Video- ‘US public has no faith in politicians’

The United States is currently grappling with growing protest rallies against corporatism, poverty and social inequity in the country.

The protests which started in Wall Street in New York last month have now spread to major cities including Seattle, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Boston, as well as hundreds of communities across the US.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV, Kathy McConaghie, American political activist, elaborates on the Occupy Wall Street movement underway in the US.

Press TV: Tell us the latest situation there after one month now since the beginning of Occupy Wall Street. Are you surprised that it has gone on this long?

McConaghie: I’m not surprised at all. I think that the movement is rooted in economic inequality. It is a worldwide movement. We were inspired by the happenings in Tunisia and Egypt and many of us became impatient with the status quo and the lack of the abilities of our two-party system to address what is going on in our country as well as the waste of money overseas on wars that most of us are not in favor of. So I am not surprised at all. I am very happy to see this movement continuing.

Press TV: Kathy, you say that people are frustrated with the lack of alternatives because of the whole two-party system, either the Republicans or the Democrats. Do you think that the majority of people now on the streets have reached that perspective that they are looking for, an alternative to the status quo, or is it something just basic as far as personal need, that they are feeling this hit them financially, a personal hit to their pockets? How much of a political awareness do you see on the streets?

McConaghie: I think they are extremely political aware. Yes, there is a personal aspect to the activism and there is a good reason that they are out there; they have either lost their homes or parents have lost their homes; they have student loans that they cannot pay or they have no jobs or they are underemployed. But to characterize these people as not having political awareness or not knowing what is going on is to be shortsighted. They are aware; they are very savvy and I think they are a force to be reckoned with, as we can see from the attempts of the Democratic Party to try to co-opt the movement, to identify leaders and make these movements accountable to the existing party.

Press TV: What do you mean by that, Kathy, when you say, as far as a Democratic Party [is concerned that they are] now trying to co-opt the movement? Expand on that for me, please.

McConaghie: I am not saying in any regard that the activists are not welcoming everyone. We are all the 99 percent; we all know that it does not matter what party you are in; you are probably not doing as well as the one percent who makes all the money in the world and controls what goes on. However, the Democratic Party, I think, is threatened by this movement and they want to try to solidify it and make it seem as if their party has the answers. The people on the streets certainly do not believe that either party has the answers. If they did, then we would have seen more jobs, less war, healthcare, etcetera by now.

Press TV: Kathy, how likely is a horizontal structure to work without any specific type of leadership or guidance? Can it work with just everyone hand in hand without any particular leadership trying to give a direction?

McConaghie: Yes, I believe it can work. I think that to say that to say that something has no leadership when it has many leaders is kind of a false paradigm. These are people coming to conclusions through general assemblies; through discussion and deciding which course to take. As they say, they are tapping the power within, the power around them and they are going up against the power above. I find it interesting that politicians are appearing at these movements and trying to use them as some kind of jumping off point for their own agenda. As far as I am concerned, until politicians start talking about class warfare, the failure of capitalism and the need for a major change, and if you will a revolution, throughout the world then they are just bringing us the same old frame and we are not going to accept it and that is what the leaderless movement is saying.

Press TV: How likely would that be the case having a politician coming out and calling for revolution? Wouldn’t they see it as shooting themselves in the foot?

McConaghie: Of course they would. Most politicians are funded by corporate interests and backed by militarist interests. So why would they come out and say, yes, this is class warfare, capitalism is kind of falling apart and it has caused a lot of hardship in the world and yes, this is a revolutionary movement. Politicians are going to come out and say something like that; politicians are going to try to co-opt these kinds of movements; they always have and they always will.

Press TV: Kathy, how concerned are you, because we have seen in the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa that one of the major fears was that the revolution was going to be hijacked. How concerned are you about the situation in the United States that it could be hijacked by parties totally having a different perspective then yourselves but actually infiltrating and trying to guide it in a different direction?

McConaghie: I am concerned but I think that we are all very aware of it and I think that it is really important to emphasize that we have people, for instance, in the ‘Stop the Machine’ movement in Washington DC right now, one young lady named Aline McCracken went up against the Armed Forces Service Committee last week and she is still under indictment for supposedly ‘assaulting Leon Panetta’. She did not assault him but those charges are still standing, although most of the people who have been arrested in Washington DC have been treated very well because the police in DC are dealing with this action there much differently than the NYPD is.

These are very serious things that are going on and very serious challenges to the ‘machine’ that controls not just my country but the world. So make no mistake about it: the people that run that machine are going to try every way they can to stop these movements. I do not see it happening. If one looks at Chile and Spain and London and other parts of the world alone, you do not look at hundreds of thousands of people and say, ‘Oh, they’ll go away’.

Press TV: How likely, as you’re calling it ‘trying to stop the machine’ if these efforts continue by the people that we may witness harsher crackdowns than we have already seen?

McConaghie: I think it might be likely. I think that it seems to me, because the NYPD has kind of been pulled back and municipalities all over the country are trying to figure out a way to allow the protests to continue but to supposedly to contain them so that life can go on as normal, I think what you are seeing right now is a dance between the authorities and the movement. The movement needs to stand firm and say we are not going to be moved. Start telling us where our jobs are; start telling us when you are going to stop the wars; start telling us when we are going to have healthcare; star telling us when you are going to stop the bankers from controlling our country and until the authorities figure out that they need to do that, I think we are here to stay.