23. Viva La Revolution!

Flipping Tables

Monte Mader

Society & Culture

5 • 626 Ratings

🗓️ 9 July 2025

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week on the podcast I scratched my original plan. The passage of the Big UGLY monstrous bill the day before July 4th and my recording being that day, it inspired me to change the topic.

I didn't celebrate July 4th the way that I have growing up. But I spent a lot of time thinking about what revolution means, especially at this moment in history. In this episode, I re-read the Declaration of independence and the crimes the crown committed that made the colonists revolt. Then I talk about the American Revolution but focus on the revolution it inspired... the French Revolution.
The French Revolution was inspired largely by wealth disparity. By the late 1780s, France was deeply in debt from wars, including the American Revolution. Food prices got so high that bread took up 80% of a poor family's income. Unemployment and starvation were widespread and while the people starved, the monarchy led by Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette spent like the countries coffers never ended. The top 1-2% controlled over 20% of the land and all the political power while 98% of the company could barely survive. The bottom 98% paid all the taxes, including tithes to the church, feudal dues and royal taxes.

Compare that to the US Today, 1% of Americans hold 34% of the nations wealth. The top 10% of the US hold almost 70% of the nations wealth. The bottom 50% of Americans? 2.5% of the wealth.
2.5% OF THE WEALTH.

Half the country has 2.5% of the wealth.

The current wealth gap in the US is the widest its been since the 1920s which led us to the Great Depression. And now we just passed a bill that is the largest upward transfer of wealth from the lowest 10% to the top 10%. And this wealth gap is always predictive of an incoming Revolution.
The world changes when people do. People like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who gave up everything to fight against in justice when he had everything to gain by staying quiet. But his work, his example and his writings would inspire Martin Luther King Jr. the US Civil Rights movement, Desmond Tutu and the fight against apartheid.
Empires always fall. Regimes do not last.
WE, the people, get the final say.
Fight on and Viva La Revolution!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	On the base of the Statue of Liberty is the portion of a poem. The full poem is called The New Colossus,
0:05.3	written by Emma Lazarus in 1883, and it goes like this. Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
0:11.6	with conquering limbs astride from land to land. Here at our sea-washed sunset gate shall stand,
0:17.7	a mighty woman with a torch whose flame is the imprisoned lightning and her name,
0:22.9	mother of exiles. From her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome, her mild eyes command, the airbridged
0:29.4	harbor that Twin Cities frame. Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp, cries she, with silent lips,
0:36.2	give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses
0:39.2	yearning to be free. The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, send these the homeless,
0:45.1	tempest tossed to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. I'm recording this on July 4th.
0:52.0	Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed the most brutal and malicious bill to lower
0:56.0	and middle income classes in the history of the U.S.
0:59.1	It is the new largest upward transfer of wealth in U.S. history.
1:03.3	The largest upward transfer before that was Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
1:07.8	The Big Ugly Bill guts public education. Medicaid, Medicare limits access to
1:12.5	higher education for the average American, increases the tax burden on the lower and middle
1:17.0	classes while making tax cuts for the top 10%. Permanent. What a devastating day. I honestly had to
1:24.1	leave town. I just needed to walk away from it. But today, we talk about hope.
1:30.3	Not because of the American exceptionalism, hope they sold us when we were young, especially if you grew
1:35.2	up in Christian nationalism, which all turned out to be a lie, but real hope for a new future,
1:40.4	something different. I don't know if you know this about me, but I was kind of born to be a fighter.
1:45.6	I feel as though I was prepared for this moment, and it's always been in my personality to push
1:50.8	back and fight back. I think that's why in this time, in this specific moment in history, I've
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 4 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Monte Mader, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Monte Mader and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.