PressTV: 'Bankers Using Police To Pin Protesters", Interview With Caleb Maupin

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A prominent political analyst says Wall Street bankers and big businesses are using the police to crackdown on peaceful protesters during the “Occupy Wall Street” movements.


Press TV has interviewed Caleb Maupin with International Action Center to ask his opinion on this issue.

The following is a transcript of the interview.


Press TV: Last week's clashes often were the most violent. Just yesterday, there were 80 arrests. There were injuries including with both police and protesters. How would you evaluate the way the police exercise themselves in terms of the way of their tactics? Is the escalation in the police tactics a sign that it would lead to a violent police crackdown in other states? As it looks, it's hard to differentiate between some of these scenes that we see and incidents with other scenes going on in countries in the Middle East, for example in Bahrain. And, of course, there it has led to mass social unrest to say the least.

Maupin: I would say that what we're seeing right now is a glorious uprising of the people. Youth from the working class are standing up to Wall Street and the bankers, and they're doing it very heroically.

And just like it's the police that are throwing working people out of their homes all across the US, and just like it's the same Wall Street funded military that's been bombing Libya, threatening war against Iran. And just like the Wall Street class, they own the government - lock, stock, and barrel - and they're sending the police down to attack the youth. It's the same kind of thing; the police serve the banker class.

And the people are standing up, and this repression isn't threatening them. They're mobilizing and they are coming. And every time they come down, the demonstrations are bigger. They grow stronger. And that's what we're seeing, the people are standing up.

The more they come down and the more they attack, it just shows the fear that they have, that the people are standing up and demanding what they need. I say it's time we take this “Occupy” movement to a global thing.

And it's time we say it's time we occupy for jobs. Millions have been given to these bankers and bailouts but they're not creating jobs. There's mass unemployment. People can't survive in this society. They can barely get by. Food stamps are getting cut off. The tear gas these police are throwing at demonstrators, the pepper spray, the mace, the orange nets they come at us with, they're not going to fill the stomachs of hungry children who are losing their food stamps right here in New York city. Their batons are not going to cure the problem.

The only thing that's going to solve the crisis we're in is people standing up. People are standing up heroically, and that's what we're seeing. And I'm proud to be a part of the generation that is fighting for once and is no longer passively sitting back while this banker, Wall Street class continues to wage its wars, continues to attack people around the world and continues to get rich off the wealth of not just the people in this country but with people from all over the world who are enslaved by the bankers.

Press TV: We're looking at the Democrats and the Republicans, and it doesn't seem like they are the ones that are representative of the 99 percent that's out there. Obviously, the one percent is the one that's running the country. If that's the case, who is going to represent the 99 percent, can there be a third party, in your opinion, that reflects the aspirations of the 99'ers?


Maupin: I think if you look at the history of this country, the elections have always been a dead end. When people go and try to put their hopes into ballot boxes, they get ruined. They don't see the points, the hope that's coming.

But the future for this movement is for being in the streets and organizing. That's how the Vietnam War was ended. The Vietnam War was not ended by voting for democrats or republicans.

The union movement was a heroic struggle. It wasn't won by people voting, it was won by people going in and sitting down and the workers who took over the banks and sat down. That's what makes history. History is made by the people, by the 99 percent.

When I think of the 99 percent, I think of those who sell our labor to survive. Wall Street owns the banks and the factories. But the rest of us, the 99 percent, we sell our labor, we are the workers. History is made by us.

Even in the wars, one of the banners we had down there is Wall Street is “war street” because from the time the system has begun, it's always been one class. The Wall Street class that sends people to die in the wars and makes the profits from the wars. But it's always us, the working class, who dies in these wars that the capitalists are waging.

This is such a great moment in US history. For so long there's been such a feeling that when are people going to wake up? Well, people are waking up! Millions of people are out on the streets right now standing up to the true enemy of humanity, the banker class.

And I don't think we need to chain ourselves to the democrats, the republicans, or some party or other. I think this is the moment where we can write our own program. We can say a job is a right. We can say education is a right. We can demand that student debt, the crime that punishes students for getting an education, we can say that that be eliminated and that free college be provided like it is in many countries throughout the world, and write our own program for the first time.

We don't need democrats and republicans. We can do it. This is the moment. We're making history! Not with a ballot box but with our feet. We're making history, and I'm so excited about it. And I don't think our answer is to chain ourselves to some politician or some other, I think this is the moment we can actually save the earth from these bankers with their profiteering greed.

GMA/AZ