USA unwilling to discuss its own opposition

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the West, questioning the policy of the Russian authorities against the opposition, does not want to discuss its own problems.
 The Russian Foreign Minister commented on the events surrounding the campaign "Occupy Wall Street" at a press conference in Moscow. According to Sergei Lavrov, "looking at the way the protesters of "Occupy Wall Street" are treated, we have quite a vivid illustration of the fact that a number of our colleagues and partners from western countries are practicing double standards."


As an illustration, let us recall the reaction of the American officials at the detention of Boris Nemtsov on December 31 of last year. Then, the US State Department and National Security Council spoke up.
The campaign ""Occupy Wall Street" has started when on September 17 several hundred demonstrators attempted to occupy the building of the New York Stock Exchange. Then the protesters staged their tent encampment next to the building.

The organizers have never denied that they were inspired by the example of the so-called "Arab revolution". The "Occupy Wall Street" campaign was originally conceived as a protest against the actions of the U.S. financial institutions.
 
"The only thing that unites us all is that we are the 99 percent that would no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the one percent," says the official website of the campaign whose creators also blamed Washington for reducing the funding for social programs in favor of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. 
In the past 6 weeks the campaigns similar to one in New York were held in dozens of American cities, but also in several European countries. The organizers of the protest in New York clearly did not expect such results.

To a large extent the protest was unexpected for both the authorities and the press. Many major U.S. television networks and print media for several days simply did not know how to react to the campaign, preferring to ignore it.


It is interesting that in spite of the relatively small number of the participants these protests had such a significant impact. Their slogans reflect the attitude if not of the majority of the US people and Western European states, then at least a large part of them. 
Professor of Economics University of Missouri (Kansas City) Michael Hudson explained that since the late 1970s the average wage in the United States have not grown by much, while the tax burden has grown, as well as the price of real estate, education and health services. This has reduced the market for the goods and services. The American economy is now entering a period of deep L-shaped recession similar to the economy of Western Europe. Most of the population suffers from this and becomes poorer. 

This was said before the launch of "Occupy Wall Street." Economists and political scientists around the world have been talking about it over the past few years. Yet, there is not much effect of such warnings.


Anton Kulikov

Pravda.Ru

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