Faceoff at 55 Wall St.

By Ali Muhammad Baghdadi

Enough is enough.  Americans reject the current state of the union.   They insist that President Obama, who in his bid for the presidency assured the masses of voters of real change, must now listen carefully to their demands.  They want their government to eliminate the influence of corporate money and lobbies which influence the elections and corrupt the democratic process.

Last February and March, tens of thousands of citizens, joined with singers, musicians, movie producers and other activists from all over the United States, camped in front of the Capitol building of Madison, Wisconsin and set up an American Tahrir Square, protesting governor Scott Walker’s anti workers agenda.  They shouted “Democracy in the working place… Down down with Hosni Walker”.  An Egyptian in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt, moved by the scene of the demonstrators, was seen carrying a sign expressing solidarity with the fellow American workers’ struggle.  Similar Tahrir Square banners were held in Ohio and other states.  The quest for justice overcomes race, nationality and other barriers.

OccupyWallStreet.org. demo Sept. 17, 2011.  Marchers leave Zucotti Park to attempt to enter blocked off Wall St. At 55 Wall St. they find the wealthy at play and a faceoff begins.

In that same spirit of “Arab Spring, Muslim Awakening”, today, September 17, over 20,000 ordinary people in America are expected to be converging on New York City and converting Wall Street into Tahrir Square.  Wall Street is the central command, the nerve center and icon of the most fascist and exploitive economic system the world has ever known.   It is behind the wars, death, destruction, hunger, and many other calamities from which people throughout the world suffer, including the majority of Americans.

A coalition of groups of concerned American activists representing all walks of life, will gather in New York, and will lay siege on Wall Street, symbol of ugly capitalism, and the source of ills and miseries that inflict our planet.   These men and women have made it clear that they will convert Wall Street into a tent camp, demanding that Barack Hussein Obama fulfill his campaign promises for change, and honor his obligation as President.   Ninety nine percent of America’s citizens are in dire need for protection against the greed and corruption of 1%  who own 50% of the country’s wealth, and who rob the overwhelming majority, and stripped them of their freedoms and civil liberties.

The “Arab Spring, Muslim Awakening” stunned the whole world.   Governments and peoples could not believe that non-violent peaceful protesters with empty hands can triumph against two of the most brutal dictatorships in modern world, the regimes of Ben Ali of Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, despite the intelligence support and the latest and most savage so-called anti-riot gear.

To see Mubarak, his two sons, and members of his government appearing in court, packed into a cage, to face justice, to say the least, is amazing, inspiring and overwhelming.  I never thought I would see this day.  Fortunately, I did.  I will leave this world with a smile.

American and Israeli intelligence had failed to predict that this day was coming.  To ride the wave, and contain the peoples’ revolution, Washington dumped Ben Ali and Mubarak on the trash piles of history.  I do see that the day when America dumps the remaining Arab tyrants, including the House of Saud, is near.  America does not keep its promises or honor its covenants and commitments.  It has always made it clear; it has no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only interests, no mercy.  “The international leader of the 42 year revolution, the king of kings, the dean of Arab rulers, the imam of the faithful, the greatest philosopher who gave us the Green Book, and the man who resides in the heart of millions that are prepared to die for him” is one of the many examples.

The Muslim revolution has been contagious.  The echo of this revolution against tyranny and oppression was heard loud and clear at every corner of the globe.  The compass for calls for social justice protesting their governments’ economic policies in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Athens and other European cities, pointed to Cairo Tahrir Square.  The success of Tunisian and Egyptian youths, facing real bullets and continuing their peaceful struggle for democracy, freedom and social justice, was inspirational and encouraging.   Unarmed young Arab and Muslim revolutionaries prepared to sacrifice their lives, have become the champions of the down-trodden and the dispossessed everywhere.

In addition to San Francisco and Los Angeles, the occupation of Wall Street will be accompanied by other solidarity rallies in Western Europe, particularly, London, Paris, Milan and Madrid.

The peaceful protests against the most corrupt financial institutions on earth may be expanded to include the US Federal Reserve.

Americans have lost faith in their government.  The time is ripe for them to rise, taking things in their own hands, challenge the establishment, and restore democracy, freedom and prosperity. 

Enough is enough.  Americans reject the current state of the union.   They insist that President Obama, who in his bid for the presidency assured the masses of voters of real change, must now listen carefully to their demands.  They want their government to eliminate the influence of corporate money and lobbies which influence the elections and corrupt the democratic process.

Americans are facing the biggest economic crisis since the 1929 Great Depression.  At the door of the plane that flew me from Amsterdam to Tehran a couple days ago, I picked up the Financial Times.  On its first page it wrote that more than 40 million Americans fell below the poverty line. The coming years will be worse, and no end is in sight.

America’s poor as well as its dwindling middle class are getting poorer.  They have been betrayed by their government and their representatives.  They can wait no longer.

The rich are getting richer.  Though the corporate tax rate barely reaches 1%, the average income tax imposed on the working class is 35%.

In the last 5 years, approximately, 5 million families lost the roofs over their heads and their homes went into foreclosure.  They couldn’t pay their mortgages.  No meaningful action was taken by their government to help them.  Yet, instead of being brought to justice and punished, the big banks which caused this economic collapse were bailed out by the US government.  Billions of tax-payer dollars went to their coffers in order to prevent the crumple of the American style capitalist system and face the same fate of Soviet Union communism.

According to US government statistics, the unemployment rate, the misery index, is 9.7%.  The actual number is 16.6%.   The official number does not include millions of jobless who gave up looking.  Out of work Americans have surpassed 10 million.  Million of Americans lost all their savings.  In 2010 alone, 1.5 millions went bankrupt.

In his most recent address to the Congress less than 2 weeks ago, President Obama proposed a plan that gives more lavish tax cuts to the rich, in the name of job creation.  A day later, General Motors announced plans to expand its car production in India, cheap slave labor.  Huge profit, not the welfare of the American people, is the capitalists’ only objective.

In the last 10 years, the United States of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib has become a police state.  Americans lost their freedoms as a result of a vicious climate of hysteria and fear in the aftermath of 911.

Thirty three percent of Americans today believe that this criminal act is a false-flag, a home-made conspiracy, planned and executed by the Israeli Mossad and US intelligence.   Three thousand innocent Americans were sacrificed.   Trillions of dollars that are badly needed at home were diverted to wars based on lies to serve the interests of the Zionist settler state, oil companies, the weapons-industrial-complex and big business, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the US Constitution.   Billions of tax-payer dollars are not accounted for.   American soldiers, mainly poor Whites, Latinos and Blacks, return home with serious brain damage or mental disabilities.  They cannot cope with the war atrocities they had carried out or witnessed.  A great number commit suicide; or kill their loved ones; and in a recent case, a soldier water-boarded his small child.

Unfortunately, the real mass murderers and war criminals, that are busy selling their memoirs, are above the law and on the loose.  The US Black president who is pursuing their policies wouldn’t dare bring them to face justice.

Whether or not the “American Spring”, actually the “American Fall”, will be successful in having their voices be heard is too early to tell.  Challenging the powers that suck the blood of the masses of people of the world is crossing a red line.   The coverage, if any, by CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC, al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya is not expected to be favorable.  Regardless of the outcome, the American Spring is a step along a long journey.

With determination, perseverance and sacrifices, they will overcome.

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Source: Official website: occupywallst.org