US in a revolutionary period

Anti-Wall Street protests have gained momentum across the US, including newer rallies in Washington DC, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Press TV has interviewed Edward Spannaus, editor of the Executive Intelligence Review from Washington, to talk about the protest movements in America.

The two other guests interviewed in the show are Richard Becker from San Francisco and David Swanson from Virginia.

The following is the transcription of the interview:

Press TV: Edward Spannaus, why don’t you tell us your impression of these movements? I mean, they are obviously gaining momentum. Tell us why? And of course we see Occupy Wall Street as being one of them that has inspired other movements.

Spannaus: Well, I would actually go back to the spring when you had the mass protests in Madison, Wisconsin, in Indiana, in Ohio and at that time also you had demonstrations in hundreds of cities in support of the trade unionists and when you had governors of those states trying to break the unions.

So I think what we’re looking at is what the German revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg, termed the mass strike, in which, in a revolutionary period, you have large numbers of people who will take to the streets, who will take to protest and are often spurred up by a wave of activity and political ferments.

How nice people themselves don’t even know what’s involved. It’s not something that can be controlled. It’s not something that you can call. But it reflects the oppressive conditions of life that people are facing.

The economic situation is a total disaster; the unemployment actually is worse than the great depression. It’s actually up around 30 percent. Young people have no future.

And on top of that you’ve got the police state measures; Obama has continued and expanded everything that Bush and Cheney did, the people protested against and Obama has now taken to assassinating US citizens abroad, a summary execution.

So people are angry. People are enraged about this sort of thing and this is the phenomenon that we’re looking at right now, which is now taking the form of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protest.

Press TV: So Richard Spannaus, so what’s going on right now? Would you say it’s also a revolutionary period?

Spannaus: It’s a revolutionary period, no question about it. Whether the movement is revolutionary, it remains to be seen in what direction it takes. But we are in a revolutionary period. The old transatlantic monetary system, the IMF system dominated by the British is collapsing and the question is what’s going to come out of that which I will be happy to talk about.

Press TV: Edward Spannaus, if 99 percent of Americans feel they are voiceless, so who is running the country?

Spannaus: Well, the country is actually being run by an oligarchy of financial interests located in Wall Street but also in London and in European banks. This is why, to my mind, the single most important demand of the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrations is the restoration of Glass-Steagall.

The Congress should pass HR1489, because what this does, we cannot get Wall Street under control without doing this and we cannot have a recovery without doing this.

This was Franklin Roosevelt’s law from 1933 that separated the speculators of the so-called investment banks from the commercial banks and the community banks today. When that was repealed about ten, twelve years ago, that’s when these Wall Street big banks went berserk.

That’s what gave us too big to fail, the derivative bubbles subprime mortgages and so forth. Restoring that shuts down the Wall Street casino. It puts Goldman Sacks and Bank of America and Morgan Stanley and these guys. They are on their own, no more bailouts for these guys.

We protect the commercial banks. We protect the community banks which we need but we don’t need these blood-sucker gamblers. They are now dominating the country’s economy and controlling Congress by and large.

So that is the first step and of course if Obama’s not fired by then he’ll quit in disgrace, because Obama is completely committed to stopping Glass-Steagall.

This is the biggest behind the scenes fight going on in Washington right now and it did come up in the hearing with [Ben] Bernanke yesterday. It was raised by both a Republican congressman Michael Burgess of Texas and also by Maurice Hinchey, a Democrat of New York.

So this is a bipartisan effort. It’s the most important thing that can be done. The only effective thing [is] to bring Wall Street under control and then establish the basis by which we can begin to rebuild this economy and the world.

It’s not just a question just at the United States but we have been for two generations now, we’ve let our industry be collapsed, our infrastructure is collapsed. There’s an enormous amount of rebuilding to be done which will require millions and millions of new jobs.

We should be cooperating with the countries which are focused on growth, which right now are primarily Russia and China. Europe is flat on its back; it is a mess right now. But Russia and China are investing, they’re growing, they are expanding and that should our focus toward a great Pacific alliance and that will give us a genuine recovery. But the first step, as I say, has to be Glass-Steagall.

Press TV: When you read some of the slogans on the placards that are out, some are saying ‘Wake up America’. Do you not think this is an American awakening?

Spannaus: Well, it is. It’s the beginning but again it depends on what direction it goes; how it goes; what the program is. You know, the advantage we have over the days when we were in the streets for civil rights or in Vietnam is that there is the internet for good and bad.

There is plenty of websites. There is plenty of access to information on that. I would direct people to our website, larouchepac.com, of the larouche political action committee for an elaboration of Glass-Steagall, the Great Pacific Alliance and the reasons why the United States is actually still a junior partner of the British Empire. It still exists and if you don’t know who the enemy is you don’t know who you’re fighting.