Thom Hartmann: Shane Brooks is with us, Shane has been on the program before, OperationPitchfork.blogspot.com. Shane, you are a self-avowed tea partier. I have that right?
Shane Brooks: Yes, sir.
Thom Hartmann: Okay, welcome back. And as a Texas-based tea party activist, you are, you were planning on going to Nashville to protest what’s going on there. Did you get out there? Or are you still in Texas?
Shane Brooks: I’m in Tennessee right now. Actually, I’m about 20 minutes away from where I need to be to start saying what I have to say.
Thom Hartmann: Okay and what is it that you have to say to the tea party convention where Sarah Palin is going to be giving the 125,000 dollar speech that she’ll probably use the money to buy more copies of her own book with, like she’s been doing with her saver pack so far.
Shane Brooks: Sure, yeah. Well one thing I want to do is challenge her to a debate. I saw that she did an interview where she actually said that the GOP should merge with the tea party so it looks like I wasn’t crazy all along.
Thom Hartmann: Yeah.
Shane Brooks: And she made the comment that, you know, those of us out there that are against this that we’re the ones being divisive. Well, if that’s the case I want her to walk across the street and come on out there and explain to me why I’m divisive and we’ll just have a debate about it and we’ll see about that.
Thom Hartmann: So what’s your, we’re talking with Shane Brooks, a Texas-based tea party activist. OperationPitchfork.blogspot.com is his website. And operation pitchfork, this is your tea party perspective. What is it that offends you about the fact that there’s a tea party convention going on in Memphis that you’re driving to right now?
Shane Brooks: Well, I mean, they have every right to have their convention, you know, that’s the country we live in and I totally support that. What I’m against, though, is that I put my blood, sweat and tears into bringing people to the organization thinking it was a really great thing and then all of a sudden they just out of nowhere they just started adopting the idea that to fix the GOP. Well, that’s not what the tea party is about and that’s not our job. The GOP’s job is to fix themselves. They’ve had their chance and they blew it and for the tea party nation to throw everything that I put into it away to basically just become the Republican Party again, it highly offends me and I think that is divisive. And I want to talk about the divisive social issues, everybody wants to ignore it but if we’re gonna be a truly indivisible nations like is in the pledge of our allegiance then we cannot ignore these divisive social issues and get anywhere.
Thom Hartmann: Well said. Shane Brooks, Texas-based tea party activist. And OperationPitchfork.blogspot.com. Shane, the Republican Party right now and John Boehner was apparently is leading heading this up along with Mitch McConnell, is putting together a separate organization, I’m not sure it has a name yet, that will be the funnel for corporate money to, you know, to, outside of the GOP, so that they can get around election laws, to take this incredible boondoggle, you know manna from heaven pouring down of money that the Supreme Court just authorized, and try to beat Democrats about the head and shoulders who might be speaking out against the banksters. They’ve decided to go after Democrats who are speaking out against the abuses of our banks. Somebody, I mean, they’d be going after Thomas Jefferson, he was very concerned about the banksters, and I’m curious your thoughts on that Supreme Court decision and the GOP’s decision to celebrate that and go after as much corporate money as they can get.
Shane Brooks: Yeah, well, you know, it don’t make any damn sense to be honest with you. I mean, here we got these corporations and, you know, people like Rush Limbaugh who I used to listen to will get on the air and tell the people, you know, hey, this is a great victory for freedom of speech, all the while they rail against union this, union that, union this, union that, and then this comes out and they hail it as a great victory for free speech and gives the rights for, you know, foreign owned corporations. That’s the fact that Rush Limbaugh fails to mention to people is that are foreign, a lot of these are multi national corporations, foreign owned, they have foreign interests and it gives them the right to funnel an unlimited amount of money that there’s no way the American people can even possibly begin to compete with and destroy what this country is all about, you know, basically be against the interests of our nation, what we stand for and what our people stand for.
Thom Hartmann: Well, you know, Limbaugh makes 400 million bucks, Sean Hannity makes 200 million bucks, Glenn Beck is making 18 million dollars a year. These guys, no matter how they and Bill O’Reilly is a multi multi millionaire. No matter how these guys portray themselves, they are the economic elite, they’re the top .001 percent of America, or the top 01 percent of Americans. And what I don’t get is why, why teapartiers would be buying their line, I don’t get it.
Shane Brooks: Well, you know, it’s really complex, Thom and, you know, that’s exactly the reason why it takes all of us coming together as a community, that’s what the tea party is mainly supposed to be about, regardless of who started it. It’s supposed to be a place in your local community where we can all get together and talk about the issues and the problems that we have within our communities and in our respective states. And the fact that these guys come in and basically try to run the gambit and the show, it’s disheartening but it’s our responsibility to get involved and to bring that perspective to them because they’re not hearing it because you have people like the Tea Party Express and Freedomworks that get involved and everybody’s so gung ho, and let me tell you something, Thom. I’ve been to a lot of tea parties. These are some wonderful people.
Thom Hartmann: I’m sure of it.
Shane Brooks: I mean I’ve been to a lot, I’ve been doing it for a long time and these people are not hateful. It has nothing, I have not heard one person say anything about race.
Thom Hartmann: Well, in every movement, Shane, you’re gonna have some crazies on the left, right, the middle no matter what. But I am inclined to agree with you. My belief is these are people who are afraid of losing their jobs or they’ve already lost their jobs, they’re seeing America going down the tubes, I, you know, my position is this is the natural consequence of 30 years of Reaganomics and Clintonomics, I’m bipartisan in my condemnation of our economic and trade policies. And, you know, I think we need to bring us all together. And it sounds to me like you’re doing that. We just have maybe 10 seconds left, Shane Brooks, OperationPitchfork.blogspot.com. Are there gonna be other people there at the tea party convention in Memphis protesting with you, do you know, Shane?
Shane Brooks: So far as I know, it’s just gonna be me and God, Thom.
Thom Hartmann: Okay, well maybe some of our listeners will show up and give you some moral support. Shane Brooks, he’s on his way to Memphis to the tea party convention where Sarah Palin is going to be speaking this weekend. OperationPitchfork.blogspot.com for the info. Thanks Shane, good luck.
Shane Brooks: Thank you Thom.
Transcribed by Suzanne Roberts, Portland Psychology Clinic.
