I'm Bill Moyers. It's good to have your ear. This week on Mortgerson Company,

we hear how money and media are sabotaging our elections and what we can do to fight back.

Every time we've been in a situation like this, we the people have risen up and demanded that we repair and renew and extend our democracy,

but we shouldn't be sitting around waiting for a billionaire to fix it for us.

And a staunch defender of privacy says we need more troublemakers to stand up against government and corporate spying on democracy.

A lot of the cornerstones of our democracy are imperiled right now and obviously

knowing what's happening is the first step.

And I think that people will hopefully become frustrated and upset enough so that they will take

some kind of action.

Thanks for joining us.

Whether you were pleased or not with how your candidates and issues did in last Tuesday's

election, the amount of money spent on many of the campaigns had to leave most people more

dispirited than ever about our politics.

In two states, local referendum battles were won by outside corporate interest pouring money

into TV ads. In Washington state alone, $22 million was spent to beat back a plan

to label genetically modified food. And across the country in Maine, a ballot

motion to stop the building of a Tar Sands pipeline terminal was thwarted when oil companies

pumped in hundreds of thousands of dollars to defeat it. Democrats and some forces on

the left have embraced the corrupting kiss of cash as well.

In Virginia, liberal billionaires, including environmentalist Tom Steyer, shelled out millions of dollars to elect Terry McColliffe as governor.

McCalliff himself is the celebrated bagman, the croniest of crony capitalist, whose chief mission as an adult

has been to raise multi-millions of dollars for other politicians while enriching himself.

...