Both the main US parties are working for the same system and taking money from the same people, so choosing between them makes no sense....

RT: Your injuries at Occupy Oakland clashes with police got people talking about the fact that veterans sometimes really do get injured at home after being injured abroad. Do you think that’s the case?

SO: I don’t think there are more veterans getting hurt here. But there are a lot of veterans getting hurt by the system, in a sense that they come back to a broken system, a system that they feel disconnected from. And that is why we have eighteen veterans a day committing suicide, that’s why we have so many homeless veterans. It is the system hurting veterans.

RT: Why do you think it is that when billions of dollars are being spent on US warfare, as we speak, we are seeing a staggering number of homeless and jobless veterans here in the United States?

SO: Because people are making money out of these wars. They are getting money from our government to buy their toys, to buy their equipment and to fund these wars. That’s how they make their riches. There is always money for war but we never have money for schools....

We [the American worker] work more than most other countries in the world. And our salaries have not grown in years, our corporations are making billions every day and our retirement pensions are being cut, our schools are being cut....

RT: Presidential elections in the US are just around the corner and four years after Barack Obama was elected critics are now saying that there is no difference between Democrats or Republicans as they are two sides of the same coin. Are you expecting any kind of change to take place after the elections regardless of which of the parties wins?

SO: Not particularly. Most likely people are either going to vote for Democrats or Republicans and I think both those are wrong choices. They are both working for the same system, they are both taking money from the same people, from the same banks and you can see in their policy that they are rewarding their donors. Voting for the continuing of this policy is not going to change anything at all.

RT: So considering both Democrats and Republicans essentially bring the same thing to the table, what is the alternative? What could be the other option for the United States?

SO: That’s a good question. You can vote for the third party that may not win. You may count voting for the third party as a waste of vote, but I think voting for a Democrat or a Republican is a waste of vote. You are shooting yourself in the foot if you are voting for either of those.