Senator Bernie Sanders: "The Speech"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-03-31/senator-bernie-sanders-speech
The economy, the federal budget, and the growing national deficit are touchstone issues defining politics in Washington today. Lawmakers are proposing cuts to programs that benefit middle class and working families. In December, President Obama signed into law an extension of tax cuts -- including cuts for the very wealthiest Americans. One Independent senator delivered an eight-hour speech on the Senate floor decrying the tax deal and what he believed it symbolized: corporate greed and the collapse of the middle class. U. S Senator Bernie Sanders talks about his appeal for a fundamental change in national priorities.
Guests
Sen. Bernie Sanders
Independent U. S. Senator from Vermont.
![Image of (THE SPEECH BY Sanders, Bernie(Author))The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class[Paperback]Nation Books(Publisher)](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414gg9YQijL._SL75_.jpg "(THE SPEECH BY Sanders, Bernie(Author))The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class[Paperback]Nation Books(Publisher)")
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Thank you, Diane, for hosting Senator Bernie Sanders. I strongly support Senator Sanders views. ::: I attended nearly every committee and sub-committee meeting for OK S.B. 168. Natural Gas representatives who were members of the sub-committee essentially wrote S.B. 168. The most significant changes that they implemented was removing from the existing law the requirement to share with all owners of interest in the well the "fair market" value of natural gas. They changed the sharing of "revenue", which means "gross" revenue, to the sharing of "proceeds" which is some undisclosed "net" value. They reduced the statute of limitations for improper payment from the "date of discovery" to the "date of occurrence"- which might not be discovered for years, thus, effectively disallowing practical "redress" for many parties of interest. Furthermore, the period of redress was different for "working interest owners" than for "royalty interest owners" who were commonly farmers and ranchers landowners. :::I learned from research that I did during that time that from about 1985 to 1997 that an estimated $750 million dollars in potential taxes was able to be legally avoided primarily through "reciprocal marketing agreements" and thus diverted from the Oklahoma Teachers Retirement System. Because of the passage of S.B. 168, a significant loss continues. However, I have not researched the details of the potential tax loss since 1997, but I know that it must be significant. :::Moreover, from 1985 to 1997, there was also an estimated potential tax loss of $19 million to the general fund, $96 million to the county roads. $96 million to country school districts, and as stated above $750 million to the Teachers Retirement Fund. These estimates were based on the loss of the price parity after 1983 that existed between the natural gas well-head price and the end-user price that existed from at least as early as 1970 through 1983. :::Thanks, from a concerned and discouraged citizen
As Leonard Cohen puts it so well, "Everybody knows that the dice are loaded...." Yet virtually alone, Bernie Sanders says it like it is. You think PBS and NPR cover the story. I listen to public broadcasting 12 hours a day and the times this issue has come up, in any critical discussion, I can count on my fingers. The commercial networks, nada. Alan Grayson spoke the same truth and he was offed by a clown in Florida using Koch Brothers money. I was astounded that you were astounded, Diane. Everybody knows.
The best of your bests was the interview with Senator Bernie Sanders: He spoke from the heart, believes on what he says and stand by his believes. I wish the president can take a stand like him and remember that it is better to be a one time president and go down in the history book than to be a many terms president and failed into obscurity of history
When all Senators and US of representatives will open their eyes? After the middile class disapears from the US?
Maybe all those people who are "disappointed" in Obama, now, should have gotten out and campaigned and voted in the last election instead of sitting home while the Tea Party took the House.
Sen. Sanders hits the nail on the head, as far as I'm concerned! My hat's off to the Senator from Vermont!
TO: The working poor, the under-employed, the unemployed, those who just can't retire now, the medically uninsured, the "because of medical bills" poor, the FED UP!, the "displaced because there's nothing for me back home," the under-educated, the perceived-as-Politically-Powerless, those who can't afford to send their kids to college, those who can't afford child care, those who recognize the serious problems in Public Education, etc., etc.
How much longer are we going to let this go on??? There IS strength in numbers! The rich elite, those who number less than 5%, but who hold more than 95% of all the $$$$, they are the ones with the power! They are the ones making and changing our laws and policies; they are the ones who are dividing us with contrived issues; they are the ones with SELF-INTEREST. And they are the ones blocking us from a good education. It is time to get rid of the apathy and do something! It's time to get organized!
We need to STAND UP FOR OURSELVES! All of you who fit into one or more of the categories above: these are the things that unite us! We all have the same interests here! We all want the same things! To be able to work and raise a family, to be proud to be an American, to have a decent life!
Let's all write our Congress Men and Women! Write to Sen. Sanders! Speak up and speak out! Write about your life, the problems and obstacles you face. Tell them what you want, what you need! Then write to them again! We can't settle for promises! Actions speak louder than words! And if they don't act, then it's time for us to take action! It's time then to go to Washington! I thought this country was supposed to be by the people and for the people!
LET'S GO AMERICA!!!!! START E-MAILING!!!!! DO IT RIGHT NOW!!!!!! TODAY! For the love of Country! For the love of family!
"kathyinmichigan wrote:
As a MI resident working in the public sector, probably about to be laid-off, and with a baby on the way, I am so disillusioned and am concerned about my child's future. I consider myself an independent and just feel helpless that greed is winning and will continue to win. What does the senator suggest people like me do to get involved? The democrats lose me, as do the republicans. I can barely watch the news, it's so maddening!
March 31, 2011 - 11:37 am"
Good!!! You deserve every bit of it and I hope you get more.
If you can't see the differences between the Parties, you and your future baby deserve a life of servitude in the households of the Bushes and their kind.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
Wow!...I could hardly listen to 10 minutes of uniterupted Sanders. Eight hours must have been pure torture. Reading it would be akin to studying the red book for economic guidance.
Possibly the most pathetic DR show I've ever listened to. Diane were you even in the room? The wiffle ball questions pre-released to Senator Sanders were real zingers...must be saving the probing question up for a conservative guest.
Makes me want to relocate to Vermont in order to vote against him. I hope that he gets more airplay nationally, because if voters think that this is what represents the left...the next election is a given.
Hopefully we can get back to better shows in the future.
A rerun of a recent Comment-
"255.HIGHLIGHT (what's this?)
Forrest
Winston-Salem, NC
March 4th, 2011
12:39 pm
Bring on the cuts! Britain was not prepared for their public sector cuts because they've been dependent on their governments for so long. It will take some time, but I have a firm belief their economy will be benefited in the long term due to the necessary cuts made.
Here, we haven't been quite so dependent on government. Now is the time to make those cuts before we get to the point where all of our needs are met by government. Some people in this country do not understand that government was not created to see to your every need. Individual responsibility is still required...
Recommend Recommended by 34 Readers"
F__k you Schadenfreude scum bags. 30 Years of Reagan / Bush Government may have seen to your every need, but me and mine have seen nothing but hard work and mountains of debt at the Company Store.
30 YEARS for a TWO INCOME FAMILY to buy a lousy ticky tacky house 50 miles from our jobs. 5 Years to buy a car. 10 or more years to pay off college costs preparing for a job that will be taken by an H-1B Immigrant whose education was paid for by his Father gouging another $0.10 per Kilo of Rice from his starving Peasants. Then S/He will remit his/her wages to prepare a nice berth for when S/He goes back home to retire and live like a Rajah on Social Security.
A Reagan-Gingrich CPI-COLA that screws Workers and Social Security Annuitants from 2 to 4 % per Year.
Then the final indignity of being told we should have prepared better for our Retirement.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
To KathyinMichigan: Write to your Senators! Make your needs known! Then write again!!!! You and your baby deserve a decent life!
There isn't much difference between the dictators who plunder their countries and our corporate leaders who plunder the American people. That income gap is shameful. There is no law that requires corporations to make as much after tax profit as possible. Their duty should be to their customers to make a good product, their employees to treat and pay them fairly, their communities to be good citizens and their shareholders to make a reasonable profit.
"Emoroid wrote:
I am not sure if Sen. Sanders is being dishonest to demonize Republicans on Social Security or if he is just financially illiterate. He says that Social Security has a huge surplus, so it does not need reform. But, this is just an accounting entry – there is not actual money that has been socked away somewhere (like the fictitious “Lock Box”). Money paid into SS was spent as general funds, with an IOU issued to SS. Social Security is only solvent if the government can pay these obligations out of new revenue.
If a private company operated their pension plan in this way, they would be fined or sanctioned. Only the government’s ability to tax and print money allows them to get away with this. All is not OK with Social Security.
John in KY
March 31, 2011 - 12:02 pm"
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Diane, for finding one of the morons who keeps electing Mitch McConnell and supporting his plans to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Black Lung, Food Stamps and Unions for one of the regions that has gotten the short end of every stick since Colonial Times.
You are the "financially illiterate" boob, John. The Bonds will be redeemed by revenue or rolling over, just as most other Federal obligations are.
Furthermore, by the time the company pension systems were shut down, they was so badly underfunded that even with insurance, could not be saved. No private company was ever fined or sanctioned for their thefts, NOT EVEN ENRON!!!
"Only the government’s ability to tax and print money allows them to get away with this." Huh???
The Republicans despised SS right from Day One and have never relented in their passion to destroy it.
Monte Haun mchaun@hotmail.com
The only things in this life that are guaranteed are death and taxes, as Ben Franklin stated long ago. To grant health care to everyone as a "right" in this country goes beyond life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is up to the individual to better themselves, not the government. Ultimately, any person, regardless of age race or beginnings can be sucsessful in or country, or they can fail. To be sure, I am not rich by American standards but have enough to live, all I want is a chance to be prosperous, that is a "right" that we all have.
By the way Diane, I love your show and I would still listen if you had regular (real) comercials on NPR. I.E. fund NPR on the open market. It can be done.
Thanks for hosting him, I applaud Senator Sanders! Please have him on again (and maybe you can please the crowd and entertain by inviting e.g. the Cato Institute, American Enterprise Institute, Chamber of Commerce, Boehner, etc. for a drubbing).
His great insight, integrity and morality are rare and refreshing in this age of disinformation, boundless greed, and the lack of socioeconomic awareness and civic responsibility in the U.S. It's impossible to justify the record and growing disparity in the "Land of Opportunity".
The shock is it's not really shocking anymore... We have Beck bestsellers, and not a stone's throw away, we have the trust fund graduate living high on the pharmaceutical industry, who told his young kids, "Obama was elected, so we won't have as many presents this year". It's pretty ironic the wealth machines have managed to recruit people against themselves under every dishonest and manipulative banner.
Welcome to neo-feudalism. Whether I'm making 6 figures or 7, for my family or any, I know where I stand when the torches are lit (I bet a lot of attitudes would change then).
I'd vote for you in '12, go Bernie!
In response to dave mcnally,
On one hand your comment seems noble, but on other, it reminds me when Scrooge says, “are there no workhouses (poorhouses?)”
Jefferson- suggested that taxes could be used to reduce “the enormous inequality” between rich and poor… and to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.” “(With) our revenues applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.”
Madison wrote in favor of using laws to “reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity (meaning the middle) and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.”
Making your own way is the noble American goal, but I am not godlike enough know why some people can’t and I don’t think these people should not be offered some assistance from those who through the benefits and protections the American system has provided, have flourished.
But these are my opinions- you are entitled to yours.
Thank you for hosting this lucid and refreshingly honest senator. PLEASE have him on again!!!!!!!
Thank God you had Bernie Sanders on your show! For once an honest, intelligent voice is heard.
In this age of lying as a routine part of Fox News and a.m. radio, an extreme Republican Party of radical shills for a gluttonous corporate plutocracy, a hypnotized, distracted, and blissfully ignorant populace, a pathetic excuse for an opposition Democratic Party, and a gutless President who has betrayed the common people who put him in office--it is more important than EVER to hear Senator Sanders speak the truth.
You should have Sanders on your show at least ONCE A WEEK to set the record straight on the lies being put out there by radical right wing politicians bought and sold by corporate America to make sure corporations continue to free-load off the American taxpayer, avoid paying their fair share, foul our environment, threaten our collective health, repress working people, and poison our political discourse into a cheap and tawdry divisiveness that makes people forget their class interests.
Corporations have bought what was once the world's greatest democracy. Now the Democrats are gutless and inept. The Republicans are the fascist tools of great wealth, forever manufacturing "crises" to gut middle-class America and the few regulations against their sociopathy that exist. The American middle class is evaporating before our very eyes. Assaults on Social Security, Medicare, student financial aid, workplace fairness, affordable housing--and every other conceivable vestige of middle-class life--are the order of the day. Extremism is passed off as "conservatism;" conservatism is portrayed as mainstream; and common-sense liberalism is outlawed as loony leftism--all in the name of diverting the greatest share of wealth in our nation's history to the already super rich.
The greed of the Right is insatiable. Its ability to lie, and twist the truth, infinite.
Thank God for Bernie Sanders. This white southerner says SANDERS for PRESIDENT, 2012 !
What a breath of fresh air. It made me feel like there is at least one person in DC that speaks for me. Diane Thank you, I really needed that. Senator PLEASE keep talking.
Thank you Diane and Senator Sanders for this program! I became a fan of Bernie Sanders when I learned about his December 10 speech. America needs his kind of leadership now!
Gergoid,
My sentiments, exactly. If there is a perception that public radio shows have a liberal slant, listening to Bernie & Diane will confirm it is no mere perception. This was really mutual love fest....
Monte Haun,
What is it like in your black & white world? I neither like Mitch McConnell nor do I despise Social Security. Financial analysis is my profession, and Social Security is being run like a Ponzi scheme. I would just like to receive as much payout from SS as I paid in, plus a modest rate of return, but I know that is not likely.
I expect SS retirement age, benefit level, and COLA calculations to change by the time I retire. It is the only way to make the program sustainable. Oh wait, maybe we can just get the 'evil' rich people and 'greedy' corporations to fund it all! Grow up - there is no Tooth Fairy.
mr bernie... I LOVE YOU YOU ARE A SAINT BERNIE FOR PRESIDENT!!!!!! what the world needs bernie is a few more like you, caring, understanding someone who really hears what is said when spoken to..a man who serves his people in the position you were given. i agree with your comment about the wealthy in this country vs the poor I DONT KNOW HOW THEY ARE ABLE TO SLEEP AT NIGHT. they must not own a pet because they clearly dont understand the feeling of true joy/happiness as one would get from giving as opposed to taking. it really is the thought that counts as the old saying goes...and clearly those people dont think...i use to listen to you back on arnie's show and fell in love with both of you(she is a brilliant woman)who cared too much for some people obviously, i miss her...!!!!! i for one will never QUIT it s not my nature but sadly there are(i think) too many lazy people in this world today that seem to accept anything they are told/hear they question nothing whats wrong with people today? STAND UP AMERICA SPEAK UP THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND THIS LAND IS MY LAND FROM SEA TO SHINING SEA RING A BELL? WE NEED THIS BACK IN OUR SCHOOLS THE FLAG ALL THOSE WONDERFUL FEELINGS THANK YOU BERNIE GOD BLESS YOU...
Thank you Diane for having the courage to host Senator Sanders on your show.
I must have become like the Geico cave man, because I missed all that action until I heard your show on Thursday morning, as I drove to the doctor. I was so shocked that I stayed in the parked car, listening, and I almost missed my appointment. I did not know that there was someone clear-headed enough to see what is actually happening and courageous enough to voice it publicly. That this man be a senator is even more amazing to me.
If people could only listen to what he says, not start picking on particular issues but get the whole big picture, perhaps they would wake up and scare themselves enough to try and take charge of their lives, if that is still remotely possible.
Some forty years ago, I had a conversation with a British Historian who predicted that our civilization was on the decline and that we would be reverting to a Feudal type of culture with a few very rich – and therefore powerful - entities ruling over the masses of serfs or workers striving with a minimum of resources and education. I refused to accept his prediction with the arrogant ignorance of youth. Now I know better.
I sincerely commend Senator Sanders for his initiative and I hope that his voice will be heard and his message be understood enough to motivate some people into action, and give them the courage and determination to try and hold back the tide which is slowing drowning us all.
Mel.
The Bay is the evening at eight to start Xunliao ... think before ten o'clock on a walk on the beach ... but the result is three fifty ... a hundred kilometers to the hotel until more of the seven-hour journey away Along the way, in the same direction ... and it looks like the vehicle fled the war ... or a nuclear power plant accident of the Escaping the eve of the first festival holiday ... back home to the ancestors of the large team of people that we leave out this is only stunned ... dare to believe the person at the border did not take the picture ... Shenzhen-Shantou received from the Shenzhen-Shantou Jihe After listening to the ... made a decision when more than eleven ... from the Shenzhen-Shantou car license plates based in Shenzhen ... ... ... do not observe traffic rules catch on (I have a period of retrograde overtaking ... ashamed ah ...) traffic sucks, but the average street scarce able to open to ... more than sixty kilometers to the ... Huidong County has been one o'clock in the morning ... before the switch to State Road 324, a point to eat supper ... through a toll station subsequent exposure to the south seem to flee the scene ... the vehicle fully occupied and two-way four-lane highway On the muddy shoulder on the way ... creeping slowly north of the vehicles were packed fast moving tanks shall not ... until three o'clock Oh by the police that led to open a car south lane ... in the mountains at the Shenzhen-Shantou Nim ; high-speed You Xunliao piece on the quiet coastal road ... smooth and dark, lonely road ... a car ... can finally breathe ... but open the window to see that in this store a 3.4 million square meters of land waterfront property has been gradually Sheraton hotel under construction ... will be built in May ... had clean asphalt covered with a dozen kilometers of construction vehicles leave out of the soil residue, street dug a mess ... in the end is a good thing or a bad thing ...?
I applaud Bernie Sanders for doing his homework and acquiring the skill to share his beliefs with intelligence and respect.
The GOP, Republicans, and corporate interests have figured out a formula for successful debate. Think what you want about Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, and Glen Beck. These individuals are professors of their ideology. They educate their supporters in how to dominate discourse at the local level.
Progressives are outnumbered in the art of reason. Bernie Sanders needs to share the formula of success with his supporters. I suggest those who believe in Bernie's ideology outnumbers the opposition. The lack of progressive incubators to articulate an intelligent and respectful position hampers the majority's mission.
Senator Sander's rebuttal to entitlement was a masterful demonstration of a counter point. Here is an out-take for progressives to learn from, The Entitlement Argument
To learn how the public can participate in America's debate please visit the following link:
A Better Way For Political Discourse
Thank you for having Senator Sanders on your show, and for highlighting the speech--both the act, itself, and the book. Wow!
Yes! I missed this last December, and only happened to hear the show because I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday! Serendipity? Whatever the reason, I, too, hope that the book will help those of us who have felt uneasy about the tone and direction of our corporate economy to speak out for change.
Sen. Senators, you are a patriot and a great public servant. Sanders for President!
NewsBusters: NPR's Diane Rehm Honors Bernie Sanders, Insists Public Radio and TV Have Socialist Impulses
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2011/04/05/nprs-diane-rehm-honor...