This is a reading of Moyers' concise and revealing mini history of the corporate takeover of America's democracy, beginning with the infamous secret 1971 memo by Lewis Powell to his friends at the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. Powell soon became Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Moyers sums it up: "We look back on it now as a call to arms for class war waged from the top down... Within two years the board of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce formed a task force of 40 business executives â from U.S. Steel, GE, GM, Phillips Petroleum, 3M, Amway, and ABC and CBS. Their assignment was to defend the free enterprise system and push the corporate agenda. In 1971, only 175 firms had registered lobbyists in the capital; by 1982, nearly twenty-five hundred did. Corporate PACs increased from under 300 in 1976 to over twelve hundred by the middle of the l980s. Powell had set in motion a revolt of the rich."
This very important section was left out of Moyers' original speech due to time constraints.
Bill Moyers, elder, intellectual, journalist and public broadcaster for four decades has know politics more intimately than most of his media colleagues. He was an organizing founder and deputy director of the Peace Corps, Special Assistant and then Press Secretary to President Lyndon Johnson and played a key role in organizing and supervising the 1964 Great Society legislative task forces.
Bill Moyers delivered the keynote address at Public Citizen's 40th Anniversary celebration in October 2011. Public Citizen was co-founded by Ralph Nader, and now has over 225,000 members. Their motto is "defending democracy, resisting corporate power"Â
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