People make noise
as they take part in a casserole march to protest against government's
austerity reforms and the public payment of bank's debts on October 13, 2012 in
Madrid. (AFP Photo / Pedro Armestre)
Source: Russia Today
http://rt.com/news/global-noise-demonstrations-378/
Demonstrators across the world are calling for an end to
austerity as Global Noise protests kick off in more than 30 countries,
including many in the Nobel Peace laureate European Union.
The worldwide demonstrations on Saturday passed without
incident, and Caleb Maupin from the International Action Centre explained
what's driving the public to take to the streets.
RT: A year ago Occupy Wall
Street spread across the world, and now it’s Global Noise. What is Global Noise
all about? How is it different?
Caleb Maupin: Basically, Global Noise
is saying we are not going to be silent. Because right now the banks are coming
for us – they are cutting all of the programs. There is mass unemployment.
There is cutting in government spending and the governments of the world are
just having to pay back the banks.
And in the process, our future is being destroyed. It is
impossible to get an education in this country without a rising debt. What we
are saying is that we are going to be a global noise. We are the next
generation, the youth part of the working class as our future is being
destroyed. We are not going to silently sit back and let them destroy our
future. We are going to be loud. We are going to be confrontational and we are
going demand that this stop.
Austerity is a crime against the people. These cuts are a
crime against us, and we are going to demonstrate and we are going to oppose
it.
RT: America has not seen
austerity cuts as of yet. But in Europe this is precisely what the Global Noise
rallies were aimed against. Is it merely a show of support for Europe, or is
there, say, a message in the demonstrations for the US presidential candidates?
CM: There are plenty of austerity cuts in the United
States. Food stamps, a program which many millions of people depend on so they
can have food, is being cut. College prices are going up. They had kind of
halted it because they are planning after the elections to have austerity. All
the major cuts are going to happen after the election.
But even with these latest debates, you see Romney and
Ryan, Obama and Biden, they are all debating how much to cut. How responsibly
can you get rid of Social Security, how responsibly can we do it? It is
austerity, it is global austerity. Because, you know, Lenin spoke of it in his
book – imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism, because the banks kind
of become the center of capitalism, its monopoly stage.
And right now it is a revolt against banks. Instead of
people having to take all these cuts, why don’t they simply start the cuts to
the banks? The government of the United States has the ability to do that. They
can pass legislature saying that the banks have to be delayed, but instead they
keep paying back the banks with these loans that have taken from the
government, and programs that people need to survive on are being cut.
At a time of mass unemployment, millions of youth have
great anger on what’s going on, and it is exploding into a global
anti-capitalist rebellion. It is here in US. The phrase "we are the
99%" represents what millions of people understand, which is that a small
elite, the bankers, capitalists, they own the world and the rest of us just get
to live in it.
Well, it is time that we are heard. We are a global noise
and we are going to rise up and demand a change to that situation.
RT: Presidential elections
are coming up in the US and the Obama administration is criticized for the
bailout, while Republicans are promising austerity. And what do you think the
policy should be for the US here?
CM: I think whoever wins this election, it is very
clear that after the election, it's over. They are going to begin an extreme
amount of mass austerity. And the terms of the debate are sickening – the terms
of the debate are essentially how much to cut. Some people say, we should just
cut everything; others say we should just cut a little bit. No! The people
don’t have to pay for the crisis the bankers created.
But that message is not part of the discourse in this
country right now. The discourse is limited to one form of cutting or one form
of cutbacks, and that is frightening. And that is why the Occupy movement came
in. We are the 99%, or as the labor movement and progressive forces have said
for a long time – class against class.
It is not Republicans versus Democrats. It is about the
bankers versus the people – the people who sell their labor to survive and
those who own the world.
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