This past weekend, several thousand American demonstrators gathered around New York City’s Financial District to protest what they feel is Wall Street’s stronghold on U.S. government and society. Although the protest, called “Occupy Wall Street,” has overtly demanded higher taxes for corporations and criticizes Capitalism, there is also an underlying sentiment of a call for truth.
Lupe Fiasco attended the wide scale protest demanding the truth, specifically behind the events of 9/11 and subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Millions of people have died behind that,” Lupe told media outlet We Are Change. “For the sake of what? For the price of what? What really happened to cause millions and millions of people to die? If it was just a terrorist attack, then so be it. Let that be known. Let that be out and vetted so the public can see it. And I think [the U.S.] would get more support. I think you would get more support from Muslim countries if it was just a more open and honest kind of thing instead of this kind of cloudy, mysterious, behind-the-scenes kind of operation.”
He added that those who question too much, including Occupy Wall Street’s demonstrators, are perceived as “crazy” by the rest of society. But he asserted that they were normal “firefighters, demolition experts, engineers,” who question the existence and power of influential groups, including the New World Order.
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“I think the New World Order is something that is deliberate and it’s in the public. I do think that there are some parts of it that are done in secret simply because it is a private kind of situation with private individuals who hold private stake in certain parts of the world…you don’t invite everybody to dinner at your house. I don’t think that they’re as nefarious as people make them out to be. I think it’s the stuff that we silently allow [them to do]. I think that we’re complicit.”
Lupe explained that although America is a society dependent on consumption, sometimes that consumption cannot be averted. “We’re a society based on consumerism…We blur our own lines between what we need and what we want. There could be somebody who lives in Harlem who works [on Wall Street] and you could [tell him], ‘Hey, just take a bike.’ And [he would say], ‘Yo my man, I can’t take a bike every day. I need a car.’ But when you get in that car, you have to put fuel in that car, so you’re financing Exxon Mobile, you’re financing Ford or whatever car company it is. You’re paying the city because you have to pay for registration, you have to pay taxes [on that car]. So you’re financing the system just so you can say, ‘Hey, I don’t want to bike to work every single day because I’m gonna be tired at the end of the day.’
“For me it’s about critical thinking and being critical about everything that’s going on around you.”
The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators have completed four days of protests. As of today, five activists have been arrested by New York City police.
