Video

[C]utting taxes on the rich and waiting for the wealth and prosperity to trickle down -- has left her generation of Millennials standing under a spigot someone forgot to turn on. After a few drips and drops, it went dry. So did the very notion of equal opportunity for all. And today we’re living in a country deeply divided between winners and losers. Nowhere is that more evident than in our tax system – so distorted by loopholes, exemptions, credits, and deductions favoring the already rich and powerful that it no longer can raise the money needed to pay the government’s bills. Read more ...

Who Are the Millennials?: Bill Moyers Interview With Heather McGhee
Saturday 11 February 2012
by: Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | Interview and Video

While Republicans are still fighting the culture wars primary by primary, and caucus by caucus, President Obama is campaigning rather feverishly to win back the votes of the Millennials. Who are they? Well, the Millennials are the generation of young Americans born roughly between the years of 1978 and 2000. They are coming now to political maturity. ... This week, we’re going to talk with one the Millennials’ most thoughtful advocates. Her name is Heather McGhee. Read more and watch the video ...

See video and transcripts from previous programs.

Moyers: Ask Bill

Why Is Our Nation So Divided?
Tuesday 31 January 2012
by: Bill Moyers, Moyers & Co. | News Analysis (Video)

"Why do you think our nation is so divided? Is it because we’re so diverse or is there something else at work here?" Thanks for your question. Read more ...

Fighting Back Against Corporate Personhood

Friday 27 January 2012

by: Bill Moyers, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. | Book Excerpt

Rarely have so few imposed such damage on so many. When five conservative members of the Supreme Court handed for-profit corporations the right to secretly flood political campaigns with tidal waves of cash on the eve of an election, they moved America closer to outright plutocracy, where political power derived from wealth is devoted to the protection of wealth. It is now official: Just as they have adorned our athletic stadiums and multiple places of public assembly with their logos, corporations can officially put their brand on the government of the United States as well as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the fifty states. Read more ...

Letter From Bill Moyers

You already may have heard that I'd be coming back in January with a new series on the public television station nearest you. But you may not have heard exactly why. It's not just that I lack retirement skills, as my wife and co-editor, Judith, keeps reminding me. Or that the squeaky rocking chair on the front porch got on my nerves. Read more ...

Bill Moyers Launches New Series With Three Shows Probing the Reasons for Financial Inequality in America

Bill Moyers is back on TV - and online.  Continuing his long-running conversation with the American public, Moyers returns to television in mid-January with Moyers & Company, a weekly series the veteran journalist says will try to make sense of our tumultuous times, "for myself and hopefully for anyone who wants to keep me company." Read more ...

Bill Moyers: He’s Back, Just as Curious as Ever

That didn’t last long. Just 20 months after retiring his PBS series “Bill Moyers Journal,” Mr. Moyers was back in the studio on a Wednesday morning in December, deep in conversation about moral political psychology with the author Jonathan Haidt. Read more ...