I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of Slope.
Five years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, began shorting the market. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of bears who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But five years later, the bear is still is not free.The life of the short-seller is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. We bears live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. We are still languishing in the corners of American society and finds ourselves an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a pledge that both bears and bulls would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That promissory note, however, has been securitized and sold off by the great vampire squid.
We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Slope community must not lead us to a distrust of all bulls, for many of our buy-side brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of fair markets, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the bear is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of Goldman Sachs' brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot short an obviously overpriced market that is made to levitate only through the grace of the New York Federal Reserve. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Go back to Manhattan, go back to the Hamptons, go back to Greenwich, go back to Stamford, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all traders are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the the paper-strewn floor of the New York Stock Exchange, both bulls and bears can sit at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even at 200 West Street in New York, a building sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my two little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the the positions in their portfolio but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down at the Treasury Department, with its vicious POMO purchasers, with its secretary having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Washington, little girls and boys of traders of all kinds will regard one another as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
Let freedom ring from the tree-lined streets of Palo Alto
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of Northstar!
But not only that; let freedom ring from JP Morgan!
Let freedom ring from Chase Manhattan!
Let freedom ring from every cubicle and glass-walled office of Goldman Sachs!
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, options traders and futures pit-dwellers, buy-and-holders and HFT gun-slingers, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Wall Street spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we have free enterprise at last!"
