My organization, the Patriots, has three immediate goals – to prevent an attack on Iran , to end the occupation of Iraq , and (partly because it may be the best way to accomplish the first two) to impeach or indict Cheney and Bush.

But these, as important as they are, are merely dealing with symptoms of a much larger problem – the domination of our government by a handful of billionaires and multinational corporations. It's this bigger picture that I want to concentrate on this evening – not just by giving you a laundry list of what's wrong, but by showing you how things can be better.

I have a vision for America , a vision I'd like to share with you tonight. It's a vision of an alternative future, I think a better future. Now I don't have all the answers as to how to bring this future about, but I do know that before we can do so, we have to have a clear vision of what it is we want. So I'm going to give you an “Inaugural Address” as the new President of the United States in what I suggest is that better future.

I am now going to ask you to pretend that I am speaking to you as President of the United States at my inauguration. In the audience are all the members of Congress, government officials, and you, the American people. I encourage you to clap and cheer like crazy when you hear something you agree with … and sit on your hands when you don't. That let's those watching on TV know what it is they're supposed to believe. (It's the Washington way.)

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My fellow Americans:

We come together in a time of multiple crises. There's the financial meltdown, global warming, peak oil, the plummeting dollar, falling wages and rising prices, a spiraling deficit, the health care shortfall, immigration, housing foreclosures, our deteriorating infrastructure, high school dropouts, astronomical incarceration rates, homeless veterans, rising suicide rates, the loss of our civil liberties, a growing alienation from our allies around the world, crushing debt, hungry children, inexcusable poverty, an exhausted military stressed by disastrous wars, and (unbelievably) persistent ignorance and apathy among our people.

The good news is that there are solutions for all these problems and crises – solutions which have been worked out in considerable detail, and have been available for some time. The only reason these solutions have not been implemented is that they reduce the profits of giant corporations who exercise control over our government.

Corporations, over the last about 150 years, have increasingly escaped government regulation and have accumulated political rights as if they were persons. This has included so-called first amendment free speech rights to spend as much money as they want buying up politicians, drafting legislation to profit themselves, and buying voters and elections through their monopoly corporate media. It has reached the point where foreign policy, international trade, and military decisions are made for short-term corporate profit, to the detriment of the American people and our national security. Our government has become totally controlled by corporate interests, and this is the very definition of fascism.

Our problems are not due to incompetence or inexperience or a government which is too big or too small. We have these problems because those in government no longer serve us. They serve their corporate masters and benefactors and have deliberately chosen policies which harm our nation and our people.

Those of us who dedicate our lives to peace, economic justice, and environmental preservation can make little progress in our struggles so long as ultimate power is in the hands of those who profit from war, poverty, and pollution. But here comes the good news. Tonight, that power has come to an end.

I didn't get here tonight by taking corporate millions. I didn't get here by selling myself to the oil companies, the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies … . To be quite honest, I'm not sure how I got here! But here I am, and as long as I am President of the United States , this government will serve the needs of the people, not the greeds of the wealthy elite.

Turning things around won't be easy. What our Constitution empowers me to change, I shall. (And I'll do it fast!) But for much of what needs doing, I will need the cooperation of you in Congress, and I ask for it tonight. The Constitution does not make me “the decider,” only the proposer and the implementer. You, the people's representatives in Congress, are the deciders. I am therefore vacating all the over 1,100 signing statements imposed by my predecessor. I'm revoking Presidential Directives 20 and 51, which give me dictatorial powers. I ask for repeal of the misnamed Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and all the martial law and special and dictatorial powers acts passed in the last eight years. This is not a monarchy, and I have no interest in being a dictator! (Oh, I'll be called one, because of the sweeping changes I am instituting. After all, returning to the Constitution is not just a change, it's a revolution.)

The first American revolution was when we broke free of the tyranny of King George III. The second was when the federal government became increasingly powerful and centralized and dominated by corporate interests, resulting in a new tyranny, most recently under another George. Tonight represents the flowering of the third American revolution, when We the People once again throw off the shackles of tyranny and take back our country and our Constitution.

Restoring the Constitution means ending the Imperial Presidency and returning power to the people's representatives. But I warn you members of Congress. If you continue to violate your Constitutional responsibility to serve your constituents, and instead serve only yourselves and the big money interests you are indebted to, if you ignore the Constitution and attempt to protect the crooked corporate-dominated status quo, I will go over your heads to the American people and ask them to retire all of you, regardless of party.

In order to restore some semblance of our republic, we must give the people real choices not false ones, and we must have an informed electorate, not a brainwashed electorate. This means electoral reform and media reform.

First, electoral reform:

The Constitutional principle of one person, one vote means that any method of voting which does not produce a paper ballot which can be counted, recounted, and audited as necessary is unconstitutional. I ask Congress and the States to return to paper ballots and institute full public financing of elections, proportional representation, preference voting (sometimes called Instant Runoff Voting), abolition of burdensome petition requirements on independents and third parties, and (so working people can actually vote) making election day a federal holiday.

Many of these changes are designed to empower third parties. There is nothing democratic about a two-party system when both parties are owned at the highest level by the same powerful interests.

I also ask Congress to quickly pass a Constitutional amendment restoring its original meaning. The amendment says, “Corporations and other fictitious entities are not ‘persons' under this Constitution and shall have none of the rights and privileges thereof.”

And now, media reform:

I am ordering the Federal Communications Commission to immediately reinstate the fairness doctrine and the ban on multiple ownership. It's time for a return to family-owned newspapers and radio and television stations. The monopoly media conglomerates must sell off their assets immediately. (Sorry, Mister Murdoch.) The public airwaves are once again going to belong to the people and serve the public interest.

The key to ending fascism is to separate big money and political power. We are taking immediate steps to do just that.

As you know, the previous administration was forced to resign after Bush and Cheney were arrested as war criminals. They were arrested by Pentagon officers who refused to carry out illegal orders to attack Iran . Bush and Cheney also face court-martial proceedings for exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy to deceive this nation into unnecessary and illegal wars of aggression, for abuse of power as Commander in Chief, and for violating the Constitution and their oath of office. The evidence of their guilt is absolutely overwhelming.

The Pentagon officers involved have been promoted or commended for following their oath of office, which is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic (which includes a renegade President and Vice President). In reality, these officers had no choice, because the Nuremberg Principles enshrined in the Uniform Code of Military Justice say that we in the military have not only the right, but also the duty to refuse an illegal order. (Remember, we executed Nazis for “just following orders.”) If I or any member of my administration ever gives such an illegal order, I expect you to take similar action against us. Your duty to the Constitution far exceeds any perceived loyalty to any person.

The real question about these events is why it fell to the military to take action. If you members of Congress had done your Constitutional duty, these criminals would have been impeached long ago.

It's a hackneyed expression, and you've heard it many times, but it's true: “ Clinton lied, no one died.” If it was OK to impeach Bill Clinton for fibbing about an event which only embarrassed his family and soiled a blue dress, why did you refuse to impeach Cheney and Bush for deceiving us into a war costing so many thousands of lives?

Listen up, my Republican friends, if it was right for Richard Nixon to have to resign under threat of impeachment for covering up an attempt to peek at the other party's plans, why was it not right for you to immediately get rid of those responsible not only for two deadly wars of aggression, but also for the loss of habeas corpus and posse comitatus, spying on American citizens, torturing suspects in the phony war on terror, saddling our grandchildren with more trillions in debt, giving away our sovereignty with the North American Union, and subverting the Constitution itself? Where is the accountability?

The Constitution says the President and Vice President “shall be removed”, not “may be removed”, upon impeachment and conviction of such offenses. All you members of Congress who impeded impeachment are yourselves in violation of your oath of office, and your constituents ought to remove you.

There is also evidence of a massive cover-up with respect to 9/11 itself. T he official 9/11 Report, tightly controlled by the White House, amounts to little but a whitewash. When combined with the confiscation of videotapes, audio tapes, black boxes, and other evidence by the FBI, it is clear that regardless of who was responsible for 9/11, the subsequent cover-up was itself a conspiracy involving elements of the White House and the intelligence establishment. And again, you members of Congress who voted against a new investigation are accessories to that conspiracy.

I've been somewhat hard on Congress, and I think rightly so. But we have a chance for a new beginning. I expect to have a close working relationship with the new Congressional leadership.

The Minority Leader is a man I greatly admire and respect – Congressman Ron Paul of Texas .

The Speaker of the House is an old friend and a great Patriot – Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio . He got the job when Nancy Pelosi lost her seat to Congresswoman Cindy Sheehan.

But back to 9/11. The American people have still not been told who was really responsible for 9/11. Dedicated researchers have proven that it could not have happened the way the Bush administration said it did. I'm an old interceptor pilot, and hijacked airliners do not fly around for an hour and forty minutes without being intercepted … unless our air defense system was sabotaged. Indestructible black boxes do not evaporate in the same fire from which an unharmed passport floats to the street below. Steel skyscrapers do not collapse at free-fall speed because of a kerosene fire. Steel buildings do not collapse at all because of a kerosene fire – never have, and never will. And building 7 wasn't even struck by an aircraft. The truth about 9/11 is that after seven years we still don't know the truth about 9/11 … and we should, and so should the families of victims. I am therefore appointing a commission to conduct a new and truly-independent investigation of 9/11. This investigation will be co-chaired by David Ray Griffin and Richard Gage, and coordinated by my Vice President, Cynthia McKinney. Never again must we allow this nation to be stampeded into war under false pretenses.

9/11 is not the only Truth we are concerned about. There have been many other cover-ups, including the murders of a number of our soldiers in the field (most of them women). If the Pentagon won't do a proper investigation, we'll do it for them. Parents have a right to know what really happened to soldiers like Pat Tillman and LaVena Johnson. A government that honors the truth must uncover the truth … and then tell the truth.

We have at times (including, I think, the last few years) had a government with bad policies. But we are a good people. What we have long needed is a government which reflects the values and goodness of the American people.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which cooperates with big business to export our jobs and import cheap illegal labor, driving down wages for all American workers. They don't want you to know this, but in spite of soaring productivity, worker pay in this country is now a third of what it was in the 1950s – a third! If worker pay had kept up with executive pay, the typical worker would be making 1.2 million dollars a year … and the minimum wage would be $217 an hour. Now I'm not promising that, but we are taking immediate steps to benefit American workers. I ask Congress to pass legislation indexing the Minimum Wage for inflation, placing tariffs on importation of goods manufactured by corporations who move jobs out of the country, and limiting the corporate income tax deduction for executive compensation to 20 times the salary of their lowest paid worker. [The ratio between CEO pay and worker pay used to be 20 to 1. Now it is over 600 to 1. This is a free country. Corporations can pay their executives whatever they want … but we don't have to give them a tax deduction for it!]

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which helps corporations despoil God's creation for profit. True conservatism demands that we preserve the land, the air, and the water for our grandchildren and their grandchildren for generations to come. Fiscal responsibility demands that polluters clean up their messes, not taxpayers.

We will initiate bold programs in solar and wind energy with subsidies and tax breaks to make them not only competitive, but superior in the marketplace. At the same time, the Department of Energy will impose a ban on the construction of new fossil fuel and nuclear power plants. [I have three degrees in nuclear engineering, and theoretically, nuclear power plants can be made very safe. But there is still no safe way to get rid of the radioactive waste, and until there is, there can be no new nuclear power plants.]

I am requesting new CAFÉ standards doubling the gas mileage of cars and light trucks. And that's just for starters. This will be coordinated by my Secretary of Transportation, Ralph Nader.

There is no industrial free lunch, and there should be no corporate welfare.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which violates international law in its conflicts and denies its own citizens their Constitutional rights. I have therefore ordered the release of all those being detained without charge, the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay (we'll find somewhere else for Bush and Cheney), and the end of the “rendition” program in which suspects are kidnapped and taken to secret foreign prisons to be tortured. I've pardoned a host of political prisoners, including Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, and Border Patrol agents Campean and Ramos. I'm also pardoning all those incarcerated for possession or use of marijuana. I am directing the Secretary of Agriculture to support the production of industrial hemp. Those addicted to heroin and cocaine should be in treatment, not in jail. The failed “War on Drugs” is over.

All contracts for mercenaries, including all contracts with Blackwater, are being cancelled. This includes contracts with the DoD, the CIA, the State Department, and the Department of Homeland Security (which, by the way, is being abolished).

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which launches unnecessary wars of aggression. [I could speak for an hour about what we have done to the people of Iraq , but let's just deal with what we have done to our own. Over 4,000 of our finest have died. The lives of over 30,000 of our injured soldiers will never be the same. Tens of thousands of our young men and women have severe psychological problems because of what they have seen and what they have done. Hundreds of thousands have been poisoned by depleted uranium, and will suffer lives of pain and disability and will father thousands of children with severe birth defects. Our military services are depleted and demoralized. The VA system is under-funded and overwhelmed. The National Guard and Reserves have been subjected to tour after tour, disrupting lives for even the lucky ones who return unscathed. Jobs have been lost. Homes have been foreclosed. Marriages have been destroyed. Children have been estranged. And for what? We have alienated our friends and made new enemies. We have created thousands of new recruits for Osama bin Laden (whether he's dead or alive), and further endangered the American people. And the longer we stay, the worse it will get.] You can't win an occupation.

Consequently, I have asked the United Nations to send peacekeepers to Iraq to do a job we simply can't do as an occupying army. Whether or not they comply, within three months we are going to support what's left of our troops by bringing them home while they are still alive.

I have also ordered a permanent halt to the use of depleted uranium weapons. They will be destroyed and stored as the dangerous radioactive waste they really are.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by creating thousands of disabled veterans in wars of aggression and then refusing to take proper care of them. [The signature wound of the Iraq War has been brain trauma. Yet the Bush Administration slashed the budget for the Brain Trauma Center by 50%.] The cost of caring for the disabled veterans from the Iraq War alone will be in the trillions of dollars, but it is a cost we must bear. The care of our soldiers wounded in action, wracked with PTSD, and poisoned by Depleted Uranium is not a discretionary expenditure to be avoided by delay, denial, and bureaucratic red tape. It is a solemn obligation of this government, and it will be met! Our new Secretary for Veterans' Affairs, Senator Max Cleland will see to that.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which poisons three million Vietnamese with Agent Orange and two million Iraqis with Depleted Uranium … and then walks away. We are going to provide medical care for these victims. It's time we took at least some responsibility for our actions. Similarly, we will take care of the World Trade Center first responders and rescue workers suffering from respiratory illnesses because the previous administration told them the air was safe to breathe when they knew it was not.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which promotes a globalization which depresses living standards at home and allows corporations to destroy the quality of life in banana republics and client states all over the world. NAFTA has not only cost us millions of manufacturing jobs, but has allowed Archer Daniels Midland to undercut the price of corn in Mexico, driving millions of Mexican family farmers off the land and across our border as illegal immigrants. In addition the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank have caused untold suffering around the world. If we can't reform them, we will abolish them.

With respect to our relations with the government of Mexico, I have ordered the cancellation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership or North American Union, termination of the NAFTA Superhighway which would have cut both the US and Canada in half and put all our longshoremen and truckers out of work, and the suspension of NAFTA completely until Mexico gives its workers union rights, protections for health, safety, and the environment, and wages at least comparable to our minimum wage. That's what the European Union did to Spain , Greece , and Turkey when they wanted to join. The EU required them to raise the living standards of their workers. If we had done that before we signed NAFTA, Mexican workers wouldn't have to come here to feed their families.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a system in which all our personal income taxes go to pay interest on a staggering national debt created out of thin air. The Constitution authorizes Congress to coin our money, not a private cartel. I ask Congress to eliminate the debt-based monetary system and pass legislation abolishing the Federal Reserve.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which uses our money to train death squads in the techniques of torture, intimidation, and assassination. The School of the Americas (by whatever name they choose to call it) is closed.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which gives Most Favored Nation status to the butchers of Tienanmen Square and places an illegal secondary embargo on the impoverished people of Cuba . The embargo of Cuba just ended!

I recognize that we need advance information on the activities of Al Qaeda and those who wish to do us harm. But our values and goodness are not reflected by, and our security is not enhanced by, an organization which promotes instability, insurrection, tyranny, torture, terrorism, murder, and war around the world in our name and with our money. John F. Kennedy and Jimmy Carter tried to reform the CIA, so it would stick to gathering intelligence. They failed. I'm not going to try. As of this moment, I am abolishing the CIA.

Having said that, I must point out that the CIA was right about Iraq , and they are right about Iran . The many outstanding analysts in the CIA will be transferred to other agencies, including DIA . This will be coordinated by my Director of Intelligence, Ray McGovern. He will also see that the activities of the NSA and NRO follow the law and respect the Constitutional rights of our citizens. The days of warrantless wiretaps and using librarians as snitches is over.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which sends its working-class youth around the world to kill the sons and daughters of working people in other countries. Our values and goodness are not reflected by sending our children to the Middle East to kill Arabs so the oil companies can profit from selling the oil under other people's sand, making us the target of terrorists.

No more Iraqs . No more Kosovos. No more El Salvadors. These are not isolated incidents of stupidity. They are part of a long, bloody history of foreign policy being conducted for the financial benefit of the wealthy few. It is a new form of colonialism. It violates our Constitution. It endangers our national security. It mortgages our future. It sacrifices our children. And it will never happen again!

As president, I will use the men and women in our Armed Forces to protect our borders and our people (period!), not the financial interests of Bechtel, Folgers, Chiquita Banana, Exxon, and Halliburton. This one change in military mission – eliminating the mission of protecting the global financial interests of multinational corporations – will allow us to enhance our national security … and reduce the defense budget by 80%.

I have ordered the new Secretary of Defense, Admiral William Fallon, to begin an immediate recall of our forces all around the world. Think of it. After 63 years, the occupation of Germany and Japan has finally come to an end. With the exception of small Marine detachments guarding our embassies, all our military will be home within three months, and all overseas bases will be returned to the host countries.

Needless to say, there will be NO nuclear attack on Iran . My special envoy to the Middle East , Jimmy Carter, will be meeting with them to solve our differences. Once he has finished there, he will straighten out the Israelis and Palestinians.

Our values and goodness are not reflected by a government which for decades has been in violation of its treaty responsibilities to disarmament. I have ordered a halt to the design, testing, and production of nuclear weapons, and have directed the Secretary of State, Mike Gravel, to open negotiations toward the rapid and total abolition of nuclear weapons.

Finally, I'd like to speak directly to the American people. I am unlikely to last long in this job -- partly because I have terminal cancer from Agent Orange, and partly because there are powerful interests (like insurance companies, oil companies, and bankers) with hundreds of billions of reasons for wanting me assassinated. (By the way, if you hear that I have suddenly committed suicide … by shooting myself in the back … with a shotgun … three times, you might be just a little suspicious. They'll call you a conspiracy theorist, but be suspicious anyway.) But, you know, it won't matter. They can kill me, but they can't kill what we have started. It's too late for that. My words, heard tonight by a few, will tomorrow reach many. If the corporate media won't carry it, YouTube will. My faith is that you, the American people, will not let the vision die with me.

I am unlikely to get there with you, but like Brother Martin, I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen the Promised Land.

What I have seen is an America in which every person (regardless of their race, creed, color, age, or sexual orientation) is valued and lives in dignity, every person is cared for, and every person is free to reach his or her full potential.

It is an America in which every family can be supported by one wage-earner with one job paying a living wage. It is an America in which health care is provided to all as a right through a single-payer national health program. (As a conservative, I believe that the only fiscally-responsible way to provide health care is to eliminate the profit, overhead, red tape, and interference between doctor and patient of the insurance companies by kicking them out of health care altogether.)

I see an America in which educators and teachers are highly valued and financially compensated accordingly. It is an America in which policemen, nurses, poets, firefighters, teachers, and garbage collectors can afford a good house in a nice neighborhood and live in comfort, not just scientists, brain surgeons, CEOs, rock stars, lawyers, and basketball players. It is an America in which faith is respected, culture is preserved, the arts are supported, and the Constitution is actually followed.

It is an America that seeks not to be king of the hill nor subservient to the World Trade Organization, but to be a responsible sovereign member of the family of nations (nothing more, and nothing less) … an America that is free of the threat of terrorism because it is no longer feared and hated (because it no longer does hateful things to people all around the world) … an America that leads the world -- not just with military might, but with its vision, its compassion, its democracy, its productivity, its freedom, its standard of living, its care for the global environment, its treatment of its own people, and its goodness. Above all, it is an America at peace with the world and with its own people. That's the kind of America I have seen, the America our people deserve, and the America you can build.

[It won't be easy. The billionaires will fight us every step of the way. They will attempt to shut down our food supply, our gasoline supply, and our economy. If they do, we will respond. We will nationalize industries if we have to. We will use the National Guard to get supplies through. (After all, they won't be in Iraq any more.) If necessary, we will print interest-free money, like Lincoln 's greenbacks. Those who have been for so long above the law will be so no longer.] We WILL preserve this nation and our Constitution.

But I can't do it alone. Each of you must do your part. Spread the word. Keep the vision alive. Drop your own pebbles in the pond and make some waves. Run for office. Never settle for anything less than a government which follows the Constitution, honors the truth, and serves the people.

It matters not if my presidency is real or fanciful. My part is done. It is finished. The rest is in your hands. The future and the vision and the dream itself depend on you. May God sustain you in your struggles and bless America through your actions. We the people CAN win. We the people MUST win. We the people WILL win. Thank you, and good night.