Glenn Beck Was Right, Says Leading Occupy Activist: #OccupyWallStreet Wants Violent Revolution

by Lee Stranahan

One of Occupy Wall Street’s early planners and activists has given public credit to Glenn Beck for correctly analyzing the ultimate goal of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement: a violent revolution in which the wealthy are dragged into the streets and killed.

Malcolm Harris, an editor and activist who “has been active in OWS since the first planning meetings,” confirmed Beck’s analysis in his comments at a panel discussion on October 14th in New York–the same panel discussion that featured New York Times freelancer Natasha Lennard.

Transcript (emphasis added):

Well, and I think that’s–that’s one side of what people want, right, ’cause that’s not the only thing people want, they also want to take the banker out of his, you know, fucking tower and string him up in the public square, right? [Applause] That’s not–that’s not, like, just the crazy left. That’s everyday folks talking about their experiences.

And, like, this is America, right? We want to talk about “we’re the 99%” as if we’re also not the 99% that loves Transformers 4, right? [Laughter] As if this is the 99% that doesn’t also, like, feel passionate anger. “All we want is, like, you know, our little appropriate piece of the pie and we just want to be friendly.“

And the capitalists know that’s not the case, right? If you want to read what the capitalists think about this you can go look at what Glenn Beck says, right? He’s got a better analysis than most people on the left about where this could go, how threatening this…—

(There’s a cut here in the original video. It seems to continue about Beck.)

…I think he’s like one of those fortune tellers who 99 percent of the time is just totally bullshitting everyone, and then 1 percent of the time [Beck's] eyes roll back in his head and he’s got, like, divine insight, you know: ”It’s the coming insurrection. It’s–I’ve been reading these French guys.”

Harris seems to be referring to the following quote from Beck on October 10, 2011–just four days before the panel discussion was held–which received some media attention, as well as attention from numerous Occupy activists themselves:

Capitalists, if you think that you can play footsies with these people, you’re wrong. They will come for you and drag you into the streets and kill you. They will do it. They’re not messing around. Those in the media–and say this, I am included in this–they will drag us out into the streets, and kill us. If you’re wealthy, they will kill you for what you have. You can’t–you cannot tolerate this kind of stuff. You certainly don’t encourage it.

Mediaite scoffs at Beck’s warning, but the activists at the heart of #Occupy Wall Street, like Harris, give Beck credit for understanding what the real endgame is.

Harris confirmed his endorsement of Beck’s analysis again this morning. After I posted a version of this article on LeeStranahan.com, I was criticized by liberal photographer Steve Rhodes, who uses the Twitter handle Tigerbeat.

Rhodes accused me of ”wild speculation” for saying that Harris was referring to Glenn Beck’s “drag us out into the streets” quote.

Yet Harris himself jumped into the conversation, and confirmed: “Nope, @Stranahan pretty much nailed it.”

Here’s Malcolm Harris’s biography from the Jacobin website:

Malcolm Harris is the managing editor of The New Inquiry, a contributing editor at Sharable.net, and blogs for Jacobin. He edited the collection “Share or Die: Youth in Recession,” forthcoming from New Society Publishers in the spring. He has been active in OWS since the first planning meetings.

Below is the full video from the event:

a debate on #occupyws from Jacobin on Vimeo.


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Posted Oct 24th 2011 at 1:31 pm in Occupy Wall Street | 256 Comments