I was lucky enough to meet and talk with Bill Moyers when he worked with the Center for Investigative Reporting (where I was working at the time) on a documentary called "Global Dumping Ground." He was such a wonderful person. As I told a former colleague yesterday, I wish he had lived to be 100. He is so deeply missed.
I now understand why I do not like John Gartner of "Shrinking Trump". He has so much animosity towards President Biden - it just didn't make sense that both John Gartner and Harry Segal of "Shrinking Trump" embraced Jake Tapper's book on President Biden without any discernment about Tapper's motive. In a recent episode, Gartner blamed Biden for single handedly losing the election for the democrats, which is very misguided and not at all what one would expect from a mental health professional. As a mental health professional myself, I was taken aback by Gartner's blatant hatred of Biden, that he did not try at all to hide, and emphatic declaration that history would not be kind to Biden. It really turned me off. Makes one wonder what they are like as therapists to their clients. Gartner has a tendency for catastrophizing on the podcast (therapists are supposed to be calming), which I am sure brings in more viewers. Red flags for sure.
Yes. It seems yet another sign of the Trump/MAGARepublican disease, which gets people at odds with one another rather than uniting in a common cause (truth).
I am so sorry for your loss, and fascinated by your religious practice.
Decades ago, a group of powerful Christian men (including one who had a university which would teach many new pastors) and told the GOP they would be great allies. From pulpits, Bible studies, radio and television programs, a lot of Christians were slowly programmed to enable and support the Trump regime. It was absolutely diabolical.
People who assume that professional engagements should be kept separate from personal faith—or at least not interfere with science—lack what can and should be an elementary school level understanding of science and faith. I understand that Christianity and science (for example) are different, and they use different words and phrases to express their moral founding principle, but the principle is the same. Different moral traditions are different attempts to understand how to adhere to the one founding principle in different contexts.
Netanyahu has become the greatest enemy of Israel, Hamas the greatest enemy of Palestine, and Trump the greatest enemy of America, because that’s what happens when people decide that their moral tradition is so much easier now that they’re ignoring the “moral” part (aka recognizing that the intrinsic value of every human being is equal to the intrinsic value of every other human being).
We appear to be speeding toward the Apocalypse, but is it a bad thing or a good thing? Apocalypse is a Greek word meaning revelation. If the revelation is that adherents to a moral tradition must adhere to its founding moral principle every time in every context, even when it's inconvenient or when it means breaking a rule, then speeding toward the Apocalypse is a good thing.
And if that happens, then the part of Bill Moyers that lives in the hearts of the people he touched (me included) will be here to see it.
Regarding your excellent second paragraph, sure that the bigots from every nationality are the worst enemy of/for that nationality they so fanatically pretend to represent. Have known that since my teenage civilian years trying to survive in the monstrous yugoslav wars when and where I was directly witnessing what the greater-serbianist ethnical warlords were incurring to their own ethnicity as well as the other ones. In every bigotry the first elements are - lie, hatred, prejudices. Small wonder that those attitudes can only be as lethal to those whose impetus mobili is to harbor those negativities and act criminally following them toward the innocent others, as to their own social construct of ethnicity.
I’m fortunate not to have known what you knew as a teenager.
The following quote is from Grantchester on Masterpiece (S6:E8). The Detective Keating character, who fought against fascism, is talking to Will, a pastor who was a conscientious objector in WWII: “Will, I did not think any less of you for not serving. In fact, I’m glad you didn’t. Because you can see the world as it ought to be.”
I can tell you something I know now that wish I knew as a teenager. If something bad is happening, and you understand its cause, then when you act on that cause, the bad thing stops. If you think you’ve acted on the bad thing’s cause, and it didn’t stop, then you don’t understand its cause. But that just means you need a deeper understanding. And if you ignore other people’s suggestions, you might be ignoring that deeper understanding.
Beautifully crafted essay, Dr Lee. 🤝🏻 As someone, whom I can not recall, declared, Mr Moyers was cultural statesman for the United States. 💛 Thank you, as always, for taking the time and the committed energy to balance your intellect with faith. 🙏🏾 In other fora, I enjoy the implicit but puzzling distinction of being an anti-Semitic Zionist. 🙄
These times of politics as a zero-sum game and an inherent bad faith model. 🤢 Iran is an instructive example; ¿does Israël truly believe that Iran would deploy nuclear weapons against her? 😳 From the beginning, my cherished Israël has displayed a genocidal intention in Gaza. 😢 The Jewish state may be spelling her longer-term doom with these excesses against innocents.💔
While I come from a philo-Semitic family and would like to finish my conversion to Judaism, 🤝🏻 I believe that lsraël is committing at best a mass expulsion of, at worst a genocide against, the Palestineans in Gaza. 🤢
Additionally, The Israeli Defence Force is either committing, or remains complicit in, organized violence against innocents on the West Bank and in Lebanon. 😢 lsraël is also betraying Judaism. 💔
Vel, I used to pin all of the blame on the Israeli government, but there seem to be very few, if any, protests by Israeli citizens -- at least that I can see -- demanding better treatment for Palestineans.🫣
1. The good people of Israel are ones of the most interred into concentration camp terrorized people by both the kahanist, I repeat, kahanist-netanyahu terrorist regime in Israel and the generalized antiIsraelistic terrorists of the so-called "neighbors". The good people of Israel are suffering everybody's aggressions as it was obvious in the kahanist-netanyahu's refusal to protect them on Oct. 7th 2023 from hamas-hezbola terrorists and everything else that transpired afterwards and still. Israel is a tiny country where there isn't enough space to keep protesting both the kahanist-netanyahu's reign of terror and risking again being genocidized by the hamas-hezbola-other-jihadist terrorists.
Unlike Russia, unlike USA - which have at the very least - a huge advantage of territorial width and largeness.
So as to not let Americans befall in a way similarly sad fate of the good Israelis or of the horrific terroristic putin's russia - the good Americans should keep protesting against the tRumputin&his entire psychopathic cabinet reign of terror!!
2. Why are you not balanced so as not to be either pro-Semitic nor anti-Semitic?? Why are you and those similar and/or even worse than you - so fixated, one way or another, on a centuries long conflict of the two Semitic peoples the regimes of the both sides thereof are so obviously not interested in any peace?? Only Palestinian civilians and Israeli civilians can bring a peace to themselves - once and when they want a peace.
3. The good Israelis had been protesting against the kahanist-netanyahu reign of terror very much more widespread than even Americans do now back throughout 2022 and 2023 up until the day the criminals kahanists-netanyahu gave the hamas-hezbola terrorists the green light to genocidize those Israelis. Get informed, Ned McDoodle or refresh your memory!!
4. I'm not sure why do you feel a need to convert to Judaism and what does Judaism so necessarily, in your head, have to do with the regime in Israel??
Dr. Lee, I am sure that you are aware of how forgiveness ends the pain and heals us. We currently have a ‘mobbing’ of bullies, 'revenge addicts' in Trump's regime.
I have been learning about revenge and forgiveness from James Kimmel, Jr. After viewing several podcasts and listening to his audio book “The Science of Revenge |Revenge and Forgiveness” I have a better understanding of what has been stirred up by Trump and unleashed on Americans.
I believe that our society is in need of a paradigm shift away from the revenge death cycles of war that have plagued humans for thousands of years. Yes, this is a big stretch and it won’t be easy, but I believe that there are other ‘happier countries’ we can learn from. Do you see a path forward out of the nightmare of endless cruelty from Trump and his mob?
When I saw the Dali Lama lecture (in concert?) he said that if science proves Buddhism wrong then Buddhism must change. I like in the film finally of the TV series "Firefly" ("killed" by Fox), "Serenity," when Shepherd Book lies dying of gunshots and says to Malcom Reynolds (an agnostic?), "I don't care what you believe, boy, just believe!" These both touch me.
Thank you again, Dr. Lee. It's sad but true, so it indicates all the more that what is needed to do to free us from the madness of the radical believers. When based by radicals only on faith (and not by both faith and reason--science), it's ironic that religious belief itself can be very vulnerable to manipulation by demagogues.
Beautiful story, beautiful man with a beautiful heart.
He'll be missed every day.
Thank you.
I was lucky enough to meet and talk with Bill Moyers when he worked with the Center for Investigative Reporting (where I was working at the time) on a documentary called "Global Dumping Ground." He was such a wonderful person. As I told a former colleague yesterday, I wish he had lived to be 100. He is so deeply missed.
I now understand why I do not like John Gartner of "Shrinking Trump". He has so much animosity towards President Biden - it just didn't make sense that both John Gartner and Harry Segal of "Shrinking Trump" embraced Jake Tapper's book on President Biden without any discernment about Tapper's motive. In a recent episode, Gartner blamed Biden for single handedly losing the election for the democrats, which is very misguided and not at all what one would expect from a mental health professional. As a mental health professional myself, I was taken aback by Gartner's blatant hatred of Biden, that he did not try at all to hide, and emphatic declaration that history would not be kind to Biden. It really turned me off. Makes one wonder what they are like as therapists to their clients. Gartner has a tendency for catastrophizing on the podcast (therapists are supposed to be calming), which I am sure brings in more viewers. Red flags for sure.
I must say that this news about the nature of Gartner surprised me and saddened me.
Yes. It seems yet another sign of the Trump/MAGARepublican disease, which gets people at odds with one another rather than uniting in a common cause (truth).
Well said and written. I need to look into this menace Gartner. I know little of him, and apparently he's a known scoundrel.
While I would voted for him without hesitation, President Biden disappointed me when he sought re-nomination.
Faith is not the easy way. It is not a path at all. Faith is the wilderness and we are in it.
Carry on. Thank you for keeping at the work
I have no doubt that a film will be made one day, sadly retroactively. A theme in that film will be “this could have been remedied..."
I am so sorry for your loss, and fascinated by your religious practice.
Decades ago, a group of powerful Christian men (including one who had a university which would teach many new pastors) and told the GOP they would be great allies. From pulpits, Bible studies, radio and television programs, a lot of Christians were slowly programmed to enable and support the Trump regime. It was absolutely diabolical.
Yep, typically hypocritically diabolical yet they call themselves "christian".
I really see it as a power and wealth grab, plain and simple.
Even worse and more complex in negative sense - they are sadistic, oppressive, often psychopathic thieves of a power and wealth.
Very far from the expectations God has for his people.
I still have his interviews with Joseph Campbell somewhere around here. Thank you, this is a good piece. This is the depth we need.
People who assume that professional engagements should be kept separate from personal faith—or at least not interfere with science—lack what can and should be an elementary school level understanding of science and faith. I understand that Christianity and science (for example) are different, and they use different words and phrases to express their moral founding principle, but the principle is the same. Different moral traditions are different attempts to understand how to adhere to the one founding principle in different contexts.
Netanyahu has become the greatest enemy of Israel, Hamas the greatest enemy of Palestine, and Trump the greatest enemy of America, because that’s what happens when people decide that their moral tradition is so much easier now that they’re ignoring the “moral” part (aka recognizing that the intrinsic value of every human being is equal to the intrinsic value of every other human being).
We appear to be speeding toward the Apocalypse, but is it a bad thing or a good thing? Apocalypse is a Greek word meaning revelation. If the revelation is that adherents to a moral tradition must adhere to its founding moral principle every time in every context, even when it's inconvenient or when it means breaking a rule, then speeding toward the Apocalypse is a good thing.
And if that happens, then the part of Bill Moyers that lives in the hearts of the people he touched (me included) will be here to see it.
Regarding your excellent second paragraph, sure that the bigots from every nationality are the worst enemy of/for that nationality they so fanatically pretend to represent. Have known that since my teenage civilian years trying to survive in the monstrous yugoslav wars when and where I was directly witnessing what the greater-serbianist ethnical warlords were incurring to their own ethnicity as well as the other ones. In every bigotry the first elements are - lie, hatred, prejudices. Small wonder that those attitudes can only be as lethal to those whose impetus mobili is to harbor those negativities and act criminally following them toward the innocent others, as to their own social construct of ethnicity.
Vel,
It's easy to see why one of Trump's early public comments was to praise ignorance.
Few things are more truly ignorant than ignoring the lessons of history over and over and over and...
I’m fortunate not to have known what you knew as a teenager.
The following quote is from Grantchester on Masterpiece (S6:E8). The Detective Keating character, who fought against fascism, is talking to Will, a pastor who was a conscientious objector in WWII: “Will, I did not think any less of you for not serving. In fact, I’m glad you didn’t. Because you can see the world as it ought to be.”
I can tell you something I know now that wish I knew as a teenager. If something bad is happening, and you understand its cause, then when you act on that cause, the bad thing stops. If you think you’ve acted on the bad thing’s cause, and it didn’t stop, then you don’t understand its cause. But that just means you need a deeper understanding. And if you ignore other people’s suggestions, you might be ignoring that deeper understanding.
💙💙💙
Beautifully crafted essay, Dr Lee. 🤝🏻 As someone, whom I can not recall, declared, Mr Moyers was cultural statesman for the United States. 💛 Thank you, as always, for taking the time and the committed energy to balance your intellect with faith. 🙏🏾 In other fora, I enjoy the implicit but puzzling distinction of being an anti-Semitic Zionist. 🙄
https://nedmcdletters.blogspot.com/2023/10/letter-180-post-107-in-israel-and-time.html (written within ten days of 07oct23) 🤔
These times of politics as a zero-sum game and an inherent bad faith model. 🤢 Iran is an instructive example; ¿does Israël truly believe that Iran would deploy nuclear weapons against her? 😳 From the beginning, my cherished Israël has displayed a genocidal intention in Gaza. 😢 The Jewish state may be spelling her longer-term doom with these excesses against innocents.💔
why anti-Semitic? just asking....
While I come from a philo-Semitic family and would like to finish my conversion to Judaism, 🤝🏻 I believe that lsraël is committing at best a mass expulsion of, at worst a genocide against, the Palestineans in Gaza. 🤢
Additionally, The Israeli Defence Force is either committing, or remains complicit in, organized violence against innocents on the West Bank and in Lebanon. 😢 lsraël is also betraying Judaism. 💔
Vel, I used to pin all of the blame on the Israeli government, but there seem to be very few, if any, protests by Israeli citizens -- at least that I can see -- demanding better treatment for Palestineans.🫣
1. The good people of Israel are ones of the most interred into concentration camp terrorized people by both the kahanist, I repeat, kahanist-netanyahu terrorist regime in Israel and the generalized antiIsraelistic terrorists of the so-called "neighbors". The good people of Israel are suffering everybody's aggressions as it was obvious in the kahanist-netanyahu's refusal to protect them on Oct. 7th 2023 from hamas-hezbola terrorists and everything else that transpired afterwards and still. Israel is a tiny country where there isn't enough space to keep protesting both the kahanist-netanyahu's reign of terror and risking again being genocidized by the hamas-hezbola-other-jihadist terrorists.
Unlike Russia, unlike USA - which have at the very least - a huge advantage of territorial width and largeness.
So as to not let Americans befall in a way similarly sad fate of the good Israelis or of the horrific terroristic putin's russia - the good Americans should keep protesting against the tRumputin&his entire psychopathic cabinet reign of terror!!
2. Why are you not balanced so as not to be either pro-Semitic nor anti-Semitic?? Why are you and those similar and/or even worse than you - so fixated, one way or another, on a centuries long conflict of the two Semitic peoples the regimes of the both sides thereof are so obviously not interested in any peace?? Only Palestinian civilians and Israeli civilians can bring a peace to themselves - once and when they want a peace.
3. The good Israelis had been protesting against the kahanist-netanyahu reign of terror very much more widespread than even Americans do now back throughout 2022 and 2023 up until the day the criminals kahanists-netanyahu gave the hamas-hezbola terrorists the green light to genocidize those Israelis. Get informed, Ned McDoodle or refresh your memory!!
4. I'm not sure why do you feel a need to convert to Judaism and what does Judaism so necessarily, in your head, have to do with the regime in Israel??
Mobbing of revenge bullies
Dr. Lee, I am sure that you are aware of how forgiveness ends the pain and heals us. We currently have a ‘mobbing’ of bullies, 'revenge addicts' in Trump's regime.
I have been learning about revenge and forgiveness from James Kimmel, Jr. After viewing several podcasts and listening to his audio book “The Science of Revenge |Revenge and Forgiveness” I have a better understanding of what has been stirred up by Trump and unleashed on Americans.
I believe that our society is in need of a paradigm shift away from the revenge death cycles of war that have plagued humans for thousands of years. Yes, this is a big stretch and it won’t be easy, but I believe that there are other ‘happier countries’ we can learn from. Do you see a path forward out of the nightmare of endless cruelty from Trump and his mob?
Fascinating. I will read your books, until I am able to subscribe.
I always liked Bill Moyers, as he seemed to be an authentic, caring person.
When I saw the Dali Lama lecture (in concert?) he said that if science proves Buddhism wrong then Buddhism must change. I like in the film finally of the TV series "Firefly" ("killed" by Fox), "Serenity," when Shepherd Book lies dying of gunshots and says to Malcom Reynolds (an agnostic?), "I don't care what you believe, boy, just believe!" These both touch me.
Thank you again, Dr. Lee. It's sad but true, so it indicates all the more that what is needed to do to free us from the madness of the radical believers. When based by radicals only on faith (and not by both faith and reason--science), it's ironic that religious belief itself can be very vulnerable to manipulation by demagogues.
Wonderful story about Bill Moyers and more. Thank you, Dr. Lee.