Actor/activist Warren Beatty addressed graduates of UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy this Saturday. What should have been a motivating speech turned into an assault against the Governor and Republicans in general. Of course, leftist political speakers are what we have come to expect from Berkeley’s graduation ceremonies. But just when we thought that no one could top Benjamin “the source of manipulation is the market economy” Barber’s fanatical rhetoric, Warren Beatty comes along.

A transcript of Beatty’s commencement speech is available online. Some of the lowlights are below:

Is it hopeless to compete with this access to the public’s attention by asking: “Are you aware of the effect of the right-wing deregulation and consolidation of media on public opinion and public policy in this din of the technological tornado that has miniaturized our attention span while what passes for the truth is manipulated by fewer and fewer hands and a sleepy citizenry is aroused by very little other than entertainment devices and most individual entertainer-personalities in the news media become more and more reluctant to resist the conservative politics of their employers? And that there are steps that we as voters can take to rally our legislators into action that can curtail, eliminate or at least ameliorate this movement to plutocracy?”

Difficult.

But if you ask: “Can’t you wake the hell up you sleepy sons of bitches and find out what you can do to keep these rich bullshitters from feeding you this crap and telling you what to think?“

Starting off with the “right-wing media” card. Smooth. Unfortunately, the media is hardly right-wing. At the very most, it’s centrist. Leaning either slightly left or right, depending on the issue, just like the majority of the American public. I don’t know what kind of public discourse existed before the “right-wing deregulation” and media takeover that so many leftists speak of. The truth is, there’s way more diversity of thought in the media today (I’m including all forms of media). He even speaks about how the Internet is changing this, earlier in his speech. So why is he so afraid of the “plutocrats”? He just doesn’t want conservatives to have a voice, and wants the government to help silence them. Even if what he’s saying is true (and it’s not), you don’t have to watch TV or listen to the radio or read a newspaper to get news these days. I know I don’t. No one is forcefeeding you anything; no one is forcing you to think a certain way. Get over it Warren; don’t try to get the government back into an area it doesn’t belong. Besides, through the magic of blogs, I can get back at certain “rich bullshitters … feeding you this crap and telling you what to think” at commencement speeches.

But now that he’s [Arnold] a politician, I say, why not rise to the higher levels of that calling, rather than denigrate your fellow politicians, calling them “stooges” and “girly men” and “losers.” They give years of their lives to public service in the legislature of what is intended to be a representative form of government, where public policy on decisions affecting 38 million people’s lives are adequately discussed — not a government by ballot initiatives financed by huge advertising monies that bypass a careful examination of a bill by the people’s elected representatives.

Hey Warren, you actually think most of our representatives read the laws they pass? And you actually think they care about 38 million people? Why not let those 38 million people decide for themselves? I bet some of them have even actually read a bill before! In addition, politicians should be called what they are. It may be the only form of honesty we have left in government.

It’s not fooling anybody for him to run around raising money from Wall Street and K Street and rich Republicans all over the country who hope that if they can get this reactionary stuff started in California, they can get it done back in their own states and actually dismantle the New Deal, which they simplemindedly forget saved American capitalism, and then they can dismantle the fair deal, the new frontier, and the Great Society and the entitlements and the rights and the guarantees that make the society safe for everyone including the rich.

Arnold, or any other Republican, is not dismantling the New Deal or the Great Society or whatever other socialist program jazzed up with a catchy name. If he were in favor of doing so, I would have voted for him. I have yet to see any Republican in power with the courage to speak out against (let alone remedy) these great mistakes of our past. Well there may be a few, but none in “higher places,” so to speak. Anyway, it’s not as if Warren gives a damn about American capitalism. I’d like to see a three hour epic on Ayn Rand or Milton Friedman. Instead we get a Communist lovefest.

Nobody likes taxes. But everybody wants their family to be safe and the society secure.

Not only will the economy benefit if we don’t ask our children to pick up our tab, but inside most Democrats are people who feel they might some day get as rich as Republicans and don’t want to destroy for themselves the possibilities in the American dream that responsible capitalism offers, any more than conservatives do.

“Not only will the economy benefit if we don’t ask out children to pick up our tab” *cough* Social Security! *cough*. And inside most Democrats are people who want to be as ultra-filthy-stinking-rich as Warren Beatty and not have to worry about taxes, while at the same time bashing Republicans for cutting taxes of people much poorer than himself.

When did conservatives decide to just borrow more money without raising taxes? Is the Governor now to the right of the head of the Fed? Even Alan Greenspan has started to talk taxes. This is serious stuff. Tip O’Neill said politics ain’t beanbag!!

On this point I agree. But the answer is “when liberals decided it wasn’t ok to cut anything.”

But he’ll have to listen. He’s not stupid. He knows I’m a private citizen just as he was a year ago. I’m an opponent of his muscle-bound conservatism with a longer experience in politics than he has, and although I don’t want to run for governor, I’d do one helluva lot better job than he’s done. But I can name you lots of Democrats that would be so much better than I would, and maybe even a few Republicans.

Playing a senator in a movie does not count as “experience in politics.” Of course these are the same people who think Martin Sheen would be an excellent president.

Good public policy for our economy, our culture and our safety will never fully exist without:

First, public financing of elections.

Second, assuring the separation of church and state.

Third, creating a single-payer universal health care system: Medicare for all.

Fourth, facing the value to the rich and the rest of a just redistribution of our enormous wealth with our tax policy. Concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.

And fifth: moderating against the dangers of the muscular utopianism of an empire that imposes what some call democracy on places in the world where it cannot be sustained and will lead to American decline.

Good public policy in a social democracy declares that might does not make right. Denial of this leads to totalitarianism, communism or fascism. Our silence is an anti-inflammatory, a steroid for bullies.

Someone call Ralph Nader! Someone stole his agenda! This sounds like someone preparing to make a run for office. He says that he has no interest, but I suspect that he will run for something in the future. Masterful link between steroids and fascism. He could have easily said “Arnold is a Nazi,” but the “right-wing media” would have caught him. Well done.

Congratulations to the Class of 2005 for putting up with that BS. My only hope is that when I graduate, my commencement speaker will provide as much fodder for me as Mr. Beatty has. Either that, or someone on the 2007 version of this list. Any of them can talk politics all they want…