What is American freedom? Is it the freedom to die if you’re poor and get sick? Or is it the freedom to work and prosper in a nation that ensures your health, shelter and well-being?

That was the general theme of a speech given by progressive talk show host Thom Hartmann, appearing over the weekend at the 10th annual Fighting Bob Fest in Madison, Wisconsin.

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“I think freedom means the right to have security in our economic system and our banking system, rather than rule by banksters,” he said. “Does freedom mean that business should be allowed to get as big as it can, so that we find ourselves in a situation where six financial institutions control 60 percent of the wealth of this country? … There is not a major industry in this country that is not now more than 70 percent controlled by fewer than six corporations. That is not competition. That’s monopoly. That has nothing to do with competition.

“As Franklin Roosevelt said in 1936, he said, ‘They hide behind the flag and the Constitution, but in their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for.’ He said we must stand up to this kind of power. He said, ‘These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain about is that we seek to take away their power. Our commitment to American institutions requires the overthrow of that kind of power.'”

This video is from YouTube, published Sept. 19, 2011.