Trickle Up Poverty

Michael Savage

• Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
• Year: 2010
• ISBN:
  9780062014047
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Democracy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Michael Savage—conservative talk radio host and #1 New York Times bestselling author—takes on President Obama's socialist agenda, his Chicago-style strong-arm tactics, and his Lenin-like complex in Trickle Up Poverty. Savage's quest is to help American's save America from economic Armageddon, and Trickle Up Poverty addresses everything from the global warming myth to the health care debacle to the Tea Party revolution, in an essential conservative manifesto that anyone who loves Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Glen Beck, and Dick Morris must read.

CHAPTER 1

A Revolution Is Brewing

Many years ago while I was in graduate school in Hawaii, a near death boating experience on the high seas taught me a life lesson that directly relates to the problems we’re having with President Obama. Do you know what it’s like for a kid from New York City to wind up in Hawaii? I’d never been to a place as remarkable as Hawaii. It was like walking into heaven itself. When you land in heaven, you think you can do anything. Almost overnight, you have hubris.

Hubris is a sense of excessive self-confidence that only children and the mad should have. But when a grown-up has hubris, it becomes very dangerous and, in my case, that was true. So I get to the islands and it’s a magical time. I never saw sunsets like this. They can break your heart. And the flowers—the plumeria blossoms—are beyond description.

I used to bicycle up to the University and I would see plumeria blossoms lying on the sidewalk. I’d stop the bicycle and pick up the plumeria blossoms for a closer look and, of course, to smell them. I’d never seen anything like them. Sure, we had rose petals on the fence back in the Bronx when I was a little kid. They were soft and beautiful in their own way. But this was something unique. The perfumed scent of the plumeria was unlike anything on the mainland.

There I am, surrounded by such incredible beauty—the yellow hibiscus, the golden sunsets, the colorful rainforest birds in the back of the valley that I’d never known existed—and before long, I start to get tuned into my own body in a way I’ve never been tuned in.

Here’s how the Hawaiian transformation works.

Even if you’ve never lived in the tropics, you instinctively start shedding clothing. It’s off with the long sleeves, the shoes, and leather. You put it all away and now you’re in flip-flops and shorts. At night, the breeze zips through your sleeves and you start to become alive in a new way. You’re drawn to the ocean. With the migratory seagulls soaring overhead, you start to feel like the original man.

In that magical state of mind, you decide to buy a sailboat. I bought the Taranga—a sloop-rigged sailing vessel, about 22’ long, made primarily of white oak. It had been built in Oregon and sailed out by somebody to Hawaii. I bought it for next to nothing. Although she was in perfect shape, she had no engine. I kept her in the Ala Wai marina and quickly learned most people who owned boats mainly used them to drink on and just hang out. Me? I was foolish enough to actually want to sail the boat, even though I knew nothing about sailing.

What’s more, I decided to take her out without an engine.

I figured it would be easy to get out because the wind was prevailing westward out of the harbor. A few of my new friends released the lines, cast me off, and pushed me backward for my maiden voyage. There I was sailing down the Ala Wai channel and then out into the ocean by myself. I zipped along with the sail wide open, heading further out to sea.

I was thinking, “This is unreal. I can do anything.”

It wasn’t long before I realized I had miscalculated the situation.

Simply put, I didn’t know how to get back. Suddenly my mind was racing for answers. You know, “How do I turn this thing around if the wind is blowing out to sea?” I had no idea. Not a clue. The sloop didn’t come with an owner’s manual. I hadn’t paid for lessons. So I’m thinking I had better figure out what to do because, at the rate I was going, I’d soon be in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no way back at all.

What’s worse, I had no flares, no radio, no engine, and no provisions.

I don’t think I even had a life preserver.

I know that sounds crazy. But remember, I was an inexperienced operator. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Besides, the late sixties was an age when many people had total madness about what they could do and accomplish—whether or not it had a basis in reality. I admit, all I had was hubris.

My first move? I resorted to common sense.

I dropped the sails because that, of course, would cut the motion of the boat. With the sails secured, I tried using the tiller to turn the boat around. You know, flip-flop, flip-flop, until I got the boat pointing back toward land. Then, I figured if the wind is blowing against me, there must be way to go into a prevailing wind and still move against it. I’ve seen other people do it. And, little by little, lo and behold, I was able to return to the harbor. I still don’t know whether it was pure luck, a strong undercurrent, or God’s hand pushing me to safety. I quickly learned that sailing is not for the amateur.

Here’s the connection to President Obama.

America is the boat. Whoever is at the helm determines her destination. If he’s experienced, if he’s wise, if understands the fundamentals of boating, then all is well. She’ll remain safe and strong, able to sail again for generations to come. If not, apart from a lucky break or God’s direct intervention, she’ll drift further out into dangerous waters without a prayer of survival.

It all comes down to the heart, soul, and experience of the sailor.

Does the sailor have a healthy respect for the laws of boating on the high seas? Or, does he ignore them and do as he pleases, putting himself and the boat in mortal peril? Is he wise enough to recognize the danger signs on the horizon and quickly change course? Or, in the face of certain disaster, is he too arrogant and reckless to make the necessary adjustments while there’s still time?

We’re living in dangerous times.

We have a political novice in America’s wheelhouse.

Moreover, the president is propelled only by a dangerous hyper-dosage of hubris. Is that an overstatement? We all know the former junior senator from Illinois had about a five-minute political career before campaigning for the highest office of the land. In other words, Obama has no governing experience. He doesn’t know how to lead. Worse, he has been indoctrinated by Marxist professors. He’s convinced that the failed ideas of Marxism and socialism will suddenly work now that he’s in charge of the ship. However, the navigational chart he’s relying on to steer the country from capitalism to socialism is fatally flawed. And now he’s lost and over his head.

Obama has taken a hammer and sickle to our economy, saddling us with a national debt we can never repay. He’s exercising ultra-tolerance with Islamic terrorists, rendering America vulnerable. What’s more, there’s not a scintilla of bipartisan consensus in Congress as Obama had promised. It’s gridlocked while the middle class is shell-shocked.

Let me put it to you this way.

Obama never ran a state before he became the Head of State.

Which brings me back to the point of this story. All Barack Obama has is hubris. That said, here’s what makes Barack Hussein Obama so dangerous—his hubris is based on nothing more than the failed Sugarplum Fairy fantasies of Leninism and Marxism dancing around in his head. Since the president has no governing experience, since he has rejected the fundamentals upon which this country has been built, he relies on the fanciful notions of utopia colorfully painted by his communist professors, his Mao-infatuated inner circle of presidential advisors, and his Leninist-loving close personal confidantes.

I refuse to sit idly by and allow this man to take America out for a joy-ride into deep waters. He may be the captain, but I can tell there’s a mutiny on board the ship. Just look at how the middle class is taking matters into its own hands. Thousands are speaking up for the first time in town hall meetings, millions of mothers with strollers are attending local tea parties from coast to coast, tens of millions more are listening to conservative talk radio, and the invisible pajama army is carving out spots all along the information superhighway offering fellow travelers news and insight they can find nowhere else.

Yes, there is a revolution brewing.

The middle class sees the naked reality of what’s going down and they’re bracing to fight the enemy within. That’s why the Tea Party movement is growing so strong. That’s why so many patriots have pinned the flag of American exceptionalism to the mast. No one in his right mind wants to sail headlong into the coming perfect storm. And that’s exactly where America is headed unless we reverse this president whose roots, as you’ll see in the next chapter, are firmly planted in the poisoned soil of Marxism and Leninism.

Tea for Two Parties

Americans are boiling mad.

They understand that the future of America hangs in the balance like a loose tooth. They’re furious over the way Congress and this Marxist-Leninist—oriented president are manipulating the current economic crisis to nationalize businesses. They’re steamed over the fraud science used to support global warming and view it as nothing more than a gigantic Ponzi scheme. Middle-class Americans are watching their life savings evaporate while the president saddles them with $3.8 trillion in new debt. And they’re frightened because other countries are losing faith in the long-term financial viability of America and the dollar.

This trend toward the impoverishment of the middle class is more than just an economic issue. The policies of President Obama are creating a poverty of the body, mind, and spirit of all Americans. How? As I demonstrate throughout this book, Obama is impoverishing how we think, feel, and view ourselves as a people while robbing our personal freedoms and bankrupting our clout as the leader of the world.

The middle class isn’t just mad about these developments; they’re asking hard questions about the guy at the helm—something that should have been done more thoroughly by the lame-stream press before he took command of the deck. And so the middle class is wondering: Why are we as a nation sinking so fast? Why has America strayed off course so quickly? Why aren’t sensible corrective measures being taken? How long can we continue to plunge recklessly into deep waters and survive? As even the Obamanics are finding out, there’s a junior officer at the wheel—not a captain with sufficient experience.

Yes, a political revolution is at hand.

After years of my calling George W. Bush a “fiscal socialist” and my railing against a “one party system with two faces,” someone in the midstream media finally exploded. In February, 2009, CNBC financial analyst Rick Santelli railed against President Obama’s irresponsible mortgage bailout plan. It was an unforgettable, spontaneous moment in broadcasting with repercussions that are still rocking America’s political infrastructure.

Reporting live from the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, Santelli had the courage to stand up to President Obama, saying, “the government is promoting bad behavior” and then asked, “This is America! How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?”¹

Cheers erupted across the land—except in the halls of power. Obama’s spokesmouth and press secretary Robert Gibbs fired back at this broadcaster with a rant of his own: “It’s tremendously important … for people who rant on cable television to be responsible and understand what it is they’re talking about. I feel assured that Mr. Santelli doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”²

Is that so?

Contrary to what Gibbs believes on his Fantasy Island, this frustration clearly represented the growing rage and fury of the middle class who don’t believe the government is entitled to their earnings. This outburst resonated with people who already felt squeezed to the point of suffocation by shrinking paychecks and shriveling retirement funds. His words connected with families angry over losing their jobs and their homes. I’m sure that broadcaster had no idea that his next statement would, like a hot spark on dry tinder ignite a national movement: “We’re thinking of having a Chicago Tea Party in July. All of you capitalists that want to show up at Lake Michigan, I’m gonna start organizing.”

The rest was history.

From Maine to New Mexico, millions of moms and dads, primarily from the middle class, took to the streets to stage angry, but peaceful, protests known as Tea Parties. At first, the media ignored them while politicians offered a collective yawn. Not anymore. As I write these pages, thirty citywide Tea Party protests hosted around the country are being closely scrutinized by those in power. You see, Washington still hasn’t fully come to terms with what the Tea Party movement is really about. Instead, they wonder: What’s all the fuss?

Let me break it down for them.

It’s pretty much what I’ve been saying for sixteen years: You have been dismantling my country. You have tried to rip my freedoms into shreds. You have caused the social order to degenerate. You have broken my borders. You have disrespected my traditions. You have burned my flags. You ...