RUSH: In Vero Beach, Florida, this is Neil. Neil, thanks for calling, and I appreciate your waiting. Hi.

CALLER: Rush, I appreciate your time and effort, and first-time caller. I just wanted to say that God bless your mind and I appreciate your points of view. I often use your monologue as ammunition to defend conservative ideas against my liberal friends. I just wanted to comment on the Van Jones sound bite you played earlier.

RUSH: Yeah?

CALLER: And about his idea of “paying America back.” You know, I think Obama has that same idea, too, that we need to pay America back. And I think what he has wrong is it’s his idea that government is America and not the people. But, if anything, we are America. You are America. The people who live, work, and breathe in America are what makes America America.

RUSH: Where did you…? Where did you get that idea?

CALLER: Uh… (chuckles)

RUSH: Who taught you that?

CALLER: My parents, my conservative friends. You, as a matter of fact.

RUSH: Yeah. I know. I’m being facetious. You’re right. Van Jones is only parroting Obama. Van Jones is not the original thinker here. Obama is. Obama’s the guy who’s got like-minded people in these positions. It’s Obama who thinks it’s time to pay America back. And you’re right. By “America,” he means the government. The government is the command-and-control central authority. The government is America, not the people. You’re exactly right. It’s a great way to explain it to people.

Now, let me find this Immelt piece. Here it is. In fact, we’ve got the sound bites, if I can find ’em. What’s the number of…? Mike, do you happen to know off the top of your head…? Five and six. Or is it just five? Of all pages to have on the bottom. Here’s Jeffrey Immelt. He was on Charlie Rose last night. He’s the GE CEO. Charlie Rose said, “Like America, China is changing. The growth rate has gone from double digits to right around 8%. What does that mean for China, what does it mean for the US, and should it change expectations?”

IMMELT: State-run communism may not be your cup of tea, but their government works. You know?

ROSE: They get things done.

IMMELT: Uh, they have five-year plans. I — I always tell our team, “Read the 12th five-year plan, “which is the segment we’re in. Typically what they’re doing makes sense in the Chinese context. That’s what they’re doin’ now. You know, the new president comes in, Mr. Xi comes in, he’s got an agenda. They’re driving environment, they’re driving company reform, they’re driving more consumerism that are the right things.

RUSH: You hear that admiration?

This is the CEO of General Electric who’s speaking in admiring terms about a communist government. Now, this 12th five-year plan, you ought to… You want to read a five-year plan? Go read the second one. Go read Mao’s second five-year plan. That’s where 36 to 40 million Chinese were starved to death, on purpose. Have you ever noticed in every communist country’s history there is mass killing?

There’s famine. There is pestilence, disease. There is mass death in every communist country’s history. That is always denied by the intelligentsia in our country, but nevertheless it exists. So you say, “Okay, well, why does the GE CEO sound so enraptured with a communist government?” What would you say is the answer to that, Snerdley? (interruption) It’s partly money. Of course maybe money at the top.

But it’s also control.

You see, he “get[s] things done.” Charlie Rose says, “They get things done.” They’ve got five-year plans, their government works. They just dictate stuff, and it happens. They don’t have this messy democracy. You don’t have to get votes and support. You don’t have opposition. You don’t have to negotiate with anybody. You just go do it! You just decree that it be done and it is done, whatever you want.

“We’ll take out the competition for you.” If the ChiComs want to do business with General Electric, Immelt can say, “Fine, but we want to be the only ones,” and the ChiComs can say, “Fine, cool,” and they’ll take everybody else out for him, and he doesn’t have to beat them in competition. He’s got a government wiping out his competition for him, if that’s what he wants. Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times, longs for this, too.

Thomas L. Friedman every other day, it seems, in the New York Times, writes pieces longing for the kind of government in this country that they have in China: A small group of really intelligent people making decisions on the fly without any delays, without any roadblocks. The right decisions for the right people at the right time! (And they long for it.) It’s no different than why actors and Hollywood types, and leftists in general, love Fidel Castro.

They are envious of his power.

They are envious of the command-and-control.

Having opposition, who needs that? Having to negotiate with a bunch of idiots, who needs that? Having to deal with a bunch of Republicans who are gonna point out when you aren’t paying any income taxes on $5 billion worth of earnings, who needs that? So Charlie Rose said, “Well, look, if you say to Obama, ‘Here’s what I would do if I was you,’ and it’s valuable to the president, Jeffrey, hearing that from you, because he knows that you are giving it the most crucial analysis, because it affects you directly. Right?”

IMMELT: You know, and people are never gonna believe this, Charlie.

ROSE: Mmmeh.

IMMELT: But, you know, believe it or not the 25 people that worked on the job council weren’t there (snickering) selling their own book of business. You know, they were there legitimately trying to help the country. And that’s kind of like, it is possible to be, um, a global CEO and still love your country and — and — and I can manage that paradox okay. It’s not always easy, but I can manage that paradox okay.

RUSH: It’s still possible to be a global CEO and still love your country. But those of us on the jobs council, we aren’t there trying to sell our own book of business. We were genuinely try to help the country. Okay, I don’t think Obama has met with this bunch since January. It’s either January or July, the last time Obama met with his jobs council. But a jobs council… If you need a jobs council, you’re defeated already.

If you’re the president of the United States, of this country, and you need a jobs council? You need a jobs czar? What you are admitting is that everything comes from government. You want somebody to tell you how government can create jobs. And, of course, that’s not how jobs get created in this country or not how they were created in this country.

So here we are longing for the command-and-control of a communist system. “Hey, it works for them!” Obama loves the ChiComs, too. Obama thinks they snap their fingers and they get brand-new airport build. They snap their fingers and all kinds of global warming regulations are agreed to and met. They just snap their fingers and everything good happens. It’s magic! Communism. Command-and-control. When you’re head of the command-and-control, why, it’s just great.

And that’s what these guys all aspire to.