PRESS RELEASE
`Occupy Wall Street' Mass-Strike
Process Embracing Glass-Steagall
Oct. 7, 2011 (EIRNS)—The dramatically expanding process of anti-Wall Street demonstrations popping up in city after city in the United States, represents the third wave of the mass-strike process over the last two years. This time, given the depth of the global collapse, the urgency of victory for the policy-solution, starting with reinstating Franklin D. Roosevelt's Glass-Steagall banking reform, is coming to the fore.
Most notable about these protests, which model themselves explicitly on the Indignados movement of Spain, is their lack of organization, and their youth. While, as can be expected, the thousands of young people occupying spaces such as Zuccotti Park, now known as Liberty Plaza, in New York City, and elsewhere, include ideologues from various groups, the characteristic of the growing movement is its attraction of those who have never been political before, and are simply at the end of their rope, and looking for a future that's been denied them. It's when youth are in action, that revolutions are made.
Over the last few days, two additional significant elements have come into play, in addition to the growth of the movement to ever more cities and states.
- First, it has become clear that the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall, including specifically the bill before the House of Representatives sponsored by Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio)—H.R. 1489—is a leading demand of the movement. As one of the Occupy Wall Street Internet pages puts it, the reinstatement of Glass-Steagall will "make Wall Street games illegal." This phenomenon would not have occurred, without the in-depth campaign carried out by the LaRouche movement for Glass-Steagall over the past three years, and the ongoing intervention of the LaRouche movement and Congressional candidates.
- Second, the spark struck by the youth in motion has recatalyzed the labor movement, which is embracing Glass-Steagall in increasing numbers, but has lain largely dormant in terms of street action since the days of the Wisconsin confrontation last Winter. Trade union locals in many cities are coming out to march with the Occupy Wall Street protests.
The outcome of this mass-strike wave, of course, cannot be predicted, but its spread and character send a clear message: The time is now propitious for removing Obama, getting Glass-Steagall, and moving to a credit system based on huge development projects, as the only alternative to a global dark age.
