Moyers on America

I'm on vacation (and fortunately have free internet access--gotta love wireless) and I've been reading Moyers on America, a collection of essays by the retired TV journalist and former LBJ hack. I've always loved NOW, his last TV news show, and was saddened when it was cut down from 60 to 30 minutes when Moyers left.

At any rate, here's one of my favorite passages (so far):

What I can't explain is the rage of these counterrevolutionaries [i.e. neocons] to dismantle every last brink of the social contract. At this advanced age I accept the fact that the tension between haves and have-nots is built into human psychology and society itself--it's ever with us. However, I'm just as puzzled as to why, with right-wing wrecking crews blasting away at social benefits once considered invulnerable, Democrats are fearful of being branded "class warriors" in a war the other side started and is determined to win. I don't get why conceding your opponent's premises and fighting on his turf isn't a surefire prescription for irrelevance and ultimately obsolescence. But I confess as well that I don't know how to resolve the social issues that have driven wedges into the ranks of the working-and lower-middle-classes and divided them from the more affluent, upper-middle-class professionals and highly educated who were once their allies. Nor do I know how to reconfigure Progressive politics to fit into an age of sound bites and polling dominated by a media oligarchy whose corporate journalists are neutered and whose right-wing publicists have no shame.

From his writings, you'd think Moyers was registered Green. If he's not, he certainly should be. I don't know how to place my own politics into sound bites (although I'm getting good at it), and I don't know how to bridge that gap in understanding between what conservatives are doing to our country and those who continue to support them lock, stock and barrel