Obama: "The Protests on Wall Street Reflect the Frustration of the People"

Barack Obama said this Thursday, in his first allusion to the protests organized beneath the emblem Occupy Wall Street, that this movement “expresses the frustration” of Americans regarding the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. With this declaration, the phenomenon that began as a marginal expression, which has never generated significant mobilization, has entered the center of political debate in the United States, in a historic moment in which ideological confusion and the deception of the system have caught fire here like they have in other parts of the world.

The people that back Occupy Wall Street “are frustrated and the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works,” the president said at a press conference. Obama didn’t go more in depth about the political reach of the consequences of this movement, but Vice President Joe Biden, in an interview the same Thursday, specified that the protests that began on the streets of New York have “a lot in common with the tea party.”

Both movements were born of popular complaints about the origins and effects of the economic crisis. Although one is supported by the left and the other by the right, they both claim to speak on behalf of the regular citizens that don’t feel adequately represented by current democratic institutions. Occupy Wall Street calls attention to “the 99 percent of Americans that aren’t being heard.” The tea party claimed “to return the power to the people.” Occupy Wall Street denounces the greed and immorality of bankers. The tea party, as Biden remembered yesterday, was born in 2009 as a protest against the rescue plan for financial institutions, which cost more than $700 billion.

The persistence of the crisis that began in 2008 continues to provoke rickety economic growth, and an unemployment rate of 9 percent is a justifiable reason for any political venture. The tea party was, in its beginning, a candid protest of retired folks and housewives who believed it was necessary to defend lost values — in their case, traditional and religious values — in the sinful thirst for money. But soon it became an excellent instrument to mobilize votes against Barack Obama, which was helped by the extensive coverage of the Fox News channel.

Union Support

Up until Wednesday, Occupy Wall Street was a spontaneous protest of complaints, similarly interested in the defense of lost values — in this case, hippie aspirations of solidarity and humanity — and its own purity was enclosed in its marginality. The unions united with the movement on Wednesday, and thanks to that, they achieved, for the first time, pulling together a few thousand people. But this support is a double-edged sword. Few organizations in the United States are more institutionalized and corrupt than the unions. They are, without a doubt, a great ally in the feeling of unrest and the mobilization of the Democratic vote, but its vindication was lost decades ago. They are, exclusively, part of the left-wing political apparatus.

That doesn’t take away the legitimacy of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Some of their spokespeople have emphasized that they won’t let the unions intimidate or govern them. But yes, the unions do condition the movement’s development. Because of that alone, the movement, however extensive, has a very difficult future. The supporting protest in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday got together somewhere “between 50 and 70 people,” according to the organizers. That figure grew to the hundreds on Thursday, according to two separate announcements by promoters who still did not realize the existence of the other.

However, they can fulfill a role of certain importance as part of the mission to return morals to the left and to favor the left at the polls. That is to say, as an instrument of leftist counterbalance against the tea party, Occupy Wall Street can be useful as a romantic revolutionary movement inspired by the Arab Spring, which is how some of their defendants present the movement, somewhat limiting its horizons.

The cause for the mobilization of the progressive vote is Obama himself, and his understanding words are directed at those who are protesting against the system. The president suggested that the United States faces a serious threat if it does not act urgently to combat unemployment. “We could end up having more significant problems than we have right now,” Obama said.

After two years of courting the Republicans in search of consensual projects, the president has decided, given the proximity of the next electoral campaign and his poor approval ratings, to recuperate his support among the Democrats — whom he recognized were frustrated — and the progressives.

Obama expressed his sympathies for a proposal presented by the Democrats in Congress, which proposes to charge a supplement of 5 percent in taxes for people who invest more than a million dollars annually. It is the realization of the “Buffett tax” that the White House had announced in order to apply fiscal pressure on the rich. The president said that this tax “is not class warfare,” but is instead the only way to help the middle and lower classes. The speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner, said that this press conference was proof that “we’re legislating. He’s campaigning.”