Bernie Sanders: 'The American People Will Not Tolerate Oligarchy'

On Saturday in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) held a "Fight Oligarchy" event.

Transcript

00:00unprecedented and difficult moment in American history to go outside of your

00:06comfort zone and to think outside of the box. If there was ever a time in the

00:16modern history of this country when the American people had to stand up and take

00:23on and I'll give you some good news there. I've been all over this country and what

00:28I can tell you in rural areas and in urban areas the American people will not

00:34tolerate oligarchy, will not tolerate authoritarianism, will not tolerate

00:44kleptocracy, and will not tolerate the continued war against the working class

00:52of this country.

01:00So what I want to do this evening is just talk a little bit about what you're not

01:06going to see on your corporately owned TV networks or in your corporately owned

01:13United States Congress. So let's talk about reality. Let's talk about what's going

01:22on in the lives of working people in Michigan, in Vermont, and all over this

01:28country. And here is the truth, not a pleasant truth, but it's a truth that the

01:35establishment does not want to be discussed, which is precisely why we have

01:41got to discuss it. In America today, we have more income and wealth inequality than

01:50we have ever had in the history of the United States of America. And it is an

01:58obscene level of inequality. And what I'm going to tell you, one of the things that

02:05the establishment does and what media does and what the culture that the oligarchs

02:10create does is they tell us what we should be outraged at and what we should

02:16accept or think it's not a big deal, right? Well, I happen to think that it is a very

02:22big deal, that it is a moral and economic outrage that one person in this country,

02:30Mr. Musk, owns more wealth than the bottom 52% of American households.

02:41That is an obscenity. That is not what this country is supposed to be about.

02:47But it's not just Mr. Musk. You got the top 1% owning more wealth than the bottom 93%.

03:00You got CEOs of large corporations making over 350 times what their workers are making.

03:10So, in other words, point number one. Today, the 1%, the people on top, have never, ever had it so good.

03:25That's reality number one. Number two, it's not just that we're looking at massive income and wealth inequality.

03:33These guys have enormous economic power. Power. What does that mean?

03:40It means that in sector after sector of our economy, whether it is agriculture, whether it's financial services,

03:48whether it's transportation, you name it, a handful of giant corporations control that sector and determine the prices that you pay.

04:00And if you think one of the amazing things, you can go Google it, is that many of these large corporations that you're familiar with,

04:09whether it's Apple or General Motors or whatever it may be, they are themselves owned by entities larger than them.

04:16See, you've got a handful of gigantic Wall Street firms like Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street,

04:25that are the major stockholders in over 95% of American corporations.

04:31A handful of major Wall Street firms have enormous power over the economy.

04:37But...

04:38Crazy!