"Beware of being co-opted" - Saifedean Ammous to Occupy Wall Street protesters on RT's Keiser Report

Skip to 12:47 of video below to see Max Keiser of RT's Keiser Report (198) interview Doctor Saifedean Ammous, in Beirut, Lebanon. Saifedean Ammous is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Capitalism and Society at Columbia University / a lecturer in Economics at the Lebanese American University / and has written a piece called "Mubarak's Odious Debts.


Interesting words I heard mentioned in this report were "corporatism" versus "capitalism".

When talking about the Occupy Wall Street protest, Doctor Ammous expressed concerns that the movement would be co-opted back into the mainstream, as in the past, the anti-war movement (Iraq war) was strong at first in America - e.g. Obama came in on that tide, but the movement was co-opted back into the mainstream by the time he was in power. When pressed to summarize his message for protesters, Doctor Saifedean Ammous finally said "Beware of being co-opted."

Then, over on "crazy channel" last night (corporate propaganda channel Fox & Friends), they were raving about how much money the Occupy Wall Street protesters had amassed - apparently they had $700,000 dollars in a bank account. And someone on Fox & Friends had seen a protester walking around with a Starbucks coffee, which devalidated the entire movement since Starbucks is a corporation. The "Friends" were in a fervour suggesting that the only reason behind the uprising was the profits - which is ridiculous.

A few days ago as well, I saw their biased "news reporting" of the protest when they chose to only show two photos. One was of a meth addict lying under a tarp, and the other was of a man showing several onlookers how to get out of handcuffs, including a young boy (looked about 12). They made alot of the two photos that they had managed to get of the diverse gathering, saying "So, the protesters are meth addicts and criminals..."

I am shocked that anyone could think this passes as news, but looking at it psychologically, I think the channel is revealing how afraid they (the corporations) are, as Fox & Friends serves the corporations' needs. People are actually rising up, it's out of their control - and the "Friends" are in a panic.

Nonnie

PS - You can follow "saifedean" on Twitter. I am!