The Occupy movement has decided to protest against the big corporations using the American Legislative Exchange Council [ALEC] to buy off legislators to craft laws serving their interests.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Linh Dinh, writer and political analyst from Philadelphia, to further discuss the issue.
The program also provides the insights of two other guests: Caleb Maupin, with the International Action Center from New York, and Mark Glenn who is an author and political commentator.
What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: Mr. Dinh, the next question that I would like to put here is what the occupy protesters, those who are protesting corporations, have been saying in their sites. They have been saying that they are specifically targeting corporations that use the American Legislative Exchange Council to buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interest of those corporations and I am quoting them now. Tell us about this exchange council [ALEC] and the role of corporations in American politics and economy.
Dinh: Well, I agree with everything that have just been said. I like to go back to the original premises of the Occupy Movement in that they wanted to target Wall Street, which was a brilliant idea, which is to focus people’s attention to the heart of the problem that says a handful of banks, six or seven banks, are running this country, OK?
So I agree with everything that has just been said, but here is the problem.
Another original premise of the Occupy Movement was that they’re going to disrupt the system, because there have been many protests in the Unites States and most of them only take place for one day or one afternoon and the original premise of the Occupy Movement is that they’re going to disrupt the system; they’re going to occupy Wall Street, they’re going to disrupt it from functioning.
It did not happen that way, because the government here knows how dangerous that is. So they had hundreds of policemen surrounding the Wall Street edifice for months to prevent this from happening.
So what happened was they could only occupy a park. So that became the model nationwide. So the Occupy Movement became like this occupation of a space that did not really matter, OK?
You can occupy as many parks as you want and the system will not change. So I would like the Occupy to move forward and to return to its original premise of disrupting the system.
And until that happens nothing will change, including tomorrow. I am not belittling the people who are putting their bodies on the line, who are getting beaten up, who are getting arrested, but until you can disrupt the system, it will go on and do what it has always done which is starting wars and ripping people off and disrupting and ruining lives.
Press TV: When we are looking at the effects of these movements is or can have, one effect is going to be on the presidential elections presumably that is going to take place in November.
Do you think that there is going to be any effect at all on the elections in terms of who people chose? We know of course that there have been protests against the Republican presidential hopefuls, but does this mean that people trust the Democrats?
Dinh: I have visited about 8 Occupy camps repeatedly and I can tell you that most of the people in these camps have no faith in the political system as it is.
So I myself have no faith in any substantial changes in the next election.
It is just a circus; it is just a distraction. Basically, the system cannot be changed from within and that should be one of the primary messages of the Occupy Protest Movement.
So again, like I said, the system ... In fact, Time Magazine voted “the Protester” Person of the Year.
If you have such a mainstream media patting you on the head, it means that they are not afraid of you. So if the system can brush off this protest movement by giving it a kind of backhanded accolade, then we know that we are not going far enough.
So I expect nothing to happen from this election. But the national conventions coming up will give this Occupy movement a renewed focus to do something substantial and I think they need to come up with new strategies because we do not have all the time in the world....
In fact, when Time Magazine gave the Occupy movement the ‘Man of the Year’ award, they compared it to the Civil Rights Movement and said it took ten years for the Civil Rights Movement to achieve a concrete result, but frankly we do not have ten years.
Press TV: Linh Dinh, I would like to bring up the case of the police brutality with you as well. We know that the recent police killings of a black teenager in his grandmother’s house and also a black officer in front of his two daughters has put the case of police brutality also high on the agenda of these protesters.
There are also of course criticisms about the stop-and-frisk program in New York. The National Defense Act was approved by President Obama. The question now would be, some are asking actually, is America becoming a police state?
Dinh: Yes, of course it is a police state. It is interesting that these laws are being passed now. It is the kind of a legal preparation for what is going to come next because even as the government preaches nonviolence towards the protesters, that has become a kind of accepted common ideology that you should not resort to violence unless you are the state.
So even as they preach that to us, they are preparing to deal with actual outbreak of violence because it is inevitable that is going to happen because as the American people become more impoverished, they are going to get angrier and there is going to be outbreaks just as in Greece and in Spain and I suspect it is going to be even worse here, because I mean, we are the leader in violence of any kind.
So the government is putting laws into place where they can arrest you without charge. You have no access to a lawyer; they can even kill you without charge.
So since those laws are already in place, we do have a fascist government, OK?
So in the months ahead, I expect not less violence but more violence from the state and likely from the protesters because people are very upset.
MY/MSK/JR
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