RUSH: Controversy erupted at the Illinois Labor History Society’s Salute to Labor’s Historic Heroes from the History Makers Today Conference. That’s the title of a meeting: The Illinois Labor History Society had a Salute to Labor’s Historic Heroes from the History Makers Today. It was a conference. Karen Lewis, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union, was one of the speakers. She drew applause — loud applause and laughs — during her comments. We have the first of two audio sound bites here.
LEWIS: (microphone hum) Do not think for a minute that the wealthy are ever going to allow you to legislate their riches away from them.
AUDIENCE: (murmurs of agreement)
WOMAN: That’s right!
LEWIS: Please understand that. However, we are in a moment where the wealth disparity in this country is very rem’niscent of the robber-baron ages. (dramatic pause) The labor leaders of that time, though, were ready to kill. They were. They were just ready. It’s like, “Off with their heads!”
AUDIENCE: (laughing)
LEWIS: (laughing) They were seriously talking about that.
RUSH: I guess she is, too.
That’s Karen Lewis, who is the Chicago Teachers Union grand pooh-bah, head honcho, and she is talking about the wealthy and the rich. Now, again. We’d play these sound bites, if we had them, 10/15 years ago, and we’d sit here and laugh, and we would joke about it, and I would make some comment about how, “You know, folks, people really say this, but nobody is actually gonna believe this. This is so outrageous, it’s so over the top, talking about killing the rich.” And I was wrong 10/15 years ago. They do respond positively.
She does mean it, and so do people in the audience.
They do have this degree of hatred and resentment, and it is being ginned up by people like Karen Lewis, and it is something that Obama is playing off of, and it is something Obama is using to advance his agenda. “Do not think for a minute the wealthy are ever gonna allow you to legislate their riches away from them.” Well, what does that mean? It means that the civilized way to go about this would be to pass laws taking money away from the rich. But she’s upset the rich aren’t just gonna sit there and let that happen.
So we’re maybe gonna have to take more drastic action.
And then she cites labor leaders from the past who were ready to kill, and her audience laughs, and some of them applaud. And then she goes on to say that the rich think nothing of killing her and people like her and people in her audience.
LEWIS: They think nothing about killing us.
AUDIENCE: (murmuring of agreement)
WOMAN: Right.
LEWIS: They think nothing about putting our people in harm’s way. They think nothing about lethal working conditions. Which side are you gonna be on?
WOMAN: Right!
AUDIENCE: (applause)
LEWIS: So are we gonna be on the side of justice, are we gonna be on the side of a living wage for every person, or are we gonna be on the side of people whose entire mentality is based on a lie? Job creators.
AUDIENCE: (laughter)
LEWIS: Really? Then why have we lost so many jobs?
AUDIENCE: (applause)
RUSH: This is what we’re up against. This, years ago, we’d laugh at it. I would sit here and think, boy, nobody’s gonna believe… Not that nobody’s gonna believe it. Everybody’s gonna see this for the insanity that it is, or for the extremism that it is. I was wrong. People eat it up! They fall right in line. “They think nothing about killing us,” the rich, owners of factories. And now, owners of football teams, who, if they could have gotten away with it, would have allowed RGIII to die in that game on Sunday! They knew he was hurt, but they put him out there anyway.
They knew he could barely walk, but they put him out there anyway. They don’t care. They’re killing us. Lethal working conditions? Job creators. It’s a lie. “[W]hy have we lost so many jobs?” Now, you and I know exactly why we’ve lost so many jobs. The reason we’ve lost so many jobs is because of the policies of the federal government over the years, and policies that have been put in place and exacerbated by Obama. But there’s the no way that Karen Lewis thinks that, and there’s no way the people in her audience think that.
You know what has been successfully engineered here?
A lot of people in the middle class think they were once rich. But that when they weren’t looking, the rich came along and stole what they had, and that’s how the rich got rich. Don’t pooh-pooh it. There are a lot of people who actually believe it, just as people like Samuel L. Jackson or Jamie Foxx or the Reverend Sharpton are able to persuade blacks today that there is still slavery, so there are people in the lower middle class who think they once had a lot of money and that they lost it. One day when they weren’t looking the rich came along and took it, and that’s how the rich got rich.
The rich are hoarding it all, and the rich don’t want to share it or give any back.
So we’ve gotta legislate it or take it or what have you.
And Obama is winning on that basis.