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Oct. 6, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

28:40

2006 The First Wall Street Protest Manifesto!

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies...

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	Hello protesters! Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	I hope you're doing beautifully.
	Massive kudos and props for going out and doing what you're doing.
	I think it's fantastic. But, but, please remember that the key to social change is the middle word of the Holy Trinity.
	Ready, aim, aim, aim, and then fire at the enemy.
	Your metaphorical bullets of truth.
	So... You have to be very, very careful when you're talking about social change that you're dealing with the right agency.
	Remember, you grew up in a state-run or state-controlled school.
	All the people you're fighting, the well-educated kleptocrats who run the gangster organizations, are all educated in state schools.
	The state is responsible for their moral education, and this is who they have turned into.
	So be very, very careful that you're not using the illusions you are bound by as feathers to attack What you're attacking.
	It's not going to work. So the really, really important thing is to make sure that you have the right targets.
	You're focusing on the right thing.
	If you're frightened of a shark, there's no point trying to bat away the little pilot fish, you know, that swim under its mouth and pick up the scraps of whatever it tears into.
	The truth of the matter is that the corporations are like the pilot fish.
	They swim around the jaws of the shark of the state.
	And they pick up the bloody scraps of whatever it mouths down upon.
	And do not be distracted by the corporations.
	To continue my fishy metaphors, they are like the angler fish that has that bright light that the fish go and swim up to and then it eats them.
	Do not be distracted by the corporations.
	They are the beneficiaries, not the source of the destruction running rampant through the world.
	And I'll give you some examples.
	This is from the official statement of the Solidarity Movement.
	for the New York City protests.
	They write, as we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together.
	We write, so all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.
	Okay, first, corporations don't have force.
	You're not being arrested by Starbucks cops.
	You're not being arrested by policemen with logos on their caps.
	The logo is the star or the shield of the state.
	It is not the corporations who are arresting you.
	It is the state who is threatening you and arresting you.
	Remember that. Remember that.
	Remember that. Do not be distracted.
	As Thomas Pinchot said, if they can get you to ask the wrong questions, they don't care about the answers.
	And if they're getting you to focus on corporations, you're going to miss the point.
	To continue, as one people united, we acknowledge the reality that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members, that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights and those of their neighbors, that a democratic government derives its just power from the people.
	There is no such thing.
	As just power in the state.
	The state is the initiation of violence.
	The state is the initiation of force.
	The state is a gun to the neck of a victim.
	There is no justice in that and there never will be.
	It's like saying just slavery or just rape.
	It is an oxymoron. Do not be fooled by the propagandists.
	But corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the earth, and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power.
	Economics is not power in a free market.
	Economics is, I have some stuff for sale, are you interested?
	That's all it is. A coffee shop does not drag its customers in and put guns to their neck and force them to order coffee.
	That's a lot different from wars and taxes and laws against the peaceful use of drugs.
	The government is the one with the loaded gun in the room, not the corporations.
	Yes, the corporations bribe the government and in return for those bribes the government gives them preferential legislation.
	The corporations are simply attempting to grab control of the guy who has the gun.
	They're attempting to influence and bribe him.
	Like the mafia guy who goes around to the coffee shops and says for a thousand bucks I'll give you protection.
	Can you really blame the coffee shop owner for paying off protection?
	Can you really blame corporations for attempting to influence the most violent predatory agency that can throw them in jail, that can print money at will, that can pass preferential legislation either for them or against them?
	Of course they're going to get involved.
	If you're the head of a corporation and someone from the government says here's a hundred billion dollars, Of free money.
	Are you going to say no?
	Of course not. Of course you're not going to say no.
	Because if you do, you'll just get fired and they'll put someone in your place who will say yes.
	Nobody says no to it. Try going down to some poor neighborhood and talking a guy who's just won the lottery out of cashing in his ticket.
	It's not going to happen. The system is corrupt at the state level.
	And don't be confused by the corporations who are attempting to use the state's violence for their own advantage.
	That is what they're designed to maximize profits.
	If you create an environment where the maximization of profits requires influence peddling with politicians, then that's what corporations will do.
	Don't blame the corporations for the guy who's got the gun in the room.
	We come to you at a time when corporations which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality run our governments.
	Oh, come on!
	Can you believe this leftist Marxist claptrap with a straight face?
	Do you really think that Starbucks runs the government?
	Do you really think so?
	They run the government.
	The government has, the US government, has thousands of nuclear weapons, throws hundreds of thousands or millions of people in jail, has murdered tens of millions of people over the course of its history, ran slavery, decimated the Native American population, joined in wars, runs up debt, sells off the unborn to creditors, domestic and foreign.
	Do you really think?
	Do you really think that Macy's is running that show?
	The government has aircraft carriers and bombers and SWAT teams and rendition sites and treaties with murderous and corrupt governments all over the world.
	Do you really think the corporations are running the government?
	Come on, please, please, you have to, you have to put your thinking caps on just a little more firm than that.
	We said they place profit over people.
	Profit in a free market means that both people have benefited from the trade.
	If I have five dollars and you have a pen, and you'd rather have my five dollars than your pen, and I'd rather have your pen than my five dollars, we do a free, peaceful and voluntary exchange.
	No violence, no force, no exploitation involved.
	Profit is when you have satisfied customers' voluntary preferences.
	If you build a better mousetrap, the world will be a path to your door.
	Well, except for the mice.
	So if you build something that's better, that people want more, that is more beneficial to them, that helps them, then they will pay you money.
	And if you can do it in a way that is economically efficient, that uses fewer resources than the cost of selling it, the profit from selling it, profit is people.
	Profit is people's preferences in a free society.
	Let's not confuse Free trade, voluntarism, the free market, let's not confuse that with this semi-fascistic, economic, political, levering, bribe-ocracy that we have going on right now.
	When you create the largest state in the history of the world, of course, of course, of course, corporations are going to flock to it and attempt to control it.
	If you dump a body by the road, you will attract some vultures.
	Don't blame the vultures.
	We are peacefully assembled here as is our right to let these facts be known.
	They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process despite not having the original mortgage.
	They, I assume you mean the banks?
	No. The banks do not have cops.
	The government has cops and the government runs the foreclosure process.
	The banks submit to the court foreclosure documents and then the government takes it from there.
	It is not the banks who are doing it.
	Remember this. The banks do not have armies.
	The banks do not have soldiers.
	The banks do not have policemen.
	The banks do not have prisons. The banks do not have a court system.
	That's all the state. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity and continue to give executives exorbitant bonuses.
	They took nothing from the taxpayers.
	The banks took nothing from the taxpayers.
	Please, people. Can the banks print money?
	The Federal Reserve can print money, but that's a monopoly granted to a private bank by the state.
	Because when the state did not grant that monopoly, there were competing currencies and there was no inflation.
	No inflation, which is the ultimate theft from the poor and the old and the sick.
	There was no inflation for over a hundred years before the government took over the currency and granted a monopoly to a single institution.
	The banks took nothing from anyone.
	The state printed the money and stole from the poor and gave it to the banks.
	The state! Know your enemy.
	They have perpetrated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one's skin, sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation.
	There are people who discriminate in the workplace, of course, but economically they suffer for it.
	I mean, I ran a business for many years and hired hundreds of people.
	And if I said, I don't like redheads, all I'm doing is cutting out the talent pool that is available to work for me, which means I end up in general, on average, with lower quality employees and lose out to my competitors.
	Free market will take care of discrimination in the long run.
	And, of course, there have been laws against discrimination for many, many, many, many years.
	Fourteenth Amendment in the late 19th century forbade discrimination.
	How's it been working? Government doesn't enforce it.
	They have poisoned the food supply through negligence and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
	You really think the farming system's in the free market?
	Are you crazy? Do you read any books?
	Please, come on, people. I mean to be insulting, but if you're going to go out there and shake signs and rage against the machine, make sure you know which way the machine is, right?
	The free market's had almost nothing to do with farming for Decades.
	Governments control subsidies.
	Governments control land use.
	Governments regulate irrigation.
	Governments control exports and imports and...
	Oh, it's endless.
	Government subsidizes. I mean, it's got almost nothing to do with the free market and it hasn't for decades.
	So if you've got problems with the food, don't look at the farmers.
	Look at the government, for God's sakes.
	They have profited off the torture, confinement and cruel treatment of countless animals and actively hide these practices.
	No question. There's no question.
	Grain costs seven times less to produce per pound than meat.
	So why is meat not approximately seven times more expensive?
	Because the government's set to control the price.
	Governments subsidize, give lands away, subsidize and bribe all the farmers.
	It has nothing to do with the free market anymore.
	Why is it that some poor local farmer in Africa cannot sell his crops more cheaply at the local market?
	Because governments buy crops from the first world to prop up the incomes of large corporate farmers and dump all the crops on the third world, thus creating endless cycles of starvation and discontent among the local population, to put it as mildly as humanly possible.
	There's nothing to do with the free market.
	They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
	Really? Really?
	Do you think that the government employees, say in Iraq, are able to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions?
	Would you rather be a worker at General Motors or would you rather be a worker for the government military?
	In terms of that, if you're really concerned about safer working conditions and better pay, you really should be talking to the government first and foremost.
	And I think that the pay for unionized workers is pretty good compared to the worldwide pay, and government workers, of course, earn a huge amount more than private sector workers, which is not reasonable or fair.
	They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
	Ah, education is a human right.
	Well, slavery will not solve our problems.
	The moment that I have a right, a basic foundational human right, to somebody else's labor, to somebody else's knowledge, to somebody else's expertise, to somebody else's time, that person has become my slave.
	And I do not advocate slavery, and you damn well should not advocate slavery if you're in the business of extending and expanding human freedom.
	Government runs education, even higher education.
	Government grants monopolies to educational institutions.
	Government subsidizes to the tunes of billions of dollars.
	Government controls the working conditions of the faculty, which is why faculty get paid $175,000 for teaching a couple of courses a year.
	You get paid $1,100 an hour.
	Do you think that would happen in the free market?
	And every time governments subsidize higher education, what happens?
	All that happens is they raise their prices.
	Which is why everything's getting so expensive to get higher education, because the government keeps subsidizing, which means, woohoo, free money!
	They're not going to reduce the price of student tuition because they got all this free money.
	No. You win the lottery, you go splurge.
	And that's exactly what higher education has done.
	They got all this money from the government, they splurged, and they raised tuition.
	It's what everyone does. I mean, that's why food gets more expensive when you subsidize it.
	Anyway. And I think hostages, you know, let's not insult real hostages in the world, right?
	Let's not insult poor Mexican women, you know, grabbed for ransom by drug gangs or something.
	I mean, people who choose to go to school are at least voluntarily choosing.
	The system is corrupt and it's shielded and shrouded in violence and coercion and debt, government debt, which is theft.
	But let's not confuse that with real hostages, okay?
	I mean, let's not take our rhetoric too far.
	They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers' health care and pay.
	Look, let's be honest, let's be frank, let's be open, let's be clear, let's be factual.
	The American worker has, to a large degree and through his unions, relied upon government power To protect and increase his wages and his benefits.
	Why, why on earth would a company be responsible for paying your healthcare?
	It makes no sense. I mean, why would a company be responsible for paying your car repair bills?
	It makes no sense. Well, the only reason that this happens is because of government incentives and structures.
	I mean, the whole healthcare thing came in because in the Second World War, in America, you weren't allowed to raise anybody's wages because they wanted to get rid of competition, blah blah blah.
	And so they gave benefits instead.
	It's the only reason that companies give you all these ridiculous benefits.
	It's because of government power.
	They'd be thrown in jail if they gave you a raise, so they gave you healthcare instead.
	Tax-free benefit. Which means that people don't pay for their own health care.
	It's all part of a general mess of legislation, where everybody who's got any kind of obscure ailment or problem or fertility issue wants to get all of that covered, and so they go to the government and they force everyone to cover everything, which is why the price just keeps going up.
	The government provides a monopoly on health care provision.
	Government licenses doctors and throws people in jail who say, oh, You have this illness.
	Let me give you this cure, which a computer can do.
	So, governments control and governments, quote, regulate pharmaceutical companies who are currently Regularly promoting the off-label use of drugs on children as young as three years old for mental illness conditions which don't even exist and never show up in any kind of scam.
	It's an imaginary illness. You might as well say, you know, here's a pill that shrinks your brain mass because you've been cursed by Zeus.
	This is what the government has done to healthcare.
	Government control, government regulation, government bribery, government monopolies.
	And this is why healthcare keeps going up and up in price.
	More government power means more price for everything, higher prices for everything.
	So if you make it really expensive to hire American workers, of course people are going to go overseas to get their workers.
	I mean, of course. I mean, asking corporations to not pursue profit is insane.
	And profit is not at the expense of unless there's force involved.
	Right? It ain't rape if it's voluntary.
	It's called lovemaking. And voluntary interactions between people economically, both people profit from.
	The worker profits from the capital investment of the factory owner by having all these great machines that vastly increase his productivity.
	If he wants. Or he can go make the whole car himself if he wants.
	It's mutual profit.
	It's mutual benefit.
	Which is what we want. Win-win in people's lives, in people's interactions.
	They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people with none of the culpability or responsibility.
	Yeah, of course.
	Of course they have. I mean, if you give people the power called being a corporation, which is a legal fiction, of course, nothing to do with any kind of reality.
	If you give people the power to take out all the profits from beneficial transactions and incur none of the losses, From any financial loss, of course they're going to take it.
	Of course they're going to take it.
	I mean, so would you, so would 99.999% of the rest of the people in the world.
	But, see, the thing is, you're using the word influence here, so you know exactly what I'm talking about.
	Corporations, well of course they'll give money to political campaigns and contributions, of course, for two reasons.
	One, they want beneficial and preferential legislation, of course they do.
	And secondly, they know that if they don't, their competitors will, and so they will be at a double disadvantage.
	Their competitors will get preferential legislation, and they will get detrimental legislation.
	So, of course. I mean, you're not going to enter any race where you have to run uphill while your opponent gets to run downhill.
	Of course not. Just ask any athlete if they'll go for that, and no.
	This is human nature. The problem is the system, not the individuals.
	Certainly not the ones in the corporate side.
	They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
	Sure. Sure.
	But health insurance cost keeps going up and up.
	I mean, GM is a company that sells car in order to provide retirement and health insurance benefits to people.
	I mean, yeah, it's terrible.
	It's terrible. But if you're really interested in people who break contracts, you show me how many political Promises have been kept over the last, say, 2,000 years.
	I'm not going to raise your taxes.
	I'm not going to do this.
	I'm not going to do that. These are contracts with people who vote in return for these promises to be enacted.
	Politicians don't even have to break contracts.
	They don't even have to influence the courts.
	They just have to do whatever the hell they want behind the shield of bloody power called the stake.
	They have sold up privacy as a commodity.
	Okay, fine. They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
	They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products, endangering lives, and the pursuit of profit.
	Really? You're gonna go with that one?
	Deliberately declined to recall faulty products, endangering lives, and the pursuit of profit.
	A car with an electrical problem, okay?
	Let's say. It's a problem.
	Definitely people could get hurt. That's terrible.
	How about the entirety of government education?
	How about that? Is that not a faulty product that endangers lives in the pursuit of profit?
	Teachers make out like bandits.
	Couple of months off in the summer, tenure, can't get fired.
	Unions make out like bandits.
	The bureaucracy of the government educational system, they make out like bandits.
	40% higher in terms of wages and benefits than people in comparable private sectors.
	Are they endangering lives?
	Of course they are. I mean, they're destroying mines.
	It's the most precious resource we'll ever have in this world.
	So, if you're really, really concerned about faulty products not being recalled, let's talk about government education.
	Let's talk about government education.
	They've used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
	No, they haven't. See?
	Just try this. Try this.
	Call up the CEO of any corporation and say, listen, you need to put a call into the cops to go get people arrested.
	Cops will laugh at him.
	Cops will laugh at him. Cops don't answer to politicians.
	The military does not answer to politicians.
	They answer to politicians.
	They answer to politicians, not corporations.
	So, if you don't understand that chain of custody, then I do not know how your shoes got tight this morning.
	They determine economic policy despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
	No. Absolutely not.
	They do not determine economic policy.
	That is the state. Economic policy is shit which people get thrown in jail for disobeying.
	And the head of Starbucks cannot throw anybody in jail.
	Can't throw anybody in jail. They do not determine economic policy.
	That is the state. That is the state.
	You can sum it all up.
	That is the state. They have donated large sums of money to politicians who are responsible for regulating them.
	They continue... Of course, of course they have.
	Of course they have. And poor people cash lottery tickets, even though that puts them as a community further in debt.
	Of course they do. You're going to blame poor people for cashing in lottery tickets?
	Of course not. Government shouldn't run lotteries.
	Anyway. They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
	No, they don't. Again, they don't.
	Exxon has no troops.
	It has no military, no law courts, no prisons, no guns.
	So they're not blocking anyone.
	Now, they may give money to politicians who have all the military and the police and the guns and the courts and the prison guards.
	Yeah, of course.
	Guy may call the Mafia, but it's the Mafia who has the guns.
	That's who you need to focus on.
	As long as the Mafia power exists, people will try to control it.
	No question. But you don't blame the caterer for bringing food to a Mafia wedding.
	You blame the Mafia's hitmen for threatening people and breaking their kneecaps.
	They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people's lives.
	Nope. They really don't.
	They can't. They can't.
	Do you think some pharmaceutical company in the U.S. is going to be able to use troops to prevent cheap drugs from being manufactured and distributed?
	No, they don't have any troops. It's all the state.
	It's all the state. They have purposefully covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
	Well, biggest polluter in the world is government.
	Biggest polluters in the world are governments.
	I mean, look at what happened in the Soviet Union.
	I'm a ratchet. Wars is the ultimate environmental depredation and degradation.
	And the government's supposed to regulate all these people.
	So why is there a problem?
	If the state is the solution and the state has more power than it's ever had before in its life, why are things getting worse?
	It's a basic equation you need to understand.
	If government power is a solution to corporatism and governments have more power than they have ever before had in history, why are things getting worse?
	Only we anarchists have the answer to that, my friends, which is that state power destroys.
	State power corrupts.
	Violence will never solve social problems.
	It will only make them worse. Things are getting worse because there's more violent power through the state.
	Because corporations do not directly wield violent power.
	They don't. They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
	Why do they have control of the media?
	They don't. Government can regulate and ban people from the airwaves at any time.
	Can revoke your license? Can the government, through the FCC, control the airwaves?
	And really, misinformed and fearful, you're talking about, what, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC? Those are all voluntary, and you can get your stuff through the internet.
	If you really want to talk about keeping people fearful and misinformed, how about 12 years of government indoctrination through government schools?
	I think that's got a little bit more to do with how people end up misinformed and fearful.
	They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners, even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
	Now, please. Oh, come on.
	Oh, come on, people.
	People, you've got to work just a little harder than that.
	I need to see one bead of sweat rolling down your head if you're going to be a successful activist, for Christ's sake.
	You're really going to talk about corporations murdering people?
	Corporations? 250 million people were murdered in the 20th century by governments.
	That doesn't include war. That's just directly murdered by their own governments.
	250 million people.
	How many people have died in Iraq as a result of the illegal invasion and occupation?
	It's not corporations.
	It's the government. It's the military.
	Don't even start to count the bodies at the feet of corporations because you can't see them over the mountain of corpses created by the state.
	They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
	They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
	They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.
	Those weapons of mass destruction were created by the government, were funded by the government through government-educated scientists, were funded by theft, either direct or futuristic, from taxpayers or through debt.
	So it's the governments that are entirely responsible for the creation of weapons of mass destruction.
	To the people of the world, we at the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street and Liberty Square urge you to assert your power.
	I agree. Exercise your right to peaceably assemble, occupy public space, create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.
	To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all the resources that are at disposal.
	Join us and make your voices heard.
	Four words is all we need to save the world.
	Thank you.
	Four words is all we need to save the world.
	All this noise and syllables and it's all, as the bard says, sound and fury signifying nothing.
	Four words is all we need to save the world, to end war, to end ignorance, to end injustice, to end poverty.
	Four words, my friends.
	And it is applied and directed almost exactly and precisely at the state.
	Four words. Put down the guns.
	And because I'm a philosopher, I will add a fifth word.

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