Archive for July 2008
Who would have thought?
I was listening to NPR the other day and heard this story about a man who I’m sure you’ve heard of. I really didn’t care to know any more about him than I already knew – that he’s a sordid, exploitive jerk. But then I heard this story.
You’ll never believe who said the following excerpts in different speeches he’s given.
The tax cuts proposed by the president are obscene – what the hell is he giving someone like me a tax break for? The argument for the tax package is to give people back their money so they spend it and put it back into the economy. Here’s what’s stupid: the rich people can already afford what they want to buy. Do you think if I get a check back in the mail that I’m going to buy something? If I want to buy something, I’m going to go out and buy it! Don’t give ME the money! Take that money and make sure that every citizen in the United States of America has health insurance. THAT’S where you spend the money! If we would get that message across to the citizens of Ohio (AMERICA!), I don’t care how republican your district looks, they will say, “Uh huh, that relates to me!” That’s what we stand for! We are right on the issues! That’s what drives me insane when I watch the news and I see this garbage…well, I’m the KING of garbage! I KNOW garbage!
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Yes the government is responsible for protecting us from violence and terrorists, but there is another form of violence they should be protecting us from. It’s the violence of a pink slip on a Friday afternoon saying you’ve been laid off and now you don’t have enough money to take care of your family… Job insecurity, health insurance, the fact that you have to choose: should I take my medicine this month or should I buy my kid a coat for the winter?
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Any job I’ve ever had has had the same constituency; it’s been middle and low-income people that need a voice, that need help, that need whatever. Even in my entertainment, that’s my base. It was my base in politics and when I practiced law.
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54 years ago this week I came to America. I was 5 years old and most of my family had been killed in the Holocaust in camps in Germany and Austria during WWII. We came over on the Queen Mary January 19 – January 24th a 5-day voyage in 1949. When we arrived my first memory was my mom waking me up and saying, “Jerald, we have to go up there on the top deck,” (one of the top decks on the Queen Mary) and all I remember (the rest has been told to me, I was only 5) but I vividly remember everyone standing out on top of the ship, on the deck – there were about 2000 passengers on board. Packed together! Packed together! And what I remember was that it was freezing and that nobody said a word. It was absolute quiet. We were passing the Statue of Liberty. My mother told me later as I got older (obviously I wouldn’t have remembered what I’d said) but she remembers me asking her, “What are we looking at? What does it mean?” And she said to me in German, “One day, everything!” The Statue of Liberty means everything! We take it for granted today! We take it for granted. Remember the Statue of Liberty stands for what America is… This is a place of protection. This is not a country of bullies. We are not an empire. We are the light. We are the Statue of Liberty.
-Jerry Springer
