Interesting interview in which Eric Alterman points out that cultural liberalism is flourishing - but the idea of using the government to intercede in the economy on behalf of people who need protection is on the ropes. Via Raw Story:

Writer and historian Eric Alterman appeared on the April 20 edition of “Moyers and Company” to discuss his new book The Cause: The Fight for American Liberalism from Franklin Roosevelt to Barack Obama.

In a wide-ranging and thoughtful discussion, Alterman makes the case to Bill Moyers that while social liberalism is flourishing, economic liberalism has fallen on hard times. The majority of people in the United States believe that racism is wrong. Acceptance of the idea of same-sex marriage has charged ahead with surprising speed. And yet, only a tiny minority of people in the country self-identify as “liberal.”

Alterman believes that liberals in the U.S. have “overpromised and underperformed,” and ultimately become victims of their own belief in the rectitude of their ideas. Of course racism is wrong, says Alterman, but what are we going to do if the dismantling of a racist system doesn’t go as planned?

He believes that liberals need to go on the offensive and learn to be cannier and more flexible in selling their message and implementing their ideas. Just because it’s right, he maintains, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work.

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We've been hearing a lot from the likes of Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck that President Obama and the Democrats are imposing "socialism" on America.

Which tends to make anyone who knows much about socialism -- beyond, that is, the bumper-sticker political awareness of a 13-year-old -- wonder what the hell they're talking about. It's pretty obvious by now that these are unrepentant capitalists in the Obama Administration -- just not laissez-faire capitalists. Socialism? Please.

Bill Moyers wondered the same thing. So he went out and found an unrepentant socialist -- a Cal-Riverside prof named Mike Davis -- and interviewed him. As Moyers put it in the interview:

Moyers: You know, Mike, there's so much talk from that side of the spectrum raising the specter of Socialism. And I thought I might as well talk to a real Socialist about what the term means. I mean, I cannot find anyone in this country advocating the abolition of private markets and the wage systems or nationalizing all the major industries, I mean, no one's arguing for supplanting capitalism, are they?

Davis: I am.

But Davis, as he makes clear, stands in contradistinction to Barack Obama, as well as to most Democrats. Like most actual socialists, he considers Keynesian economic measures like this administration's to be half-solutions at best.

The real heart of the interview, though, came when they discussed what all this talk about "socialism" is really about:

BILL MOYERS: And yet, Obama's only been in office two months now. And there's this chorus of voices, the "Wall Street Journal" editorial page, conservative talk radio, Fox News, Lou Dobbs, CNBC's Cramer and Kudlow, all blaming Obama for the bad economy. Are those attacks sticking out where you live in California?

MIKE DAVIS: Well, I mean you know, what could be more absurd than the, you know, the people who brought this country to its knees now being the chorus of dissenters, now representing themselves as the populace? The fact that they're the ones who have erected the antenna, the lightning rod for popular anger is worrisome because if these bailouts and stimulus fail, if the country sinks deeper into what could be a very long period of stagnation if popular anger is monopolized by the demagogues on the Right, I think you could see a real resurgence of the Republican Party or at least of its most anti-immigrant economic nationalist wing.

This is something maybe not very visible on the national screen. But when you live near the border like I do in Southern California, the southern cities, areas of the Midwest, this has really invigorated what you once would have refereed to as the John Birch Society wing of the Republican Party. The vacuum left by the fall of the Soviet Union has been filled by, you know, good old-fashioned Nativism immigrant bashing.

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It's disconcerting to me that we need to keep reiterating for Washington and the Beltway Punditocracy that the American people WANT for us to return to respecting the "rule of law" in this country. Was our vote not enough of a repudiation of the last eight years? Luckily for us, there are a few in DC and the media corps who DO get it. Right at the top of the list: Senator Russ Feingold and Bill Moyers. They sat down this weekend for a conversation on Feingold's hopes for the incoming administration and his desire to raise us out of the moral turpitude of the Bush administration.

Feingold also blogged about it at Daily Kos:

Our founding fathers laid down a basic principle -- that we are a nation of laws and that no one, including the president, is above the law. From Guantanamo Bay and warrantless wiretapping to torture and excessive secrecy, the Bush administration has turned this principle on its head. The Constitution states that it and the laws of the United States are "the supreme Law of the Land." Yet, the current administration has claimed unprecedented powers as it has ignored or willfully misinterpreted the laws on the books.

While Americans’ decisive call for change this election was a clear repudiation of the Bush administration’s conduct, failing to act swiftly to reverse the damage could essentially legitimize that conduct and the extreme legal theories on which it was based. That is why it is critically important for President-elect Obama to unequivocally renounce President Bush’s extreme claims of executive authority.

Full transcripts of the video clip below the fold. You can watch the full episode here.

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(Guest Blogged by Heather)

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Bill Moyers Journal, which unfortunately is probably not on the top of most Americans TIVO list for Friday nights, dove head on into some of our country's darker days. Days that many in the South would probably prefer to forget, when slavery was no longer legal, but still practiced by an economy addicted to slavery, and unwilling to let it go. Bill Moyers interviewed Douglas Blackmon, author of the book, Slavery by Another Name, and it is truly worth your time to watch the entire interview.

With a Presidential election that has brought the issue of race front and center and forced us to confront the reasons for racial divides, understanding the past and how it relates to the racial tensions that still exist in this country is an important discussion for anyone who would like to finally heal those wounds. Hopefully, one day we may move to a place where race is no longer an issue, or a way to keep a segment of the population from ever achieving equality.

Douglas Blackmon delves into a time that has helped to shape the views of African Americans towards our judicial system, our law enforcement, and our legislators. Open dialogue about what happened during those dark days, and how we move forward to make sure that it does not continue today is a discussion I hope more Americans have as we ponder whether we may have our first black President and what that will mean for our country and the future of race relations.

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Bill Moyers sat down with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann to discuss his breakout from the rest of the mainstream media with his Special Comments.

BILL MOYERS: ...You have some strong things to say about politics.

KEITH OLBERMANN: It became necessary.

BILL MOYERS: Why?

KEITH OLBERMANN: I was sitting on a plane in Los Angeles reading in August of 2006 about Don Rumsfeld talking to the veterans and talking about how every-- everyone who was in opposition to the Iraq War policy, the so-called war on terror, even to some degree the Bush administration, was the equivalent in his mind to the Nazi appeasers of the 1930s. And he went on at length about how, you know, here's the-- we're doing the Churchillian role. And I thought, you know, sir, I took history classes. Your group is not Churchill. Your group is Neville Chamberlain because Neville Chamberlain minimized and marginalized anybody who disagreed with him. Reading this ridiculous remark and waiting to see somebody respond to it. And no one did. I'm thinking, well, you know, somebody with a platform ought to be talking about this. Somebody with a-- with an avenue to respond should be-- oh, yeah, I have a platform.

The entire interview is available at PBS.

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Continuing Bill Moyers' interview last night with host of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann about the relationships between politics and journalism, fielding questions from Moyers' own staff on how Olbermann perceives his particular style of journalism.

It is-- it becomes a nation of screechers. It's never a good thing. But emergency rules do apply. I would like nothing better than to go back and do maybe a sportscast every night. But I think the stuff that I'm talking about is so obvious and will be viewed in such terms of certainty by history that this era will be looked at the way we look now at the-- at the presidents and the-- the leaders of this country who rolled back reconstruction // I think it's that obvious. And I think only under those circumstances would I go this far out on a limb and be this vociferous about it.

Transcripts below the fold; The entire interview up at YouTube

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The Blotter: Rove's investigator is facing allegations of similar behavior

The Carpetbagger Report: OK, let's talk about 'treason'. 

AfterDowningStreet: "I HOPE IT'S YOUR FAMILY MEMBERS THAT DIE" said US Representative Dana Rohrabacher to American citizens who questioned the Bush Administration’s unlawful extraordinary rendition policies

Shadow-Media: FEMA acknowledged it would not have a plan in place for responding to emergencies before the approaching hurricane season.  Oh, and it has emerged that FEMA's Katrina-Related Waste May Have Been Illegal. 

The Democratic Daily: Bleakest housing sales since Bush 1

MoxieGrrrl wrote to remind me about Bill Moyers Journal: "Buying the War" on PBS, tonight at 9:00 p.m. (check local listings - www.pbs.org/moyers). Moyers and his team piece together the reporting that shows how the media were complicit in shaping the "public mind" toward the war, and ask what's happened to the press's role as skeptical "watchdog" over government power.  Until then, soak up The Wisdom of Rush Limbaugh