I have to admit that I’ve never really watched Bill Moyers. I’ve caught segments of his show here and there and I’ve heard kudos about his work for some time.

But his sign off on PBS last week was epic.

He pulled no punches in his analysis about the current state of our government and the economic, social, and political reality we live in: that a very small percentage  (around 1% of our people) control the majority of our wealth as well as our government.

Not only do they control it, they meticulously plan their moves. To the ruling class, the average person is a ‘mark.’ To use the word ‘pawn’ would be too kind, as they plan their every move to ensure that the people at the bottom have little to no economic mobility. Yes, they’re capitalizing on us.

You could say that the American Dream is dead. Or that it never existed. I would argue that it existed but that the dream was intermittent – partially sleeping, partially awake – and inherently flawed. Dreams built on economic systems which are unsustainable and which capitalize on the underclass to benefit the rich are not dreams at all. In fact, they are nightmares for most.

While conservatives have the country believing that wealth is a means to an end, and the top social strata of liberals behave more and more like the bourgeoisie everyday, Moyers signs off with a stark reminder that “Democracy only works when we claim it as our own.”

Good Bye Bill, I hardly knew ye.