Senator Bernie Sanders | Full Address | Oxford Union

thank you very much and I'm going to be brief, very good, what I want to say is that I know that there is a lot of concern about what is happening in the United States today, one or two of you have concerns, so to the people of the United States and I want you to understand that when you read the things that Donald Trump says and see what he does, do not believe for a moment that his statements or actions reflect the opinions of the majority of the people of the United States because Don't do it yesterday, as you know, the President Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris agreement on climate change.

This was a stupid and destructive action that will harm the United States and affect the entire world, but having said that, what I want you to know is the vast majority of the American people disagree with Mr. Trump when he says that the Climate change is a hoax, but the American people understand it and what is acting right now across America is the understanding that climate change is real, it is caused by human activity, and it is already causing devastating problems in my country. country and in countries around the world so that Trump can withdraw the United States from the Paris agreement, but what I want you to know is that American cities, towns and states are going to continue to move aggressively to transform our energy system away from fossil fuels towards energy efficiency and sustainable energy such as wind, solar, geothermal and other approaches, and we intend to work with a global community to achieve the goal of reversing climate change and creating a planet that is healthy and habitable for my seven grandchildren. for their children and for future generations and I want them to understand that, secondly, what I want them to know not only about climate change but about many other issues.

Donald Trump is out of touch with the current situation of the American people. that American domestic politics is not something that you say up at night worrying about, you have to worry about your own country, but what you need to know is that Trump has supported a health care proposal in the United States, you know what that this health care proposal will do good. we now have 28 million people in the United States without any health insurance right now. The United States, unlike the United Kingdom, unlike Germany, unlike France, the United States is the only major country in the world that does not guarantee health care to all people, so we have 28 million people who many others do not have health insurance, many of them are underinsured with high deductibles and copays, and what Trump is supporting is a proposal to remove an additional 23 million Americans of medical insurance.

Trump is also presenting a budget that is the most vulgar anti. working class budget in the modern history of the United States of America and I think when I tell you what's in the budget, you'll say, well, you know, Bernie is being a little partisan. Check it out. I am NOT being positive. Do you know the truth? What this budget will accomplish over a 10-year period if it were to get tested, which, by the way, it won't, but if it did, it would bring massive cuts to programs that kids desperately need. on a nutrition program that provides food to low-income pregnant women and their newborn babies at a time when infant mortality in the United States is too high cut after-school programs cut programs for low-income seniors in the states united as some of you know, going to college is very expensive, there is a program that helps working class kids a little, not enough to be able to pay for college, that program would be cut over a 10 year period, he would cut two and a half billion. dollars in health education programs in the environment, etc., and you know what it does without two and a half billion that it took from hungry children, that it took from the environment, that it took from education, it gives them in tax breaks to the Top 1%.

This is a budget that will be massively resisted in the United States and, in fact, will not pass Congress because even Republicans understand how vulgar that budget is. Plus, when we talk about Donald Trump, it's not just about his domestic policies, tax breaks for billionaires, and cuts. to the programs for workers, what worries me is also their great lack of respect for American democracy, now at the center of democracy, whether in the United Kingdom, in the United States, in France, anywhere, it is the belief that you have a vote and you have a vote. comply with majority rule, live within institutions that inform us, that educate us, what Trump has done in an unprecedented way, in a very terrifying way for those of us who believe in democracy, is tell his followers that the mainstream media is all fake news. you see it in the New York Times The Wall Street Journal Washington Post CBS NBC don't believe a word this is unprecedented for any American president.

I promised my book, you see the problems I have with the corporate media, a lot of problems there, but it has never occurred to me that all writers just lie and if you think about it, if you have a president who tells people that everything they you see and read here is a lie, what is the logical conclusion? to understand the truth how are you going to understand what is going on in your society well a congressman from Texas a conservative republican in Congress from Texas basically told us what we should believe he said you can't believe anything I'm paraphrasing I can't believe any of the news about Faith.

It seems like the only person you're going to get the truth from is Donald Trump. Now, that's clearly not what democracy is supposed to be. Trump has attacked the judiciary in an unprecedented way because it provided decisions he was uncomfortable with, especially regarding his attempt to ban Muslims from visiting the United States, but it's not just about his attacks on our foundations democratic and our traditions; We also find it very, very strange how the president of the United States, a nation that has led the world for many decades in promoting democracy, in reaching out to developing countries trying to help them move towards a democratic society, there Trump seems to have a much closer affinity and relationship with autocrats around the world than with the leaders of democratic countries. societies and throughout this country I tell you that Americans cannot understand it, they cannot understand why Donald Trump feels such an affinity for someone like Vladimir Putin, who has been working overtime trying to suppress democracy in his own country, who is working to subvert democracy. in countries around the world like in the United States like in France and other countries through cyber attacks why does he feel affinity with the royal family of Saudi Arabia who treats women as third class citizens?

What is happening that bothers you? being surrounded by leaders of democratic countries but feeling close to leaders of autocratic societies, so what we are trying to do in the United States are two things, the number one that you are reading is about a resistance, a growing resistance of women who are They stand up and tell the president of the United States you will not tell us what we can do with our bodies we will control our bodies not the United States government they are seeing opposition from workers demanding an increase in the minimum wage people demanding equity salary for women You are seeing opposition from young people who are demanding that public colleges and universities be free so that in the United States all of our bright young people can obtain a college education regardless of their families' income.

Watching, and you have seen last month, a massive March for the Planet, people telling Donald Trump that I'm sorry, climate change is real and that we must stand up to the fossil fuel industry and transform our energy system to get it away from fossil fuels. a resistance to Trump's reactionary policies, but they are also seeing something else: they are seeing growing support for a progressive agenda, an agenda that

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es a very important issue in my country, in your country and, indeed, around the world. , now what I find is I travel around my country, it's easy for people to stand up and say yes, we are going to fight racism, unacceptable, yes, we are going to fight sexism, unacceptable, yes, we are going to fight homophobia, unacceptable, yes, we will fight against religion.

Intolerance is acceptable, but there is one issue that surrounds all of these other separate issues and that is that in my country, in your country and around the world we are moving towards oligarchic forms of society where a handful of extraordinarily rich billionaires have greater control not only of our economic life but also of our political life in my country and I want you to hear this: the top tenth of the 1% now owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%. 20 billionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population. society 160 million people 20 people here 160 million people 52 percent of all new income generated this year in the United States and I must tell you that in the United States, how hard people work, they work some of the longest hours of any people in the industrialized world and yet, even though 52% of all new income goes to the top 1% globally, the top 1% now own more wealth than the bottom 99% globally the eighth people richest people on the planet have more wealth 8 people have more wealth than the bottom half of The world's population is around 3.5 billion people.

This is an issue we cannot run away from, both morally and economically, and I want you all to think care

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y, whether you are the UK, the US or the world. If you think it is acceptable that so few have so much while so many have so little and while hundreds of men on this planet live in abysmal poverty without drinking water, without education for their children, where children die today because their families cannot afford the few cents they need for medicines that cure their very treatable diseases, so over the last few decades in my country and around the world we have made great progress in several areas 3040 years ago if I were here and If I had told you that I believed that in 2008 the United States of America would elect its first African American president, you would have said you're crazy, it couldn't have happened and that's what people would have done, but we did it if I had been told that the number of women now holding political office in the United States is 10 times higher than it was 30 years ago, I would have thought that was suspicious.

Do we still have racism at all? Do we still have sexism at all? We are making progress in creating a more equal society in those areas. If I were here 20 years ago, not long ago, and I told you that in the United States of America, in every state in this country, as a result of the ruling of a conservative Supreme Court that gay marriage would be legal throughout the United States, they would have told me I was crazy, but that is what has happened, so we should be proud, we should be proud, and I'm talking mainly about my own country of the progress that we have achieved in many social areas, much the younger generation, your generation in the United States, and I know that here is the least racist, least sexist, least homophobic generation in the history of the world and that says great things about the future of our world , but there is one area that is not as sexy as

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ing race or gender or homophobia and that is the economic struggle and in that struggle not only are we not making progress but we are losing ground in my country.

The middle class is shrinking, the male worker who is right in the middle of the economy today works longer hours for lower wages than he did 40 years ago and that is true not only in the United States but in many other countries around the world. and that speaks to some extent why trump has been successful people like lepen and other far right people have been successful let me conclude by telling you that I am very optimistic despite all the problems we face climate change oligarchy income and wealth inequality all about the problems we face I am very optimistic because your generation, the younger generation, has extraordinary potential to transform this world.

We are seeing a technology that is exploding every day, a technology that, if used correctly, not to kill people, not to spy on people, but it is used. to improve human life we ​​can do extraordinary things under your leadership in the years to come we can cure diseases that are curable today we can produce products without workers having to work 40, 50 or 60 hours a week thanks to robotics we can do much better I work on educating people because of Internet technology and other similar technologies. Your generation has the capacity to do incredible things, but you're not going to do it unless you think big, not small.unless you have the courage to ask a very simple question. and that is why no, why not, why we cannot abolish poverty in this country, in my country and especially in developing countries, why not, why we cannot have nations in which we do not have grotesque levels of income and wealth inequality, why not, why can we Don't we have the best education systems in the world?

Why not? Why can't we transform our energy system away from fossil fuels? Why not? Why can't we fight racism and sexism? We can do all those things, but we won't do them unless every person in this room every person of their generation becomes more and more involved in the political process now the billionaire class and the oligarchy have enormous power they own much of the The media owns a large part of the politics that exists in my country and around the world but we have something that they do not have: we have the vast majority of people who believe in a future not based on greed and selfishness. , but in the understanding that we are a common humanity, that we are all in this together.

Your family is important to my family and my family is important to your family and that we can create a world in which all our people can live decently. live in harmony can live in peace instead of a world where people take advantage of other people and exploit other people we are at a crucial moment in history and, in my opinion, your generation has the potential to do much better than the mine in the creation of a very different world. I very much hope you get involved. I hope they do. Don't lock yourself in your private life, the world needs your intelligence, your idealism and your energy.

Let's move forward. Let's do it. Let's transform this planet. Thank you very much.