Why we fight, redux

Guess who's back -- the real Bill Moyers. Here's an excerpt from a great speech he gave last month. Read the whole thing:

Why New York's Zuccotti Park is filled with people is no mystery. Reporters keep scratching their heads and asking, "Why are you here?" But it's clear they are occupying Wall Street because Wall Street has occupied the country. And that's why in public places across the nation workaday Americans are standing up in solidarity. Did you see the sign a woman was carrying at a fraternal march in Iowa the other day? It read, I Can't Afford to Buy a Politician So I Bought This Sign. Americans have learned the hard way that when rich organizations and wealthy individuals shower Washington with millions in campaign contributions, they get what they want.

In his Pulitzer Prize–winning book The Radicalism of the American Revolution, historian Gordon Wood says that our nation discovered its greatness "by creating a prosperous free society belonging to obscure people with their workaday concerns and pecuniary pursuits of happiness." This democracy, he said, changed the lives of "hitherto neglected and despised masses of common laboring people."