The following are quotes that I either found revealing or amusing. There will be more to come in future posts. I could go on for pages. But this is a good sampling that gives insight into who people really are in unguarded moments.
Barack Obama: "In my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
Rep. Conyers: "I love these members that get up and say 'read the bill'. What good is reading the bill if it's a thousand pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?'
George Bush: "I've abandoned free market principles to save the free market system."
Barack Obama: "We are five days away from fundamentally transforming America." (People thought it was cool at the time. Now it's sounding a little eerie.)
Hugo Chavez: "Hey, Obama has just nationalized nothing more and nothing less than General Motors. Comrade Obama! Fidel, careful or we are going to end up to his right."
Maxine Waters: "And guess what this liberal would be all about? This liberal would be all about socializing - uh ... would be about ... basically ... taking over, and the government running all of your companies."
Howard Dean: "I think we've had quite enough capitalism in the last eight years. I think we need some regulation now."
Cass Sunstein, Regulatory Czar: If you're looking for a speech that's affecting international documents, thinking about human rights, even constitutions all over the world, Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights Speech towers above them all.
FDR: "In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all--regardles of station, race, or creed." Jan. 11, 1944
FDR’s Bill of Rights
We believe that every citizen has:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the
industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and
clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at
a return which will give him and his family a decent
living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade
in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition
and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity
to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears
of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is
won we must be prepared to move forward, in the
implementation of these rights, to new goals of human
happiness and well-being.
America’s own rightful place in the world depends in
large part upon how fully these and similar rights have
been carried into practice for our citizens
Barack Obama: "A culture of irresponsibility took root from Wall Street to Washington to Main Street and a regulatory regime basically crafted in the wake of a twentieth century economic crisis, the Great Depression, was overwhelmed by the speed, scope and sophistication of a twenty-first century global economy...so today my administration is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the financial regulatory system; a transformation not seen since the reforms that followed the Great Depression."
William Ayers: "You want me to elaborate the point? Down with capitalism."
John Holdren, Science Czar: "The need for de-development presents our economists with a major challenge. They must design a stable, low-consumption economy in which there is a much more equitable distribution of wealth than in the present one. Redistribution of wealth both within and among nations is absolutely essential, if a decent life is to be provided for every human being."
Cass Suntein, Regulatory Czar: "Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. (It is) a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. ...There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day."
Barack Obama: "We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just a powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."Diane Watson (D-CA): "And I want you to know, now, you can think whatever you want to about Fidel Castro, but he was one of the brightest leaders I have ever met. And you know, the Cuban revolution that kicked out the wealthy, Che Guevara did that, and then, after they took over they went out among the population to find someone who could lead this new nation, and they found...an attorney by the name of Fidel Castro."
Van Jones, former Green Jobs Czar: "In jail I met all these young radical people of color. I mean really radical communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'this is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of these people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary. I was a rowdy nationalist on April 28 and then the verdicts came down (not guilty for policemen in the Rodney King trial) on April 29. By August, I was a Communist."
Van Jones: "I'm willing to forgo the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends."
Julian Bond: (of Bush supporters) "Their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the Confederate swastika flying side by side.”
Rev. Joseph Lowry, recently presented with the Medal of Freedom, said in a prayer at Obama's inauguration ceremony: "...the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help with that day when Black will not be asked to give back, when Brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the Red man can get a head man, and when White will embrace what is right."
John P. Holdren: "I think ultimately the rate of growth of material consumtion is going to have to come down, and there's going to have to be a degree of redistribution of how much we consume, in terms of energy and material resources, in order to leave room for people who are poor to become more prosperous."
Barack Obama: "If the economy is good for the people from the bottom up, the economy is going to be good for everybody. I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for it."
Barack Obama: "The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth... The tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of powers through which you bring about redistributive change."
Garrison Keillor: (National Public Radio) " Republicans are brownshirts in pinstripes.”
Nancy Pelosi: "I understand your anger." (About President Bush)
Nancy Pelosi: (when at a meeting being disrupted about the President Bush) "I’m a fan of
disruptors, people who make change. Let’s not question
each other’s patriotism when we’re having this very honest debate that
our country expects and deserves.”
Howard Dean: "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for.”
Howard Dean: "This is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”
Barack Obama: (At an SEIU conference) "Your agenda has been my agenda in the United States Senate; before debating health care, I talked to Andy Stern and SEIU members; before immigration debates took place in Washington, I talked to Alcia Medina and SEIU members; before the EFCA, I talked to SEIU, so we've worked together over these last few years and I'm proud of what we've done. I'm just not satisfied."
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