Posted on 09/19/2010 9:54:59 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
As a staunch capitalist and social liberal, Rick Santelli might not agree with everything being said at Tea Party rallies or this weekend's Right Nation convention in Hoffman Estates, but he's proud of what he wrought.
"People ask me if I'm the father of the Tea Party movement," the CNBC commentator said outside the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. "I was the spark ...that started it. If being the lightning rod that started the Tea Party is what's written on my tombstone, I'll be very happy."
But after his five-minute "rant" on CNBC 1½ years ago suggesting a tea party in Lake Michigan against government spending, Santelli let go and never exercised any control over the movement.
"The five-minute rant was the best five minutes of my life," Santelli says. "But beyond that, really four minutes in time, it's the Tea Party. My wife pointed out to me, 'You were there for the insemination, but you were not there to raise the child.' "
Does Santelli think he created a "Frankenstein's monster" that is toppling establishment Republicans such as Delaware Rep. Mike Castle in favor of Tea Party insurgents such as Christine O'Donnell?
"No, I don't think so, but then again, how it develops from here...," Santelli said without finishing the sentence. "So far, this has been a very proud moment for America. Over time, it will get more organized and police itself -- that's the way we hope it turns out."
There's little doubt the Tea Party groups of America, which operate pretty independently, got their start from Santelli's rant on Feb. 19, 2009.
"Rick Santelli went on, and he expressed frustration at the government," Fox News commentator Glenn Beck -- the headliner at Saturday night's Right Nation event -- said on his show Wednesday. "We're rewarding what he called bad behavior [with] the mortgage bailout. He said there should be a Tea Party. Wow, he said a mouthful, because that's where it started."
Santelli is an unabashed promoter of the free market and critic of government bailouts. He rants a lot on the air, he said. But the day he slammed President Obama's plan to bail out people who couldn't pay their mortgages, he got national attention.
"How 'bout this president and administration? Why don't you put up a website to have people vote on the Internet in a referendum to see if we really want to subsidize the losers' mortgages?" Santelli bellowed on the floor of the Merc. "At least buy cars, buy houses in foreclosure, and give them to people who might have a chance to prosper ...and carry the water, not drink the water."
Turning to the traders around him, he raised his hands and called out -- like Peter Finch in the movie "Network" -- "This is America. How many of you people want to pay for your neighbors' mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can't pay their bills, raise your hand!"
The traders shouted their approval of his argument.
"President Obama, are you listening?" Santelli asked.
Backers of the bailouts criticized Santelli's rant as a rising up of the "haves" against the "have-nots," the finance people who created the mess not wanting to fix it.
"I think we left a few months ago the adage that 'If it was good for a derivatives trader, that it was good for Main Street,'" Obama's press secretary Robert Gibbs sneered.
But Santelli said his is just "tough love" opposition to giving mortgages to people who can't afford them: "Owning a home should not be viewed as an entitlement," he said.
As Santelli stood in the middle of LaSalle Street outside the Board of Trade building Friday, traders saluted him, called him a hero, gave him the thumbs-up.
"You know, before the rant, I was really a lot more under the radar screen, but since Feb. 19, 2009, my daughters now hate to go out anywhere because, 'Dad, that guy is looking at you. He knows who you are!'"
Santelli lives with his wife and the two youngest of his three daughters in west suburban Wheaton. Yes, he confessed, he and his wife, Terri, have donned sunglasses and baseball caps to surreptitiously participate in Tea Party rallies near their home, not talking to anyone, not claiming any credit, just admiring democracy at work.
He has refused entreaties to run for office or endorse other candidates. He will not attend this weekend's Right Nation event.
Santelli, grandson of four Italian immigrants, was born near Taylor Street in the city's old Italian neighborhood. When he was 6, his father moved the family out to Lombard. Santelli's father was an electrical engineer and accomplished painter who studied at the Art Institute. Santelli says he's not a bad oil painter himself.
Santelli graduated from Willowbrook High School in Villa Park, then studied economics and pre-law at the University of Illinois in Champaign. After having lunch with a friend's father who traded pork bellies, Santelli signed up to be a runner for Shearson. He skipped law school and traded for 20 years, then went on-air for CNBC full-time in the '90s.
Does he see any problem injecting his own opinions into his broadcasts?
"I'm a capitalist," Santelli said. "I believe capitalism is the best system to allocate resources, to allocate jobs. I am prone to very passionate spots. I rant a lot. The markets to me are really very exciting, the greatest Rubik's Cube ever created by man."
Is there any part of the rant he'd take back?
"When I said 'losers,' that's the one thing sometimes I wish I could change," Santelli said. "But people misinterpret -- I wasn't saying, 'You're a loser.'
"I'm a market guy. Everything is a winner or a loser. I believe there's only one regulation in life that works: failure. We had 800 regulators on top of AIG. How did that work out? What keeps banks and entrepreneurs and capitalists from going too far is the fact that if they do, they may fail. If you take that away, you affect the whole system. I think that's what bugs me the most."
The New Yorker magazine offered evidence that the Tea Party movement has actually been funded and organized by corporate elites such as oilmen Charles and David Koch. But Santelli sees an organic, grass-roots movement akin to the Colonial-era tea party.
What advice does Santelli have for Tea Partiers and activists at Right Nation?
"Keep their strategies simple, keep their platforms short, keep focused, fiscal discipline, watch the spending, further the notion of individualism, they already have done that in my opinion."
To me, Santelli’s rant and the youtube clip with the birther woman confronting Castle (of all people) marked the birth of the tea party movement. The confrontation with castle was important because it showed that people were not afraid to stand up to elected officials.
Proverb success has many fathers, failure is an orphan
1.Many will seek credit for success, few will accept responsibility for failure.
Wiktionary
Santelli never looked for any credit - he just speaks his mind.
America finally sees the knife the RATS and RINOS are plunging into it’s heart and is fighting back! It’s like seeing the American revolution again without the bullets. (So far)
Freepers with great memories, please respond...
Here be the thread from that memorable morning!!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2189035/posts
CNBC Floor Commentator Outburst “Obama are you Listening?”(SILENT MAJORITY ALERT)
CNBC.com ^ | 2/18/2009 | Rick Santelli
Posted on Thursday, February 19, 2009 7:35:24 AM by longtermmemmory
Edited on Thursday, February 19, 2009 12:57:49 PM by Admin Moderator. [history]
How can you be a staunch capitalist AND a social liberal?
I can understand being a staunch capitalist and a philanthropist...
I heard a Rush stand-in (one of the Marks) on Friday use the phrase “Peasants with Pitchforks.” I like it...I like it a lot!
>America finally sees the knife the RATS and RINOS are plunging into it’s heart and is fighting back! It’s like seeing the American revolution again without the bullets. (So far)
Ah, but there *ARE* shots which have been fired: consider a SWAT raid, especially those executed without warrants. By whose authority do they do this?
The police chief may issue the order, but his authorization comes from a greater power. The State may be complacent in giving that power, but even its power to authorize such actions comes from a greater authority: the federal government. The federal government, in the body if the supreme court, has declared that such actions are tolerable... but what authority is given to the Supreme Court to make such a declaration? The Constitution, in Amendment Four, plainly states that the government may not search or seize person or property without a warrant.
Therefore, it becomes clear that the Supreme Court has taken on itself a position of greater authority than the Constitution (i.e. they are INSUBORDINATE and REBELLIOUS to it). Therefore, let us not delude ourselves; shots have already been fired in this war and it is a rebellion that the Government has started against the Constitution.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
“It is in vain, sir to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace - but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God - I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” —Patrick Henry
{Read Patrick Henry’s Famous “GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!!”
http://www.iahushua.com/WOI/henry.html }
That Santelli DID it .. THE best! Here’s a better video.
The link posted was on high speed and was done in two secs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APAD7537RN0&NR=1
Aaah, the memories .. God bless you, Rick Santelli!
(Booo on ya anyway, GE!)
“How can you be a staunch capitalist AND a social liberal?”
It means they started but haven’t yet completed the development of their personal philosophical framework.
Capitalism of itself does not preclude social liberalism; but social liberalism cannot help but attack and erode capitalism.
The answer is that you can’t. Social liberalism undermines everything else.
That, and the guy who stood up to Specter.
Rick Santelli to the best of my knowledge with the ignitor of recent Tea Party exposure, however, many years ago I was one of many who would send tea bags to offending POLs to inform them of our total disgust. It happened before Slick Willie.
That is not meant to lesson the credit to Santelli, but it is fact.
I saw Rick Santelli’s “rant” live. It was absolutely amazing.
Capitalism and drug legalization aren't inherently contradictory. Similarly with capitalism and gay marriage or abortion. If you go past that and you start getting into the Democrats' list of things you either must do or are prohibited from doing, such as Obamacare. Since many of those are focused primarily at businesses most of modern liberalism is anti-capitalist.
You absolutely can. You can be a fiscal conservative and/or social conservative (life, marriage, etc.).
It is the unfortunate history of the word "liberal" in the US, which in England has the sense that libertarian does here, meaning personal freedom - as opposed to social conservatives.
And with all those people all over the country who started Tea Parties that have grown and spread like wildfire, America has been renewed.
THANK you, Mr Santelli!
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