CNN's Poppy Harlow asked an Occupy Wall Street protester on Tuesday if the movement was "at that scale" of the civil rights movement, and if the cause was "as important" as civil rights.
In turn, the occupier answered that the Wall Street protests are "much grander" than the civil rights movement.
Harlow was interviewing the protester in the aftermath of a New York City judge ruling in favor of the city's crackdown on the protest's encampment in Zuccotti Park. She referenced his earlier comparison of the protest to the civil rights movement and asked him "Do you think that this is at that scale? Do you believe that you are fighting for something as important as civil rights in this country?"
"Oh far more important," answered protester Amos Fisher, "because it has nothing to do with – it has nothing to do with any designation, class, gender, anything. It has everything to do with humanity..." Fisher added later that the protests are "much grander than simply civil rights movement."
Fisher had earlier attacked the "legality" of the eviction of the protesters by calling it an unjust law and likened the protest to Rosa Parks's stand.
"So the idea – the question of whether we, it's legal for us to be in here is kind of a moot point, because Rosa Parks was certainly not allowed to sit where she sat, and that sparked a whole movement, and the point was made, because the law was unjust."
[Video below. Click here [1] for audio.]
A transcript of the segment, which aired on November 15 at 5:03 p.m. EST, is as follows:
[5:03]
POPPY HARLOW: I want to get to your point – quickly here, Wolf. Amos, you – you likened this to the civil rights movement, to Rosa Parks. Do you think that this is at that scale? Do you believe that you are fighting for something as important as civil rights in this country?
AMOS FISHER, Occupy Wall Street protester: Oh far more important, because it has nothing to do with – it has nothing to do with any designation, class, gender, anything. It has everything to do with humanity, and how – because like, we're in, I heard it described as our form of capitalism is a corporate capitalism, which is actually sort of like – someone referred to it as an inverted totalitarianism where the power structure is actually nameless, insofar as the corporations hold sway over the government. So that, I feel like, in the same way that a corporation has no loyalty to a nation state, this movement has no loyalty to any particular class of person. So I think it's much grander than simply civil rights movement.
HARLOW: Really?
FISHER: And I think that these days, a lot of these wars between – battles, prejudices that exist, human rights and such, are often serve as no more than a distraction from the real issue, which is keeping people with – keeping people at the bottom by dividing them.
- Matt Hadro is a News Analyst at the Media Research Center