RUSH: As you know, ladies and gentlemen, I am mayor of Realville, and what that means is I do not live in fantasyland, and I don’t construct scenarios that I wish were true and live them, and I don’t see things and analyze them and massage them as I wish they were. I am the mayor of Realville. I’m totally devoted to what’s real.
The population of Realville is very small, by the way. It didn’t take much to get elected mayor. Nobody else ran. I have a story here from MainStreet.com. Headline: “What Economic Recovery?” The upshot of this story is a poll that 72% of Americans believe we are still in a recession. (interruption) Exactly. This is something that I have known for a long time.
In all of this reporting about the unemployment rate coming down and the recession supposedly being over and there being an economic recovery, if you’ve been listening here regularly for the past three years, you know full well that I have unabashedly said, “There is no recovery.” We haven’t recovered from anything. We’re getting worse. We have 92 million Americans not working, yet they’re all eating.
We have unemployment which is actually skyrocketing, people working 30 hours or less now because of Obamacare. Part-time work, if work is to be found, is about all that can be found. But certainly the the opportunities for career building are dwindling, and we’ve been told by various elements of the Regime:
“Well, you know, this is the new norm. The past, the Reagan years, all this economic growth? That really wasn’t natural. That’s the exception. The real America is what is happening now, and you’d better adjust to it.” We’ve been told that in any number of ways by any number of people in the Democrat Party and in the media. “Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the economic system unfairly favors the rich — and most (72%) believe the US is still in a recession.
“Economists generally agree that the Great Recession ended in June of 2009 …” I mean, really? Five months after Obama was inaugurated? Come on. “[B]ut as individuals, reality is the life we live.” it says here, “[a]nd “for so many of us (57%), reality means we are in fair — or even poor — financial condition, according to the just-released 2014 American Values Survey fielded by the Public Religion Research Institute.
“Cutting back on meals and struggling to pay bills is a fact of everyday life for a surprisingly large number of Americans. … ‘Despite the fact that there has been improvement in the economy since the Great Recession, approximately four in ten Americans live in households experiencing high or moderate levels of economic insecurity,’ says Robert P. Jones, CEO of PRRI.
“‘Economic insecurity remains highly stratified by race, with nearly six in ten black Americans living in households with high or moderate levels of economic insecurity,'” despite the fact that the president is African-American and is the first African-American president. “If America was once viewed as the ‘Land of Opportunity,’ that mind-set seems missing by many today.
“More than half (55%) of US citizens surveyed by PRRI believe that one of the biggest problems now facing the country is the fact that not everyone is given an equal chance to succeed in life. Minorities particularly share this concern, including 76% of black Americans, 62% of Hispanics and 58% of Asian Americans” think “that not everyone is given an equal chance to succeed in life.” Two-thirds. I would like to know who gives that chance.
I don’t know who it is. Did you know, Snerdley, when you were growing up, who you go see to get the “equal chance to succeed in life”? (interruption) I didn’t know the office. What town was this equal chance at success dispensed in? (interruption) Well, no, it wasn’t in Realville. We do not have an office for “equal chance to succeed in life.” I don’t even have a cabinet-level department for that. What is this equal chance to succeed? Everybody “given an equal chance to succeed in life.”
Who gives that chance? Where is that chance? Where do you go apply for that “equal chance to succeed in life”? (interruption) Okay, but these people in this poll, they believe that. So what does this mean that they believe? They’re denied what? What is it you need to succeed? (interruption) Well, whatever they think it is, they don’t think they’re getting it, which means what? Success is handed out.
That means horrible things.
It means that there are preferences in who succeeds and who doesn’t, and that somebody’s in charge of that. What do you bet, in these people’s minds, it’s Republicans that do that?
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: This is Joyce. Joyce in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. It’s great to have you on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER: Hi, Rush. How are you today?
RUSH: I’m fine and dandy. A challenging day in some senses, but I think we’re triumphing here. How about you?
CALLER: — listening. (silence)
RUSH: (silence)
CALLER: Sir?
RUSH: Yeah. Go ahead.
CALLER: (silence)
RUSH: You’re on.
CALLER: Oh.
RUSH: This is what I mean by challenging. You’re up. Your turn to speak.
CALLER: Okay, my turn. Mayor of Realville, I’m pretty grounded in Realville. I just want to comment on what a lot of other people said about putting boots on the ground.
RUSH: Yeah?
CALLER: I wonder if any of them have a son or a daughter or a parent that are the people who are going to put those boots on the ground. I mean, we’re sacrificing American lives and we’re gonna deja vu, aren’t we?
RUSH: Well, but, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a second here. The people that join, it’s a volunteer force. People that join know full well what they’re up against, and the fact remains, Joyce, that if you’re gonna engage in an operation like this, the military experts — the generals, the Joint Chiefs and everybody — say that whatever you secure with air power, you will not hold it without ground troops backing them up and actually conquering or taking territory, prisoners, whatever, that the air power gives you. And without ground troops, all of this is eventually gonna add up to nothing.
CALLER: I understand that, but those people sign up to defend our country. Isn’t that what they sign up for? We already went to Iraq and put our boots on the ground with very little success. And they have —
RUSH: Well, no. Wait, wait. Not true. The surge worked.
CALLER: Well, they did have success, but we’re back in the same boat, aren’t we?
RUSH: We are back in the same boat, because Obama removed all of the ground troops in order to placate his base after he was elected.
CALLER: All right, he removed them. We’re still in Afghanistan, too, and that hasn’t solved the problem.
RUSH: Well, we’re in Afghanistan, too, but we announced we’re leaving, so that’s essentially waving the white flag.
CALLER: I just want to make a point about, you know, I’m just an average everyday American who works for a living.
RUSH: I understand.
CALLER: And the economy, as we’ve talked about, is still a big problem with people unemployed and whatnot, okay?
RUSH: I totally, totally understand.
CALLER: So the Iraqis ran away. Their army representatives ran away from their own fight, and if they’re not willing to fight for their country, why should we?
RUSH: Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
CALLER: Hang on. Let me finish. My other point —
RUSH: Obama’s training them. You haven’t heard.
CALLER: Yes, I know he’s training them. But that doesn’t necessarily mean we need to send our people. Let me make one more point about this because it all hits the economy.
RUSH: All right.
CALLER: Somehow we have money for the Chilean miners and every tsunami and the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war, but all they talk about is cutting Medicare, cutting Social Security. Why don’t we think of this?
RUSH: Well, now —
CALLER: Hang on. These are the oil countries —
RUSH: Wait a minute. (laughing)
CALLER: — that have a lot of money.
RUSH: Nobody’s —
CALLER: Why don’t we rent our army to them?
RUSH: Nobody’s cutting Social Security.
CALLER: No. But listen, they’re constantly talking about how we can’t afford things — how we have to cut government — and we don’t take care of our own backyard. When it comes to war like this, with oil-owning countries —
RUSH: Joyce?
CALLER: Hang on — why don’t we rent them out?
RUSH: Joyce? Joyce, I must respectfully disagree. We have spent, since 1964, Joyce, $22 trillion, “taking care of our own,” in the War on Poverty and the Great Society. LBJ. Robert Rector, the Heritage Foundation ran the numbers and reported on it last week. We’ve spent $22 trillion. Joyce, it simply isn’t right to say that we are not taking care of our own.
We’ve created a European-style welfare state, where what we’ve really done is teach people how not to take care of themselves. We have created a country where nearly half the population is dependent on government. Now, that’s not to disagree with you. We are extending the same welfare benefits to illegal aliens. We are extending the same kind of benefits in disaster relief around the world. We’re the only nation we can, even though we don’t really have the money.
I get your point here, but it’s not as if we have forsaken our own. We have not. Now, the Medicare cutbacks you talked about. Once again, everybody was warned about this back during the days we were debating Obamacare, and nobody listened. I can’t say “nobody.” A lot of people didn’t listen. But Obamacare is still not, it never has been supported by a majority of people in this country.
More and more people are learning as this rolls out that it’s gonna cost them a lot of money and they’re gonna suffer a lot of cutbacks in service, in actual medical coverage. Not just insurance coverage, actual medical treatment, but that’s simply because we don’t have the money. We don’t have the money for any of this, but you can’t say…
During the space program, this was a common refrain, “What are we doing going to the moon? Why, we got people starving in America!”
“Don’t worry. We’re feeding ’em.”
“Well, why are we going to the moon? ‘Cause we’ve got people in this country that can’t even find a job.”
“Don’t worry. They’re on unemployment.”
The fact of the matter is that the social safety net in this country became a hammock a long time ago, and it simply isn’t accurate to say, “We don’t take care of our own.” We have to the tune of $22 trillion. The problem is we have not taught people to be self-reliant and self-sufficient. In fact, we have stigmatized those two things. When it is suggested… Like this story that I just had here, about the poll, that 72% of the people still think we’re in a recession.
They don’t think there’s an equal chance for success. You make your success. You create your opportunities. Do you know what luck is? “Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet.” That’s what luck is. I forget whose definition that is, but it was a smart guy. “Luck is where preparation and opportunity meet.” There is nobody handing out chances at success, and there never has been (unless you’re a Kennedy).
You have to create your own opportunities.
You have to make your own success.
That’s called self-reliance. It’s called pride. It’s called any number of things. It’s called finding a passion, devoting yourself to it, and not sitting around waiting for something to come your way. But that’s what we’ve done! We’ve created a significant portion of our population and converted them into “waiters.” They’re sitting around waiting for this to happen or this to be given or that opportunity to come or what have you, because they have been ill-educated.
That’s the real, if you want to say “crime.” The real crime in this country is how the left gaining control the education system has convinced more and more people that because they are Americans they’re entitled to X, Y, and Z (and maybe even A, B, and C) whatever it is. And the notion now of self-reliance and hard work, that is stigmatized. “Oh, yeah. Easy for you to say.”
Well, no, that’s just the way it is. There’s plenty of opportunity out there! There’s plenty of success waiting to be tapped. There’s plenty of innovation waiting to be invented or taken place. It’s all over the place, but it never comes to you! Well, it may, but you have to recognize it when it does. But it always is the result of you taking action to make something happen.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me tell you, there’s an added danger to all of this welfare, $22 trillion. There’s another component to it: Every two years the Democrats come along and tell you, “The Republicans are gonna take it away from you,” and they never do. We don’t take away welfare benefits of anybody. Never happens.