BILL PRESS: Though the drum circles have been quieted and the tents taken down, for Occupy Wall Street, it's impossible to evict an idea.
In our number-one story on the "Countdown" tonight — from the State of the Union to the latest Republican debate in Jacksonville, Florida last night, politicians across the board are talking about those 99 percent.
(Excerpt from video clip) PAUL: I do want to address the subject about taxing the rich. That is not a solution, but I understand and really empathize with the people who talk about "the 99 and the one," because there is a characteristic about what happens when you destroy a currency. There is a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the wealthy. And this has been going on for 40 years.
PRESS: Months ago, all the talk inside the Beltway focused on debt and deficits, but Occupy changed that. Now, instead, people are talking about income inequality and corporate responsibility.
That's one of the reasons why — three years after the financial crisis that plunged this country into the deepest recession since the Great Depression — Time Magazine named the protester its Person of the Year and Occupy as the "One percent versus the 99 percent" chant has become part of the national lexicon.
But the Occupy effect reaches far beyond questions of inequality, as Iraq veteran, author and Occupier Derek McGee writes in The Nation this week:
"Everyone in the Occupy movement has a different set of grievances. If Occupy has taught me anything, it is that we must live up to our own values. There is nothing you could write on a sign that could offend me more than seeing police take away someone's right to free speech."
And he joins us tonight. Derek McGee — Iraq veteran, Occupier and author of "An Iraq Vet's Journey from Wall Street to OWS." Hi, Derek, nice to see you tonight.
DEREK MCGEE: Hi, thanks for having me.
PRESS: I spent some time with the Occupy movement down in Washington, DC and I must say — you are the most unlikely Occupier, if I can put it that way. I mean, you've been a Marine, you've served in Iraq, you've been a banker on Wall Street with Merrill Lynch. What attracted you, of all people, to the Occupy movement?
MCGEE: Well, I think what got me to go down there the first time was simply because of having an understanding of what went wrong in the financial crisis, and knowing that there was the steps that had been promised, that the regulation that was going to come in so it never happened again didn't take place. And the accountability that I thought should have been there wasn't there.
And I went down for the purpose of arguing, you know, just that one point. I didn't believe in a lot of the other things that I saw on signs and was being said and I didn't have a lot in common with a lot of the people down there. But when I went down there, I started hearing and seeing other things and researching, and finding that there was a lot wrong and that these people had a real serious point.
PRESS: When you were working at Merrill Lynch or — I don't want to single them out — or working on Wall Street, or — why not? — but when you were working on Wall Street, did you see some of the abuses that Occupy is talking about?
MCGEE: I mean, I didn't see I wouldn't say I saw anything illegal. I saw what I would consider very unethical behavior as everything was crumbling around us — our own corporate was telling us everything is fine, buy the stock, everything was great. We knew that was lies. I became sort of disillusioned with the whole corporate structure and sort of this system that allows an entity to act without ethics and no one has to be held accountable and no one has to feel guilty.
PRESS: I was struck by, you said, your first visit to lower Manhattan Battery Park was back in September, 2001 when you were a Marine helping protect the National Guard encampment there, correct?
MCGEE: That's right. We were living in tents in Battery Park.
PRESS: And then you come back as a protester, part of the Occupy where the New York police are there, basically corralling you. What did it feel to be on the other side of the law-enforcement, right? — or the authority line?
MCGEE: Well, it was absolutely polar opposite, as you can imagine. In the one case we were being applauded for being there and everyone thought we were upholding freedoms and that sort of thing and then the second time — which I thought we were almost doing the same thing down there, trying to defend freedoms and uphold what we thought was right — we were then being absolutely castigated for it, and I would say oppressed by the police.
PRESS: Were you troubled at all that, sometimes, the Occupy movement was not able to get a real fix, like, there was criticism — "They didn't have a real agenda. They didn't have a list of 10 demands." You seem to be a very organized, focused person. Was that hard to get your hands around?
MCGEE: Well, I mean, one of the great parts about that was you had everyone in the country asking —asking us what we wanted, which doesn't happen very often. But I think that that — you know, like, it's missing the point. I think what it was — was not so much about any particular issue. It was that people feel — that everyone is starting to feel that there is a disconnect between their vote and then sort of an equivalent amount of political involvement. And that is what brought everyone together. So, it doesn't really matter what their issues were, they felt like no one's listening to us.
PRESS: I just saw it in Washington, DC today — which is one of the last cities to get rid of the tents, the tents are gone from McPherson Square, and in most cities they are — if the tents are gone and the drum circles quiet, is the Occupy movement over?
MCGEE: Absolutely not. I think the Occupy movement did a brilliant job of what it was out to accomplish, which is to get publicity. At Thanksgiving time, almost every table in the country was talking about the 99 versus the one percent, which — in terms of getting publicity for a movement — it's just unbelievable. It was brilliant and it was absolutely effective.
PRESS: What do you think the lasting impact is going to be?
MCGEE: The lasting impact? I think that everyone feels that they're not alone. It used to be, I think, before the Occupy movement, everyone felt that we were resolved to be angry about issues and there was nothing we could do about it, really, and that's just the way it was.
And I think, now, people realize everyone is feeling sort of left out of the democratic process and that we're not going to go back to just sort of accepting it. I'm not sure what, exactly, form it will take, but when it does, people are ready to get involved.
PRESS: And I think one of — certainly, one of the building words, one of the most powerful kind of concepts at all that's been implanted in the American people is "99 percent versus the one percent," and that's going to be a theme through this campaign. And I think President Obama keeps trying to make the point that he is fighting for the 99 percent and pointing out that Mitt Romney looks a lot like the one percent, doesn't he?
MCGEE: Yes, he does.
PRESS: And that income inequality, going to be a big issue.
MCGEE: Well, yeah, that issue is —
PRESS: Got to go? Derek, thank you so much for what you're doing and for coming in tonight. Derek McGee, veteran and Occupier and author of "An Iraq Vet's Journey from Wall Street to Occupy."
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