Maher writes: "There's a reason that of the 16 billionaires that have contributed to super PACs this year, 14 have given to Republicans. It is generally the party of the rich. And in a post-Citizens United world, the party of the rich has an advantage like they've never had before."
Comedian and political satirist Bill Maher. (photo: HBO)
The Great Thing About Having Been Poor
01 March 12
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f you grow up in America, it's pretty rare if you don't love money. One of the first things I ever remember being punished for was stealing money. Five dollars, off my father's dresser. I was so little, I don't think I even knew it was wrong to take something that wasn't specifically mine - I recall this being my introduction to the concept of "larceny is bad." But somehow, I knew it was good to have cash.
After I left my middle class household at 18, standard of living took a real tumble for a while. At Cornell, I had no money, and boy did I look it. They called where I lived the last three years Collegetown, but Collegetown was really slums in a rural setting. Landlords did not have to work that hard in Ithaca, N.Y. - every year, there was fresh supply of eager tenants among the students who didn't want to live in a sorority or fraternity. It was a sweet market for a slumlord.
But even that looked good compared to what was waiting for me as I began my illustrious career as a standup comedian in New York City in 1979. First year I lived on 99th Street in Spanish Harlem, a five-floor walk up, toilet down the hall. No shower - a tub that sat in the kitchen with a snake-like attachment that hooked up to the kitchen sink. Walked home every night from the comedy clubs on the tony Upper East Side, watching the neighborhoods become poorer and scarier as I made my way north, and I'm sure the only reason I was never robbed was, they took one look at me and knew it wasn't worth the trouble. Sometimes, freedom really is just another word for nothing left to lose.
And yet, in a short 33 years, things had turned around enough so that I was able to give a million dollars to the super PAC of a certain mixed-race president who, I would like to remind all my overconfident progressive friends, does NOT have this election in the bag. And a lot of people this last week have said the same thing to me: "You're not picking up the drinks tonight?"
The great thing about having been poor is how liberated it makes you if you eventually become rich. There's nothing like the knowledge that you don't need money to survive. That the money cushion you lie on every night doesn't have to be three feet thick, and you can still get to sleep.
Other people seemed surprised I had a million dollars, which amused me. I've had a television show since 1993; television pays well - I may even have another million lying around somewhere. Every year when I visit my accountant in December to see how the year went, he always says I'm the best saver of all his clients, which amazes me, because I feel like I deprive myself of absolutely nothing. I once asked him, what do your other clients spend their money on? Because I know who some of his other clients are, and I know they make WAY more than I do. He said that what they spend their money on is always changing, and that's not even the point - the point is, however much money they make that year, they always spend all of it! That's how they think: have money, spend it, because the real tragedy would be to die and have money left over.
Me? I just don't have expensive tastes I guess - I don't collect cars or paintings or jewelry, and I gave up my heroin habit years ago. But I also know that, as I said when I presented that giant check to Priorities USA Action last Thursday at the end of my stand up special on Yahoo!, "This hurts!" I was trying to make the point that if I could do it, a lot of other people could do it a lot more easily than me. You know, the only place in America where the millionaires and billionaires are predominantly liberal is here in Hollywood - with the possible exception of Silicon Valley and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. There's a reason that of the 16 billionaires that have contributed to super PACs this year, 14 have given to Republicans. It is generally the party of the rich. And in a post-Citizens United world, the party of the rich has an advantage like they've never had before. In 2008, the most you could give to a candidate was $2,300. Now it's Infinity. No, the election is not in the bag.
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They want to put the big banks and big hedge funds and big insurance and big phrma and big agriculture in charge of everything we think, do, say, breathe, eat, drink, smell, hear, drive, sell, whatever.
Thank you to those patriots in that room who invited Nancy Pelosi the reactionary to reveal her true colors.
They want to put the big banks and big hedge funds and big insurance and big phrma and big agriculture in charge of everything we think, do, say, breathe, eat, drink, smell, hear, drive, sell, whatever.
Thank you to those patriots in that room who invited Nancy Pelosi the reactionary to reveal her true colors.
I also wold choose being on the edge of warrant and free speech rights over not trying to find the people who want to blow up innocents.
Me too, but since 2000. And I became a pariah among my liberal friends for NOT swallowing obonbya's campaign rhetoric. My friends, most of them wt least ware finally seeing what a terrible mistake they made in supporting the murderer.
She's no more leftist than Blair or Billy-Bob Clint' was.
So true. Please, everyone remember it was Pelosi who could have ended the Iraq invasion singlehandedly, but REFUSED TO DO SO!
This only proves once again that the people deserve the government they choose. They voted for Pelosi instead of Sheehan in 2008 and they got what they deserved, the same old BS.
You're absolutely correct, IF THE VOTES WERE NOT STACKED AGAINST SHEEHAN...
I live in Arizona and therefore could not have voted for Sheehan as much as I would have liked to, but the election was completely one-sided. Cindy Sheehan had no chance whatsoever of winning.
I would agree that Nancy Pelosi did her very best to keep Sheehan completely out of the public's eye as much as humanly possible, and Pelosi absolutely refused to debate her, but the voters in Pelosi's district clearly were stupid enough and naive enough in a reasonably honest election to vote Pelosi back into office for another term over Cindy Sheehan.
Therefore, as I have stated in my initial comment, they deserve what they are getting right now and since the 2008 elections.
At this point all she does is deliver essentially meaningless platitude-heavy speeches. Her vote to stop the War Party's madness is what I demand, not reassuring and comforting speeches.
If I were so inclined, I would assume the fetal position and suck my thumb any time I chose. I certainly don't need Pelosi's Pavlovian-bell prompts to do it for me...
Ahem, once proud? When was that? Was it when women could not vote? Was it before the voting rights act? The true mark of a conservative is to mythologize the once glorious past as the baseline from which modern departures can be gauged. Only problem is there is no glorious past. Empire is empire.
It has been challenged only once, actually rather benignly, by JFK and we have evidence as to how they reacted to that. All the poor guy was proposing to do was bring the CIA and JCS under control.
Prior to this, old Ike, a willing participant during his two terms in office, had toward the end, second thoughts of his own. To his credit, he gave us a modest warning in his farewell address to the nation.
Ever since, it's been a pretty much a scam. National "security" utilized as rubber stamp for all sorts of money making mischief. Aided by the CIA/MIA shadow government, supported by their corporate sponsors by way of a bought and paid for government.
The idea that we can produce some politician or group of them, who will change things is merely an extension of the con game. The Kucinichs, Feingolds even the Ron Pauls of the world, will be allowed voice only so long as they're no where near the seat of power.
A placebo, to keep the illusion of "representative " government in the forefront of public discourse while the real powers behind the throne, that is the MIC/CIA and their corporate sponsored friends, call the shots.
The GOP sold their soul in 1952.
The Dems mortgaged theirs in 1964 and finally sold it in 1992.
The politically interesting question is, will either one rediscover it?
If so, when?
In the good ol days we used to think Feinstein was the cat's Meow. Wonder who bought thwt woman?
http://news.yahoo.com/pelosis-defense-nsa-surveillance-draws-boos-183845402.html
When Mac Perkel was forcibly removed from the audience because he dared to ask Nancy Pelosi a question during her Netroots Nation presentation after she condemned Edward Snowden & supported Obama & the illegal NSA spying, some in the audience shouted leave him alone.
This was the Netroots Nation political conference. The article also states that some in the audience got up & walked out in support of Perkel. The total shame of it all was that not every person in that audience, down to a man, didn't get up & walk out in support of Perkel.
To add insult to injury, after the few walked out, most stayed & continued to listen to Pelosi's political BS. As the article states, Pelosi's remarks criticizing the Republican majority in the House & encouraging powerful women brought applause, cheers & laughs as if they actually believed she was being sincere after openly supporting the illegal NSA activities because Obama supported it.
The behavior of the majority of the audience being so forgiving of Pelosi & hanging around to listen to the rest of her BS after one of their so-called compatriots was forcibly removed as if this was a Republican conference just shows how badly fractured our side is & their support for the hired thugs who were there to forcibly kick people out if they wanted to speak up.
This goes against the whole idea of Netroots Nation.
Dumb person...he didn't violate the constitution like you did Ms. Pelosi!