exactly what she thought. a very good book, and she was bold enough to go ahead and sign off on that. the other children's books that we have here were generously given to us by her cousins. we have a photograph with them when she was banned in 1935. they were raised in the boston area. we come down to it and have times together. mary flannery. we are not quite sure exactly how she felt about them. over here we have a photocopy of her last report card here in savannah. she started out in st. vincent. but she was transferred to sacred heart for theirself. they felt that she would receive a better education was a very

well may have. by this time she made up for mind that the only way of work can be spelled correctly is to be spelled the way it sounds. that differed, the dictionary was flat wrong. .. >> they let the restorers know exactly where to place the o'connor sink and their stove. so those items are accurately placed when the o'connors were here. but what we like to talk about most in this room because you can see out back into the garden

so well is that is where in 1931 a very famous newsreel took place and was filmed. regina used to raise chickens in the back, and it was discovered early on that mary flannery preferred the company of chickens as pets as opposed to dogs and cats. dogs and cats terrified her, chickens did not. so cousin katie gave her a pair of bantams, and she not only named them, but she taught them a trick, and the trick she taught her chickens was to walk backwards, and she was successful. cousin katie lets the newsreel corporation about what her cousin has done, and on the property in 1931 they shot a newsreel called do you reverse starring mary o'connor and her backward-walking hen. the rooster wouldn't cooperate on the day the cameraman was here. and you can go online and look up do you reverse and there the

newsreel is in its entirety. mary flannery stand anything the back, she puts a hand up on her shoulder, and that chicken walks backwards. and, evidently, that had quite an impact on mary flannery's life because in a letter in 1955 she would write to a friend and say that was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me. it's all been down mill from there -- downhill from there, so we always like to show that to our quests. our guests. [background sounds] >> now, this modest house which was a mere two houses standing side by side with the same exact floor plan is only 20 feet wide, and something had to give. and it's our hallways up here. they're only two feet, ten inches wide. and we'll go in and go on into

mary flannery's bedroom. now, what's nice about the bedroom that we have here at the childhood museum is that all the pieces belong to the o'connors. regina held on to it all, had it in storage in millageville, and once a renter moved out in the early 2000s, the board decided it was time to go ahead and restore the bedrooms, so they were able to bring the bedroom furniture down. it may seem odd to find twin cots in an only child's bedroom, but this is what they could afford, so we are really appreciative of the generosity of cousin katie, otherwise they wouldn't have been able to live in a four-bedroom house. the bed closest to the window was a point of contention between mother and daughter. in those days, of course, there was no air-conditioning in the house, and this time of year mary flannery always wanted to roll the bed over to the window to sleep at night. that made a lot of sense. but if you come over here and

look and see where, how close the roof is to the bottom of the window, they understand why regina would say absolutely not. she didn't want her daughter crawling out there and possibly getting into trouble. however, someone had made up her mind, and so when the o'connors would look in the morning, the bed would be, indeed, up against the window. over here on the mantle, on the right side of the mantle they have my favorite photograph of mary flannery at any age, and she, t the expression on her face that gets me. she's about 2 in that photograph, but she would write something at the writers' workshop at the university of iowa that always reminds me of this expression. i was a pigeon-toed only child with a you leave me alone or i'll bite you complex. she was an adult at 6, and she found herself surrounded by a sea of children, so she didn't want them to be pestering her. over here in the corner one of

my favorite pieces to show is a table and chair set that was crafted by her u.k. l louis on her -- uncle louis, and that's why we have water stains on the top. he did an excellent job crafting those chairs so that they would fit underneath that circular table. and they would, indeed, have tea parties back there. now, regina allowed her daughter to call her by her first name, allowed her to attend the adult mass at the cathedral but still wanted her daughter to socialize with children her own age, so she would set play dates and just interesting to note that if they did have a tea party back in those days and there was no tea, mary flannery would supply the sound effects so that everybody could know when she was pouring the tea, indeed. so come on in to the parents' bedroom. the bed here we have a pin boy

that was regina's when she married edward, and we are fairly certain that cousin katie provided the furniture that we have on the parents' side including in 1925 she would have bestowed to the o'connors this kitty coupe, kiddie koop was actually a manufactured piece of furniture and was designed to prevent mosquitoes carrying yellow fever from infecting children. that can be lowered to the bottom of the frame and double as a playpen which is how mary flannery would put it to use once she was too old for it because, after all, he wanted her pets in the house with her, and the pets, of course, are the chickens. and the only way regina would allow those chickens in the house was for mary to put them in the kiddie e koop. we still have some of the 1856

panes of glass that are part of those, but to look outside and see how the spires of the cathedral still dominate the view just as it it did back in the days of the o'connors. all right. let's go this way. [background sounds] >> now, we're on the second floor bathroom. the third floor has not been restored, but up there some interesting things used to take place from time to time when the coono'connorslied here. mary could decide to entertain her friends in the bathroom upstairs. it was just like this one, but before her guests would arrive, she was go out in the back, she

would pick some flowers, take it to the bathroom upstairs, then she would go ahead and stand over the tub, and she would pluck some of the petals off the flowers and let them fall to the bottom of the tub. she'd turn around, lift the lid of the toilet and array the bowl with the rest of the flowers and greenery and put the lid down to hold that arrangement in place. i haven't been able to find out where the inspiration for that decoration took place, but i think it was an incredibly important thing to do for the emotional well being of her guests because early on these were the only fairy tales that she would allow to be read upstairs. so good thing that she had decorated the, brightened up the bathroom upstairs the way she did. but i still have a feeling that some of her guests went home traumatized after reading the grimms brothers. early on this was her taste in literature, these were the kind of stories that she liked. we're ready to go back downstairs.

now, another thing that used to happen up in the bathroom is that she was writing stories even here in savannah, usually about a family of traveling ducks and they would go from capital to capital across the world. but she would annoy her guests as they were reading her stories back to her because she had no problems with going stop, stop, read that again. when they had read something she had written that she was fond of. as an adult writer just like she did here in savannah, she would always read her stories out loud to herself as she was editing and rewriting them. the stories we have today had to pass her ears along with her eyes because she felt that the ears were just as important as the eyes were. well, her father would stop advertising his businesses in 1933 and try to find a job which he finally did in 1938, but not here in savannah, up in atlanta as an appraiser for the federal

housing authority. just before her 13th birthday, the o'connors would leave in march of 1938 and move up there. not long after they moved up there, unfortunately, he would be diagnosed with lupus, the same disease that would take her life in 1964. at age 39. but as she would write in one of her letters in edward's time, there was nothing for it back then but the undertaker. so he succumbed to it by february of 1941. now, by 1941 regina had already moved herself and mary flannery to regina's childhood home in the historic district of millageville, and then edward would join them not long after that because, again, the lupus was debilitating him and taking away his strength, and then like i said, he would pass away in february of 1941. so just before her 16th birthday, she has lost her father, and she had very close ties with her father not only as daughter, but she said in another one of her letters that

when she sat down to write, she felt like she was writing for the two of them. so it was a very big blow for her. and so was leaving this house, evidently, and in if another letter she would write it's just about as poignant to be torn away from a house as it is a person. her impact on the literary community, i think, was fantastic. she seemed to be well received though she never expected to be well received. she knew that her stories were nonconventional. but she had something to say, usually about the action of grace being visited upon those being willing to see her. but it was a grotesque characters, the larger than life characters and the violence often in her stories that she felt that she really had to impress upon the readers, you know, to get their attention. and literary and community seemed to, especially up in the

northeast section of the country, seemed to attach themselves to her stories quite quickly. but her friends and relatives here in georgia just could not believe, they didn't understand where she got her characters from, you know? how did she know the people that were in those stories? and, of course, i think a lot of that had to do with even as a young girl here in savannah, she was always watching and listening. and so over the years she had some rich characters to watch and listen to not only near savannah, but also up in millageville. >> and now independent senator bernie sanders of vermont discusses the eight-and-a-half hour speech he delivered on the senate floor on december 10th, 2010. in that speech senator sanders was critical of president obama's extension of the bush administration tax cuts for top earners and diminished estate tax rates as well as the disappearance of america's middle class. [cheers and applause]

>> thank you. that was such a wonderful introduction. i wish you just could have kept going and going. it was sounding very good. [laughter] i want to thank busboys and poets for hosting this event and for all of the great work you do. thank you very much. and i want to thank everybody, the wonderful crowd, and thank you all very much for copping out. coming out. let me talk a bit about myself, kind of how i got to where i am, then i'm going to read a few pages. i'll read the introduction to the book, go on for sec or eight hours after that -- [laughter] they didn't tell you that, right? [laughter] and then we'll take some questions and answers at 4:00 in the morning. [laughter] um, as you heard, i am the longest-serving independent in american congressional history actually as it were. and you may think, well, why is that? why are you an independent? and the answer is pretty simple.

it's that i believe that both political parties are heavily dominated by moneyed interests, and i think that millions and millions of working families don't have the kind of voice that they should be having in all level of government. and i've chosen to be an independent. i caucus now with the democrats, have always done that. i began my political career in vermont by running for the united states senate on a third party ticket, running against democrats and republicans, and i received all of 2% of the vote. [laughter] that was back in roughly 1971. and not deterred i then ran for governor of the state of vermont -- [laughter] the same third party, the liberty union party, and i went from 2% to 1 %. [laughter] not a kind of trajectory that we

were hoping. but i may not be very bright, but i am persistent. [laughter] i came back, ran for the senate again in 1974 against my now-colleague patrick leahy. he won, i lost, but i got 4% of the vote in a three-way race. so i saw those votes going up. and then two years later i ran for governor again. we have elections every two years in vermont. and i got 6%. at that point i took the hint. [laughter] maybe getting elected to political office is not what my life was going to be about. i went about doing other things, mostly doing some writing, working on historical filmstrips and actually having a pretty good time. in 1981 you know how people, politicians always tell you that people came up and said you should run for office? actually, in my case it was true. there were a number of friends who said, you know what? we looked at the election results, and you did really well in burlington, and if you run in

burgleton, you -- burlington, you might actually win. so i did. and we put together a wonderful coalition of, um unions and senior citizens and women's advocates, environmental advocates and the police officers came onboard, and on election night we won by 14 votes defeat ago five-term incumbent which will probably go down in vermont history as maybe the most significant political upset of modern vermont history. then we went to the recount, and i ended up winning by ten votes. [laughter] i took office in 1981 with two supporters on the city council and the rest were democrats and republicans who were not particularly supportive, in fact, they fired my secretary on the first day i took office. and i had to run the city for the first year with my, with the previous mayor's administration.

it's like obama running with bush's administration. it was a little bit difficult. about a year later we had rallied the people, and we won a number of seats in the city council. i developed veto power, and we'd begun to do some really exciting things in burlington. after two years i ran for re-election against a democrat, republican, won. and then they combined the parties and we won anyhow. that was in 1987. 1988 i ran for the united states congress and a lot of my liberal friends said you shouldn't run because you'll be a spoiler, you're going to pull votes away. on election night the republican won with 34%, i got 31%, the democrat got 19%. two years later i ran for that same seat in the house, and i won by 16 points, there was not a strong democrat in. served there for 16 years, ran

for the united states senate in 2006 when senator jim jeff fits who many of you know, a very courageous person, chose not to run for re-election. he retired. we ran against the, one of the wealthiest guys in the state. up until that point the most anyone had ever spent in an election in the state of vermont was about two and a half million. he spent seven million. we had to raise five million, but we ended up winning by a very strong vote, and i'm up for re-election in 2012. so that's my political history. let me, now, take you to why you're here tonight. let me talk a little bit about the book and read you from the introduction. on friday, december 10th, 2010, i woke up at my usual time, had my usual breakfast of oatmeal and coffee at the dirksen senate building and then had a typical daily discussion with some of my staff. at 10:30 a.m. i walked onto the floor of the senate and began a

speech. turned out to be a very long speech. a modern version of the filibuster. it went on for eight and a half hours until 7 p.m. there were several reasons why i went to the floor for that speech. first, i had promised to do everything i could to oppose what i believed was a very bad tax agreement between president barack obama and the republican leadership. at a time when this country has a 13.8 trillion national debt and the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country, it seemed to me totally absurd to provide hundreds of billions in tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. further, by confirming -- and this was the lame duck session before republicans took control of the house -- further, by confirming under a democratic president, a democratic house and a democratic senate the basic tenets of bush's trickle-down economics theory, this was laying the groundwork for more bad decisions in the

future. unfortunately, i was absolutely right and that takes us right to the ryan republican budget of today. second, more tax breaks for the very rich is only one symptom of an economic and political system that is grotesquely failing the average american. the simple reality is that the middle class of america is collapsing, poverty is increasing, and the gap between the very wealthiest people and everyone else is getting wider. how did this happen? why did it happen? what can we do about it? these are issues that had to be talked about and talked about in a way that is not often heard in washington. over the 20 years i have served in the house and the senate, i had examined these issues,ish from a wide variety of perspectives. now was an excellent opportunity to bring them together and to make the connections. what does it mean, morally and economically, that in 2007 the

top 1% earned over 23% of all income in this country, more than the bottom 50%? or that the top 1% owns more wealth than the bottom 90%. given the enormous political power that goes with this concentration of wealth in the terms of lobbying capabilities, campaign contributions and media ownership, is the united states on its way to becoming an oligarchic form of society? with almost all power resting in the hands of around tiny few? what does it say about our economy and the political choices we make about it on capitol hill that today, despite all of the huge increases in productivity and technology, that we've seen in recent decades a two-income family now has less disposable income than a one-income family did 30 years ago.

why is it that americans today work the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world? what is the correlation between the united states having by far the highest rate of childhood poverty of any major country while we also have more people in jail? doesn't it make more sense to invest in our kids than in jail construction? how does it reflect upon our political and legal system when the crooks on wall street who caused this horrendous recession now earn more money than they did before their banks were bailed out by the taxpayers? how come none of them are in jail? and what does the financial reform bill mean when three out of the top four too big to fail banks in this country are now larger than they were before the wall street collapse?

with assets of over half the gdp of this country. what does it mean to the economic future of our country that over the last ten years we have lost 42,000 factories and millions of good paying manufacturing jobs and that it is harder and harder to buy products manufactured in america? how does it happen that ceos of large corporations boast about the advantages of outsourcing their production and jobs to china, but when hard time hit, they come running to u.s. taxpayers for a bailout? and on and on and on. so those were some of the themes that i wanted to talk about in my remarks, and i wanted to tie some of the dots together. now, what does it feel like to talk for eight and a half hours when you can't leave the floor, eat or most important the question asked of me time and time again --

[laughter] especially by the media, how come you didn't go to the bathroom? how was that? and that's my secret, and i'm not telling. [laughter] you'll never know. and you're doing all of this with a national television camera on you. and the answer is, my profound answer is, it's hard. try it sometime. [laughter] and spris withingly enough, the after effect hit me a few days later when i found myself very, very tired. during the speech itself, my legs began to cramp up a bit, my voice also became a little bithorse. i had no -- hoarse. when i was mayor of burlington in the 1980s i sometimes gave speeches for as long as an hour, and that was it. would i last three hours, five hours, 20 hours? i really didn't know what i was clear about in my own mind, however, was that i wasn't going to read from the phone book or sing songs.

you'll be happy to know i didn't sing any songs just to eat up time. i wanted to speak for as long as i had something relevant to say. while i didn't have a prepared script for the speech, i mostly worked off previous speeches i had given and occasionally excerpts from some books that i had read. i would read a few lines of pages and go off from there. twice colleagues came to the floor and engaged in what we call a colloquy. i remain grateful to senators brown and landrieu for support of my effort. let me also warn readers of this book that it contains some repetition. hey, what do you want? eight and a half hours -- [laughter] and this is not an accident. in this giving the speech i was more than aware that most people were not going to be listening to it in it swirety. i suspected some people would tune in for an hour and then move on with their lives. was i surprised about the kind of attention that the speech

received? are you kidding? the phones in both my washington and vermont offices never stopped ringing. in vermont every one of my eight staff people did nothing else all day but respond to thousands of calls and e-mails. the senate television web site crashed because of the huge number of people who wanted to watch the speech lye online, and apparently c-span2 had an exceptional day. according to "the new york times" my speech was the most twittered event in the world on that day. what a distinction! [cheers and applause] never knew it, most twittered event. and someday i will learn what twitter is all about. [laughter] there were front page stories in newspapers all around the country, and the speech was covered widely in the international media. the number of people who signed up as friends on my facebook page doubled the previous total in one day and visits to my web site went sky high. some journalists even claimed that obama had an unscheduled,

impromptu press conference with former president bill clinton who defended the tax deal in order to divert attention from what i was doing on the senate floor. just turned out clinton was at the white house, had a press conference and captured a lot of attention. despite my best efforts, we lost the vote on the tax deal that president obama worked out with the republican, a very bad agreement was signed into law. was my eight-and-a-half hour speech worth the effort? absolutely. if this country is going to move forward in a new direction, if we're going to save the middle class and change our national priorities, we have got to cut through the fog and obfuscation of the corporate mainstream media and start focusing on the life and death issues that working families really care about. the very strong response to my speech tells me that there is a hunger all over america for a discussion about economic truths, for a counterattack on the ferocious assaults that are taking place against working

families and for a practical plan on how we can reverse the obscene politics that favor the rich over the middle class and the disadvantaged in our nation. if my speech helped educate people about some of these issues, made them aware that they're not alone in their concerns or their pain and pointed a way to the future, it was well worth it. that's it. thank you. [applause] okay. what i would love to do now is to take any questions or thoughts that anybody may have. just be loud, ma'am. yes. >> we do microphones, so you don't have to shout so everyone can hear you, and -- [inaudible] keep it orderly and respectful. >> yes, thank you for everything you do. what's your advice on what we or what congress should be doing about this united division? does it have to have an

amendment to the constitution, or are there better ways to do it? >> let me just back that excellent question up because perhaps everybody doesn't know what the citizens united decision is about. for many, many years we have had a disastrous campaign finance system which clearly favors those people who have a lot of money and corporate interests against those of us who do not. a year or so ago our supreme court by a 5-4 decision passed a disastrous, absurd decision called the citizens united decision. and in their wisdom we found, actually, five people in the same room, the only five people in america who actually believe that a corporation is a person. five people in america, and they all have to be on the supreme court at the same time. [laughter] and, essentially, what that decision does is it says to large corporations that you being a person have first

amendment freedom of speech rights and, therefore, you are able to express your freedom of speech by putting 30-second ads on television telling the world how terrible bernie sanders is or anybody else is. and by the way, you can do that in secrecy. you don't even have to reveal who you are. you can come up with some phony name and phony organization. this is a disastrous decision which makes a very bad campaign finance situation much worse. we saw it in the last election. you're going to see a lot more of it. essentially, what's going to happen is a handful of billionaires and very wealthy corporate people are going to sit around a room and say, okay, you're putting ten million into vermont, you've got 20 million in california, and for these guys this is a small sum of money to win a senate seat or a house seat. it is a horrendous decision. now, what we have try to do on the floor -- tried to do on the floor of the house and the

senate is at least pass some legislation that would minimize, minimize the impact of citizens united. so there was legislation that was brought forth which, not shockingly, got no republican support which said, okay, if i put an ad on television attacking my opponent -- which i have never done, i never run a negative ad -- i have to have my name on tv and say i take responsibility for this ad. so we said, fine. if you are a ceo of a corporation who is paying for this ad, get your face up there and say you take responsibility for this ad. and we thought that would discourage a lot of corporations from doing that. second of all, we wanted to make sure that if a chinese company in the united states owned significantly by chinese interests, that they should not be allowed to participate in american politics. thirdly, what we wanted to do is say, okay, if you utilize that, then your opponent, somebody

attacked me using that process, i would be able to get the cheapest possible rates available to respond. anyhow, we lost those votes. we couldn't can get any republicans. for republicans this is a very good supreme court decision. your question is, should we go forward with a constitutional amendment. in general, i have to tell you i'm not a great fan of constitutional amendments. you know, people think, you know, everybody who has a problem, we need a constitutional amendment to solve it. that kind of weakens what our constitution is about which is a pretty good document. but on this issue i think we can make the exception to that rule. so i do believe that, certainly, a constitutional amendment is one of the options we have, and that amendment should simply say that a corporation to everyone's shock and surprise is not a person. last point that i would say on this issue, we had a town meeting. we do a lot of town meetings in vermont. we had one a couple of months ago and a whole lot of people out. and ben and jerry's, many of you

know ben and jerry's. ben was there and jerry, and ben was very funny. he said, you know, i'm ben, i am a person. this is jerry, he is a person. ben and jerry's, not a person. [laughter] and in a nutshell, that's about it. the idea that we give corporate, corporations first amendment rights is absurd. >> i'm just wondering, we missed out on kyoto, signing that. it looks like -- [inaudible] what would you recommend our advocacy be for some sort of global -- >> well, i think in my view, you know, global warming is a huge, huge issue. and it saddens me very much that today in the congress you have,

certainly, a majority of people in the house -- almost all republicans, including intelligent people -- who are willing to ignore virtually the entire scientific community who tells us global warming is real, that global warming is today, today causing very, very serious problems and that those problems are only going to get worse in the future. you have the cia telling us that in terms of national security global warming, which can lead to wars as people around the world fight over limited resources because of droughts and floods, food shortages, you know, you've got the cia, you've got the defense department, all these organizations all over the world saying it, and yet the anti-science feeling on capitol hill is such that we certainly, at this particular moment, are not going to move forward on global warming. but to answer your question, it's not just global warming.

we could talk about education, we could talk about health care, what are the answers? and the main point i want to make to you is the solution is not going to come inside the beltway. the solution is going to come in cities and towns all over this country where ordinary people begin to stand up and organize and get out on the streets and say, enough is enough. i can tell you, you know, without any fear of contradiction that what goes on in congress is far, far removed from the reality of the lives of ordinary people. and that's true whether it's economics, that's true whether it's health care. what goes on in congress is there's an invisible wall infiltrated by lobbyists and very powerful corporate interests who shape the whole discussion, shape the debate. you have a corporate media out there which we'll talk about everything in the world except issues that are most important to ordinary people. so global warming is a huge

issue, and right now i don't think there's anyone who thinks we're going to make serious advances in addressing that. what we may, may, may be able to do is to get some investment in energy efficiency, and the state of vermont has done a very good job in that area. get some investments in sustainable energies like wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and others, get some investments in public transportation. but as you'll note, for example, just in this recent cr that was passed in order to prevent republicans from shutting down the government, obama had to give up on billions of dollars of high-speed rail. high-speed rail. so instead of investing in public transportation and in rail, we have to cut back on that, and i fear very much that as this debate goes toward on the budget, you're going to see more of these cutbacks. but to answer your question and the other questions that are on your mind, we can turn this

thing around. i believe that we can. there are very few people in america not located inside the capitol who believe that it makes any sense at all to give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country, to cut the corporate tax rate at a time when many corporations making billions of dollars already pay nothing in taxes and then having given huge tax breaks to people who don't need it, cut back on infrastructure, cut back on the needs of our children, cut back to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars of medicaid, medicare. very few people believe that makes any sense at all. but our job is to cut through a media which in many ways doesn't discuss this issue, take on the big money interests who sponsor members of congress through large campaign contributions and organize and educate. and if we do that, we're going to win this fight.

>> yeah, senator, thank you very much for being a member of the senate. 2012, you're up for re-election. has opposition been mounted yet? have they started to spend money against you yet? >> no, not spending money, we think there is at least one serious candidate out there, and there may be others. but as of this point, they have not spent money against me. >> hi, senator. [inaudible] i'm wondering -- [inaudible] about race in this country and also immigration laws that are passing, and there's also been conversation about -- [inaudible] are you finding -- [inaudible] >> good question. tell you what we intend to do on that issue in the area that i have some jurisdiction. um, there are some very frightening statistics out there that we don't talk enough about

having to do that poverty in america is, in many ways, a death sentence. and what i mean by that is if you look, for example, you contrast in terms of racial disparities, say, a rich white guy who has access to good quality health care, disease prevention, doesn't live under enormous amount of stress because he'll have the income he needs, etc., contrast that to a low-income black person, and you're going to see a very significant discrepancy and disparity in longevity. so i think you're going to see that, and we are going to do a hearing and get some studies done on that. but the fact of the matter is whether you're black, white, hispanic or whatever, when you are poor, you're going to live, you're going to live a shorter life span, and the quality of your life will not be as good as somebody else. and i think those are important issues to pound away at. >> i'm sure you're going to

stand strong for the debt ceiling vote. i hope you can get democrats to stand strong. i believe we have the leverage because no one wants the debt ceiling raised more than the wall street banks who are the heart and soul of the republican party. they, they will suffer the most in that. and we've got to stand up to the crazy tea party nuts and their governors and the bunch. they need it a lot more than we do, and we do not let them cut necessary spending as an excuse here. >> okay. let me -- a very good question, and i agree with you. let me back it up so that everybody knows what we're talking about. and let's be honest about this, and i do a radio show every friday, so we speak with a fellow named tom hartman. i don't know if you know tom, does a great job. and we talk to a couple of million people. and every week somebody raises this issue. the issue they raise is, why is

it that the republicans are so tough, they don't compromise, and democrats compromise all of the time? is that right? okay. the question they raise. and i just look at what's happened in the last year. in terms of what this book is about, what the republicans said is, okay, there are several million people whose unemployment compensation is going to expire. but we don't want to extend unemployment. and until you give us -- and, by the way, that was ahis -- ahistorical. because historically when unemployment was above a certain level where we are right now, generally, there was bipartisan support. the republicans, we're not going to do it. and obama and the democrats said, well, that's terrible. republicans said, okay, we'll do it, but this is what we need from you. we need to extend bush's tax

breaks for the wealthiest people, we need to lower the tax rates on the estate tax which go to the very, very, very wealthiest people, top three-tenths of 1%, going to bring those things down. and we are delighted that you're going to divert concern and this was not the republicans' idea, they supported it, $120 billion from the social security fund by doing a tax holiday on the payroll tax for workers. okay? $120 billion not going into social security. that was what they demanded and, essentially, they got everything that they wanted. i thought, and that's why i was on the floor for eight-and-a-half hours, that was a very poor compromise. you've got to give, but that was a very poor compromise in which republicans got 90% of what they wanted. all right, their threat was we are not going to extend unemployment benefits. now, a few weeks ago what was the blackmail then? the blackmail was if you don't give us the cuts that we want,

we're going to shut down the government. and 800,000 federal employees are not going to have a paycheck, government services are not going to be available to people. you better give us what you want or we're going to shut down the government. among other things a program i worked very, very hard on which is community health centers which are providing health care to 20 million people, we've got to increase that investment so that in five years we're going to have 40 million people be able to get primary health care, dental care, mental health counseling, and they started cutting back. $600 million off that program. millions of people are not going to have access in the future to community center health care. all right? so their blackmail there was, we're going to shut the government down. democrats fought back a little bit, but not enough. now to your point we're in part three of the movie. and this time is unless you make

devastating cuts or lay the groundwork for devastating cuts in in the future, we for the first time in the history of this great country are not going to pay our debts, we're going to default on our debts, we're going to cause an international financial crisis the outcome of which nobody knows. will it lead to a world depression? will it lead to higher interest rates? almost definitely. it will mean that for the first time in the history of this country people who buy bonds from the united states are going to have second thought about that. republicans have said we're prepared to do that. we're prepared to do that unless you give us what we want. and this is like, you know, a child having a temper tantrum. you know, i'm going to go nuts when company is in the house unless you give me the candy, or i'm going to burn down the place unless you give me what i want.

but what the questioner suggests, which is an interesting point, is that probably the first group of people who are going to be hit hardest by not raising the debt ceiling will be wall street. and i agree with you. i happen to think that our friends on wall street who own a good part of the republican party will probably not allow their employees to do that. [laughter] so i think we have got to hang tough because the point is, it never ends. see, these guys are very bold, they are very tough, and they are very irresponsible. if i, you know, my suggestion to the president is to say to them, to look them in the eye and to say if you want to for the first time in this country default on our debt, if you want to send the world into a financial crisis, you go ahead and do it. and the voters are going to hold you accountable in the next election. but we are not going to keep surrendering on issue after issue.

[applause] okay. any other questions? >> what does -- [inaudible] mean for the war on terror? >> the question -- say your question again. >> so what do you foresee for the war on terror, could this be more dangerous or -- >> well, i think, you know, i was -- as i was coming back to washington and i went to the burlington, vermont, airport there were a lot of people who said, bernie, isn't this a great day? and i share that. look, you've got a guy out there, one doesn't know how in the last few years how actively he was involved in terrorist movements because he was kind of isolated, and we'll learn more about that, i suspect, in the next few weeks. but this is a guy who not only

on nerve but in other act -- on 9/11 but in other activities killed thousands and thousands of innocent men, women and children, and i think the world is better off without him. now, when i'm asked so what does this mean about the war in afghanistan and so forth and so on, number one, if anyone thinks that it was usama bin laden single-handedly running the national war on terrorism, that is a naive point of view. you've got cells all over the world and people who want to do very, very bad things. i think scrollly taking him -- psychologically taking him out does have an impact. i think more importantly the growth of democratic movements in the middle east are very, very a significant. in terms of what it means, i'm asked about afghanistan, for example. my view didn't really change the day before he was killed or the day after.

hewe have been there for ten years, and i was in afghanistan a couple of months ago. the an enormously complicated and difficult situation. what you have is a country which is terribly, terribly poor and undeveloped. do you know how much education the average police officer in afghanistan today has? zero. functionally illiterate. illiterate. and, in fact, i went through a place where an international group, germany, the united states, ireland, i think and ores were train -- others were training police officers in afghanistan with the hope that they would leave with a fist grade or maybe -- first grade or maybe even a third grade education. i visited a village in the southern part of the country which i suspect did not look a lot different than it did over the last thousand years. the taliban had been strong there. we had a nice little walk down the street with a few senators and half the united states marine corpses --

[laughter] strange sight. you walk down the main street there, and you'll see these guys selling vegetables or meat, whatever it is. i did not see one woman. i did not see one woman out on the street in mid afternoon. they were all behind closed doors. they don't go out in public. so it is a -- i mean, the goal here in afghanistan is to make sure or that this taliban never again assumes power. that would be very bad for a wide variety of reasons. on the other hand, after ten listening years i believe that the time now -- after ten long years, i believe that the time now is to bring our troops home as quickly as we possibly can. [applause] >> thank you for coming tonight to speak to the people. my question is you mentioned -- [inaudible] dominated by money, and what is your opinion of the israeli

lobbying -- [inaudible] and what's your plan on achieving justice for the palestinian people and supporting democracy in -- [inaudible] [applause] >> i think the israeli lobby is one of many, many lobbies in washington, and my hope is that the president will work with israel and the arab countries and people of all political persuasions. to develop what i suspect will be a two-state solution. and i think we have to be aggressive. it breaks my heart because i've been to the middle east to see decent people on both sides, and it's never ending violence. so i would hope that the united states will play an active role. the very difficult because you've got loonies on both sides trying to tear it apart. but i would hope that we can bring people together so that this never-ending violence comes to an end.

>> we have time for two more questions. there are two people up here actually. and then we will end for the evening. >> did you -- [inaudible] >> in vermont. i didn't know him personally, but he did live in vermont, yes. didn't know him personally. george shell done, by the way, do any of you know who he was? he was a -- >> [inaudible] >> oh, did you? he was, any of you hear of i.f. stone? george was a mentor, i think, intellectually for stone. he was one of these guys, one of these independent journalists who actually read material and asked hard questions and wrote a whole lot of books. he was a wonderful writer who, i think, if my memory's correct, lived the last years of his life in the state of vermont, but i never met him. in burlington? okay. one more question, i think. >> hi there. >> hi. >> senator sanders --

[inaudible] you have had some strong words for the -- [inaudible] >> yes, i did. >> yes. [laughter] and i've been thinking about turning in my car for a -- [inaudible] what do you think? what exactly do you think hollywood's role in sort of mitigating the economic effects of -- [inaudible] >> good question. and by the way, in my office, remember, i live -- we cameuif

. >> my parents never had any money at all, and my dad worked his whole life, never made a lot of money. we live inside a small apartment. but every parent dreams that your kids are going to do better than you, especially if you start off without any money. so all over this country people are saying, you know what?

my kid is going to have less education than i did, lower wages that i did, and there's a lot of despair and anger all over this country. and if you would ask me one issue, one fact that symbolizes that is people saw the crooks on wall street -- and i use that word very advisedly -- the crooks on wall street whose greed and recklessness and illegal behavior destroy our economy, threw millions and millions of people out of their jobs, people lost their homes, people lost their life savings when wall street collapsed, the stock market went down. and now after they were bailed out by the people of this country, those guys on wall street are making more money than they ever did before. and not one of these guys is in jail. some kid throws a brick through a window, kid goes to jail. these people destroy an entire economy, they end up making tens of millions of dollars in compensation. what all of that is about is, i

think, people are beginning to understand that these guys have so much wealth and so much power that they are untouchable, that they can commit a crime in mid daylight, a terrible crime the whole world is looking at it, destroying millions of lives and they say ain't nothing you can do to, because i own the united states congress. you can't touch me, i'm too powerful. you're not going to throw me in jail. so what if i destroyed millions of lives, okay? and that is, in my view, the real reality. now, how does that deal with your fine question about gas prices? what you're seeing right now is the theory of oil prices is supply and demand, right? that's capitalist economics. when supply slimmed and -- is limited limited and demand is high, prices go up, right? we all learn that in economics 101. so let me be the first to tell you right now there is more oil supply in america today than

there was a year ago. and on top of that there is less demand in america today than there was a year ago. more supply, less demand. what's supposed to happen? prices are supposed to go down, they're going off the wall. the reason for that is our friends at exxonmobil and the other large corporations, many of which, by the way, make huge profits and pay nothing in taxes, but that's an aside. what they have done is used the excuse of unrest in the middle east as a reason to raise prices. that's reason number one. but they're not alone. and one of the amusing things that's taking place now is you're seeing a division to some degree between the oil companies and wall street because the oil companies are saying, yeah, we're greedy, we're selfish, that's true. but we're not the only ones. what you're seeing now is speculation from wall street where these wall street firms are bidding up oil future prices. they never use the product,

they're just making money as prices go up. under the financial reform bill passed a year ago, um, we gave authority to an arcane commission that nobody in the world has ever heard of called the commodities future trading commission to, in fact, end extreme speculation. okay? that was what their job was. they have not done it. and i have urged the president to take action. if these guys don't want to do it, get their resignations. but a whole lot of people, working people and the economy as a whole are suffering while the oil companies and wall street make a whole lot of money. but this would be a perfect example of the powerlessness of congress to deal with very powerful entities who are making huge sums of money. all right, let me -- thank you for the question. let me just conclude by -- >> [inaudible] i'm sorry. i forgot, t my fault, i forgot

that you started earlier and we had a longer q&a, so we do have time for a few more questions. okay, okay. >> [inaudible] hi, senator sanders. what i wanted to ask is do you know anything about the quantitative easing that is going on with approximately a trillion dollars being printed as we speak? i was just wondering where that money is going to, is it going to be for creating jobs or what? to pay the debt? -- [inaudible] >> and also the timing of it. because i'm just worried about hyperinflation happening. so i was just wondering -- >> i honestly don't know. but let me, you know, as a good

politician, let me pick up on the point that you raised and go someplace else. [laughter] because you reminded me of something. and that is an issue that there's an interesting, to some degree, coming together of the left and that is the -- [inaudible] in general. now, i had serious doubts about the financial reform bill, the dodd-frank bill, because i didn't think it went anywhere near far enough. i mean, among other things as i mentioned in the introduction, we bailed out these huge financial institutions because they were too big to fail -- [inaudible] [audio difficulty] i didn't vote to bail them out, but my colleagues did. and then we find out after the bailout, three out of the four are even larger today, and a number of economists believe that at some point we're going to see a repetition of what we saw a few years ago. now, what i got into the bill working with -- this is

interesting -- my right-wing friend ron paul. paul and i had worked together when we were in the house in some issues, but this is an interesting coming together of the right and the left, and that is what we wanted to do was an audit of the fed. and what i ended up getting is a couple-- i didn't get everything i wanted. we got a lot. and that is during the bailout a lot of you remember there was a whole lot of debate about the t.a.r.p. which was, if my memory's correct, $700 billion dollars. and i voted against it, and it ended up passing it. ..

>> they want to know which financial stietions got the money? where did it go? how did you get it? i was clever and said you have to be a totally unhonest person? is there an 800-number to call? [laughter] he said, no, i'm not going to tell you, and on that day, we introduced legislation to bring transparency, and manageed to get that provision in the reform bill, and a couple months ago, the gao did the work and did a good job and revealed where the $3 trillion went. needless to say every financial institution in the country got

huge amounts of very, very low interest loans. what was also surprising, you'll all be delighted to know that at the same time as small businesses all over this country can't receive, are not able to find affordable loans, virtually every central bank in the world including arab central banks, korean central banks got a bailout as well as wealth families in this country, as well as large corporations like general electric, okay? they all got a bailout, and that was made public. we also learned that one of the arab banks that got a bailout is now owned, majority owned, that's how crazy it is. we are also looking at the fed. now, the point about this grant here is the fed is an enormously important agency, enormously important of which the american

people know very little. we're fighting to bring transparency. also, you have bankers sitting around the room deciding who got these loans in what i consider to be direct conflicts of interest, and we have a provision i hope is implemented in july and gao talks about the conflicts of interest and it's people thought over the process and benefit handsomely. the fed is a huge issue, and we need to work much more aggressively on that issue, and the function of the fed in my view should be to protect the middle class, create decent paying jobs in the country, and not just to bailout very large financial institutions. [applause] >> my question is also about the fed. the consumer protection agency that inspired that bill, president obama setting it up,

does that have any case at all, and what do you think he didn't do a recessed appointment with groups? >> funny you raise that issue about elizabeth. i've known elizabeth for many, many years. she's one the smartest people, and what i love about elizabeth is she is able to take difficult economic and financial concepts and translate them into english so that people know what she's talking about, and i will tell you that i did more lobbying to get elizabeth appointed than on any other issue because i will tell you this also -- when not long into the obama administration -- i can't remember six or eight months after he was in -- half a dozen senators went to meet with him. we said, you know, mr.

president, we are concerned that you're surrounding yourself with all the same old wall street guys whether it's larry summers or geithner, ect., and so i was determined and he gave his reasons why, but i was determined that at least i would do everything i could to make sure there was at least one progressive voice there and certainly elizabeth has that background. now, there are a lot of republicans who are not enamored with elizabeth. i would have supported a recessed appointment. i hope she gets the permanent appointment which she doesn't have now, but she's an extremely capable person who is dealing with issues that are of enormous porng. if you look -- importance. if you look at the bible or whatever it may be, the charging

of high interest rates usery is immoral. if you don't have a lot of money, and i'm lending you money, it's wrong to get blood from the stone. i shouldn't charge you high interest rateses. you get working people paying 25%-35% interest rates on their credit cards. that's usery and no different than loan sharking. i don't know they are breaking kneecaps like, you know, thegan steers used to do, but they punish people if they don't pay. this is what elizabeth has been thinking about and i hope it's something we can deal with through her agency. okay, maybe just a couple more questions. >> senator, a few months ago you were in the senate and filibustered. on one premise, the requirements that you talked about, ect.,

whether the republicans got away with saying, well, we're going to filibuster you and there goes that. i'm wondering what do you think might have been different had the democrats said, okay, you want to filibuster? filibuster. get on the floor and talk. >> i think that's an excellent question, and i can tell you there's a number of people all over the country and a number of us in the senate who feel the same way. harry reid is a good friend of mine, and i like harry very much. his dilemma always is that he believes that we have a job to pass legislation to address the problems facing america which is what his job is about. that's what the leaders' job is. i think that we could have and should pick a particular issue. now, what the gentleman is talking about is we have seen a record level of obstructionism

on the part of the republicans from the day after obama was elected. they made it clear. you want to accomplish something? you're not going to do it. in the old days, it was very rare for people to require the 60 votes for you to have to break -- 60 votes to get cloture. very, very rare. now on almost any piece of significant legislation, they have demanded 60 votes which is very, very difficult to get. just one example -- during the health care reform debate, i introduced legislation which called for a medicare for all single payer program -- [applause] and by the way, i hope my state of vermont leads the nation in that program. they have been working hard on it. [applause] in any case, i had no elusion at all this was going to win. i mean, no way, maybe five to ten votes, but i thought it important to get it out there. the first time in history a

single payer program would be voted on. i got up there to introduce the legislation, and a republican colleague refused -- what you do when you introduce legislation you say i ask that the bill be considered as read. in other words, you don't have to read the bill. the guy got up and said i object, i want the whole bill read. it's a long bill. it would have required 16 hours of reading. that is called -- this bill was not going to win, lucky to get 10 votes. that's called obstructionism. that's what they were doing. i agree. we should have picked an issue where republicans objected and let the american people shut it down, and let the media and the american people focus on that issue, and if it takes a week, two weeks, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, let's do it. that would have been my preference and i think the preference of some other people.

[applause] >> i think the senator indicated he's getting a little tired. this will be the last question, and i thank all of you for coming out. >> the democrats -- [inaudible] i know in 2008 the word around the street was hope and change and hope for a change in washington politics, and it's sad to say, it didn't come to pass like a lot of us did hope, and i do believe there was a lot of ill-feeling over the year 2000 over the -- [inaudible] looking at the way these treatments on the far right mentioned in conversation and those on the left are left

behind and ignored, do you see a place with more third party candidates? would you support possibly a president obama continues to listen more to the right opposed to the left or a third party? >> you'll allow me not to answer that specifically only in this sense because, you know, anybody can run for any office they want to run. if you're asking me to be involved in that process? no, i'm not. here's what i think. i speak with some knowledge about this because i am an independent, have run on third parties, and i'm the longest serving independent in the congressional history. i think you have to be judicious about it. in other words, i think in the real world -- in the real world, i don't give a damn about anything and i don't care if it's a right wing senate, i really don't care. i'm running on principles. that's fine, i can understand that. however, i think all over the

country there's opportunities for progressive candidates to run, and if you want to run outside the democratic party, i think if the context is right, do it. i did it. iii was told not to run in 1988, but i got more votes than the democrats did. you have to be judicious about it, and i think also whether you're choosing to run within the democratic party or odds the democratic party, this i do believe -- you know, i think that the republican agenda of tax breaks for billionaires and cab badge cuts on the need for the middle class and working families, these guys really do want to take us back to the 1920s where, you know, if you were old and poor, you were on your own, no health care for you. if you were a kid, did not matter. do not underestimate. these are serious people.

they are not fooling around. they want to take us back to the 1920s to a form of society where power rested with a handful of very, very wealth people. i think that their views, that ideology is way, way, way out of touch with what the american people believe. now, one the problems we have is there's a media that does a pretty poor job which is, you know, also corporately owned to a large degree, not to mention a television station that's there's completely. you got that problem, but i think whether you run within the democratic party, i beg of you, do not become cynical. do not give up on the political process. we are fighting for not only our generation, but for our kids and our grandchildren. i have six grandchildren. i take their future seriously, okay? we do not have the option of not figging. we can