---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Michael Moore maillist@michaelmoore.com
America Is NOT Broke ...the Madison speech
by Michael Moore
Mon, Mar 7, 2011
Delivered in Madison, Wisconsin on Saturday, March 5th, 2011. Video
available here.
America is not broke.
Contrary to what those in power would like you to believe so that you'll
give up your pension, cut your wages, and settle for the life your
great-grandparents had, America is not broke. Not by a long shot. The
country is awash in wealth and cash. It's just that it's not in your hands.
It has been transferred, in the greatest heist in history, from the workers
and consumers to the banks and the portfolios of the uber-rich.
Today just 400 Americans have the same wealth as half of all Americans
combined.
Let me say that again. 400 obscenely rich people, most of whom benefited in
some way from the multi-trillion dollar taxpayer "bailout" of 2008, now have
as much loot, stock and property as the assets of 155 million Americans
combined. If you can't bring yourself to call that a financial coup d'état,
then you are simply not being honest about what you know in your heart to be
true.
And I can see why. For us to admit that we have let a small group of men
abscond with and hoard the bulk of the wealth that runs our economy, would
mean that we'd have to accept the humiliating acknowledgment that we have
indeed surrendered our precious Democracy to the moneyed elite. Wall Street,
the banks and the Fortune 500 now run this Republic -- and, until this past
month, the rest of us have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to
do anything about it.
I have nothing more than a high school degree. But back when I was in
school, every student had to take one semester of economics in order to
graduate. And here's what I learned: Money doesn't grow on trees. It grows
when we make things. It grows when we have good jobs with good wages that we
use to buy the things we need and thus create more jobs. It grows when we
provide an outstanding educational system that then grows a new generation
of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists and thinkers who come up
with the next great idea for the planet. And that new idea creates new jobs
and that creates revenue for the state. But if those who have the most money
don't pay their fair share of taxes, the state can't function. The schools
can't produce the best and the brightest who will go on to create those
jobs. If the wealthy get to keep most of their money, we have seen what they
will do with it: recklessly gamble it on crazy Wall Street schemes and crash
our economy. The crash they created cost us millions of jobs. That too
caused a reduction in tax revenue.
Everyone ended up suffering because of what the rich did.
The nation is not broke, my friends. Wisconsin is not broke. Saying that the
country is broke is repeating a Big Lie. It's one of the three biggest lies
of the decade: 1) America is broke, 2) Iraq has WMD, and 3) The Packers
can't win the Super Bowl without Brett Favre.
The truth is, there's lots of money to go around. LOTS. It's just that those
in charge have diverted that wealth into a deep well that sits on their
well-guarded estates. They know they have committed crimes to make this
happen and they know that someday you may want to see some of that money
that used to be yours. So they have bought and paid for hundreds of
politicians across the country to do their bidding for them. But just in
case that doesn't work, they've got their gated communities, and the luxury
jet is always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day they
hope never comes. To help prevent that day when the people demand their
country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:
1. They control the message. By owning most of the media they have expertly
convinced many Americans of few means to buy their version of the American
Dream and to vote for their politicians. Their version of the Dream says
that you, too, might be rich some day -- this is America, where anything can
happen if you just apply yourself! They have conveniently provided you with
believable examples to show you how a poor boy can become a rich man, how
the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become president, how a guy with
a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. They will play
these stories for you over and over again all day long so that the last
thing you will want to do is upset the apple cart -- because you -- yes,
you, too! -- might be rich/president/an Oscar-winner some day! The message
is clear: keep you head down, your nose to the grindstone, don't rock the
boat and be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you
might be some day.
2. They have created a poison pill that they know you will never want to
take. It is their version of mutually assured destruction. And when they
threatened to release this weapon of mass economic annihilation in September
of 2008, we blinked. As the economy and the stock market went into a
tailspin, and the banks were caught conducting a worldwide Ponzi scheme,
Wall Street issued this threat: Either hand over trillions of dollars from
the American taxpayers or we will crash this economy straight into the
ground. Fork it over or it's Goodbye savings accounts. Goodbye pensions.
Goodbye United States Treasury. Goodbye jobs and homes and future. It was
friggin' awesome and it scared the shit out of everyone. "Here! Take our
money! We don't care. We'll even print more for you! Just take it! But,
please, leave our lives alone, PLEASE!"
The executives in the board rooms and hedge funds could not contain their
laughter, their glee, and within three months they were writing each other
huge bonus checks and marveling at how perfectly they had played a nation
full of suckers. Millions lost their jobs anyway, and millions lost their
homes. But there was no revolt (see #1).
Until now. On Wisconsin! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a
big, great lake with you! You have aroused the sleeping giant known as the
working people of the United States of America. Right now the earth is
shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in
charge. Your message has inspired people in all 50 states and that message
is: WE HAVE HAD IT! We reject anyone who tells us America is broke and
broken. It's just the opposite! We are rich with talent and ideas and hard
work and, yes, love. Love and compassion toward those who have, through no
fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they still crave
what we all crave: Our country back! Our democracy back! Our good name back!
The United States of America. NOT the Corporate States of America. The
United States of America!
So how do we make this happen? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt
here, a little bit of Madison there. And let us pause for a moment and
remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his
life so that the world might focus its attention on how a government run by
billionaires for billionaires is an affront to freedom and morality and
humanity.
Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize this was our last best
chance to grab the final thread of what was left of who we are as Americans.
For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, skipped out
of town to Illinois -- whatever it took, you have done it, and one thing is
for certain: Madison is only the beginning. The smug rich have overplayed
their hand. They couldn't have just been content with the money they raided
from the treasury. They couldn't be satiated by simply removing millions of
jobs and shipping them overseas to exploit the poor elsewhere. No, they had
to have more -- something more than all the riches in the world. They had to
have our soul. They had to strip us of our dignity. They had to shut us up
and shut us down so that we could not even sit at a table with them and
bargain about simple things like classroom size or bulletproof vests for
everyone on the police force or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours
sleep so he or she can do their job -- their $19,000 a year job. That's how
much some rookie pilots on commuter airlines make, maybe even the rookie
pilot who flew me here to Madison today. He told me he's stopped hoping for
a pay increase. All he's asking for now is enough down time so that he
doesn't have to sleep in his car between shifts at O'Hare airport. That's
how despicably low we have sunk! The wealthy couldn't be content with just
paying this man $19,000 a year. They had to take away his sleep. They had to
demean him and dehumanize him and rub his face in it. After all, he's just
another slob, isn't he?
And that, my friends, is Corporate America's fatal mistake. But trying to
destroy us they have given birth to a movement -- a movement that is
becoming a massive, nonviolent revolt across the country. We all knew there
had to be a breaking point some day, and that point is upon us. Many people
in the media don't understand this. They say they were caught off guard
about Egypt, never saw it coming. Now they act surprised and flummoxed about
why so many hundreds of thousands have come to Madison over the last three
weeks during brutal winter weather. "Why are they all standing out there in
the cold?" I mean, there was that election in November and that was supposed
to be that!
"There's something happening here, and you don't know what it is, do you
...?"
America ain't broke! The only thing that's broke is the moral compass of the
rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from now
on. Never forget, as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it's
one person, one vote, and it's the thing the rich hate most about America --
because even though they seem to hold all the money and all the cards, they
begrudgingly know this one unshakeable basic fact: There are more of us than
there are of them!
Madison, do not retreat. We are with you. We will win together.
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Linda Sutton
Los Angeles, CA
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