[Music]
thank you everyone for being here today
i i can't say how much this means to me
20 years i've been trying to draw
attention
to what these people really are in 20
years i feel i've been banging my head
against the brick wall
but now i feel there are loads of us
banging our heads against the grip
so that's not some kind of progress
isn't it
now when people call dominic cummings an
evil genius
they're only half right
although the so-called genius bit is
done in places like this and that's not
to say they aren't evil as well because
obviously they are but
but a lot of the policy making a lot of
the ideas
that dominic cummings is credited with a
lot of the
really radical right policies that this
government is implementing
emerge from places like this from 55
tufton street from 57 tufton street from
lord north street from great smith
street from great george street
this nexus of organizations
calling themselves think tanks
and which obediently the media also
calls
think tanks but these
are not think tanks except in as much as
they think about tanks
they are lobby groups they are no
different
to lobby groups like bell pottinger or
burst and marstella who represent
devious destructive corporate and
oligarchic
interests except for this
they do not reveal who funds them
this is a fundamental difference between
them
and people who come forward and say
we're representing the tobacco industry
we're representing the oil industry
we're representing the mining industry
and on their behalf
because they've paid us to do so we're
going to put their case
across these people are doing exactly
the same
but not revealing on whose behalf they
are doing it
it is a fundamental principle of
democracy
that we should know who is speaking
and what is speaking here
hidden by opacity
hidden by this total failure of
transparency and accountability
what is speaking here is the power of
money
and the power of money is the greatest
threat to democracy
and the greatest threat to life on earth
that we face
now they they have a name for the power
of money a euphemism for the power of
money
they call it the market and they talk
about the market as if it's a law of
nature as if it's just something in the
air something in the water something
indefinable
which governs the way that we act
but what they call the market
the market this thing they say should
effectively supplant democracy this
thing
through which decisions should be made
is a forum within which wealth
speaks where there is one dollar one
vote
and those with the dollars are those who
get to make the decisions
and the very purpose of the existence of
these organizations
is to translate the demands of extreme
wealth
into justifications that people will
accept it is to reframe it is to refine
it is to hone
the arguments until we end up believing
the very opposite of where our interests
lie
until we end up believing that what is
good for billionaires
is good for everyone
whereas what billionaires want
is the extension of their own wealth and
power at the expense of
everyone and everything
and so we are here to call them out
we are here to say that what they tell
us they are
is not what they are we are here
to say what they are and what they
are is the power of money
in human form the voice of money
beamed to us on virtually every current
affairs program that the bbc puts out
without ever requiring that they
identify themselves
without ever requiring that they say
who funds them or even to explain that
they refuse to say who fund them
it's an extraordinary thing but these
people are on literally
every day reframing the world recasting
the world telling us
how the world works and never are they
challenged to say on whose behalf
they speak and while people like carol
cadwallada
and myself are now blacklisted by the
bbc
i'm told by editor that i'm on their
extremist
list
these people the true extremists in our
midst
get to talk every day
the first of these organizations to be
established was the institute of
economic affairs that way
set up by an industrial chicken farmer
and a demobbed major and they were
fanatical disciples of the father of
neo-liberalism friedrich hayek
and hayek said don't go into politics
set up an infrastructure of persuasion
which will then bear upon politics which
will then bear upon public
imaginations and changed the way
the world works and that is exactly what
they did in setting up the institute of
economic affairs
and the major oliver smedley wrote to
the chicken farmer anthony fisher
to say we must cover our tracks
we must not allow people to see that
they've been led down a certain
path so we must be cagey
about our intentions as far as the
public
is concerned and what are those
intentions
those intentions are the things which
are erroneously called
thatcherism or reaganism but thatcher
and reagan were just conduits
for this thing that lay behind them just
as boris johnson and donald trump are
conduits for this thing that lay behind
them
this thing called neo-liberalism and
neoliberalism tells us
that the market is the means by which
society should choose
the market of course being as i say the
euphemism
for the power of money it tells us that
public protections
should be ripped down it tells us that
public welfare should be ripped down
it tells us that trade unions should be
ripped down
it tells us that political organizing
should be ripped down because this
market this power of money will sort
everything else
i'll sort everything out by means of its
invisible hands
well this is the invisible money behind
the invisible hand
and by standing here
by standing here to ensure it is no
longer invisible
[Music]
the greatest threat to neoliberalism
is right here in this street it is us
calling for the necessary action to
prevent climate breakdown and ecological
breakdown
because that is diametrically opposed to
the doctrine of neoliberalism which says
just leave
things be the state is there just to
guard private property
and private property and the power of
money will sort everything else
out for us but we need determined and
concerted
action to protect our life support
systems
and these people exist in part to
prevent that determined
and effective action they exist to rip
down the pillars of civil society and
concentrate
power in the office of the prime
minister they
are the power behind dominic cummings
who is the power behind boris johnson
now the great theologian walter wink
named the three stages of overthrowing
illegitimate power the first he said
was to name the powers
the second he said was to unmask the
powers
not in such a way that it exposes us to
coronavirus
and the third he said was to was to
engage the powers
i would add a fourth to overthrow
the powers
[Music]
oh very presence here
names the powers our very present here
unmasks the powers these people who have
so successfully hidden their work
the true nature of their work from us
for so long
what remains for us to do are steps
three and four
engage the powers overthrow the powers
thank you
and a special gorgeous thank you to our
tripod
warriors thank you thank you