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US using thugs to silence people

Interview with Webster Griffin Tarpley, author & historian

15 Oct 2011 09:05

Islam Times - The “Occupy Wall Street”(OWS) movement emerged on September 17, when a group of people began rallying in New York's financial district to protest at 'corporate greed' and top-level corruption in the country.


The campaign has now spread to nearly 70 major cities, including Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Boston, as well as more than 600 communities across the nation. It is reportedly being supported through 'Occupy' events in close to 1,600 cities across the globe.

Press TV has conducted an interview with author and historian Webster Griffin Tarpley from Washington to further talk over the issue and get an analytical view point from him.

What follows is the script of the interview:

Press TV: Webster Griffin Tarpley, I'd like to get your reaction to some of the statements that have been made, examples as it has been said of the far right trying to frighten some of these protestors and everyday Americans.

Let's look at Congressman Eric Cantor inciting fear that it's the mob that is occupying our cities and then we had Glen Beck predicting that the protestors will come for you, drag you into the street and kill you. Why are you getting such reactions in your country as the examples I just stated and what do you make of that?

Tarpley: Part of it has to do with the tremendous programmatic weakness, the programmatic void of these demonstrations, the people running these things, and we know who they are, have insisted on leaving it all as a blank slate and naturally these reactionaries and proto-fascists that you mentioned are running to fill in the blanks, loony left and whatever else you can say.

I think this is the problem. This is a mass strike upsurge, and the problem with a mass strike upsurge is that the forces of the old order attempt to extend their social control over it and typically in the United States that means the foundations, that is the domestic counterinsurgency apparatus that Wall Street ultimately uses.

The foundation I think that has played the leading role here is Adbusters of Vancouver, British, Colombia, Canada and their operative or similar to them on the scene is a woman called Alexa O'Brien and they are ones who have imposed the idea that there should not be a program and instead everything has to go through this endless General Assembly that debates and debates and debates with filibusters and days go by and nothing is done.

They talk for hours about what to order for lunch and they have no demands and as long as it is a blank slate of demands, then these are the people who will come in. Now, a couple of examples on how this is dangerous: in Atlanta, their General Assembly did something, I think, was crazy and racist really.

John Lewis, of the Civil Rights Veteran goes back to Martin Luther King, who is the local Congressman, came to the Atlanta General Assembly and said I'd like to say a few words of greeting and they told him no. Their consensus was no. Now this is fundamental stupidity.

If you have a student-based demonstration, you have got to reach out to black working people and the way to do that is obviously not to insult one of their most respected representatives when he comes in twice to offer his support.

Second example would be important in Oregon. The people there say that the facilitators who actually control this thing, foundation funded facilitators in most cases, they say the government just is not to make decisions but only to have a satisfying discussion process, in other words, pure subjectivity for the people that are there and the public be damned, working people be damned and nothing for them.

The question is what are the fighting clash-based demands that you are willing to go for? Another one, this Nurses Union has been really the bright spot. It is called 'American Nurses United' and they have been agitating for what we can call the Wall Street Sales Tax, the Tobin Tax, the Transaction Tax.

You want to break the power of Wall Street? Great, tax them, their great advantages, they pay no taxes and above all they pay no taxes on their turnover and therefore the demand would have to be tax Wall Street one percent that ties it up in the package.

One of the demands that has come forward thanks to agitation by some of us is a Student Loan Amnesty to cancel one trillion dollars of high interest illegitimate student loan debt which is crushing the younger generation and I guess to put it together: have the Student Loan Amnesty now, cancel all those debts and pay for that so to speak with a one percent Wall Street sales tax, in other words, shift the burden of the depression on to Wall Street.

Doesn't it do any good to run around invading against the rich, making news very timid process demands about ending corporate personhood? This is not the problem with the American people. The American people want to know where is my job; how can I stop a bank from foreclosing on my house and stealing it? …

Press TV: This thing about silencing John Lewis, if we have a member of the Congress there being silenced, then what does show in terms of what is going to happen to the protesters out on the streets? How would the one percent want to use any tactics to silence? What kind of tactics would they use to silence the Americans and the protesters out on the streets?

Tarpley: With what they are using. They are using a bunch of anarchists and this Adbusters comes from the Situationist International. Situationist International was cooked up by NATO and the CIA back in the 1950s and 60s to overthrow General [Charles] de Gaulle of France who was the target at that time.

This whole apparatus of the General Assembly, the facilitators, the consensus, the voting, the human microphone; the leaderless group is a brainwashing technique; the human microphone is a brainwashing technique.

So what they are trying to do is they are sending operatives on the left cover to sabotage and destroy from within and unfortunately, a lot of the people who go to these things are very na?ve and they fall into it. What is needed is some kind of an organized force and I would hope trade unions would wake up to this maybe in the way that the nurses have.

Intervene in those General Assemblies, kick out the facilitator, go back to majority rule which is the only tradition we have here; majority rule and rights of the minority have to be respected and get a program…


Story Code: 106423

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