Bill Moyers

I recently sent an email message to Bill Moyers's staff in response to a program that I found especially informative and meaningful. Any reactions?

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I watched from day one when Bill started the NOW program, and still watch David Brancaccio most of the time. I never stopped grieving about the loss Bill's departure from NOW represented, though I realize that he's risen from the Ashes at last, the Bush agenda at PBS was revealed in all its ugliness as a result, and there is perhaps some light at the end of the long, dark tunnel we've all been trapped in for the past six years.

One definitely needs an hour long format to do justice to the kinds of issues Bill and David focus on, so I am ecstatic that Bill is back with BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, and better than ever in my opinion, based on what I've seen so far. I've recorded a few of Bill's shows over the years, and occasionally I've shown them to our Adult Ed. group at Church of the Crossroads:

http://www.churchofthecrossroadshawaii.org/ .

More often I show them to my classes at Hawaii Pacific University, or loan them to studenst for purposes of their research on essays. As soon as I send this message I plan to order a copy of last Friday's show. It was one of the best I recall ever seeing on PBS. I've been saying for at least four years that Bill should be president and Scott Ritter his vice-president. Can you have Scott on the Journal in the near future? Also, I suggest that Bill and a crew spend a week or so in Hawaii doing a show on the many fascinating and challenging issues we wrestle with out here in the middle of the Pacific. The right wing Republican vendetta against our Senator Dan Akaka's Native Hawaiian Recognition bill needs to be exposed. An interesting sidelight would be last fall's senate race between Dan Akaka and Steve Case's first cousin, former Rep. Ed Case. A few months before the election TIME mysteriously labeled Sen. Akaka "one of the FIVE WORST U.S. Senators"-- of course we know who is the biggest individual shareholder of Time
Warner! Then there is a huge amount of Hawaiian history that needs to be understood by Americans in general. The overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy and the annexation of Hawaii by the McKinley administration in the midst of the conquest of the Phillippines and the Spanish American War is one of most instructive and apochryphal stories in the annals of American Imperialism.

The controversy over the "racially exclusive" admission policies of the Kamehameha Schools (the largest privately endowed, primary and secondary educational institution in the world) run by the trust
established by the monarchy in its last days is also in need of explanation and explication. Stories on ethinic harmony in a racially diverse culture are  part of the more uplifiting aspects of the half-century history of the "Aloha State". Our political system is unique in several ways, one being the constitutional requirement that allows a majority of registered voters to convene a constitutional convention once every decade if they choose to do so. The next vote on that will be in 2008. The voters have been scared into rejecting a "Con-Con" in each of the elections since 1976 on one basis or another. In the last election opponents used the fear that "gay marriage" would be enshrined in the constitution, or that Native-Hawaiians would lose their special status in the state constitution.

Well, as you can see, I am in love with Bill Moyers, all he stands for, and all  who are part of his mission and ministry at PBS. If you need someone to found the Moyers fan club here, put me on the list of
nominees.
With sincere aloha,
Mike S.