Arianna Speaking at the 2008 Take Back America Conference

Arianna speaks at the 2008 Take Back America conference on Wednesday, March 19th.

Comments

[MrGill]

I'm a bit late to the Huffing ton Post, but I am certainly glad it's here and I appreciate the community you've built.

As far as Rush Limburger, we all know he's a gas bag entertainer with a failed career in comedy. The problem is that he does have people who buy his schtick, and that makes him a bit dangerous. There is a saying in latin; Ne puero gladium, which translates roughly as never give a child a sword.

Too late with Limburger. And like a gleefully ignorant child, he runs around stabbing in the dark hoping to hit a vital organ.

[butch350]

I don't think they should be called MORONS! Just put them in the group of people who still
believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. What are they called? (sarcasm)

[TheCult]

I meant to say "self indulgent", not "indulgent", in my last comment.

[TheCult]

Arianna I loved your speech, i though it was near brilliant. The only problem with it which kept it from being brilliant was at the very beginning you made a strategic mistake which I see all the time and I am always speaking against. When you denigrate people for not believing in evolution you are saying to those people that they are morons. This is a major strategic mistake since most people in the u.s. of a. don't believe in evolution. If you call the majority of americans morons for not believing in evolution then anything else you say will be tuned out and you will seen as a moron by them. According to a Newsweek poll done in march of 2007: Only 13% of Americans believe in naturalistic evolution. 48% of Americans believe that God created "humans pretty much in the present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so". 30% of Americans took the middle ground responding that they believed "Humans developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God guided this process". So my point is that denigrating those people serves no purpose other then to make them averse to anything else you have to say. Who cares what people believe about evolution? It doesn't matter and you cannot change it by calling them names. I am constantly frustrated when high profile important progressives like yourself denigrate people who don't believe in evolution as some kind of rhetorical device to show how stupid right wing politics is. It makes those people think that your insulting them and they will automatically reject you as being worth listening to. What we need to do is attack the politics of the right without giving their following a reason to hate us. The anti evolution dialogue must be removed from progressive politics if we stand any chance of converting the base of the republican party. It's really just indulgent and self defeating, evolution and what people believe about it doesn't matter.

[vipersdad]

Small point. I keep hearing people say they "believe" or "don't believe" in evolution. Evolution is a scientific theory. It's not really a matter of belief. It can be supported by evidence or disproved the same way. Matters of belief are things that are taken in the ABSENCE of evidence.

The question itself was bad. They should have asked the Republican candidates how many of them felt the evidence supporting the theory of evolution was strong enough for it to be a mainstream scientific theory and therefore taught in all science curricula in our schools. That would have been a better question because it would have trapped them in a quandary. An answer dealing with belief is something you cannot argue with someone. An answer dealing with factual evidence is something you can use down the road....

[TheCult]

Well either way, the point I make is you are only doing harm to your own cause if you denigrate people who don't believe in evolution. Evolution has no part in politics, the second it's brought as a rhetorical device against republican policies, you are going to lose your target audience. Look, leftist progressives already believe in the political message Arianna and countless others speak about, they are left preaching to the choir if they purposefully insult people who don't believe in evolution. If you want to debate the pros and cons of evolution, fine, but do it in the proper forum, and don't resort to insults as your sole debating technique, it just makes you lose the debate as far as the people who don't believe as you do are concerned. Don't make it a part of your political message, otherwise you automatically will lose the confidence of the people who need to hear your message the most. It doesn't matter if people don't believe in evolution, it doesn't change anything about anything except in the minds of atheist fanatics who think that belief in God must be destroyed for the good of society. It's like trying to preach a message of love and respect of all peoples and their beliefs, then say "but if you believe God created this world then are a moron". That kind of rhetoric needs to be abandoned by the left, otherwise you seem hypocritical and offensive to a huge number of people.

[brenner21]

This is a major point: you cannot change somebody's mind by insulting them.

[RoseMerry]

Can we get a transcript? Some of us prefer to read and save the bandwidth for other things.

[naturallight]

Great speech. Great website. You are correct 'evil' is very durable. You have been lit up the past couple weeks for slow comment approval. Maybe you could start/attach a 'chatroom' to Huffpost so the Obama supporters and Clinton surrogates (anyone checking for CHINA based ISP's?) can bloody each other up till there exhausted. I don't like reading all the hate, we've had 7 years of hate.

[Bushfire]

Arianna,
I would like to respectfully disagree with you regarding the reasons the Bush/Neo's have been able to hijack our democracy and constitution.

1, When "Power" and "Truth" march in different directions, "Money" will march along with "Power."

2. When "Power" is corrupt, "Money" has opportunity to make "Easy Profits" and "Power" can "Buy Time" to stay in power.

3. When corruption+money leads to economic bubbles, meltdowns, and chaos, "Money" rediscovers "Truth" and "Power" changes hands.

[dexxjones]

"they are toxic curiousities."- arianna on rush, bill oreilly, et al

my favorite quote so far of 2008. what a speech. :)

[rroy]

The curent state of affairs and listening to political pundits and candidates,give an indication of just how phuqued up the United States has become.What this situation can be attributed to is very difficult to define.A great deal of it is probably the rapid growth and diversety of the population,along with an inundation of information and opinions,much of which is very very biased or very very misleading,

Another large contributing factor is the power and influance accumulated by extremists and oportunists,of the extreme Right.This is a position aspired to by the extreme Right since the beginning of The Cold War.What better examples are there than things like HUAC,McCarthyism,Goldwaterism,Reaganism,Nixonism,yes Even Lyndon Johnsonism and Vietnam?
The struggle for extreme power by the extreme Right has had it's set backs over the years ,but their persistance and sculldugarry has paid off and America is now paying a price that is leading us over a cliff!
History shows that this is nothing new.It also shows that extremism and extremists eventualy lead to a nations downfall.It also shows many nations resurect themselves and become,at least for a while,a balanced entity ruled as a parliamentary democracy,without an all powrful leadership like a president elected by a very limted archaic system like the Electoral Colleage and Two Party Politics.

[BA3]

I agree with your 1st paragraph about the media being misleading. ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and the like have been doing it for decades. I have to disagree with your opinion of the "extreme right" seeking extreme power. Those labeled extreme right historically have been against big government and want them out of their lives as much as possible and wish to limit governmental power as much as possible, giving much of it back to the states.
Again I agree with your assesment that extremists lead to a nation's downfall. It happened to the most powerful of all a few years back-the former USSR. When dictators kill millions of their own people and other countries have the courage to call them what they are-evil-they eventully fail. Thank God we were going thru Reaganism. The most recent was Saddam Hussein.
Finally, I'm sure you didn't feel our system was so bad when the candidate of your choice was the victor. As the country seems pretty evenly split over most issues right now one would seem to conclude that while half is unhappy with the way things are going the other half is not so unhappy. I don't believe either side is close to perfect and would also like to see more viable, influential political parties. And I said all this without getting upset or calling anyone names. I call it debate.

[agonzo66]

Great job Arianna you got it right again. Thank you

[SeabeeVet]

Arianna,
You talk of "the media" as if you are not a major contributing factor in its biases and misrepresentations.
"We should no longer be debating...." OIF / OEF, global warming etc.... On this we can agree because we have had an opportunity to view the facts.
You and yours at the Huffington Post playoff as if you are fair and balanced, but apparently you think we should no longer be "debating" who we should have as our democratic presidential candidate either.
I lost my candidate when Edwards dropped out. I want to make an informed decision about who I vote for as our next president. What happened to you? You used to be progressive, ethcal and trustworthy.
Being worthy of trust as a news source is quite important, don't you think?
I NEED to hear unbiased presentations (debates) of both sides to make informed political decisions!
I'm certain that you can have your preference for Obama and still present pros and cons, contrasts, facts, and expert "testamonials" from all campaigns!
Is this likely to happen in the near future? That's not a rhetorical question.
Or............
perhaps I've glorified your aptitude and your principles.

[itsafreakingame]

BRAVO!

[sunshower7]

SeabeeVet, Arianna's aptitude, astuteness, ethics, well-documented, insightful articles, and principles have not been glorified enough!

Without Huffpo, McCain will win and Clinton, the Manchurian Candidate, will deliver it as planned -

If that happens, Bush will dance in front of the White House again to the tune of "Isn't it Romantic", " 'romantic' being the word he used to describe our soldier's' deadly experiences in Iraq , and grinning ear to ear , knowing that McCain will make sure that his crimes against the U.S. and humanity will go unpunished.

McCain is already chomping at the bit to start an unnecessary war with Iran, which the Clintons would love, having already recieved more than the 31 million dollars from uranium corporations that invest in, produce, and sell nuclear reactors and weapons around the world.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/us/politics/31donor.html?_r=2&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/06/738264.aspx

This is only one of the reasons Hillary does not want to show her IRS records - which every voter has a right to see before the upcoming primaries and debates.

I'd love to hear Hillary TRY TO DEFEND HER IRS RECORDS FOR THE LAST 8 YEARS WHICH WOULD SHOW THE MILLIONS OF RADIO-ACTIVE, DIRTY MONEY SHE PUT IN HER OWN PURSE. DURING THE SAME TIME SHE SIGNED LIEBERMAN'S BILL AUTHORIZING A PRE-EMPTIVE NUCLEAR ATTACK AGAINST IRAN.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out. why Hillary signed it.

MONEY FOR A WAR WITH IRAN WOULD NOT COME FROM HILLARY'S FAT PURSE - BUT FROM THE POCKETS OF AMERICAN TAXPAYERS -WHO HAVE ALREADY EXPRESSED THEIR OPPOSITION TO IT.
SACRIFICING MORE AMERICAN LIVES ON THE PYRE OF HER INSATIABLE GREED FOR POWER IS PURE, UNADULTERATED INSANITY!.

With Edwards gone, Obama is the only genuine candidate who will serve the best interests of the American people. - and the only one who can beat McCain

Republicans know Obama is unbeatable.
Hillary would be a very easy target for Republicans to shoot down.
Mr. Obama is bulletproof. You can bet on this. Go to the bank on it.
Wall Street Journal, February 8, 2008

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120241915915951669.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

Obama is our last and only chance to have a strong, united America, one that we can be proud of , one that would restore the respect the whole world had for us before Bush destroyed it and called our precious US Constitution - "just a goddam piece of paper."

What Clinton or McCain would do to our country, our economy, our civil rights, and the futures of all our children is unthinkable.

LET THE REAL DEBATES FINALLY BEGIN!

[JohnBarleycorn]

Here's a headline you won't see on HuffBama:
Clinton takes lead over Obama in Gallup poll

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN2037834020080320

Finally, Obama's pastor bimbo eruption is waking the not-so-crazy Democrats up.

Hallefookinloojah!

Your bully pulpit is sinking like the Titanic, Arianna.

What are you going to do now? Marry another closeted multimillionaire Repug?

I hope some of well-intentioned, but utterly misguided and naive Huffpo Obama cheerleaders wake up to the reality that this is not the man, this is not the time, this is not the place, to elect a political neophyte, a cypher, a man who consorts with crazies (see: Rev. Wright), to the presidency.

No doubt Obama is super bright, super articulate, super charismatic, but what we need, now more than ever in the last 100 years, is a steady, mature, experienced and battle-tested leader at the helm.

Obama: Nice guy, but he's a long way from ready. Use your heads, not your hearts! Vote Hillary and get that IDIOT McCain away from the trigger.

[itsafreakingame]

Everyone here should go and check out bartcop. I think he maybe the last resonable person on the net, or a least the last person to not climb on the "Oh Obama Oh Obama your the greatest thing since kool-aid wagon!" http://www.bartcop.com/

[pesfb]

Um, what good is there left to take back? Perhaps we should leave the rotting carcass of what was once America to the wolves and start all over.

[kickbass]

The media a problem. This is nothing new. Gullible voters have been manipulated repeatedly with the complicity of (many) writers like Arianna Huffington who wrote 2/26/2000 in the Washington Times:

"Bradley has warned voters to watch for Mr. Gore's "tricky" way with words, going as far as to compare him with Richard Nixon...In fact, not only this campaign but Mr. Gore's entire career has been laden with untruths"all demonstrating a pattern of serial abuse of language, truth and reality.

He invented the Internet, discovered Love Canal and was the inspiration for "Love Story." He lives on a farm, was "always pro-choice" and claimed that, "unlike Sen. Bradley," he had co-sponsored the original McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill"even though Mr. Feingold was not elected to the Senate until Mr. Gore had already left to become vice president."

...thus doing her part to give us "the Bush Legacy" by regurgitating this nonsense about Al Gore.

And now we are supposed to trust Arianna's judgement??

[CaseyBabes]

Easy, just argue both sides, or at least side with he current popular trend.

[MikeMidCity]

It would be nice to have America back from the fascist.

[BA3]

A fascist is a controlling dictator who tolerates no dissenting opinion. If that were the case in this country one political group would not exist nor be allowed to disseminate it's opinion. Since that is not the case your name calling, I assume of President Bush, is not only childish but incorrect. If you do not like him just call him a name. But learn the meaning of words first.

[pesfb]

Perhaps you should first learn what fascism is before you call someone else out on the use of the term "fascist".