num_pages: 270
description: On Friday 12/10/2010 Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders walked on to the floor of the US Senate &amp; began speaking. It turned out to be a very long speech lasting over eight &amp; a half hours. It hit a nerve. Millions followed the speech online until the traffic crashed the Senate server. A huge positive grassroots response tied up the phones in the senator's offices in Vermont &amp; Washington. Pres. Obama reportedly held an impromptu press conference with former Pres. Clinton to deflect media attention away from Sanders' speech. Editorials &amp; news coverage appeared throughout the world. In his speech Sanders blasted the agreement that President Obama struck with Republicans which extended the Bush tax cuts for millionaires &amp; billionaires lowered estate tax rates for the very very rich &amp; set a terrible precedent by establishing a payroll tax holiday diverting revenue away from the Social Security Trust Fund threatening the fund's very future. But the speech was more than a critique of a particular piece of legislation. It was a dissection of the collapse of the American middle class &amp; a well-researched attack on corporate greed &amp; on public policy which over the last several decades has led to a huge growth in millionaires even as the US has the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. It was a plea for a fundamental change in national priorities for government policy that reflects the needs of working families not just the wealthy &amp; their lobbyists. Finally Sanders' speech--published here in its entirety with a new introduction by the senator--is a call for action. It's a passionate statement informing us that the only people who will save the middle class of this country is the middle class itself but only if it's informed organized &amp; prepared to take on the enormously powerful special interests dominating Washington. Sen. Sanders is the longest-serving Independent in the history of the US Congress. He's represented Vermont in the Senate for four years &amp; in the House for sixteen years. He served four terms as Mayor of Burlington VT during which time the city was recognized as one of the most livable cities in America.
language: English
title: The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class
publisher: Nation Books