Where to Invade Next Page #11

far...

really far away.

They were being kept as far away

from society as possible,

where they could do no harm

to the people of Iceland.

That's not exactly

how we did it.

Well, there was that one guy

named Kareem.

But since the crash of '08,

not a single banker

without a Muslim name

has been tried in a criminal court

in the United States of America.

In Iceland, nearly 70 bankers

and hedge fund managers

were prosecuted,

with many of them sent to prison.

I went to see the top cop,

the special prosecutor appointed

to put the bankers in prison.

His name was

lafur Thor Hauksson.

The bankers

know him as Thor.

So, Thor, I have

the files here, actually,

of the people that I think

helped precipitate

the banking collapse

in the United States.

- Okay.

- Just take a look at that

in your spare time here,

if you can.

If you read through these,

these files...

you'll see things that will make

even Icelandic hair stand up on end.

- Okay.

- I mean, it's--

- Can I keep these?

- You can, actually.

Yep, I wish you would.

Yes.

Actually,

you know, in the States,

you have the ability

and the knowledge

- to do the right thing.

- Yes.

In America,

you had a prior incident.

You had the savings

and loan scandal.

You had some prosecutions

at that time.

- We did.

- Yeah.

That's right,

and people went to jail.

So, you have-- one of the prosecutors

that actually worked on that,

he gave us an advice.

So, our prosecutor,

one of them,

gave advice to your office

to help you...

- Yeah. Yeah.

- ...do this?

Jack Black?

No, no, no.

Not Jack Black.

It was Bill Black, I think.

The former prosecutor

in the U.S.

He was quite blunt with us.

We learned a lot from him.

Well, Thor,

I've invaded Iceland

because you've decided

to investigate and prosecute

your bankers

after your banking collapse

and put a number of them

in prison.

And that's just a genius idea

I want to take back

to the United States.

Okay.

You're the man.

Thank you for this great idea.

- Thank you.

- God bless you.

Because Iceland

didn't bail out their banks

and instead prosecuted

the bankers

and turned much of the financial

decision-making over to the women,

their economy

has completely recovered.

In fact,

it's doing better than ever.

Why do you think

the United States is like this?

Why don't we have

what you have?

In America, you have

the American dream.

That you have--

it's a land of opportunities.

That everybody will be able

to do whatever.

But in reality it isn't like that.

Every kid should have

the same opportunity--

the basic opportunity

to get education and health care.

It's not Communism,

it's just a good society.

Mm-hmm.

- You play more solo.

I'm taking care of myself

and my family

and the rest,

I don't care about.

But we are more

like a big group

and we try to take care of each other

within that group.

Right. You structure yourself

with "we" in mind

and we structure ourselves

with "me" in mind.

- It's the women.

- More women.

- It's women, right?

- It's our DNA.

Yeah.

I'm convinced.

It's my conviction.

That's my belief in women,

the capacity

and the intelligence of women.

If the world can be saved,

it will be women that do that.

And they do not do it with war;

they do it with words.

Women, if they are running society,

they are looking for peace.

They want to save humanity.

They want to save their children.

When the men on Earth open up

to how women see things

and add it to their way

of seeing things,

then we get a better world.

If you were to talk to Americans,

if you had two minutes

to say anything you wanted

to the American people,

what would you say?

And don't be afraid

of hurting our feelings.

- No.

- We need some truth here.

No.

I wouldn't want to live in the States,

even though you paid me.

Because there's-- the society

and the way that you treat people,

the way that you treat

your neighbors.

I would never want

to be your neighbor.

Never, ever.

Because you don't treat

your fellow Americans

the way you should.

How can you, in a way,

come home and feel well

if you know there are

so many people that can't eat,

they're sick, they can't

go to the doctor's,

they can't get any education?

How can you come home

and feel okay with that?

I couldn't.

I don't feel okay about it.

No, that's good.

You shouldn't feel okay with it.

We just had, like,

a hammer and chisel

and we were just-- I don't know,

there were a couple dozen people here,

and we were just like--

the chisel

and then banging away

on this thing, you know?

Did this for two or three nights,

and the crowd kept getting

larger and larger.

And there was no hole yet

in the wall,

but you'd hit this steel stuff

and then sooner or later,

you know, a little crack

would appear in the wall

and the East Germans

on the other side,

they were just, like,

having a smoke.

They didn't-- I think

they knew it was over.

This is my buddy Rod

from Michigan,

and we've met up in Berlin now

at the end of my invasions.

In November of 1989, we happened

to be traveling through Berlin

when we heard that a few people

were down at the Berlin Wall

and were chiseling on it

for some reason.

We thought, "Hey, we got

a couple hours to kill.

Let's check this out."

You know, there weren't

that many doing it then.

It was just those first few nights.

And I don't know,

I was just chiseling away on this thing

and all of a sudden I looked up

and you were on top of that,

you know, like, dancing around

on the top of the wall.

I'm trying to remember,

how many Germans did it take

to hoist you

up to the top of that wall?

Well, there was one that got me--

you know, he sort of grabbed my foot.

And then another one grabbed my belt

and kind of shoved me up,

and then I was able

to grab hold of the top of it.

We stayed at the wall,

chiseling away

for the next three days.

The thing about this

is that you and I grew up

- in the Cold War...

- Yeah.

...and if there was one thing

that was certain, it was that this wall

- would never come down.

- Yes.

Built to stand forever.

Impenetrable.

It lasted less than 30 years.

Yeah.

And, in a night,

it was over.

I remember that,

and around the same time,

Mandela got out of prison

and then became

the president of South Africa.

And those two events--

like, from that moment on in my life,

I was like, "Oh, I get it.

Anything can happen."

They always say

the solution is too complicated,

but there's always

simple answers to these things.

You just take the hammer

and you knock it down.

- You know?

- It really was as simple as that.

Hammer, right?

Chisel, down.

- Down.

- Hammer, chisel, down.

- Rinse, repeat.

- Hammer, chisel, down.

You know?

And then three months later,

- it's official.

- Yeah.

This Cold War, this wall that was

supposed to go on forever

was-- boop-- gone,

just like that, you know?

It's like, three years ago,

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