Michael Moore on Maddow Show FULL SEGMENT: 'Democrats, DO SOMETHING'

Run time: 10:56 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElOM3prpcpc   Posted on YouTube: March 11, 2010 By YouTube Member: JesusSavesAtCitibank Views on YouTube: 218   Posted on DU: March 11, 2010 By DU Member: Hissyspit Views on DU: 2487

 
MSNBC The Rachel Maddow Show - 10 March 2010: Michael Moore's first-ever appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show.

Moore tells Maddow: "You're a force for good and a national treasure."

TRANSCRIPT:

MOORE: "I tell you, I've been watching the whole Bart Stupak thing, as you mentioned. This is my congressman. I had no idea, after, especially, last week's show, I turned on the TV, I said to my wife and said 'Our congressman belongs to a brothel. And he belongs to a cult. What's going on?'"

MADDOW: "You know, he wants everyone to know that he didn't belong to The Family for the... EIGHT YEARS that he lived at The Family's subsidized Congressman townhouse with all the affairs going on."

- snip -

MOORE: "No, it's totally amazing. It's embarrassing. You know, Michigan's a great state. I live in his district... And I know him, he's a former Michigan state trooper, police officer, and, you know, he's done good things. The NRA's been after him, and he's stood up to them, but this has just been shocking. It's unconscionable that he would try to stop even this watered-down, pathetic version of a health-care bill over his own personal religious beliefs. You know, it's kind of like, my feeling is, look, if you don't want to have an abortion, don't have one. If you don't want to sleep with the same gender, don't do it. If you don't want to own a gun, well, that's a little different, because if you have 50 guns in your garage, I'm a little concerned about that. But everything else, it's like, I don't know where they get this sense that they need to control everyone else's private lives."

MADDOW: "Well, the thing that's hard about it for me is what we just talked about in this previous segment, that if he's really concerned about federal funding for abortion, there really isn't any federal funding for abortion in this thing. And if he really wants to try and stop health reform unless he gets this language put in there, by the rules, there's no way to put that language in there. All the things that he's supposedly standing on principle about either aren't true or are impossible. And so, what's it about?"

- snip -

MOORE: "They are blind and they are deaf to all of this. I'll tell you what's going to happen here. Because not one single regulation or rule has been reinstated on the banking industry, on Wall Street - you know, they're back to dealing with their crazy derivatives and credit default swaps and all that - trust me, the next collapse or crash is right around the corner, because they're doing the same stuff they were doing leading up to that first crash in '08. And it's amazing that nobody's doing anything. It's amazing that the Democrats in Congress haven't forced this issue in a very strong way, because they would have the support of the American people. Nobody wants the other shoe to drop here, and it's getting ready to drop. And I don't understand, well, I guess I do understand, because those banks and the people on Wall Street are lining the pockets of our members of Congress, so..."

MADDOW: "On the right, of course, they're caricaturing Wall Street reform as 'socialism.' Everything is socialism."

MOORE: "Yeah, everything is socialism to them. Boy, that is so tired, isn't it?"

MADDOW: "I know."

MOORE: "As I said in my film, to me everything that they call socialism - wanting to help people when they're sick, wanting to provide jobs for people when they don't have work - aren't these the Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, even atheist principles that we all grew up with, that we were told that we were to be good to people who were without, and that we were to share the pie?"

MADDOW: "But those must be kept in check, so that greed can lead us toward ... something."

MOORE: "Yeah, well, we see what it's led us to - it's led us to the fact that one out of eight homes now in America is in foreclosure or delinquency. One out of eight homes. And, of course, the millions who don't have health care. How do you get yourself out of bed every morning to do this show? When just the despair of how... the hope that we all had a year, year and a half ago, and now it's like, I just feel that the Democrats are in for an ass-whooping of Biblical proportions in November if they don't get off the dime and do the job they were sent there to do that. I mean that, I mean, don't they see that?"

- snip -

"They can avoid it by having the courage of their convictions and doing what the Republicans do when they take power. You know, when the Republicans come into town, they get in the Hummer and they drive down Pennsylvania Avenue and mow down anybody in sight; they walk into Congress with both guns blazing and they say 'we were sent here to do a job.' And then they do the job.

Democrats come in - I mean, by an INCREDIBLE majority in the Senate and the House, and this historic election with Obama in the White House - Democrats come in and go 'Oh, hi, hi... I guess we don't need universal health care for everybody. We can compromise. It's o.k.' It's like, they used to just sing 'Kumbaya.' Now, they go in like frightened animals."

- snip -

"If the Democrats would just say to themselves, 'You know what, we've got these eight months here, let's just do what we were sent there to do and damn the torpedoes. Yes, some of us may lose as a result of that, but so many more Americans are going to admire us for standing up for something, for believing in something.' That's what's going to put them out of office more than anything.

AND, the fact that their base is going to be so depressed - by the fact that we didn't get universal health care, that we didn't put any restrictions on the banks and Wall Street. People are just going to stay home. And why they would allow this to happen is beyond me."

MADDOW: "It seems like they, when you listen to Democrats talk about election prospects, they're convinced they're going to lose. You would expect that that would free them up to try something."

MOORE: "Yeah, right. It's kind of like, 'O.K., the boat is taking in water. Do we just sit here, or do we pick up the Dixie cup that's over here and start bailing?' I mean, we may not make it, but, you know... Do Something. Do something, Democrats! Are you listening to me?"

MORE

:kick:

and I certainly agree with MM'S assessment of Rachel.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

I'd go dual before abandoning the party. There are more of us than there are conservadems anyway. Conservadems only find refuge in ours because the Republican Party has gone batshit crazy and we let them in and shelter them. Of the follower Dems many are in a "bad" situation more so than being "bad" Dems and the situation has gotten worse.

Thank you very much for posting this segment! This interview was the absolute truth and I just don't understand why the Dems don't get it. Listen to the man.......get something done!

....because Michael Moore contributes absolutely nothing to their financial well being. He is a threat to democrats in congress.

thanks for the posts - as always!

I agree with Michael Moore - if the writing is on the wall, and the Dems are going to lose big, why not throw caution to the wind, and do something powerful for the country?

INDEED. Thanks for posting this segment. I missed the show last night.

Love them both.

namby pamby Democrats in Congress, and, yes, in the White House ...over health care.

What I wish was the case after an excruciating try at bipartisanship even after the Bush Crash and Bush Bailouts, which the Democrats knew would be a failure--

Year One = Expose Republican zero commitment to bipartisanship.

Year Two = Review publicly what we have learned about Republican bipartisanship in health reform-- GOP leaders are determined to vote against their own recommendations.

And now that our president has exposed their duplicity, use the Republicans' favorite tool of reconciliation to pass absolutely necessary reforms like
-- expanding Medicare as the public option and
-- creating the independent consumer financial protection agency and
-- re-regulating the financial sector.

Go ahead and send ten senior Democrats and administration officials onto the airwaves to remind the public that the Bush Gang used reconciliation to push two ruinous tax cuts for the rich in a time of two wars, which created massive deficits, perhaps inspired by Cheney's famous declaration that deficits don't matter (to Republicans).

I am okay with passing the Republican Health Care Reform Bill now because it is all that we have, but if the Democrats don't reconcile it with the actual emergency conditions the majority of us are experiencing and put a public option back in there they will have worse trouble than is typical for US ruling parties at the polls in November.

I will toddle in to vote Democratic again because I always have because Republicanism is just far too cruel.

But this oddball "Bipartisan= Democrats Toss Out Effective Policies" has discouraged lots of people.

My only complaint is his dig against firearms:

"You know, it's kind of like, my feeling is, look, if you don't want to have an abortion, don't have one. If you don't want to sleep with the same gender, don't do it. If you don't want to own a gun, well, that's a little different, because if you have 50 guns in your garage, I'm a little concerned about that."

If you don't want to own a gun, don't own a gun. Lots of people collect firearms, and have had them handed down over generations.

The most important indicator as to whether or not someone is going to be involved in violent firearm crime is not whether you own one gun, or twenty guns. The most important indicator as to whether or not someone is going to be involved in violent firearm crime is a prior criminal record.

http://www.cardozolawreview.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=138:kates201086&catid=20:firearmsinc&Itemid=20

It would be far more appropriate to be worried about the person with a criminal record (who can't even legally own a single firearm) than a person who has collected 50 firearms.