Mike Gravel

The military-industrial complex not only controls our government lock, stock and barrel, but they control our culture.

— Mike Gravel

“No, we are failing, and it’s our leadership that’s failing, and the American people, if they had the power to make laws in partnership with representative government, they could correct this."

— Mike Gravel

The country is run by corporate America, particularly the military-industrial complex, the medical-industrial complex, and we do nothing about it. Look at this election and it’s all money. Follow the money, and you’ll find out what you’re going to get in the way of leadership

— Mike Gravel

The only way you’re going to pay for it is not by saddling business. All you do by forcing business to pay for health care or passing a law telling people they have to go buy insurance, which is a subsidy for the insurance companies, all these plans are going backwards.

— Mike Gravel

When the industry that profits from health care calls the shots on the way health care is going to be delivered, then you are going to see the anomalous situation that you have in this country where they can’t even deliver it to everybody fairly."

— Mike Gravel

“Stop and think. When he’s talking about the money we’re squandering. 21 million Americans could have a four-year college scholarship for the money we’ve squandered in Iraq. 7.6 million teachers could have been hired last year if we weren’t squandering this money. Now, how do you think we got into this problem? The people on this stage, like the rest of us, are all guilty and very guilty, and we should recognize that, because there is linkage!”

— Mike Gravel

“The scourge of our present society, particularly in the African-American community, is the war on drugs. I’ll repeat again as a challenge to my colleagues on this stage, that if they really want to do something about the inner cities, if they really want to do something about what’s happening to the health of the African-American community, it’s time to end this war.”

— Mike Gravel

“Education? Yes. Health care? Yes. But understand that the health care that we’re talking about, by and large, is going backwards, going backwards. We’re subsidizing the insurance companies. And all the plans that I’ve heard of, except Dennis’s, is a continued subsidization of the insurance companies.”

— Mike Gravel

“Is it a surprise to anybody in this room that if you don’t have any money, you don’t get any justice? (Laughter.) Is that a surprise to you all? (Applause.) My gracious, the only way you’re going to get justice is to turn around and empower yourselves to become lawmakers so you can change the system, and there’s no thought of really changing the system today. It’s politics as usual. (Applause.)”

— Mike Gravel

“No, outsourcing is not the problem. What is the problem is our trade agreements that we have that benefit the management and, of course, the shareholders, and have neglected on either side of the issue, whether it’s in Mexico or in other countries or the United States. That’s the problem that must be addressed.”

— Mike Gravel

“I'm first-generation American. My parents came here like many of your parents, and I spoke French before I could speak English as a child. And my parents carved out -- my dad was very humble, didn't have a third-grade education, but he was able to work and prosper in this country, and so I honor anybody that comes to this country as an immigrant, because we're all immigrants. There's been nobody else but the Indians in this great land.”

— Mike Gravel

“Well, the first thing that you would do is to realize that terrorism is not a war. Our war on terrorism makes no sense. We've had -- (interrupted by applause) -- we've had terrorism since the beginning of civilization, and we'll have it to the end of civilization.”

— Mike Gravel

“Totally. I think it's abominable that they go out and do these raids, separate families. (Applause.) Stop and think -- all these people want to do is earn enough money to feed their families, whether they send them money back home or they bring their families here. If we made it easier for them to go back and forth on the borders, you wouldn't have this problem.”

— Mike Gravel

“We don't need a minimum wage; we need a living wage. We don't have that in this country because of what they passed.”

— Mike Gravel

“The Democratic Party used to stand for the ordinary working man. But the Clintons and the DLC sold out the Democratic Party to Wall Street. Look at where all the money is being raised right now, for Hillary, Obama and Edwards. It's the hedge funds, it's Wall Street bankers, it's the people who brought you what you have today. Please wake up. Just look at the New York Times of the 17th of July that analyzes where the money's coming from.”

— Mike Gravel

“George Bush's oil war was a mistake. We need to stop killing Americans and Iraqis. Been around since the beginning of time. It's not a war. It should be a police action based on global intelligence. It's the most serious problem facing humanity today.”

— Mike Gravel

COOPER: How many people here a private jet or a chartered jet to get here tonight? GRAVEL: I took the train…

— Mike Gravel

“I've advocated, people, follow the money if you want to find out what's going to happen after any one of these individuals are elected. Follow the money, because it's politics as usual is what you're seeing.”

— Mike Gravel

“Because when you have a foreign policy that's beggar thy neighbor, we all become beggars. And so when they talk about the currency of China, what about the — what manipulations we do? What about the American companies that dump things abroad?”

— Mike Gravel

“Hasn't it become obvious in this discussion that there has to be a reason why over the last 15 years we haven't solved this problem as a nation? Stop and think. Our unemployment level is about 4.5, and that's about as low as you can get it. So, where is the problem? We have to have people fill these jobs. They come in and fill these jobs. We call them illegal. Are they illegal? They're filling jobs that need to be done.”

— Mike Gravel

“If we were to chase them out, aren't we playing to the nativists, the crazies, who are opposed to anybody coming in since they got here? And the media plays into this. The Congress plays into this. Just open our doors. When the jobs are there to be filled, they'll come in. If the jobs aren't there, they'll go home. We can deal with all these other problems in trade.”

— Mike Gravel

“We're making a mountain out of a mole hill. We're creating laws. We're trying to deal with this. Deal with the obvious: We do not seem as a nation to be able to solve this problem the way we've been approaching it.”

— Mike Gravel