@Omnes Omnibus: My favorite line of attack against him is he’s also a rich stock owner. Big whoop. I own stock through a mutual fund as does a plurality of Americans. I read the speech (I don’t care much for his histrionics) and he nails it.
4.
gbear
OMG. Someone assaults him at 2:16! Tell Fox News!
5.
debbie
His shrill has nothing on the shrill of Michelle Bachman. I had the misfortune of watching her on MTP this morning. Not only did she totally ignore the questions David Gregory asked her, but she repeated 5 or 6 times that Obama had deceptively hidden $105 billion in Obamacare, and the people wanted it back.
@TaMara (BHF): It was e-mailed to me as a transcript of the video, but lemme try soomething:
“America is not broke.
“Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you’ll give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The country is awash in wealth and cash. It’s just that it’s not in your hands. It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
“Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
“Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer ‘bailout'[ of 2008, now have more loot, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined. If you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be true.
“And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would mean that we’d have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street, the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic — and, until this past month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.”
That’s about a third of the 333,000 teachers employed by Texas public schools.”
12.
Yutsano
Part II:
…I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in
school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to
graduate. And here’s what I learned: Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows
when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that
we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when
we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new
generation of inventers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers
who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea
creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who
have the most money don’t pay their fair share of taxes, the state can’t
function. The schools can’t produce the best and the brightest who will go
on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money,
we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall
Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us
millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in revenue. And the
population ended up suffering because they reduced their taxes, reduced
our jobs and took wealth out of the system, removing it from circulation.
The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It’s part of
the Big Lie. It’s one of the three biggest lies of the decade:
America/Wisconsin is broke, Iraq has WMD, the Packers can’t win the Super
Bowl without Brett Favre.
The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. LOTS. It’s just that
those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on
their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make
this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that
money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of
politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in
case that doesn’t work, they’ve got their gated communities, and the
luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that
day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand
their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:
1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have
expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the
American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the
Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day – this is America, where
anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently
provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can
become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become
president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful
filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all
day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple
cart — because you — yes, you, too! — might be rich/president/an
Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose
to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party
that protects the rich man that you might be some day.
13.
Yutsano
Part III:
2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to
take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they
threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in
September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went
into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi
scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of
dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight
into the ground. Fork it over or it’s Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye
pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and
future. It was friggin’ awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone.
“Here! Take our money! We don’t care. We’ll even print more for you! Just
take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!”
The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their
laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other
huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation
full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their
homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).
Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share
a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant know as
the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is
shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in
charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message
is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone tells us America is broke and broken.
It’s just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work
and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no
fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave
what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name
back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America.
The United States of America!
So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a
little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember
that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so
that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by
billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and
humanity.
Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best
chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as
Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor,
skipped out of town to Illinois — whatever it took, you have done it, and
one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich
have overplayed their hand. They couldn’t have just been content with the
money they raided from the treasury. They couldn’t be satiated by simply
removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor
elsewhere. No, they had to have more – something more than all the riches
in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our
dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even
sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom
size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a
pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job —
their $19,000 a year job. That’s how much some rookie pilots on commuter
airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilots flying people here to Madison.
But he’s stopped trying to get better pay. All he asks is that he doesn’t
have to sleep in his car between shifts at O’Hare airport. That’s how
despicably low we have sunk. The wealthy couldn’t be content with just
paying this man $19,000 a year. They wanted to take away his sleep. They
wanted to demean and dehumanize him. After all, he’s just another slob.
And that, my friends, is Corporate America’s fatal mistake. But trying to
destroy us they have given birth to a movement — a movement that is
becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew
there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many
people in the media don’t understand this. They say they were caught off
guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and
flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison
over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. “Why are they all
standing out there in the cold? I mean there was that election in November
and that was supposed to be that!
“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you
…?”
America ain’t broke! The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of
the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves
from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still
stands, it’s one person, one vote, and it’s the thing the rich hate most
about America — because even though they seem to hold all the money and
all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact:
There are more of us than there are of them!
Madison, do not retreat. We are with you. We will win together.
@Pancake: yes, it’s true that rush is a fat turd, but you forget he’s a drug addled fat turd.
20.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Toto is pulling the curtain back from the wizard but slowly. The real big issue is keeping this momentum up.
21.
JGabriel
Moore:
Many people in the media don’t understand this. They say they were caught off guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather.
Rich people go crazy over a fat man saying they need to pay more taxes.
Wow. That’s such an unexpected reaction. It doesn’t sound like an evil rich people cliche at all.
.
22.
gbear
@Mike Kay (True Grit): …and he’s not funny. Well, not on purpose. Well…. not at all.
Great speech. Want to garrote the one dude in the audience honking a Vuvuzela, though. “Fuck yeah, that was awesome!” [MEEERRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPP!] “Goddamnit.”
I saw that a couple of days, though I didn’t know that translated to a third of public school teachers. I guess the curriculum will be reduced to English, math, and football.
I’m not an economist, but my gut feeling told me that the aid to the states part of the stimulus was the only thing that kept us from a depression. Now that that’s gone, well, I’m not optimistic. I think the teabaggers in Congress should just default on the debt so we can get Thunderdome started.
25.
JGabriel
I guess the curriculum will be reduced to English, math,home ec for girls, vo-tech for boys, bible studies for everyone, and football.
Fixed that for ya!
.
26.
Maude
@Mark S.:
You are right about the aid to the states. Look at what Repuke govenors are doing. Christie is a fool and he is still getting away with what he does, like losing $ for NJ. The tide needs to turn where the rich aren’t seen as better people.
27.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Maude: that’s only because his fat ass is propped up by the corporate media.
If the media was merely objective, they’d get wiped out every time.
28.
Corner Stone
I guess the curriculum will be reduced to English, math, and football.
You say you’re not an optimist but this list belies that.
Ainglish? Hell, if your momma don’t speak that at home don’t expect us to spend money doing it here!
Maths? That there’s what they make the register at Chik Fil A for!
Football? We’re all born unnerstandin’ football better’n everybody else anyway!
29.
Mike in NC
No, they had to have more – something more than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity.
So true. Reminds me of the film “Up in the Air”, which showed interviews with actual people who’d been screwed by the recession and lost their jobs, their homes, their self-respect. Some killed themselves.
Now the plutocrats want to wipe out unions, child labor laws, and the minimum wage. Jesus wills it, or something, and they own most of the politicians.
@Davis X. Machina: I saw Bachmann and in defense of Gregory, I’m not sure he had any clue what she was talking about. It was obvious she didn’t read the bill but reading the bill wouldn’t have changed her vote anyway. They worked on health care for two years. During that time one would think someone in her office could have clued her in.
Bachmann/Palin 2012.
Not only did she totally ignore the questions David Gregory asked her, but she repeated 5 or 6 times that Obama had deceptively hidden $105 billion in Obamacare, and the people wanted it back.
OMG! She was horrible. “$105 billion, $105 billion,$105 billion, $105 billion, $105 billion,$105 billion.”
When she was done, I almost expected her to “BWAWCK!” and ask for a cracker.
34.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Corner Stone: Good grief, that’s horrible. Laying off a third of their teachers?
This trend may bite them in another way they don’t expect, though. If Texas shutters all its schools, won’t it become unable to dictate what goes in the textbooks for everyone else?
35.
superdestroyer
Image how the left would have reacted if a Republicans had said that a $10 trillion national and a $1.5 trillion annual budget deficit was not important and did not really exist.
36.
CJ's dad
Amazing,
I just can’t comprehend why many people feel that the rich do not have to give up some of their wealth through higher taxes, but it is okay for the middle class to give up some of their wealth by reduced pay and pensions. Why do many people believe that our teachers are bad because of the actions of some and that our firemen and policemen are just looking to get out early with fake disabilities. Is it because the Republican (FOX) message machine is so much better than the Democrats (do they have such a mechanism ?)?
37.
James E Powell
I have the same issue with Moore’s speech as I do with his films: what is the likelihood of his message penetrating into the brain of any person who does not already agree with what he is saying?
How many people who vote Republican will switch to voting Democratic after hearing or reading it? How many people who do not ordinarily vote will register and vote Democratic after hearing or reading it?
38.
Corner Stone
@James E Powell: Hence the “Michael Moore is fat” repeated refrain.
Why do you think they worked so hard to demonize him?
39.
Ecks
The irony of this is that a lot of the rhetoric he uses here could be taken letter by letter from a tea party rally. I think a bit part of the reason the Kochs have managed to get so many normal people so riled up with their astroturf is that a lot of people can see that there ARE some real problems with this country. All the Kochs of the world, with their conveyor belt of lies had to do was to subtly shift the target from the rich to the government. With that sleight of hand promulgated every day on Fox and talk radio and smacked sideways into the MSM, and built up steadily for the past 30-40 years, they got people who intuited how messed up things were as properly riled as those people should possibly be, but redirected it in a tirade of “ra ra constitution, flag, libruls, real murka” into a classic divide and conquer. It’s evil fucking genius.
40.
jwb
@CJ’s dad: The Republicans OWN the fucking messaging machine. The Democrats’ messaging won’t significantly improve until either someone buys them a messaging machine of their own (do you have a spare $100 billion dollars or so lying around?) or technology comes along to make that messaging machine irrelevant.
41.
Corner Stone
@superdestroyer: I say we raise the top rate to 90% to help resolve the deficit.
Speaking as “the left”.
I have the same issue with Moore’s speech as I do with his films: what is the likelihood of his message penetrating into the brain of any person who does not already agree with what he is saying?
Oh, I don’t know. If this were repeated
Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
half as often as rightwing tropes are, it would go a long way to making people less excited about tax cuts for the rich and gutting Social Security. Sure, there is the hopeless 27%, but goopers can’t win elections with just that.
46.
Dawn Notz
Michael “more, better Democrats” Moore doesn’t need to be criticized on his laziness, his obesity, his absurd “worship me!” egocentrism.
His track record shows him to have been wrong about a great many things, most of which fall under the heading of Partisanship, Dem-Lover Variety.
I’m sure that’s pretty irrelevant here at Spermbag Spew, though. You’ve got Evil Rethuglicans to mock!
I’m not an economist, but my gut feeling told me that the aid to the states part of the stimulus was the only thing that kept us from a depression.
I think you’re right. And worse than just the stimulus funds being gone is the fact that we’re having an oil price spike right now due both to peak oil and to instability in North Africa, etc. Six out of the last 7 oil price spikes caused a recession.
I think the combination might be a double whammy that’s going to hit us like 2008, though it’ll be a little different – now that there’s an established free flow of money to the banking system, there won’t be any handwringing about it in Washington. The solution will be to simply say we’re broke and in a recession and that the middle class has to bear the brunt while the bankers sit fat and happy.
49.
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus: Ok. I took out $40 for gas, and $750 for the heating-oil guy. But it’s mostly still there. Look behind the frozen blintzes.
50.
patrick II
Today just 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
Congressional Budget Office projection that the child-poverty rate would soon hit 25 percent
OT…sorta..I watched Dateline tonight on bullying. I feel like I have to mention that I maybe watched Dateline 5 or 6 times before and I had no idea it was on Sunday nights but I wander..anyway why does the media give credence to any assholes. The show was on not glamorizing and supporting the mean girls/boys but isn’t that what the media does everyday whether it be beck or bachmann or palin or the Westboro Baptist Church. How many hours has the media donated to Westboro Baptist Church?
52.
Corner Stone
OT as well…but the fucking temerity on this little bought and paid for crook sonovabitch! Afghan president rejects US apology over killings
“KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s president on Sunday rejected a U.S. apology for the mistaken killing of nine Afghan boys in a NATO air attack and said civilian casualties are no longer acceptable.
According to a statement from his office, Hamid Karzai told Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, that expressing regret was not sufficient in last week’s killing of the boys, ages 12 and under, by coalition helicopters”
Karzai told Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, that expressing regret was not sufficient in last week’s killing of the boys, ages 12 and under, by coalition helicopters
No shit. He wants another $25M deposited in his Swiss bank account. Then he’ll feel MUCH better.
Much like the woman who complained to Obama, I am exhausted from defending the Democrats. But then I hear a Republican or read one of their proposals and, exhausted as I am, I go back to defending them.
Or you can look at it this way. If the white, middle class voters who have been voting for Republicans since Reagan would switch their alliance to Democrats, the Democrats would end up a majority party for long enough to effect change. It isn’t possible in a single congress, or even two or three, to course-correct from the last thirty years.
55.
shawntos
@jwb: I heard that Obama might have a spare $105 Billion kicking around somewhere, they were repeating that on MTP I hear.
I’m not a big Karzai fan, but why is this “temerity”? He is an Afghani, after all. Perhaps people in that country are a bit tired of foreigners killing their children. Even if they are wogs.
@Corner Stone: Yeah, the gall of that ungrateful bastard for not pushing the slaughter of of children under the rug after we so graciously said, “Oops, sorry ’bout that.”
58.
Jim, Once
@Dawn Notz: I understand paid trolls are getting forty dollars an hour now. You have NOT earned your salary with this post.
Someone get that to the WH or Axelrod or something. WI could be a real game changer.
60.
Jeanne Ringland
@Yutsano: I am borrowing this and posting it on Facebook so that people see it who won’t initially pay attention because… well, you know, he’s fat and shrill, etc. Also too.
61.
Jeanne Ringland
@Dawn Notz: I’m a Republican and your post was pretty vile.
Thinking about how I’m going to register, may stay one just to vote for the ‘moderates’ in the primaries, if I can find any.
62.
jwb
@Jim, Once: Do you have a link to that $40 figure for trolling? I’ve suspected it has been professionalized. On the other had $40/hour for the shit I’ve seen—what’s happened to craft?
63.
lvap
I think the strangest part to me is that most Americans (hell, most people in the world) normally wouldn’t care that much; they just want a decent job that pays the bills, takes care of their family, and maybe a few bucks left over at the end of the month to go see a movie. Plus, for the most part be left alone to live their lives.
Seriously, once you have a billion dollars, what do you do with the rest of the money?
Image how the left would have reacted if a Republicans had said that a $10 trillion national and a $1.5 trillion annual budget deficit was not important and did not really exist.
My latest theory about you guys is that you’ve all suffered a major brain trauma and can’t remember anything that happened more than two weeks ago, which is why you can make patently ridiculous claims like saying the Republicans gave a shit about the deficit when they were in charge with a straight face.
Yes and was and the Bush Administration left office with a 20% approval rating, leftist groups such as moveon.org ran advertises about how high the deficit was, and the left severely criticized Cheney for saying that.
Now that the Democrats are in charge the same moveon.org could not be concerned less about the deficit and the left was to increase spending.
70.
debbie
@ Ana Gama:
Wouldn’t it be great to see Gregory grow a pair and announce he won’t have her back on again unless and until she agrees to answer the questions she’s asked? I miss Tim Russert! He’d have cut her right off.
71.
Paul in KY
@James E Powell: What was wrong with what he said? Was it incorrect?
72.
Paul in KY
@Dawn Notz: Yes, because being a ‘Repub Lover’ is just the ticket for our country. After all, look how well it worked from 2000 – 2008.
73.
CynDee
@Pancake: Are you always this classy, or just showing off for the group here?
I say that because while a lot of people see it as Understanding Dems vs Evil Republicans, I see it as an inherently unstable & unjust system with its elite merely split on how blatant to be about it. Yes, in the immediate term it’s better to get the occasional table scraps than to be told Shut Up And Pray, but that the choices end there strikes me as a feature, not a bug.
BTW: To be completely blunt here, I’m sick of hearing about the “middle class”. Everything economics-wise is “middle-class” this, “middle-class” that, when the distinction being made is so blurry as to be pointless. Most people who think they’re “middle class” don’t realize how far down they really are.
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Omnes Omnibus
He is fat, also too.
gbear
He’s moving the Overton Window.
I may have to watch that a second time.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: My favorite line of attack against him is he’s also a rich stock owner. Big whoop. I own stock through a mutual fund as does a plurality of Americans. I read the speech (I don’t care much for his histrionics) and he nails it.
gbear
OMG. Someone assaults him at 2:16! Tell Fox News!
debbie
His shrill has nothing on the shrill of Michelle Bachman. I had the misfortune of watching her on MTP this morning. Not only did she totally ignore the questions David Gregory asked her, but she repeated 5 or 6 times that Obama had deceptively hidden $105 billion in Obamacare, and the people wanted it back.
piratedan
he’s like Peter Griffin without the idiocy, or the talking dog or the hot wife…well on second thought I guess he’s not really like him at all.
TaMara (BHF)
@Yutsano: Link please.
Van
This is a great speech. Lets work to make it go viral!
Mark S.
@TaMara (BHF):
Ici.
Yutsano
@TaMara (BHF): It was e-mailed to me as a transcript of the video, but lemme try soomething:
Corner Stone
OT kinda I guess:
Texas teacher layoffs could hamper some local economies
“But if Perry realizes his vision of a budget balanced through cuts alone, 100,000 teachers could lose their jobs.
That’s about a third of the 333,000 teachers employed by Texas public schools.”
Yutsano
Part II:
…I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in
school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to
graduate. And here’s what I learned: Money doesn’t grow on trees. It grows
when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that
we use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when
we provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new
generation of inventers, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers
who come up with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea
creates new jobs and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who
have the most money don’t pay their fair share of taxes, the state can’t
function. The schools can’t produce the best and the brightest who will go
on to create those jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money,
we have seen what they will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall
Street schemes and crash our economy. The crash they created cost us
millions of jobs. That too caused a reduction in revenue. And the
population ended up suffering because they reduced their taxes, reduced
our jobs and took wealth out of the system, removing it from circulation.
The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. It’s part of
the Big Lie. It’s one of the three biggest lies of the decade:
America/Wisconsin is broke, Iraq has WMD, the Packers can’t win the Super
Bowl without Brett Favre.
The truth is, there’s lots of money to go around. LOTS. It’s just that
those in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on
their well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make
this happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that
money that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of
politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in
case that doesn’t work, they’ve got their gated communities, and the
luxury jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that
day they hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand
their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:
1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have
expertly convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the
American Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the
Dream says that you, too, might be rich some day – this is America, where
anything can happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently
provided you with believable examples to show you how a poor boy can
become a rich man, how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become
president, how a guy with a high school education can become a successful
filmmaker. They will play these stories for you over and over again all
day long so that the last thing you will want to do is upset the apple
cart — because you — yes, you, too! — might be rich/president/an
Oscar-winner some day! The message is clear: keep you head down, your nose
to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat and be sure to vote for the party
that protects the rich man that you might be some day.
Yutsano
Part III:
2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to
take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they
threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in
September of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went
into a tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi
scheme, Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of
dollars from the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight
into the ground. Fork it over or it’s Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye
pensions. Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and
future. It was friggin’ awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone.
“Here! Take our money! We don’t care. We’ll even print more for you! Just
take it! But, please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!”
The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their
laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other
huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation
full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their
homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).
Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share
a big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant know as
the working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is
shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in
charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message
is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone tells us America is broke and broken.
It’s just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard work
and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no
fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave
what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name
back! The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America.
The United States of America!
So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, a
little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and remember
that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so
that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by
billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and
humanity.
Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best
chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as
Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor,
skipped out of town to Illinois — whatever it took, you have done it, and
one thing is for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich
have overplayed their hand. They couldn’t have just been content with the
money they raided from the treasury. They couldn’t be satiated by simply
removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor
elsewhere. No, they had to have more – something more than all the riches
in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip us of our
dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we could not even
sit at a table with them and bargain about simple things like classroom
size or bulletproof vests for everyone on the police force or letting a
pilot just get a few extra hours sleep so he or she can do their job —
their $19,000 a year job. That’s how much some rookie pilots on commuter
airlines make, maybe even the rookie pilots flying people here to Madison.
But he’s stopped trying to get better pay. All he asks is that he doesn’t
have to sleep in his car between shifts at O’Hare airport. That’s how
despicably low we have sunk. The wealthy couldn’t be content with just
paying this man $19,000 a year. They wanted to take away his sleep. They
wanted to demean and dehumanize him. After all, he’s just another slob.
And that, my friends, is Corporate America’s fatal mistake. But trying to
destroy us they have given birth to a movement — a movement that is
becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew
there had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many
people in the media don’t understand this. They say they were caught off
guard about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and
flummoxed about why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison
over the last three weeks during brutal winter weather. “Why are they all
standing out there in the cold? I mean there was that election in November
and that was supposed to be that!
“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is, do you
…?”
America ain’t broke! The only thing that’s broke is the moral compass of
the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves
from now on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still
stands, it’s one person, one vote, and it’s the thing the rich hate most
about America — because even though they seem to hold all the money and
all the cards, they begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact:
There are more of us than there are of them!
Madison, do not retreat. We are with you. We will win together.
TaMara (BHF)
@Mark S.:
@Yutsano: Thank you both.
Wiesman
Wow. That’s going to leave a mark.
Pancake
An amusing fat turd.
Yutsano
@Pancake: You can’t even say that about yourself. Truth hurt much?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mark S.:It is good, very good in fact.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Pancake: yes, it’s true that rush is a fat turd, but you forget he’s a drug addled fat turd.
Yutsano
@Omnes Omnibus: Toto is pulling the curtain back from the wizard but slowly. The real big issue is keeping this momentum up.
JGabriel
Moore:
Rich people go crazy over a fat man saying they need to pay more taxes.
Wow. That’s such an unexpected reaction. It doesn’t sound like an evil rich people cliche at all.
.
gbear
@Mike Kay (True Grit): …and he’s not funny. Well, not on purpose. Well…. not at all.
freelancer
Great speech. Want to garrote the one dude in the audience honking a Vuvuzela, though. “Fuck yeah, that was awesome!” [MEEERRRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPPP!] “Goddamnit.”
Mark S.
@Corner Stone:
I saw that a couple of days, though I didn’t know that translated to a third of public school teachers. I guess the curriculum will be reduced to English, math, and football.
I’m not an economist, but my gut feeling told me that the aid to the states part of the stimulus was the only thing that kept us from a depression. Now that that’s gone, well, I’m not optimistic. I think the teabaggers in Congress should just default on the debt so we can get Thunderdome started.
JGabriel
Fixed that for ya!
.
Maude
@Mark S.:
You are right about the aid to the states. Look at what Repuke govenors are doing. Christie is a fool and he is still getting away with what he does, like losing $ for NJ. The tide needs to turn where the rich aren’t seen as better people.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
@Maude: that’s only because his fat ass is propped up by the corporate media.
If the media was merely objective, they’d get wiped out every time.
Corner Stone
You say you’re not an optimist but this list belies that.
Ainglish? Hell, if your momma don’t speak that at home don’t expect us to spend money doing it here!
Maths? That there’s what they make the register at Chik Fil A for!
Football? We’re all born unnerstandin’ football better’n everybody else anyway!
Mike in NC
So true. Reminds me of the film “Up in the Air”, which showed interviews with actual people who’d been screwed by the recession and lost their jobs, their homes, their self-respect. Some killed themselves.
Now the plutocrats want to wipe out unions, child labor laws, and the minimum wage. Jesus wills it, or something, and they own most of the politicians.
Davis X. Machina
@debbie:
It’s in the freezer, in a ziplock bag, wrapped in aluminum foil.
I won’t tell Rep. Bachman if you don’t.
Omnes Omnibus
@Davis X. Machina: Big freezer.
JPL
@Davis X. Machina: I saw Bachmann and in defense of Gregory, I’m not sure he had any clue what she was talking about. It was obvious she didn’t read the bill but reading the bill wouldn’t have changed her vote anyway. They worked on health care for two years. During that time one would think someone in her office could have clued her in.
Bachmann/Palin 2012.
Ana Gama
@debbie:
OMG! She was horrible. “$105 billion, $105 billion,$105 billion, $105 billion, $105 billion,$105 billion.”
When she was done, I almost expected her to “BWAWCK!” and ask for a cracker.
Xecky Gilchrist
@Corner Stone: Good grief, that’s horrible. Laying off a third of their teachers?
This trend may bite them in another way they don’t expect, though. If Texas shutters all its schools, won’t it become unable to dictate what goes in the textbooks for everyone else?
superdestroyer
Image how the left would have reacted if a Republicans had said that a $10 trillion national and a $1.5 trillion annual budget deficit was not important and did not really exist.
CJ's dad
Amazing,
I just can’t comprehend why many people feel that the rich do not have to give up some of their wealth through higher taxes, but it is okay for the middle class to give up some of their wealth by reduced pay and pensions. Why do many people believe that our teachers are bad because of the actions of some and that our firemen and policemen are just looking to get out early with fake disabilities. Is it because the Republican (FOX) message machine is so much better than the Democrats (do they have such a mechanism ?)?
James E Powell
I have the same issue with Moore’s speech as I do with his films: what is the likelihood of his message penetrating into the brain of any person who does not already agree with what he is saying?
How many people who vote Republican will switch to voting Democratic after hearing or reading it? How many people who do not ordinarily vote will register and vote Democratic after hearing or reading it?
Corner Stone
@James E Powell: Hence the “Michael Moore is fat” repeated refrain.
Why do you think they worked so hard to demonize him?
Ecks
The irony of this is that a lot of the rhetoric he uses here could be taken letter by letter from a tea party rally. I think a bit part of the reason the Kochs have managed to get so many normal people so riled up with their astroturf is that a lot of people can see that there ARE some real problems with this country. All the Kochs of the world, with their conveyor belt of lies had to do was to subtly shift the target from the rich to the government. With that sleight of hand promulgated every day on Fox and talk radio and smacked sideways into the MSM, and built up steadily for the past 30-40 years, they got people who intuited how messed up things were as properly riled as those people should possibly be, but redirected it in a tirade of “ra ra constitution, flag, libruls, real murka” into a classic divide and conquer. It’s evil fucking genius.
jwb
@CJ’s dad: The Republicans OWN the fucking messaging machine. The Democrats’ messaging won’t significantly improve until either someone buys them a messaging machine of their own (do you have a spare $100 billion dollars or so lying around?) or technology comes along to make that messaging machine irrelevant.
Corner Stone
@superdestroyer: I say we raise the top rate to 90% to help resolve the deficit.
Speaking as “the left”.
Kool Earl
@superdestroyer:
Wasnt it Dick Cheney who said deficits dont matter?
Ecks
Anyway, the important question here, is this: Which of us is responsible for turning Moore in to the House Unamerican Affairs Committee now?
gbear
@JPL:
None of her staff stick around long enough to get through to her.
Mark S.
@James E Powell:
Oh, I don’t know. If this were repeated
half as often as rightwing tropes are, it would go a long way to making people less excited about tax cuts for the rich and gutting Social Security. Sure, there is the hopeless 27%, but goopers can’t win elections with just that.
Dawn Notz
Michael “more, better Democrats” Moore doesn’t need to be criticized on his laziness, his obesity, his absurd “worship me!” egocentrism.
His track record shows him to have been wrong about a great many things, most of which fall under the heading of Partisanship, Dem-Lover Variety.
I’m sure that’s pretty irrelevant here at Spermbag Spew, though. You’ve got Evil Rethuglicans to mock!
signed,
NOT a Republican
b-psycho
@James E Powell: You assume that’s the answer?
“Democrats: because capitalism can suck slightly less. Eventually.”
BR
@Mark S.:
I think you’re right. And worse than just the stimulus funds being gone is the fact that we’re having an oil price spike right now due both to peak oil and to instability in North Africa, etc. Six out of the last 7 oil price spikes caused a recession.
I think the combination might be a double whammy that’s going to hit us like 2008, though it’ll be a little different – now that there’s an established free flow of money to the banking system, there won’t be any handwringing about it in Washington. The solution will be to simply say we’re broke and in a recession and that the middle class has to bear the brunt while the bankers sit fat and happy.
Davis X. Machina
@Omnes Omnibus: Ok. I took out $40 for gas, and $750 for the heating-oil guy. But it’s mostly still there. Look behind the frozen blintzes.
patrick II
JPL
OT…sorta..I watched Dateline tonight on bullying. I feel like I have to mention that I maybe watched Dateline 5 or 6 times before and I had no idea it was on Sunday nights but I wander..anyway why does the media give credence to any assholes. The show was on not glamorizing and supporting the mean girls/boys but isn’t that what the media does everyday whether it be beck or bachmann or palin or the Westboro Baptist Church. How many hours has the media donated to Westboro Baptist Church?
Corner Stone
OT as well…but the fucking temerity on this little bought and paid for crook sonovabitch!
Afghan president rejects US apology over killings
“KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s president on Sunday rejected a U.S. apology for the mistaken killing of nine Afghan boys in a NATO air attack and said civilian casualties are no longer acceptable.
According to a statement from his office, Hamid Karzai told Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, that expressing regret was not sufficient in last week’s killing of the boys, ages 12 and under, by coalition helicopters”
Mike in NC
@Corner Stone:
No shit. He wants another $25M deposited in his Swiss bank account. Then he’ll feel MUCH better.
James E Powell
@b-psycho:
Much like the woman who complained to Obama, I am exhausted from defending the Democrats. But then I hear a Republican or read one of their proposals and, exhausted as I am, I go back to defending them.
Or you can look at it this way. If the white, middle class voters who have been voting for Republicans since Reagan would switch their alliance to Democrats, the Democrats would end up a majority party for long enough to effect change. It isn’t possible in a single congress, or even two or three, to course-correct from the last thirty years.
shawntos
@jwb: I heard that Obama might have a spare $105 Billion kicking around somewhere, they were repeating that on MTP I hear.
Svensker
@Corner Stone:
I’m not a big Karzai fan, but why is this “temerity”? He is an Afghani, after all. Perhaps people in that country are a bit tired of foreigners killing their children. Even if they are wogs.
John - A Motley Moose
@Corner Stone: Yeah, the gall of that ungrateful bastard for not pushing the slaughter of of children under the rug after we so graciously said, “Oops, sorry ’bout that.”
Jim, Once
@Dawn Notz: I understand paid trolls are getting forty dollars an hour now. You have NOT earned your salary with this post.
mikefromArlington
Great motivating speech.
Someone get that to the WH or Axelrod or something. WI could be a real game changer.
Jeanne Ringland
@Yutsano: I am borrowing this and posting it on Facebook so that people see it who won’t initially pay attention because… well, you know, he’s fat and shrill, etc. Also too.
Jeanne Ringland
@Dawn Notz: I’m a Republican and your post was pretty vile.
Thinking about how I’m going to register, may stay one just to vote for the ‘moderates’ in the primaries, if I can find any.
jwb
@Jim, Once: Do you have a link to that $40 figure for trolling? I’ve suspected it has been professionalized. On the other had $40/hour for the shit I’ve seen—what’s happened to craft?
lvap
I think the strangest part to me is that most Americans (hell, most people in the world) normally wouldn’t care that much; they just want a decent job that pays the bills, takes care of their family, and maybe a few bucks left over at the end of the month to go see a movie. Plus, for the most part be left alone to live their lives.
Seriously, once you have a billion dollars, what do you do with the rest of the money?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I don’t normally like listening to him, either, but he was pretty inspirational this time.
gbear
@Dawn Notz: How can someone with such a funny name be so completely without humor? DougHill, is that you? How are things in Mayberry?
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: The transcript is pretty damn inspiring. I just dislike how he makes his points. It could just be a moral failing on my part.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Oh, I agree with you for the most part. I think I was able to overlook it this time because it wasn’t TOO bad. YMMV.
Mnemosyne
@superdestroyer:
You mean like when Business Week wrote an article in 2004 asking where all of the Republican deficit hawks had gone and why they didn’t seem to care any more?
My latest theory about you guys is that you’ve all suffered a major brain trauma and can’t remember anything that happened more than two weeks ago, which is why you can make patently ridiculous claims like saying the Republicans gave a shit about the deficit when they were in charge with a straight face.
superdestroyer
@Kool Earl:
Yes and was and the Bush Administration left office with a 20% approval rating, leftist groups such as moveon.org ran advertises about how high the deficit was, and the left severely criticized Cheney for saying that.
Now that the Democrats are in charge the same moveon.org could not be concerned less about the deficit and the left was to increase spending.
debbie
@ Ana Gama:
Wouldn’t it be great to see Gregory grow a pair and announce he won’t have her back on again unless and until she agrees to answer the questions she’s asked? I miss Tim Russert! He’d have cut her right off.
Paul in KY
@James E Powell: What was wrong with what he said? Was it incorrect?
Paul in KY
@Dawn Notz: Yes, because being a ‘Repub Lover’ is just the ticket for our country. After all, look how well it worked from 2000 – 2008.
CynDee
@Pancake: Are you always this classy, or just showing off for the group here?
b-psycho
@James E Powell:
I say that because while a lot of people see it as Understanding Dems vs Evil Republicans, I see it as an inherently unstable & unjust system with its elite merely split on how blatant to be about it. Yes, in the immediate term it’s better to get the occasional table scraps than to be told Shut Up And Pray, but that the choices end there strikes me as a feature, not a bug.
BTW: To be completely blunt here, I’m sick of hearing about the “middle class”. Everything economics-wise is “middle-class” this, “middle-class” that, when the distinction being made is so blurry as to be pointless. Most people who think they’re “middle class” don’t realize how far down they really are.