Bob Herbert Tells Bill Moyers How Corporations and the Big Banks Have Hijacked the Country
October 10, 2014 |
Three years ago, reporter and former New York Times columnist Bob Herbert took to the road and traveled across the United States to gather research for his new book, Losing Our Way. In it, Herbert tells the stories of the brave, hard-working men and women he met who have been battered by the economic downturn. He found an America in which jobs have disappeared, infrastructure is falling apart and the “virtuous cycle” of well-paid workers spending their wages to power the economy has been broken by greed and the gap between the very rich and everyone else.
He tells Bill: “[W]e’ve established a power structure in which the great corporations and the big banks have allied themselves with the national government and, in many cases, local government to pursue corporate interests and financial interests as opposed to those things that would be in the best interests of ordinary working people… Once you do that, you lose the dynamic that America is supposed to be. It’s supposed to be an egalitarian society, a society of rising standards of living, a society of a vast and thriving middle class. And we are getting farther and farther away from that ideal.”
As for solutions, Herbert says, “People need to start voting against the excessive power of the great moneyed interests. But more than that, we need a movement, a grass-roots movement that will fight for the interests of ordinary men and women…”
Herbert is a senior distinguished fellow at the public policy and analysis think tank, Demos. He is also a board member of the Schumann Media Center, from which he is presently on leave working on a major documentary.
Read the full transcript below:
BILL MOYERS: Welcome. I’ll wager that in the first seven pages of this book, “Losing Our Way,” you will be hooked. And when you close the final chapter, you will have seen our country as you haven’t in a long time: intimately, through the eyes of a great reporter. His stories take us across America, from the Best Buy headquarters in Minnesota to ordinary homes in Allentown, Pennsylvania. You will meet Jessica Gallardo at her high school in Brooklyn, and Rico and Frankie Blancaflor of Montclair, New Jersey, survivors of Hurricane Sandy. You will never forget what happened in an orchard in Afghanistan to Lieutenant Dan Berschinski, and to Troy Orion Tom, the Navajo Indian from Shiprock, New Mexico. You’ll discover how corporate tough guys “Neutron Jack” Welch and “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap modeled the CEO of the future, blazing away during the high noon of capitalism at the middle class and working people. Here is how America lost its way.
But you’ll also see why the only practical response to what’s happened to us is for people to fight back. That may sound like a cliché, perhaps, but Bob Herbert has seen it happen before, and comes home from his journey believing it can happen again.
He was a columnist for “The New York Times” for 18 years, a champion of working people and the middle class like his hard-working parents in New Jersey. We’re good friends and kindred spirits, as well as colleagues at the Schumann Media Center, from which he is presently on leave working on a major documentary. Bob, good to see you again.
BOB HERBERT: Great to be here Bill. Thank you.
BILL MOYERS: What does the country look like out there? You encounter a lot of problems in the book, as you travel the country. But you also encounter a lot of people. Let's start with some of those people. Tell me about Mercedes Gorden.
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