Michael Moore in Madison, 3/6/11 - photo by Mary Bottari
MADISON, March 6: In a masterful bit of plain speaking, Michael Moore parses what is wrong with the two parallel and unequal American economies, speaking before an estimated 50,000 protestors gathered at the Madison State Capitol Sunday. You can watch the speech here in its entirety, or read a transcript (courtesy of Democracy Now!) below.
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MICHAEL MOORE: 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 über-rich.
Right now, this afternoon, just 400 Americans—400—have more wealth than half of all Americans combined. Let me say that again. And please, someone in the mainstream media, just repeat this fact once. (We’re not greedy; we’ll be happy to hear it just once.) Four hundred obscenely wealthy individuals, 400 little Mubaraks, most of whom benefited in some way from the multi-trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout of 2008, now have more cash, stock and property than the assets of 155 million Americans combined.
CROWD: Shame! Shame! Shame!
MICHAEL MOORE: It is a shame.
CROWD: Shame! Shame! Shame!
MICHAEL MOORE: If—if you can’t bring yourself to call that a financial coup d’état, then you are simply not being honest with what you know in your heart to be true. But I can see why people don’t want to even think about this. 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 here in Madison, Wisconsin, the rest of us, until then, have felt completely helpless, unable to find a way to do anything about it.
Now, just like your soon-to-be ex-governor, I have nothing more than a high school education. But, Governor Walker, 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—unless it’s a palm tree. 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 guess what. That creates more jobs. It grows when we provide an outstanding educational system, an educational system that then grows a new generation of inventors, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, thinkers, the people who will come up with the next great idea for this planet. And those ideas create jobs, and the jobs produce tax revenue.
But the few who have the most money don’t want to pay their fair share of the taxes. They’d rather invest it in a gambling casino known as Wall Street, betting for or against the stock market or against your home mortgage. And the entire population suffers, because that wealth has been removed from circulation. What’s so cynical about this is that the very people who don’t pay their taxes crashed our economic system. They created the unemployment, which has caused less tax revenue, and states like Wisconsin have ended up with a so-called “budget crisis.”
Michael Moore speaking at Madison 3/6/11 - Getty Images
But Wisconsin is not broke. It’s one of the three biggest lies of the last decade. What are the three biggest lies? Let’s repeat them. Number one, Wisconsin is broke. Number two, there’s weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And number three, the Packers need Favre in order to win the Super Bowl.
The nation — the nation is not broke, my friends. There’s lots of money to go around. Lots! 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 know that they have committed crimes to make this happen. And they know — 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. They’ve got their luxury jet that’s always fully fueled, the engines running, waiting for that day, waiting for that day that they hope never comes.
To help prevent that day when … the people demand their country back, the wealthy have done two very smart things:
Number one, they control the message. By owning the media, they have expertly convinced many Americans of [small] means to buy their version of the American Dream and 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 a guy — how the child of a single mother in Hawaii can become President of the United States, and how a guy with a high school education can become a successful filmmaker. Don’t fall for it! They will play these stories for you over and over and over again, all day long, so that the last thing you’ll want to do is upset the applecart, because, yes, you — you, you, too — might be rich/President/Oscar winner some day. The message, though, is clear: keep you head down, keep your nose to the grindstone, don’t rock the boat, be sure to vote for the party that protects the rich man that you might be some day.
And here’s the second smart thing the wealthy have done. They’ve created a poison pill that they know you will never want to take. It’s 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! Crash it straight into the ground! There’s a word for that, isn’t there? Terrorism. It’s a form of terrorism, isn’t it? Fork it over, or it’s goodbye savings accounts. Fork it over, or it’s goodbye pensions. Fork it over, or it’s goodbye United States Treasury. Fork it over, or it’s goodbye jobs and homes and future.
It was friggin’awesome! And it scared the crap out of everyone. “Here! Here! Take our money. We don’t care. We’ll even print more for you. Just take it. But please, PLEASE, leave our lives alone! Please!
The executives in the boardrooms and hedge funds could not contain their laughter or their glee. And
within 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 — until NOW!ON WISCONSIN! Never has a Michigander been more happy to share a great big lake with you. I’m so
proud of you! You have aroused a 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 0f those who are in charge. Your message has inspire people in all 50 states, and that message is, WE HAVE HAD IT! (Repeats as a chant). On Wisconsin!And we are all Wisconsinites now. We rejected anyone who tells us Wisconsin or America is broke or broken. It is just the opposite. We are rich with talent in ideas, and yes, love and compassion for those who have, through no fault of their own, ended up as the least among us. But they, too, 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.
(Crowd chants: The United States of America.)
So how do we get this? Well, we do it with a little bit of Egypt here, and a little bit of Madison there. Let us we pause for a moment and remember that it was a poor man with a fruit stand in Tunisia who gave his life so the world might focus its attention on how a government run by billionaires, for billionaires, is an affront to freedom, morality, and humanity.
Thank you, Wisconsin. You have made people realize that right now is our last, best chance to grab the final thread of what is left for us … as Americans. For three weeks you have stood in the cold, slept on the floor, slipped out of town to Illinois (applause). Whatever it took, you’ve done it. And one thing is certain: Madison is only the beginning! (Wild applause)
You know, the funny thing about this is, the rich have overplayed their hand. You know, they couldn’t be content with the billions of dollars they raided from the Treasury. They couldn’t be satisfied by simply removing millions of jobs and shipping them overseas. No! They had to have more, didn’t they? Something more they wanted than all the riches in the world. They had to have our soul. They had to strip our teachers of our dignity. They had to shut us up and shut us down so that we weren’t even allowed at the table to bargain about a simple thing like classroom size, or bullet-proof vests for the entire police force, or letting a pilot just get a few extra hours [of] sleep so they can do their $19,000-a-year job… They don’t fly on those planes, do they? You know, that pilot that’s making $19,000 a year, he or she has given up trying to get better pay. At this point, all they want is a few extra hours of sleep in their car in the parking lot of O’Hare Airport. That’s what I have to listen to when I fly to places like this. And that’s how despicably low we’ve sunk. The wealthy couldn’t be content with just paying this man $19,000 a year. They wanted to take away his friggin’ sleep. They wanted to demean and dehumanize him, just like they do the public workers here in this state, because after all, he’s just another slob.
(Boos; cries of Shame! Shame!)
And finally to the media that are here: Please, please tell this story correctly. I’ve only been here an hour, and I’m shocked by what I’ve seen, or what I’ve haven’t seen, watching this on TV, or reading it in the corporate papers. All the pundits were caught by surprise when Egypt revolted; and they still don’t understand what’s going on in Madison! …They’re completely flummoxed by it because they’re like, “There was an election in November … What’s going on here?” Well, there’s something happening, and you don’t know what it is, do you, [Mr. Jones]?
Michael Moore - photo from TIME Magazine Cover Story
Finally, America is not broke. The only thing that’s broke[n] is the moral compass of the rulers. And we aim to fix that compass and steer the ship ourselves from this point on. Please never forget that as long as that Constitution of ours still stands, it’s one person, one vote. And that is the thing that the rich hate the most about America. No matter how hard they try to buy the votes, no matter how hard they try to own the political process, when it comes down to it, it’s one person one vote. And there’s a lot more of us than there are of them.
Thank you, Madison! Do not retreat! You are not alone! America is with you. America thanks you. And the Wisconsin 14: please, don’t give up! Thank you very much; thank you!
(Thunderous applause, chants of “Thank you, Thank You“)
