joining me now is john weissman, he saw firsthand the devastation that bain capital caused in kansas . he worked for armco steel which bain purchased in 1993. they changed the name to gs technologies. in 2001 when john was working as the representative for the united steel workers union, they were forced to file for bankruptcy protection. they shut their doors and fired 750 workers in the process, but bain walked away with a cool $12 million profit and left the government holding the bag to pay the pension plans of $44 million. thank you for being here. >> nose in your opinions are stunning, but they don't tell the story of the human cost of what happened at gst, what happened to the people working there? >> there were 750 people who immediately had their lives turned upside down. and their entire families along with them. and the entire community in fact. it still has not recovered. when the plant closed down and they filed the bankruptcy, the people lost their health insurance, the retiree health insurance, not only to folks still working there, but we had a lot that worked at that

so, um, i have quite a wonderful local organizer named john weissman -- [applause] okay, i'm married to him. [laughter] a little bit about the signing procedures. there's over 400 people who will be in line, and there's a dance in many here at 11:00. [laughter] so no indescriptions, no post photos, we'll be calling you up by a, b, c, d, and moving it right along. so this is rachel's second event of the day, and she's in cambridge tomorrow, so we want to keep the line going. i really would like you to join me in giving the odyssey staff a warm round of applause. they have been incredible. [cheers and applause] and now it is my pleasure to introduce another amazing woman, karen remler, professor of german studies and gender studies at mount holyoke college. karen has worked tirelessly to bring us all together today to hear rachel maddow. karen? [cheers and applause] >> good evening. i also wanted to give generous thanks to joan. it's through her dedication to this community, to south hadley, to the mount holyoke community that we have celebrated authors who come here every week. thank