Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former National Security Advisor under Jimmy Carter, has become an bete noir on The Rush Limbaugh radio show. The former Carter official is advocating a voluntary national solidarity fund for people who benefited from the bubble to excess for Americans hurting economically. Obviously Limbaugh is against the idea of the rich helping the poor. Limabugh also took it upon himself to talk about how to say the Brzezinski name. According to his account he asked a Polish man how such names are pronounced. Zbig came in to the Joe Scarborough and his daughter Mika's radio show on WABC to defend himself on the voluntary solidarity idea:
Mika Brzezinski: "He actually has (the name pronunciation) right with regards to our Polish pronunciation
Zbigniew Brzezinski, "... For most Americans it is hard to pronounce ... is the equivalent of zh in this country ... in this country people can't handle it
Mika, "In this country people can't seem to handle this and so we take the easy way out and that's how we got into (the economic crisis)."
Zbig (back to his argument with Limbaugh): "...I'm arguing that we are doing things to avoid ... class hostility ... there is a resentment to people making ... money out of proportion to anything of value ... if it is done on a voluntary basis with people who made all of this money on ... (a) Madoff style rip-off ... this is an advocacy of social solidarity, and that is what we need in this society."
UPDATE: For the truly masochistic media addict, here's the transcript from yesterday's Limbaugh show:
"RUSH: Morning Joe today, MSNBC, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the father of the cohost on that show, Mika Brzezinski, Scarborough said to Zbig, "We are talking about the disappearance of the middle class, something you've been concerned about, but you also talk about the possibility of class conflict."
BRZEZINSKI: You know, I don't stop worrying about it because, look, we're going to have millions and millions of unemployed, people really facing dire straits. At the same time there is this public awareness of this extraordinary wealth that was transferred to a few individuals at levels without historical precedent in America, people who made billions of dollars, millions of dollars in a short period of time. We have the government trying to repair, repair the banking system, to bail the housing out. What about the rich class, and where is it, what is it doing?
RUSH: Do you hear this? This man was Jimmy Carter's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. And, by the way, I hear that Mika Brzezinski thinks that I am purposely mispronouncing her name, and I'm not. The conventional pronunciation -- you ought to see it spelled, it's B-r-z-e-z-i-n-s-k-i or something like that, and the family, I guess pronounces it Brzezinski, but it's a B-Z and I used to work with a guy in Kansas City who was Polish back in the Carter years and this guy told me, "If you want to be accurate, if you want to know how it's really pronounced it's Brzezinski," there's a BZ in there and if you live in Poland, that's how they pronounce, Brzezinski. So I'm just trying to be accurate about it. The family calls it Brzezinski so I guess I should defer to the family wishes on this, but I always want to be right in the articulation of syllables. That's my profession, highly trained broadcast specialist. Anyway, here's Zbig Brzezinski worrying here about class conflict, millions of unemployed, but the rich got all their billions overnight, very quickly, what are they doing to help out? They're under assault, Zbig! They're literally under assault. Not just the billions and millions guys. The former Carter NSA director continues with this.
BRZEZINSKI: And if we don't get some sort of a voluntary national solidarity fund, at some point there will be such political pressure that Congress will start getting in the act, there's going to be growing conflict between the classes, and if people are unemployed and really hurting, hell, there could even be riots.
RUSH: So Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor predicts riots on MSNBC today if there's not a voluntary national solidarity fund. At some point there will be such political pressure Congress will start getting in the act. Zbig, what has Congress been doing if not been in the act? What, pray tell, is the stimulus bill, if not being in the act? Predicting riots? Now, there's some foreign soothsayer type Nostradamus guys that are out there predicting food riots in four years in this country. But I mean that's just to sell subscriptions to their newsletter. I hear all these guys talk, and I'd like to see what Zbig is doing for the poor. You know, has he led the way in setting up his own solidarity fund? Is he going down the neighborhood where he lives and asking people, "You need my money?" and giving it to them?
Later in the show Mika spoke of the headline on her interview with Leslie Stahl at WowoWow "Mika Brzezinski Tells Lesley Stahl: My Departure From CBS Was Pretty Ugly." Of the headline, Mika said later in the show: "I love CBS.(The firing) was an ugly process. But the headline? Oh, boy."
Even later: "Ruh-oh, I'm in trouble, I'm in big trouble."
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