Wow... Must Watch Video: Jason Alexander At Take Back America Conference

[WillyT]

Gala Awards emcee, asks and eloquently answers -- the question, "Who Took America?"

Takes a couple of minutes to get going, but Great Speech!!!

Link: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3316129511262190332&hl=en

Enjoy!

Oops, forgot conference homepage: http://tba2007.confabb.com/conferences/tba2007/details

Ciao!

[antigop]

1. Thanks for that! It was great! n/t

[Auggie]

2. I disagree with Alexander. The Neocons took America when they stole

the 2000 and 2004 elections. We didn't give away anything.

[WillyT]

3. Then I Guess You Missed The Point He Was Trying To Make

Sorry.

:shrug:

[Auggie]

5. No I didn't.

[Siyahamba]

4. Serenity Now!

[slowry]

6. K&R -- it's worth watching the whole thing n/t

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. Cool!

Since we chose not to buy tickets for the dinner where he appeared, this is great to see. Thanks!!

[Lorien]

8. Gotta agree with him

we can't allow any of it any longer. Apathy will cost us America, while action will allow us to take it back!

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

9. Bravo Jason! He told it like it is! Thank you for sharing this!!!! eom

[ohtransplant]

10. Soilent Green is People!

This is a great speech. Agree or disagree with him but he was eloquent.

I've never been a huge fan of his as a "single" but he found his voice in this speech - and made some points we should think about.

How many times have we read on DU, "Where's the outrage"? That was my take-away and I find it refreshing to hear it out loud in such a venue.

[Javaman]

13. Soylent Green has been outsourced. You don't want to know what its made of now. trust me. nt

[glitch]

11. That was good, thanks for posting.

Very good on reconciliation, I would quibble over giving it away vs letting them steal it. There are individuals and groups of individuals who have benefited greatly by their very deliberate theft of our rights and our resources. We let them do it by allowing ourselves to not be informed about it and not fighting back, sure. But he kind of lets them off the hook a bit by focusing on our letting them steal it rather than on them for stealing it. I think that's why his applause wasn't as good as it maybe should have been.

We have been robbed, we did allow it to be stolen. It is up to us to get it back (his very good point), but we also need to see exactly who stole it, see the thieves punished, their actions reversed and furthermore see that this massive level of theft never happens again (points he implied maybe, perhaps he should have made bigger because that is how we take it back).

The truth has to come before the reconciliation otherwise we'll be going through this again in another generation, assuming there's anything left to steal by then.

[WillyT]

14. Two Points...

1) I'm convinced that the applause wasn't very loud because it didn't sound as if they had the audience "miked up". You could barely hear ANY crowd noises. At sporting events, they hang mikes all over the place so they can mix in the crowds reactions with the commentary. Sounded like Jason was speaking to any empty auditorium for a while, and he was the emcee!!!

2) This event is designed to get people activated\motivated to go out and do the hard work of promoting issues and campaign support. And although anger is a powerful motivator (lord knows my blood boils every day about this shit), he was challenging people to actually DO something about it. And I thought his message of "we let them get away with it", and becoming politically active in taking it back, was exactly the right message for the assembled crowd.

As I said... my take on it.

:shrug:

[glitch]

15. Oh I agree, it was good and I do agree with his point of activating people

Don't get me wrong. I just think there were some dots that he could have connected in there that would have emphasized this message even more:

We have allowed criminals to steal America from us. We need to take America back.

I don't need to hear their crimes enumerated but I do like to see them acknowledged, because a lot of people still don't see the outright criminality of this administration. They see the problem as honest differences of political opinion! Even well-educated, aware progressives think this is still a political game that we're just not playing very well.

And while it was good when he talked about all the people who didn't steal America from us, he seemed to skirt who actually did, and calling it what it is: a deliberate crime. I understand why he didn't, the wurlitzer would have ground out 'Jason Alexander calls Bush Administration criminal!!!' ad nauseum for who knows how long. But risking that is what takes a speech from good to great.

I think there was a point in his talk that did get louder applause and I thought the end of his talk deserved the louder applause, and was just speculating on why he didn't get it. Maybe he didn't really end his talk firmly before he introduced the next speaker, so a lot of people may not have known he was finished.

But thanks for posting, I did enjoy it. I really appreciate it when people post talks from conferences I can't go to on google so I can see them and download them and listen to them again.

[Apollo11]

12. George Costanza talking politics?

This I gotta see .... ;-)

[blogslut]

16. Thank you

What a great speech.